Journal des débats 1986-nov-06 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

That in the opinion of this Legislature, because of the devastating economic situation facing northern Ontario, including serious layoffs in single-industry towns, the potential destruction of jobs due to the American proposed countervailing duty on the softwood lumber industry and a current unemployment rate twice that of the provincial average, including in some communities, such as Hearst and Atikokan, an unemployment rate in excess of 35 per cent, the Treasurer of Ontario should accept recommendations not only of the New Democratic Party since 1977, but also of the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment (the Fahlgren report) in 1985, the Advisory Committee on Resource Dependent Communities in Northern Ontario (the Rosehart report) in 1986 and the standing committee on resources development in 1986, and establish immediately an independent northern Ontario economic diversification fund, managed by northerners, in order to diversify the northern Ontario economy, especially in single-industry towns.

Through loans, grants and joint ventures, this fund would be invested in development projects that meet the priorities set through community, regional and provincial planning, as well as through specific community resource planning agreements signed between the provincial government, the local communities and the resource industries involved. The moneys to establish the fund would come from a consolidation of existing northern development funds and programs and, in addition, through an earmarked percentage of provincial revenue from resource industry taxation.

The Deputy Speaker: The honourable member has up to 20 minutes for his presentation and may reserve any portion of this for his wrapup.

Mr. Foulds: I will reserve whatever time is left for the end.

The last time I had a private member's resolution debated, with help from all members in this Legislature, the resolution was passed. That resolution endorsing medically necessary travel for northerners was implemented by the present government. It is my fervent hope that the Legislature and the government will see fit to do the same with the resolution before us today. In my view, it is even more important than medically necessary travel, if more difficult.

If medically necessary travel was justified and just for the people of northern Ontario, then economic equality and self-sufficiency are even more justified. While the rest of the province enjoys an economic buoyancy at present, the north suffers an unemployment rate twice that of the province as a whole, and communities such as Hearst and Atikokan have real unemployment rates of 35 per cent.

I am pleading us earnestly and passionately for the economic needs of the north now as I did then for the needs of northerners to get equal access to health care. It is only by giving the tools to northerners to rebuild their economy and create jobs for themselves and their children that we can ensure not only their economic, but also their social, medical and educational wellbeing. This resolution makes two modest economic proposals, which will give at least two economic tools that northerners can use to control their own destinies and futures.

First, the resolution proposes there be a fund established to help diversify the northern economy. This fund would be managed by northerners and, thus, help put them in charge of their own destiny.

Second, the resolution proposes that the government create a new partnership with the single-industry communities of northern Ontario.

It proposes that the province take the leadership to ensure that planning agreements, which will be formal documents signed by the province, the local community, the workers and the company, be designed for resource-based companies operating in one-industry towns. Only by having such planning agreements will the interests of all of the parties, all of the co-signers, be respected. Such agreements would ensure that all the partners in the enterprise of developing our northern resources would benefit.

I understand the fact that in Ontario we have a mixed economy, but does anyone seriously argue in 1986 that the interests of corporate investment should be the only interest? Does it not make common sense that the interests of the community, the interests of the workers, the interests of the province, and the investments by those parties also should be given equal consideration?

Let me elaborate on the northern Ontario economic diversification fund. New Democrats have been advocating this for years. My colleague the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) first suggested this in the Legislature in 1977, when he proposed amendments to the act which established the Ministry of Northern Affairs. His amendment would also have established the northern Ontario tomorrow fund. Unfortunately, the government of the day did not see fit to accept them.

However, the north has seen fit to accept them. The idea has taken hold. It has currency in the north and throughout the whole province. This fund would be modelled after the heritage funds established with great success by the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. We would, however, have to adapt them to the unique northern Ontario situation.

Recently, several Ontario reports from various parts of the political spectrum have endorsed and legitimized the idea. The Conservative-appointed Fahlgren commission recommended the idea in 1985; the all-party standing committee on resources development looking into the Sault and Wawa situations recommended such a fund in 1986, and the Liberal-appointed Advisory Committee on Resource Dependent Communities in Northern Ontario, commonly called the Rosehart report, recommended the idea.

This is an idea whose time has come. The fund could be financed initially as suggested in recommendation 28 of the Roschart-Wildman report. I want to pay tribute to the work my colleague the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) put into that report. To quote from that report:

10:10

"Historically, residents of the north have been concerned about the depletion of the natural resource base and the outflows of the mineral and forest wealth. Present estimates place the value of the northern minerals and forest production in excess of $15 billion per year. Little of this money has traditionally been reinvested in the north and the situation is further compounded by the continued depression of base metal prices and weak commodity prices for pulp and paper products. At the present time, a variety of government programs exist, both federally and in Ontario, that can be used to stimulate development in new business and industry. Such initiatives, although laudable, have failed to create a significant long-term focus for development in the north. It is the belief of the committee that the opportunity exists and the political will is present in Ontario to provide such a focus for development."

If I may say, as an aside, this morning we have an opportunity to see that this Legislature has the political will to provide such a focus for development.

The recommendation of that committee was such: "That there be established a northern Ontario fund for northern Ontario. The fund would be administered by an independent board of seven northern residents appointed by the government for various terms with no appointment for more than four years (including reappointments).

"Administratively, the fund would report to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines on a yearly basis and be fully accountable to the Provincial Auditor.

"The initial moneys to establish the fund would come from the following sources:

"(i) The transfer of assets of the Northern Ontario Development Corp. to the northern Ontario fund;

"(ii) The consolidation of line ministry financial programs such as Nordev and AgriNorth;

"(iii) The transfer of 50 per cent of the special $100-million commitment to northern Ontario made during the 1985 budget to the northern Ontario fund;

"(iv) An additional commitment financed through a percentage of provincial revenues from resource industry taxation; the appropriate percentage can only be determined by observing the initial operating year or two of the fund;

"(v) A negotiated yearly federal government financial commitment through the federal government's Canadian Jobs Strategy program."

I want to add that I believe there are two other sources available for this fund. At present, the rich gold deposits at Hemlo provide enormous wealth to those who have an interest in those deposits. We, as a province, should be looking at assessing a five per cent public smelter royalty on the production of gold bars, which would be designed to offset the windfall profits at those mines. Such a royalty would yield approximately $3 million annually once full production was reached.

This would be in line with recommendation 5 of the Foulds report, entitled the Economic Challenge to Northwestern Ontario, Report 1, the Mining Sector. I might add it would also be possible to add some, if not all, of the little known Treasury and Economics program, called the community economic transformation agreements program, in which the present government has salted away $25 million. With an adaptation of that program, at least a portion of that fund could very well be adopted by, or sent to, the northern Ontario fund.

I want to emphasize it is only by having such a fund -- accountable to the province but managed by northerners -- that the first basic tool of economic renewal of the north will not be at the paternalistic discretion of a southern Ontario government, but in the hands of northerners themselves. It is the only way that the objective of the Premier (Mr. Peterson), of giving northerners the responsibility for developing their economy, can be achieved. We have got to give them the tools to do the job.

Let me turn to the planning agreements. Obviously, these are easier to develop when an industry first starts or moves into an area. Let me assure all members that I see this as a true partnership of all of the parties involved. Let us take the rich gold fields at Hemlo as an example. Those fields are so rich and so profitable that it is almost unbelievable. They are the richest gold fields in the entire world.

What return does the province or the community get from this God-given wealth? What guarantees do we have that the community, the citizens and the workers in the mines, living in Marathon, Manitouwadge and White River, will benefit not only now, but 25 years or 50 years from now, from these, the richest gold deposits in the world?

At present, we are doing nothing differently to what we have done for the last 100 years. With the present situation, the present tax structure and the present economic structure, we have no guarantee there will be a future for those communities in 25 or 50 years.

However, with the planning agreements I am proposing now, which have been suggested in the past by the so-called Rosehart report, we could expect a good deal of benefit. There is no reason in the world why this four-cornered partnership, of the provincial government, the local communities, the companies and the workers, cannot work.

Bo Eckmann, senior vice-president of Volvo in Sweden, indicated at the recent Premier's conference in Sault Ste. Marie that co-operation and planning can work. The province, the communities and the workers have a right to know what the companies' plans are year by year, well in advance of any growth or proposed contraction or shutdown. On the other hand, the companies have a right to know what government policies will be well in advance and what kind of work force they can expect in the future.

More important, the minute a new resource enterprise begins, be it mining or forestry, joint planning agreements would give northerners and single-industry towns a mechanism for diversifying the economies of their communities from the beginning of the exploitation of the original resource. These agreements would help avoid the boom-and-bust cycles that these towns have traditionally experienced. This is one of the best ways for us to get value-added, manufacturing and spinoff industries associated with our resource industries. It helps to build, as the Premier wants, on the strengths we already have in the north, our resource industries.

In recent months, the Premier has encountered the reality of the two economies of northern Ontario and southern Ontario. He has told northerners in Terrace Bay, Longlac, Geraldton, Wawa and Sault Ste. Marie that they must go it alone, that they must find solutions themselves. All I am saying on behalf of northerners is that this government should not send us into battle as unarmed men and women. It should give us the tools to rebuild the northern economy.

I have said on a previous occasion in this House that about two years ago I came to the heartbreaking realization that my own two sons, aged 12 and 13 years, would in all probability have to seek their fortunes, their futures, their jobs and their ideals outside northwestern Ontario, the area I have tried to represent and tried to fight for during the past 15 years. I plan to spend all of my political life doing my damnedest to ensure that not merely my sons but also the sons and daughters of all northerners at least have the option of fulfilling their dreams, their hopes and their ambitions in the land I love, in the land which I have spent my entire political life trying to represent, trying to get for it some measure of social and economic justice.

Inside or outside of politics, whatever the future holds, I will not rest, the New Democratic Party will not rest and I hope the Legislature will not rest until northern Ontario takes its rightful place in the mainstream of Ontario's economic life. One small but significant step would be the passage of this resolution by this Legislature today.

The Deputy Speaker: The member is reserving five minutes and 45 seconds.

Mr. McGuigan: I am pleased to join the debate this morning. I want to begin by congratulating the member on his resolution and for bringing a focus at this time on developments in northern Ontario. It comes at a proper time after the Conference on Northern Competitiveness, which was held earlier this week.

We in this party support the objectives of the resolution. We appreciate the strength, emotion and commitment the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) brings to this resolution. I appreciate the statement that he is going to work and do his best in his time in this great chamber to bring to northern people the advantages that by comparison appear to be here in southern Ontario.

10:20

I have to say we are not in agreement with a specific fund because a fund has a lot of apparent advantages, as the member has pointed out, although it also has a lot of disadvantages. Compare our system in Ontario, where we have a consolidated revenue fund, with the system in the United States, where they have a great variety of funds. It is a great cop-out for political people to say, "We cannot do anything at the present time because that particular fund is empty." It may be that another fund is overflowing, but with that system they cannot reach over into that other fund for the moneys.

I guess the most glaring example in the United States was the highway fund, which was established at a time when the automotive business was really taking over. Everybody had a car and funds flowed into the highway fund to the point that the amount of money it had was a disgrace. In the meantime, railroads withered on the vine because no funds were available for them.

Mr. Wildman: Look at the Swedish example and not the American one.

Mr. McGuigan: We can look at many examples, but this one is certainly well known to people here in Ontario. We know what happens over there. I heard a statement at a US conference that said if you were riding on an American railroad and it suddenly became smooth you knew then that you were off the track.

Mr. Pouliot: Let us be positive. Give us a chance.

Mr. McGuigan: The government is going to be positive. It is going to put money into the north, and lots of it, but we want the flexibility to be able to put in that money irrespective of where it is generated. The money being generated today in Ontario is from manufacturing, and I say this very sadly from my perspective as a farmer and as a representative of a rural riding in southern Ontario. Unfortunately, the future relies too much on manufacturing.

I was saddened while attending a conference a year ago. A director from the economics department of the federal Department of Agriculture pointed out that in the development of a country the savings going into the banking system to provide the capital to make the whole system work come from agriculture in the beginning. The money also comes from resources. The money to provide the banks, insurance companies, the huge buildings we see here in Toronto -- the infrastructure: highways, canals and so on -- came from farm families and resource industry families.

Mr. Pouliot: And from the Vancouver exchange to develop Hemlo.

Mr. McGuigan: Unfortunately, that was true; but not under our regime.

That is where the money came from. Dr. Hedley, who was the director, said it has now shifted to manufacturing. One would say political power is going to shift there too and that segment is going to run the show. This Liberal government has determined it is going to use the moneys from manufacturing or whatever source to try to bring about a balance in this great province.

They have not done that in the United States. They have not brought about a balance. They have fantastic imbalances in that economy. In this province, we are determined we will not have those imbalances. We will put the money in those sectors where it is required, where with government help and their own initiative it should work. We are going to bring balance to this great province.

I was at a meeting yesterday on the future of agriculture in Ontario. It was really a repetition of the future in northern Ontario, because --

Mr. Wildman: There was nothing about agriculture at the northern meeting.

Mr. McGuigan: It was not in your policy paper either, I noticed.

Mr. Wildman: True. We had a policy paper.

Mr. McGuigan: But you did not have agriculture in it. That is noted, I am sure, by the agriculturists of the north.

Mr. Wildman: We did have tourism in it, though. You guys did not.

Mr. McGuigan: You are taking up my time. I want to point out the similarity between the two programs. We are in a world of tremendous change. In spite of all the planning we try to do -- we are going to have these five-year plans and 10-year plans and this is the route we are going to take -- the rest of the world does not care a darn about our plans. New developments come along, new technology comes along and it is coming at such a fantastic rate, and so often in so many fields, that planning really can put you in a bind and on the wrong track. What we have to have to succeed is some pragmatism, the ability to move quickly and the will to move quickly.

This government has that will. I know we disagree on the ways we might bring it about, but it has the will to meet the immediate challenges and to take advantage of those things that open up. There are many things we can do.

I can sympathize when I hear them talk in the north about trucking. I used to try to truck my apples from southern Ontario to Winnipeg over the same route. I found that in Winnipeg there was all sorts of grain that had to come back to Ontario; but I could not bring back grain, so I had to bring an empty truck back. Eventually, we had to give up the venture, because one cannot run trucks empty on those long trips. I would like to ship apples into northern Ontario, but I cannot bring back paper or whatever they have.

These things should be opened up. I hope they will be opened up, because it just seems silly that we tie ourselves to the old ways of doing business that simply do not work today. From my standpoint, and I am not the Minister of Transportation and Communications --

Mr. Foulds: He is right behind you.

Mr. McGuigan: I am sure he is listening.

Mr. Pouliot: That man knows all about the regulations.

Mr. McGuigan: I certainly recommend to him, to the member opposite and to the House that we make changes; not to put the business completely on its own because I know enough about trucking to know what happens. I finally quit putting loads on because one man, I discovered later, drove for 48 hours. I said, "I just have to get out of that kind of business; I want nothing to do with it." I stopped shipping my products long distance. We have to have some regulations, but at the same time we have to adapt and make them as open as we can to meet the challenges of today.

In conclusion, we commend the member and we agree with his objectives. We are going to try to work with him and with all northerners to achieve that objective. We do not really see a fund, because in many ways that fund could be an excuse for doing nothing; it could be too limiting. This government is committed to doing things for the north and for the south.

Mr. Bernier: I rise in support of this resolution. I do want to commend the member for Port Arthur for bringing it forward at this time. I rise in support of the principle of the resolution, but I have some difficulty with the specifics of the resolution itself. I will get into that as I continue my comments.

10:30

Let me again commend the member for bringing it forward at this time. As a northerner, I think any focus we can attract to the problems of northern Ontario is very meaningful and very timely. This is a topic that has been tossed around this Legislature for the past few days, particularly since the Premier has indicated some interest in the problems of northern Ontario by focusing on the economic problems at a conference in Sault Ste. Marie. I hope the government will give heed to the results of this debate and very carefully go over the comments made by the various members involved.

"There are many reports on northern Ontario, but in my opening remarks I should put on the record one of the recommendations made in the Rosehart report, which reads as follows:

"It is the opinion of the committee that at this most uncertain time in terms of where the north is going that a major political and public commitment by the people of Ontario is necessary to support government policies that will treat the north in a different way than the rest of Ontario."

That speaks well of how northerners feel with respect to their economic problems and the way they are treated by the rest of the province.

I do not have to spell out the number of reports we have had in northern Ontario. The member for Port Arthur has mentioned some of them. The Royal Commission on the Northern Environment, the Rosehart report on single-industry communities, the Stokes report on air travel in northern Ontario and The Atikokan Story, which he forgot; all are reports that carry recommendations on what we should be doing about the problems in northern Ontario. There are more than 300 recommendations in those various reports.

The point I am trying to make is that we do not want more studies. The studies are behind us. We can go through any one of those reports and get the recommendations we need that will in time rectify the problems we have in northern Ontario.

I do not have to reiterate the problems we have in northern Ontario. It is fair to say, as other members have said, we are not enjoying the economic upturn that has occurred in southern Ontario. I get very upset when I turn on the national news and hear economists relating the economic conditions or the upturns in Canada as a whole. Then they go across this nation. They start by mentioning how bad things are in Newfoundland. They go to the Maritimes, come to Quebec and then lump Ontario together as a whole. They talk about the six per cent unemployment in Ontario. Then they go to Manitoba and talk about how that province is doing, then Saskatchewan, right on across to British Columbia. The point I disagree with is the way they lump all the economic information into one parcel.

We are different. Ninety per cent of the land mass is north of the French River, but we have only about nine per cent of the population; we are different. Our unemployment up there is well over 13 per cent. In fact, in Sault Ste. Marie I think it is in the 20 per cent bracket. The point is that we are different and we should be treated differently.

We are, I might say, like the Maritimes. We are an example of regional disparity; there is just no question about that. I had the pleasure of being with the Minister of Finance and with the Deputy Prime Minister recently in Sudbury, and I made the point that in its regional programs to bring equality across this nation the federal government never looks at northern Ontario as a separate unit. It lumps it with the rest of the province. We should be treated like the Manitobas, like the Newfoundlands and like the Maritime provinces. It is on that basis that they should recognize the special needs of northern Ontario.

In the past 18 months -- and I am not saying this because of the change of government -- some very disastrous happenings have occurred in northern Ontario. To recite a few: at the Griffith mine at Ear Falls, 325 jobs are lost; at the Great Lakes waferboard plant, Thunder Bay, 60 to 70 jobs are lost; the pulp mill and the stud mill at Terrace Bay are in jeopardy. We know what happened at Sault Ste. Marie. The iron ore mine at Wawa is now in jeopardy. The list, which causes us who live there more concern each day, goes on and on.

The point I am trying to make is that the basic economy of northern Ontario is resource-oriented. We all know that, but it is very fragile. We are at the mercy, at the command of international markets. Outside jurisdictions really control how things move with the resources of northern Ontario. It is out of our control with respect to the markets and the products we produce for international sale.

We are unique. We have special problems and, as I said before, we cannot lump them into one basic strategy for all Ontario. When we look back to our own experiences when we were in government, we established the Ministry of Northern Affairs. That was a major step forward. It was the first regional ministry in this province's history. It dealt directly with the affairs and the problems of northern Ontario.

The member for Port Arthur mentioned some very successful programs: the northern Ontario regional development program, which the present government has continued, has increased and expanded upon; the EduCap program, which saw funds going into the school systems of northern Ontario, and the EldCap program that saw senior citizens' units attached to northern Ontario hospitals.

All these programs designed for northern Ontario in that ministry were designed by northerners and they were administered by northerners, because 70 per cent of the staff of that ministry were located in northern Ontario. They responded in a very special way. The applications were simple and our turnaround time was six to eight weeks. That is very important to those people in northern Ontario.

I cannot stress too strongly the successes we have had on an ad hoc basis. We can refer to the problems of Sudbury when we reacted to the problems of that community with funds for the 2001 project -- $600,000 over a three-year period. We moved on the goat project. Members all remember the goat project in Sudbury. That was a local initiative. They wanted to establish goats in the Sudbury basin. It was not successful; but the local people had their ideas and they wanted to try it, so we funded it. Right through the whole system -- we see Atikokan and Pickle Lake -- there are all kinds of examples across the north where the government of the day moved in an expeditious way to respond to those particular needs.

Getting back to the resolution itself, we certainly support the idea of a northern development fund. We think it should be within the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. A minister of this government, or any government that is in power, should have direct responsibility for that fund. The establishment of that regional ministry, which is located mainly in northern Ontario, provided the sensitivity to be able to respond to the urgent and unique needs of those communities that may be suffering because of resource extraction declining and coming to an end.

The fund itself should not be a tax on the resources that are coming out of northern Ontario. We think that would be a mistake because it may put those resource companies in a very uncompetitive position. We must remain competitive in a world situation. We contribute to the economic life of this province with the resources that come out of northern Ontario. The province as a whole should put funds into that special fund that would be earmarked to a special line in the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, where we, as northern members, could watch over that fund to see how it is administered in the best interests of northern Ontario.

10:40

Mr. Wildman: I rise to participate in this debate because I think it is timely, not only because there was a conference in Sault Ste. Marie dealing with northern competitiveness at the beginning of the week, at which our caucus presented a positive 10-point program that included the two proposals made in the resolution by the member for Port Arthur, but also because we are facing a terrible economic crisis in northern Ontario, one that must be responded to in a positive way by government.

It is almost a cliché to say that as soon as a mine opens in northern Ontario, or anywhere in the world, it is beginning to close. As soon as you put the first shovel in the ground, you are depleting the resource and eventually it will run out. That is why it is so important for us all to recognize the need for planning so the community that grows up around the mining operation will have a future as that resource is depleted.

Thus, I was very disappointed to hear the member for Kent-Elgin (Mr. McGuigan), a man for whom I have a great deal of respect -- and I appreciate the fact that he attended the conference in Sault Ste. Marie as someone from southern Ontario interested in the concerns of the north -- say, first, that he did not think planning was a way to go; plans did not make much difference because circumstances change. Obviously, circumstances do change and any planning must be flexible, but that does not mean we should not have planning.

I was also disappointed to hear him speak, apparently on behalf of the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon), against the idea of a specific fund. It is certainly well known in this House that the Treasurer and the officials in his ministry are not in favour of doing anything that would take away from the consolidated revenue fund. That is old-time thinking, it is inflexible thinking and it is the kind of thinking that has left northern Ontario in the economic state it is in now.

To suggest we should not have a specific fund because it might run out some time just indicates why we need to have planning. Obviously, we do not want a fund that is going to run out. We want a fund that is going to be self-sustaining and ongoing.

The member looked at the situation in the United States. I know that when he was at the conference in Sault Ste. Marie he heard the gentleman from Volvo, Bo Eckmann, who is hardly a social democrat, speak about the experience in Sweden. It was very interesting and very important. He talked about many different aspects in Sweden, but the main thing he talked about was the attempt to work together, through planning, to deal with economic problems; he identified a number of types of funds in Sweden that have worked to assist to stimulate growth and investment in the northern part of that country.

Sweden is a country that is very similar to ours in many ways. It has an economy that in the north is based on resources and in the south is based heavily on manufacturing. It has a population about the same size as ours; the topography, the geography and the climate are very similar to those of our province. Obviously, there are cultural differences and historical differences. We cannot transplant their experiences here, but we can learn from them.

In my community, the area I represent, we face a tremendous threat. Algoma Steel Corp. made an announcement last spring that there would be a layoff of 12,000 people. Specifically, that affects the Algoma Ore division in Wawa, where 175 people have been laid off and where there is the threat that the whole operation will shut down because of costs.

The Algoma Ore division is a very productive mine. It is one of the most productive underground mining operations in the world, and certainly in North America. Unfortunately, it is competing against open-pit operations and Third World operations; it is not competing against other underground mines and that makes it very difficult.

That is why I thought it was important for us to have the conference that was held in Sault Ste. Marie, and it is why I was so disappointed that the government and the Premier had absolutely nothing to offer at that time. In essence, what the Premier said at the conference was that we need entrepreneurship. He was telling northerners they have to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

None of us in this House, certainly not the northern members, would debate that northerners are very resourceful and skilful people, and given the resources -- the financial resources -- and the infrastructure, they can make our economy recover. But they cannot do it completely by themselves. To say, "You must pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps," ignores the fact that if the Algoma Ore division shuts down a community such as Wawa does not have any boots.

Mr. McGuigan: He did not say that.

Mr. Wildman: He said: "Do it on your own. Do not blame others."

That conference completely ignored the countervailing duty on lumber; it did not even mention it. It indicated we have problems in the global economy but did not deal with the immediate problem of an unemployment rate that is twice the provincial average. It made no positive proposals. The only positive proposals came from the floor and from the New Democratic Party. Nothing was presented by the government. As a matter of fact, nobody from the government was at the podium except to introduce and thank speakers.

Mr. McGuigan: We want northerners to do it.

Mr. Wildman: That is exactly what we are talking about. The member says, "We want northerners to do it." Northerners can do it, and northerners have made suggestions as to what should be done, but they need the will of the government to provide the financial resources to make it possible for them to do it.

In the resolution there is mention of a number of studies that have been done in northern Ontario. I participated in one of these, the so-called Rosehart committee, and we made a number of recommendations. The two recommendations in this resolution were among the recommendations made by the Advisory Committee on Resource Dependent Communities in Northern Ontario.

In response to that report, the government has said a number of times -- the Premier said it yesterday -- that we already have a northern Ontario fund. We have a so-called northern Ontario fund of $100 million available over five years; that is $20 million a year for the whole of northern Ontario. Do the members realize the layoff of 1,200 men at Algoma Steel Corp. takes a total of $45 million per year in payroll out of the economy of Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma district? That is $45 million a year out of the economy in one community, and we have $20 million a year for the whole of northern Ontario from this government. It is a pittance.

This is not the Norland fund from Sweden. It is not an attempt to provide financial resources that northerners can control and direct for investment in the north to help to diversify and stimulate the economy in northern Ontario, to diversify one-industry towns such as Sault Ste. Marie and Wawa. It is a continuation of the kind of ad hoc dropping of money and dropping of programs here and there in northern Ontario that we had from the Conservative government for years in this province.

It does not work. It does not work to leave it to that kind of fund on the part of the government. It does not work if one does not have planning. It certainly does not work if it is all left to the private sector, because the private sector is the system that has got us into the situation we are in now. If we are to continue as we always have, we will not have change.

The member for Port Arthur has proposed a resolution with positive suggestions for planning and for financial resources to make it possible to begin the recovery of the economy in northern Ontario. I wish we could learn from the mining town of Kiruna in northern Sweden and apply that to Wawa, Ear Falls or Atikokan. I wish we could develop a Kiruna Truck in northern Ontario that would provide mining equipment for the world market. I wish we could develop the kinds of space centres and the kinds of geological mapping they have in northern Sweden, instead of having government contract it out to southern Ontario consultants, as it contracted the whole conference to a southern Ontario consultant.

We have had enough made-in-Toronto solutions for the north and enough made-in-Toronto consultants' studies. We need the political will on the part of the government to implement this resolution. If the Premier is serious about trying to resolve the problems in the north, the first step he can take is to have his caucus vote for this resolution on the floor of the Legislature and then have his cabinet implement it as soon as possible.

10:50

Mr. Ramsay: I wish I had more time this morning, because it is a very serious resolution that is before this House. Like the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier), I believe in the principle of this resolution. I am a little disappointed in the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman), who spoke in contrary terms, and I wish I had more time to debate with him. He first asks that the Premier come up and solve the problems with a made-in-Toronto solution and then on the other hand criticizes the past government, saying that we should not have made-in-Toronto solutions and that the past government was at fault because it used Band-Aids and threw money at problems. We cannot have it both ways.

This resolution does address the problems of the north and the principle is sound.

Mr. Foulds: We want it only one way.

Mr. Ramsay: I wish the member for Port Arthur had been around 70 years ago, because this resolution should have been passed by this House 70 years ago, when that wealth was extracted from northern Ontario. Now, most of the wealth is gone. Millions and billions of dollars of silver and gold were taken 70 years ago, when the Cobalts were starting, and 60 years ago, when the Kirkland Lakes were starting. That angers people.

The government's response to that anger is the northern Ontario development fund. The people of the north feel they have been left with a hole in the ground; those resources having been extracted and they are angry. But to take a portion of the taxes coming from the resources is the wrong answer, because the taxes are not there. We have company after company coming to us for tax breaks. The revenues are not there. The resources are depleting.

I see that $100 million and more, which is to come as an answer to that problem and which is to come out of the general fund, as money owed from the past, money we should have taken by means of a resolution such as this years ago. We deserve that in the north, and that is what this is a response to. It is a serious problem, and we are starting to address it.

There are many points in this resolution. One of the key issues is management by northerners. With our economic development councils we are starting to be the generator of ideas on how that money is to be spent. The member is right. The ideas should not be coming from people in Toronto; they should be coming from northerners. Those economic development councils are a good cross-section of people in our community, especially in mine. We have a representative of the steelworkers' union, mayors, people in business and many other municipal people. They are the people on the ground, the grass roots. They are people in the towns, people in the unions and people who work in the companies in our area. We are getting that input. The councils were a little slow getting started, but now they are going. These people are enthusiastic, these are the people the Premier will be listening to and these are the people who are going to be coming up with the ideas.

We have some money in place. By the way, the member for Algoma said there was only $20 million a year out of the $100 million. The Premier said in Sault Ste. Marie on July 6 that in the second year it would be accelerated to $35 million. The pressure is there. The Premier knows the problem. The pressure is there from me, and from the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Fontaine), to accelerate that fund and put more money into it. That is what we are going to do, because the problem has to be addressed.

I feel it is very important that we do not apply Band-Aids to the problems of the north. Not only do the solutions have to come, but they have to be lasting solutions, they cannot be temporary. We have to start to encourage and to act as cheerleaders, if you will, to get the mentality of the people of the north turned around. I have always felt in our area that many of the people in my constituency have felt like losers because they have felt exploited. That attitude is starting to turn around now. We are starting to have confidence in ourselves that we can do it ourselves. The ideas have to come from us. They cannot be applied from somewhere else. They have to be based on what we have and on who we are. That is what we are going to do and that is what we are starting to do.

It is coming. We are doing it now and it is building. It is necessary to keep the pressure on. Members should keep us honest, because we need that, and that is what the people in my constituency are doing. We are going to work together. Let us not quibble over exactly how we get the money to the fund; the money is there. Let us get together and decide with the people of the north how we are going to invest the money in the north for the future, for jobs for our people and the people to come.

Mr. Foulds: I thank all members for their contributions, but I want to say as clearly as I can that we in the north have been studied, analysed and scrutinized to death. If we keep on doing that analysis, that scrutiny and that studying, the north will die. I say that not in a sense of doom and gloom, not in a sense of despair, but because that is the economic reality.

I for one, without any false sense of boosterism, without any false sense that says, "Let us rah-rah our way into the confidence of the 20th century," believe the north will survive, will develop, will grow and will be there 100 years from now; but it will only be there, it will only survive, it will only grow, if we stop having this colonial mentality from the government and from parties based in this Legislature.

The reason I say the fund must be managed by northerners is the very reason the Liberals are giving us. We cannot have made-in-Toronto solutions; we cannot have made-in-Toronto attitudes. What we must have is power to the people of northern Ontario.

I want to say directly for the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Ramsay) that it is not too late. Do not despair, my friend. In excess of $15 billion of wealth is being extracted from the north annually, every year and even today. That is not the New Democratic Party's figure. It is not something we have conjured up out of the air. That was researched in detail by the Rosehart committee, which the Premier is endorsing and backing so much in the person of Bob Rosehart.

If in excess of $15 billion a year in wealth is being generated in northern Ontario does it not make sense to put a portion of that back into the north? I say to my friend the member for Timiskaming, let us take some money out of the consolidated revenue fund, which we have subsidized and added to for the past 100 years. Let us take the other six steps I suggested to create that fund. Let us also, to give the northerners the tools, do the planning agreements.

The riding of my friend and colleague the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Pouliot) and the ridings of my friends the member for Kenora and the member for Timiskaming could probably benefit from the planning agreements. Any new development that starts now, if we get in on the ground floor and plan, not only the money but also the economic, social, medical and educational futures of that community from the ground floor, we can do in this way.

We can do it creatively, we can do it now and we can do it so secondary industry and other enterprises, commercial and otherwise, can be developed in those communities and so those communities can live and thrive, and our children and their children can be there after the mines are gone and after the forests are cut. It is not enough -- and I say this with all seriousness to all members of this House -- to say we support the principle.

I regret that the Premier is not here. He said the New Democratic Party produced a skinny little, 10-point program. That is better than the zero-point program he is producing. We produced not only that 10-point program but also, for every one of those points, documents to back it up. We are not saying they are magic solutions. We are not saying all of them will work perfectly. We are saying in this resolution that the government should give us the opportunity to prove we can do it with two of these economic tools. Give us the strength, give us the weapons, give us the tools to build our economy, because it is important, not merely for the north, not merely for one region of this province, but for this entire province. I point out that six out of the 10 jobs associated with the forest industry, directly and indirectly, are in southern Ontario, not in northern Ontario.

The economy of this province, the future of this province and the future of the people of this province are dependent on the wellbeing of the north's economy. We plead not merely for our children, not merely for our future but for the future of the whole province and the future of whole generations to come.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): This ends the debate on ballot item 23.

11:00

REMUNERATION OF TRUSTEES AND COUNCILLORS

Mr. Callahan moved resolution 37:

That, in the opinion of this House, as the public does not understand the method of establishing levels of remuneration of boards of education and municipal councils and as there is no consistent principle province-wide, the Education Act and the Municipal Act should be amended so that any increase in honorarium to a board of education or municipal council may be made only once in a term of such board or council and within 60 days of the date on which an election is to be held.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member has up to 20 minutes for his presentation, and he may reserve any portion of it for the windup.

Mr. Callahan: At the outset, let me assure members of the House that this is not an effort to interfere with local autonomy. The purpose of this bill is to elevate the image of municipal councils in the eyes of the electorate.

As members are aware, municipal councils are currently entitled to set their own honorarium as they consider to be appropriate, and it is appropriate that they be entitled to do that. They are the locally elected representatives. They are the form of government closest to the people. However, I suggest that without some change as proposed in this bill or in a vein similar to what is proposed in this bill, the electorate voting at municipal elections is going to continue to be somewhat apathetic. The reason people may be apathetic is that they see councils throughout this province hoisting their fees or their honorariums by large percentages. The newspaper reports on this are legion. A municipality raises its honorariums by 61 per cent, 24 per cent, 34 per cent, and the people do not understand that. They do not understand the background or the basis for those increases.

I am not suggesting taking away the right that exists for local representatives to set their own honorarium. I am saying there should be a mechanism that will allow it to be done in advance of an election and thereby allow the voters to question the members who are running for re-election. It allows the people who are running for the first time in an election an opportunity to be questioned on the logic behind that raise.

I suggest it would help municipal politicians in that, if they have perhaps arrived at that increase through the use of a private group of citizens who review the salary and determine whether it is appropriate, they would be able to go out to the public with their heads held high and defend it. I suggest this would increase the turnout at municipal elections. It would satisfy the electorate in that it would have the politicians saying up front what the honorarium for the next council would be.

Unfortunately, it works both ways. It works against the elected officials because, if they are politically shy to raise their honorarium by the appropriate amount, they are always playing catch-up. This becomes very difficult and results in blazing headlines, such as "Council Raises its Honorarium by 50 per cent," or 60 per cent or 70 per cent. The public does not understand that. It also results in a council waiting until after the election, which occurred in my own riding. A week or so after they had been installed in office, they raised their honorarium by 40 per cent. It may well be that the members of council in my own riding were entitled to that 40 per cent, but a perception is created by its being done at that stage of the game.

As well, I am suggesting that if the legislation was to be amended to simply provide something along the lines of what my bill proposes, it would encourage municipalities to bring in private citizens' groups to look at the question of how hard a municipal councillor works to arrive at an appropriate increase. If that increase happened to be 40 per cent, so be it. What happens is we are treating the municipal councillors fairly in that we are providing them with an honorarium that reflects the nature of the time they spend in their job and the seriousness of the issues with which they deal. I think the public will accept that; but when you leave it the way it is, it usually happens in a way that makes the public very cynical as to how the elected representatives at the local level are operating. That is very wrong.

This issue strikes at the heart of the question of making certain that our democratic system is viewed by all people as being fair and above board. By that, I am not suggesting there is anything below board but the perception of democratic justice has to be apparent as well as actual.

I want to go back into the history of this legislation because I think it is of some importance. Under the pre-1968 Municipal Act, municipal councils did not have the right to set their honorarium. It was fixed subsequently, I believe as a result of a resolution from Toronto council in 1966 and 1967 that drew to the attention of the provincial government at that time that the honorariums did not reflect, in an appropriate fashion, the increased responsibilities of the members of that council and that it should be reviewed.

In 1967, the then Minister of Municipal Affairs, Wilfrid Spooner, established a committee of seven individuals who did a rather deep insight into the whole difficulty. They made recommendations to the provincial government of the day that a maximum should be retained but it should be increased, and that the increase should be related to the populations of municipalities and the responsibilities of those councillors.

The bill came before the provincial Legislature. At that time, the minister was Darcy McKeough. According to the records I have, the bill passed through this House very quickly; in fact, far more quickly than anything passing through this House these days. I suppose in those days they had a majority. In any event, what happened, in effect, was that municipalities were given the right to determine their own honorariums.

Once again I have underlined the fact that I am not saying this provincial government should interfere in any way with that, because that is the responsibility of those who are elected and who are accountable to the electorate. I am simply saying there should be a revision of the appropriate legislation to let the public realize that the determination of these salaries is made some time prior to them going to the polls.

One can say that is an interference in itself, but this Legislature had the wisdom to do that to the school boards. I must apologize; in my notice of motion I refer to school boards as well. That was inappropriate, because there was legislation in 1982 that stated trustees currently sitting on the board of education in any municipality can set their honorarium but it does not take effect until after the election and in a new term.

11:10

I hope that creates for the public an image that would also apply to municipalities by the members here agreeing to my motion with reference to municipalities. Once that honorarium was set, the only power the school board would have when the election was completed would be to decrease the amount; it would have no power whatsoever to increase it.

Many of us come from the municipal arena. We have run for elections and voted for pay raises for ourselves. When it comes down to the question of voting for a pay raise, I suppose all of us feel very sheepish. We should not feel sheepish. If we, as municipal representatives, ask for an honorarium that is appropriate to the constituency we serve and the work we do, whether it is full-time or part-time, we should not be ashamed at all. I am sure the public in its wisdom would, in fairness, accept that. However, I submit that the present situation and the present state of the law has not allowed that to happen.

I wonder about the turnout at municipal elections. The two I checked into in my riding were 16 per cent and 17 per cent. I wonder whether that is a direct reflection of the fact that the public sees these things happening. They say, "We have no control over it, so why should we go out and vote?" Perhaps it would enhance the electoral process. People would come out and question the people standing for re-election and the people espousing the position itself.

In addition, the people who run for office would know in advance exactly what they were running for. In that respect, this would create an aura of fairness because municipal councillors would get the money they were entitled to. It would also be fair to the perception of the public that they do not try to play games immediately upon being elected.

I will give an example. While I was serving on the Brampton council in my riding, a citizens' group came forward and spent a considerable amount of time looking into the question of our remuneration. They spoke to each councillor individually to determine how many hours he put in. The situation was very expansive. It took them a week or two to interview all the councillors. These were people from the public who were getting nothing for doing this, but they were responsible citizens.

They determined that the members of Brampton council were entitled to a 25 per cent increase because they had fallen behind in years past. The net result was that the council voted itself a six or seven per cent increase. The reason it did that was because of the political pressure they felt there would be in coming forward with a 25 per cent increase and then having to go to the electorate to justify it. They would have had every entitlement to go to the public because it had been determined by a private group.

If this were enshrined in legislation and if the public were made aware these decisions had to be made beforehand, local representatives would not have this difficulty of worrying about the political effect of coming up with an increase. However, it is not enshrined there.

One of the people who served on that committee, whom I know very well, came to me after our council had made the decision to increase the stipend by seven per cent and said: "Why did you waste our time? Why did you have us go to all this trouble and then make that decision?" I had to agree with him. A 25 per cent increase -- I am not sure of the exact figure -- was found just and proper by that citizens' group at that time and the council of the day took seven per cent. The effect of this is quite obvious. If we perpetuate this, if we snowball this, we constantly get behind. At some point, it requires a catch-up. When that catch-up takes place, it gives a black eye, not just to municipal councils but also to every politician in this province and in this country.

If the democratic system is to survive, is to be vibrant and is not to be treated with cynicism by the voters, we have to take every step in a legislative fashion to ensure not only that the system actually is fair but also that it is perceived to be fair by the electorate.

That is all I have to say at the moment on this issue. I would like to reserve the balance of my time to respond to my colleagues.

The Deputy Speaker: The member is reserving six minutes and 30 seconds.

Mr. Davis: First of all, I believe the member for Brampton (Mr. Callahan) should apologize to the House for his inaccuracies, for not doing his homework and for placing before us a motion in which he indicates that it should be applicable to the education system in this province when it has been since 1982. A person who wants to bring a resolution to this House should have his homework well in hand. Perhaps our colleague would like to go back to grade school and learn how to do his homework.

My colleague indicates that the public would more appropriately understand such a situation if they were aware of the salary increases that a municipal council was going to implement after it was elected. Before I comment on that, I will suggest to my colleague that perhaps he would like to amend his motion to include members of provincial parliament, so that 60 days prior to an election the government would indicate to the people of this province what it intends to pay its members; that would be more fair to the municipal councillors of this province.

I would point out to my learned colleague that in 1982, when the Education Act was revised by the government of the day, which happened to be the Progressive Conservative Party, the revision was such that a board of education had to indicate prior to the next election the salary increases that would occur during the next three years.

My colleague should check the records of 1982 and 1985 and he will find that giving this information to the public prior to an election did not increase the number of people who came out to vote. In fact, no trustee in this province, to my knowledge, lost his seat because of the increases that occurred, and in 1982 in Metropolitan Toronto those increases ranged anywhere from 60 per cent to more than 135 per cent.

What did happen, as could happen in this case, is that in one particular board in this province a large number of trustees were not running. They were of the conviction that trustees were adequately paid, and therefore they made a motion that there would be no increment resulting in the forthcoming three years. The individuals who were elected to that board had no power under the Education Act to overthrow that; they could only reduce the fees set and therefore they were penalized by the outgoing trustees on that board. That is unjust and it thwarts the democratic process.

My learned colleague suggests that local municipal councils could be required to create a citizens' group to suggest to them what the wages should be. He must be aware that such a committee already exists in Scarborough and in the city of Toronto. Each council takes a look at that recommendation and in many instances implements it.

It is interesting that he would like to implement that kind of format in this province when we have it here in the House. It is part of our parliamentary process, I understand, that a nonpartisan body recommends yearly to this House the kinds of increases we should see as members. It is interesting to note that the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) ignores its suggestions and recommends instead a 3.9 per cent increase, basing it on the fact that it is a democratic process of the government to make those determinations.

I suggest most strongly that it is a democratic process and the prime responsibility of municipal councillors to set their own salary structures. I suggest also that if the electorate is unhappy with the kinds of salary settlements that the councillors initiate, it has the option, which is the option of the people of Brampton, to terminate that alderman or the member because of that action. My learned colleague suggests they should set it for three years. Let us look at what happens.

11:20

Let us assume councillors are making $25,000 a year, which is not unusual for the kind of work load they are now carrying, and let us assume they use only the inflation rate of four per cent. What they do is front-load. They take the three increments, fold in the necessary increments that would occur and wind up with $3,000 or $3,125, which they add to their salaries; so they start with a base salary of roughly $28,125, rather than a base salary of $25,000. The public is therefore already behind, because it is paying out additional salaries that would not normally kick in until the second or third year, as indicated in the Education Act.

I find it appalling that this government continually puts its fingers into every aspect of our society. We now have the learned member suggesting, without consultation with any of the municipal councils, to my knowledge, that we should determine by an act of legislation that henceforth municipal members will have to set their salaries 60 days prior to an election. He bases that premise on the fact that people will take more interest in the democratic electoral process. That just does not bear out in fact.

Had he taken the time to do his homework, he probably would not have mentioned this legislation. He should have checked what happens in the education area in elections. There is no great turnover. In fact, as I stated before, trustees were not thrown out because they set their salaries beforehand. This matter should have been left to the resolution of the members of council.

I find that the democratic process is fair. I do not hear people crying out, as my learned colleague suggests they are, in revolution against councils that set their salaries. I assume most councils act with decency and honour as they establish their own salary rates for the work they are doing. Certainly, each council has the ability to set it in the determination of its own jurisdiction. One knows a council member in Wawa does not make $40,000, because his work load may not be the same as the work load of the council member in Brampton, for example.

It is very interesting to note that the process my learned colleague wants to introduce is a process that is used in this House and ignored, and I suggest to him it would be ignored by the councils of this province. I also suggest it will not increase participation among the electorate of this province and that the present system is working well.

Somewhere, somehow, I remember someone saying -- I believe it was the present government -- that if things are working well, why monkey with them and change them? It is apparent that this new government, which was not even elected to be on the other side of this House but somehow got there, has now developed the kind of image that demands that it tinker with everything in society, from the affairs of the pharmacists to the doctors, to the municipal councillors, to lawyers. Soon there will be no avenue in society that this government has not put its fingers into to stir up to see whether there is something it can try to make better, when everything is working well.

I certainly will not be supporting this motion at this time. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to respond to my learned colleague, who has not done his homework again.

Mr. Breaugh: I want to participate in this debate today. I will start by saying the resolution does not do a great deal, but it offers an opportunity to get into something that may be one of the hottest little political discussions we can ever get involved in, that is, the salaries of those who serve the public.

I want to make some allowances for the member who sponsored the resolution. First, I should point out to the previous speaker that it is a resolution. It is not a bill and it is not legislation, but a motion of the House expressing an opinion. From that point of view, it offers me the opportunity to be a little kinder to the member than I normally would be. It is not going to be a law that is passed here this morning. It is the voicing of several opinions, and we should be grateful for that opportunity at the very least. Second, there are some errors in the resolution. I write it off to the fact that the member who proposed the resolution is a lawyer, and we should not expect anything better from anybody in the legal profession. Unlike the previous speaker, in the kind and loving world I would like to live in, I will forgive the member for being a lawyer and for making errors in his resolution. I am going to support it on the basis of the fact that nothing evil will happen if we do. No law will change tomorrow, but an opinion will have been voiced. We should be grateful for that.

I want to say two or three things about the intent of the resolution, which I think is worth while. The member raises the question of how people on school boards and councils and, indirectly, everybody else who is elected to anything might settle their compensation. I have been in politics for quite a while now, a decade or so, and I could tell him tomorrow who will write a letter to the editor of the Oshawa Times denouncing whatever pay raise is proposed by any politician at any level.

It does not matter to these people whether the raise is two per cent, 20 per cent or 200 per cent; they will sit down tonight in a fearful fit of anger and they will write this. It does not matter how large the amount is and it does not matter who it is; they hate anybody in public office getting paid for their work. They would also be the last people who would ever get out and do any work for the public, but they hate everybody who is elected. There is nothing we can do about that.

I am sure in most of our constituencies we could sit down now and write the letters that would go to the editors tomorrow morning and we could probably pretty closely identify who will send those letters. The amount does not matter. We should recognize that there are some people in our society who do not like us. It would be tough to find a group of people in our society who do not have a counterpart out there. There is always that to deal with.

I believe the government of Ontario tried to set out ranges in the Education Act, but it is very difficult to do. Having observed councils and school boards over the years, some of them do not do a great deal. The staff, the administration or the agency runs the show. That is a shame. It runs against the whole democratic process and is quite wrong.

I could muster a pretty good argument that people on a council or on a school board of that nature do not deserve very much. The problem with that argument is that we have a democratic society. Theoretically, we say our councils control huge budgets, and they do. Many millions of dollars available to school boards and municipal governments all over Ontario are spent each year. How ironic then that somebody would be expected to take an honorarium of a couple of thousand dollars to sit on a school board. They would not do that in the private sector. That is for sure. Why do we expect that in the public sector?

I do not think we get better elected people locally by paying them more money. I do not think that axiom works out at all. If someone is a competent individual and knows he will be entering into an activity that will have an economic impact on his life, he will think about what the honorarium is. For example, if I am going to be elected to my local council and it means I have to give up my job, I have family responsibilities, I have responsibilities to people to whom I owe money and I have mortgages to pay, so an aura of the practical does enter it. People sit down at the kitchen table and say, "Can I afford to run for public office or do we need both incomes?" I doubt very much that people stay in the political process for the money.

Most of the members in this chamber are taking a loss in economic terms to be here. That is a reality. Every year I go home and my wife tables in my kitchen a document called the salary agreement between the Durham Region Roman Catholic Separate School Board and its teachers, and each year she carefully and painstakingly points out how much money I am losing by being a member. It is not a great deal of money, but it is change that I could surely use. But that is not the critical difference. You do not run for public office because of the amount of money you are paid. I think people understand that much.

11:30

Second, you do not stay in public office because it is a well-paid position either. That is also true. My experience tells me that public life is a strange animal at any level. You either like it or you do not like it, and there is not much in between. If you do not like it, there is no amount of money in the world that can make you take this kind of abuse. That would be my comment to people who are thinking about running for public office. You never really know it until you hold public office and get an opportunity to experience the anger and the frustration that is out there in our society, and either you try to change that and make the world a little better place at any level of government and you are driven by that cause, or you will not stay in public office.

I do not know of anybody who could not leave public office and make more money. I am saddened somewhat by the fact that at all levels of government the current trend is that people are leaving public office to make a potful of money. People are saying, "Our federal members of Parliament are overpaid." They are overpaid until they quit, and then they double their incomes. The same is happening provincially, municipally and on school boards -- at all levels. One of the things that is a bit of a tragedy is that I know a number of people who have held public office and have quit because, frankly, at some point the financial drain on the family income was one that could not be sustained.

I know this resolution is not going to do a great deal for anybody, but it does point out that councils, school boards and, I suggest, ourselves and the federal members of Parliament, have this terrible problem around honorariums, salaries and incomes; and they shy away from it.

I know the political realities out there, but I also know this: if we raised our incomes substantially this afternoon, I know who would phone me tonight and tomorrow morning and I know how long the rage would last. I know they would tell me the exact same thing whether we voted $1 more or $100,000 more, and that is true for politics at any level.

If a school boards sets its honorarium at $2,000 as opposed to $3,000, do they really think they are going to get a flood of phone calls the next day saying, "Weren't you wonderful?" People will probably write in and say: "Weren't you stupid? Why did you do that?"

I think part of the converse is true. The fact that we do not pay people very much to sit on local councils and school boards is not an overwhelming influence, but is a sign to the public at large that it cannot be a very important position. If we pay them only $2,000 or $3,000, that really cannot be something of much importance. That is rather sad.

The resolution before us is flawed; we should all recognize that. But we should also recognize that the world will not end tomorrow morning if this resolution is passed. I urge members to use it as an occasion to vent their opinions, as I have, on how people set these, what the levels should be and when they should be set. To that extent, the resolution is worth supporting.

I wish it had been put together in a slightly better form. There are things that could be done that would assist this process. It could have been better drafted. It could have acknowledged reality; that would have been a help too. But I do not think we should ask too much of new members in this chamber. When they have an opinion and they want to voice it, one of the things about a parliament is that even if you are wrong, sometimes even if you are dead wrong, you do have a right to voice your opinion. That is what the member for Brampton is doing this morning. He is certainly welcome to do that.

I am going to support his resolution. It seems to me relatively harmless. The discussion, though, is worth while, and to that extent at least we ought to support it.

Mr. Epp: I am pleased to be able to participate in this debate on this resolution. I am going to speak against the motion and I am going to vote against the motion.

Mr. Rowe: You had better come over here.

Mr. Epp: I want the member to understand and I want my colleague to understand that it is done in a sincere but friendly way. If the member feels that cannot be done he should tell me, but I am still not going to sit down.

Mr. Stevenson: You simply cannot support the jerk, is that it?

Mr. Epp: I want to speak against it for a number of reasons. I was not a member of this Legislature then, but between 1971 and 1975 there was no increase in the honorarium given to members of the provincial parliament. When they did give themselves an increase it was substantial. As a result, it was felt that members did not deserve it. If they had given themselves the inflationary increase every year -- and I am not saying at this point it should have been inflationary, less than inflationary or more than inflationary -- if they had done it on an annual basis, they would not have met the hostile reaction they met in 1975.

When you do this on a once-every-three-year basis you are going to encounter that. On that basis, I suggest it should not be done once every three years, just before an election, because it may be an unpopular vote and the public can take it out on you. Therefore, you are intimidated into voting yourself a very low increase. The public will not support you at the polls if, all of a sudden, you give yourself a 15 per cent increase once every three years rather than a five per cent increase every year. I think the timing this motion suggests, that you do it within 60 days prior to the next election, is unfortunate.

I am opposed to it on another basis, which is that the motion suggests that the duly elected members at the school board and municipal level, which includes 125 school boards and 838 municipalities, are not in close enough touch with the electorate, that they are going to do something very crazy, very outrageous or whatever it is going to be, that the public is not going to know about it and that therefore they are going to put something over on the public. My feeling is that they are duly elected. They have to appear before the electorate on a regular basis to be elected to the school board or at the municipal level and therefore the electorate can punish them if it wants to.

If it were a body appointed by somebody at Queen's Park or whatever the case might be and if it then did something completely unacceptable, but the public could not in any way control it, that would be different. These are duly elected people. They give themselves that increase, as popular or as unpopular as it may be -- and it is never popular, as the member knows. You cannot give yourself an increase for five years and then give yourself a 10 per cent increase, which with inflation may be only four per cent or 4.2 per cent. The public is down on you because you have given yourself a 10 per cent increase. They forget you had not given yourself an increase in 10 years.

These duly elected school boards and councils are autonomous. We should make them as autonomous as we possibly can, knowing full well they are ultimately responsible to this Legislature, to the 125 men and women elected to this place. I do not know why I, an elected member on a municipal council for 10 years, all of a sudden had a lot more wisdom given to me the day I was elected, June 9, 1977, because I was elected provincially. I could then vote for my increase on an annual basis if I wanted to; but when I was a municipal councillor and mayor of the city of Waterloo for those 10 years, I could not. I did not have the wisdom to do it on annual basis.

I do not know how I got that radical increase of wisdom just because I went through a provincial election. That is what we are saying. We are saying that because we are provincial legislators we are exposed enough to the public that the public knows what is going on, so we can do it on an annual basis, we can do it three times a year if we want to or we can do it whenever we want to. However, if we are at a school board level or at a municipal level out there in one of those many municipalities or school boards, then all of a sudden we do not have that wisdom, the moderating effect of the media watching us or the wherewithal to vote or not to vote ourselves that increase. I do not accept that principle. Maybe it was not intended that way, but that is the way I read it.

11:40

When we gave ourselves an increase in 1977, after I was elected -- I think it was the fall -- I remember seeing a cartoon drawn by a colleague of mine. I had taught with him for a number of years, and he drew a few cartoons. He had a cartoon showing the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney), the then member for Kitchener, Mr. Breithaupt, and myself, and down at the bottom it said, "MPP." He understood "MPP" stood for "More pay, please." Members probably have not thought of it in those terms, but apparently that is what "MPP" stood for in that cartoon. I thought it meant "member of the provincial parliament," but it just goes to show how wrong you can be when you are elected to this place.

The public did not punish me during the next election, as many times as I voted for my increase, however modest it was. Some members of this Legislature like to stay away when the time comes for voting themselves an increase, because they can always say they did not vote for it; but they have their hands out afterwards, they never turn their money back to the Legislature. They can have it both ways; they can say, "I never voted for it, but I have to take it."

Other people, who have the courage to vote for their increases, will take their lumps with the electorate. That is what I want. I want the members of the councils to vote themselves an increase whenever they feel it is desirous to do so, and the same applies to the school boards. But I want it to be done at an open and public meeting and the public to be made aware of it. If the public wants to punish them, however small or large the increase is, it is up to them, knowing full well what their democratic rights are.

Mr. Pierce: I rise in the House this morning to speak against the resolution. Having been involved in a municipal council for a number of years and having close associations with school boards, I find it a bit difficult to believe that we in the provincial Legislature should be meddling in how municipal councils and members of school boards reach conclusions in setting remuneration.

I also find it a little difficult to understand how, according to the resolution, you could have the bulk of the members on a board, who are not running in the next election, dictating what will happen for the next three years to the people who will be running, by setting the wages for the new members coming in after an election.

It behooves individuals running to be able to determine, after election, what they feel is the adequate remuneration for the job. If the remuneration set by them is not acceptable to the general public which has elected them, I am sure the general public will not hesitate to inform the members of school boards and of municipal councils. If proper attention is not paid to the complaints and if the increases are considered to be above what would normally be accepted, those individuals will certainly know about it in the next election.

I do not think it is the place of this Legislature to determine that people vying to be members of school boards and members of municipal councils are not intelligent enough to be able to set their own remuneration as it reflects on the municipality and on the work load that municipality may be faced with through its school board or municipal council.

In some municipalities, there is no doubt that the amount of time an individual member who has run for municipal council or school board is required to spend on its council or board is limited. However, other municipalities may be faced with problems of growth or problems of declining growth that require long hours, many nights and full days of deliberation to determine the needs of the municipality or school board. For us to say a municipal council or board that is going out will determine what new members coming in will be paid is not the direction in which we want to go in this province.

As was mentioned by the member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Davis), boards of education and municipal councils face a number of problems. These boards are more than capable of determining their needs and requirements in determining their remuneration. As I said earlier, I think it is beyond our ability and scope of control to decide whether municipal councils should be limited by existing councils that are going out.

Also, to suggest that a council, prior to its removal and 60 days before an election, will determine what its salary will be for the next three years is something that is not determined in a lot of collective bargaining agreements, as an example. Most unions and companies like to know they are going to have an opportunity to place their demands in the negotiating process without being tied to a long-range agreement.

If we now say members of councils and of school boards will be tied down for three years with no consideration given to changes in the amount of time or commitment required, we will have members who have been elected for three years resigning their seats short of the three-year term. Then we will be faced with by-elections and appointments to boards and councils, which I am sure is not the wish of this Legislature.

For that reason, I have to say I do not agree with the member's resolution. More consideration could have been given to the motion. All kinds of information out there could be gathered from existing municipal councils and school boards to indicate that they are very much responsible for their everyday actions, are responsible to the electorate that has put them there and are quite capable of determining what is acceptable in the world of politics and in their own municipality with respect to remuneration. They do not require us as legislators to tell them that even though they are elected we will dictate to them legislation as to whether they are allowed any increases.

With those comments, I have to tell the member that I must vote against his resolution.

11:50

Mr. Allen: I rise to speak on this ballot item in the spirit of my colleague the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh), who suggested the subject and content of the proposal is of such relatively small consequence that he can support it. I am suggesting it is of such small consequence and impact that I can modestly oppose it. It is important that private members' legislation have the opinion of all members of the Legislature as individuals and not just as members of caucuses.

I suggest, however, there is a certain patronizing tone to this resolution. It starts by suggesting the public does not understand. I do not think that is the problem; I think the public is quite capable of understanding. What the member suggests the public does not understand is the method of establishing levels of remuneration for councils and school boards.

He goes on to say there is no method and therefore there is nothing to understand. How can one criticize the public for not understanding something that is not there? He then confesses that the Education Act does have a mechanism; therefore, I am left wondering whether this proposal is meant to confuse the public, the Legislature and, indeed, the boards of education about whether this resolution or the contents of the Education Act should take precedence.

With respect to the question of setting levels only once in a term, we all know what happens to unions when they go out on their multi-year settlements and get tagged with having agreed to a 15, 20, 25 or 30 per cent increase when it is spread over a number of years. The public gets one impression, and one impression only, and any board or council that wanted to minimize that kind of impact should be free to do so.

The question of 60 days is again a major problem. I do not understand why one would want to get into a situation where a council responsibly attempting to deal with its salary levels would put itself in a position where the public would end up debating only salary questions in an imminent election, to the detriment of all the other major issues of the municipality. For the Legislature of Ontario to propose this to municipalities would presume we have some secret wisdom concerning how to settle the question. We have not settled it for ourselves; I do not think we have a right to stand up and try to settle it for other people.

The notion that when you run for election you accept the contract, which is so current in many municipalities, suggests that no municipal council should ever responsibly deal with the question. Locally, a group has attempted to make some proposals in that regard, and my only observation about that study is that while it had some interesting suggestions to make, the study itself did not consult any local member about the nature and range of his responsibilities to devise either a method or a level of compensation.

There are just too many flaws in this proposal for me to be able to support it responsibly; so I do in fact oppose it.

Mr. Callahan: It is interesting that when you raise the question of money in a political forum, everybody gets hyper. I think the time has come when the public should be armed with all the information it requires to determine whether we are paid or underpaid, and I find it difficult to believe the reaction of members of this Legislature, when I started off by telling them this was not a matter of interfering with the autonomy of the local representatives, it was a matter of fairness to the electorate.

I thank the member for Oshawa. He was very kind, and I hope he will vote for my resolution after I blast all those guys, because I suggest the members today probably have flip-flopped.

In 1982, the provincial Legislature did to school boards exactly what I am trying to do to municipalities. It moved legislation to require them to set their stipend before an election so those poor people out there who vote in elections, for me and everyone in this Legislature, get an opportunity to see just how that stipend was arrived at. It seems to me it is time for politicians -- and we have tried it with our government by opening up the government to all the people -- to realize that the public is not stupid and is entitled to know rather than being told five weeks into the term, "Hey, guys, we have increased our stipend by X dollars."

I suggest to members that there are some inconsistencies, and I want to show some of them to my good friend the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen). The population of Toronto is 600,000, according to this report; councillors there receive $59,356. In Hamilton, which has 308,000 people, councillors receive $34,943. In London, there are 278,000 people, and councillors get $57,800. I could go on ad nauseam. There is no consistent program for a voter to look at this intelligently and determine how they arrive at those salaries.

Now I would like to deal with the comments of my good friend the member for Scarborough Centre. My friend was upset because I had not told him that in my research I had discovered school boards had been changed through legislation. He prepared himself on that basis, and when he found he did not have any rocks to throw at me, he decided he would do it by saying it was a poorly worded resolution.

It also makes me wonder about this Legislature, particularly the Conservatives, who are the official opposition. They are the guardians of the purse of this province. They have legislative committee after legislative committee come forward to try to find out how this government is spending money. In one instance, they put 400 questions on Orders and Notices, one of which cost $100,000 to investigate. Yet they are the people who can speak about this whole issue. They do not look at the question of how taxpayers are being treated, yet they are the guardians of the purse. I find that rather unusual.

With reference to my good friend the member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp) speaking against the issue, what he missed is that members of the public are entitled to all the information they can have when they go out to exercise their franchise. I put the 60-day clause in there to highlight the question so that when members of the public go to vote on this issue, they will have that matter before them and can consider it.

In actual effect, the policy change I am suggesting benefits not only the public but also the politicians, because the municipal politicians will probably get private groups to check into an appropriate salary range and then go to the public and say, "Look, we had a private group do it."

They do not have to try to hide behind it, take a lesser increase and wind up not being paid appropriately. If politics in this day and age has reached a higher plane, I hope it is one where we wish to have the electorate given all the goods and all the evidence so they can make an appropriate disposition.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Callahan: Surely the questions of things such as salary are of paramount importance to electorates. If one looks at newspaper articles, one sees the number of times that people have gone after their councils to try to persuade them to draw back on the salaries. That would not happen under my proposal, because councils would have to justify it. It would be done on an appropriate basis. They would get the increase they were entitled to and not be cutting back and then trying to catch up in another year.

I guess I am naïve, and perhaps that is the reason my resolution is poorly worded. I am a freshman in this Legislature. Perhaps I am naïve enough to believe that politicians have risen to greater heights than being worried about whether the public knows how much they are being paid. If one serves the public well, then people are prepared to pay what one is worth. I am prepared to take the heat of a large increase if I feel I am doing the job. It seems as though some of us would like to sweep it under the carpet.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Callahan: If the members of the Conservative Party are concerned about this issue, then they should vote against it. I imagine they will anyway, but I want them to realize that in voting against it they are saying trustees are to be treated differently from municipal councillors. Trustees have to set their salaries in advance and accept the scrutiny of the electorate; municipal politicians do not.

NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Foulds has moved resolution 62.

Motion agreed to.

REMUNERATION OF TRUSTEES AND COUNCILLORS

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Callahan has moved resolution 37.

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the nays have it.

Motion negatived.

The House recessed at 12:01 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

RICK HANSEN

Mr. Speaker: Today is a special day, and I am delighted to welcome an outstanding young Canadian, Rick Hansen, who has become world renowned as the Man in Motion. Rick and his dedicated crew are with us today in the Speaker's gallery. Rick has travelled approximately 32,900 kilometres to reach this destination in his journey to assist others.

As Speaker of the Ontario Legislature, I am pleased to ask all members to join me in welcoming Rick Hansen.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: In honour of our special guest, I ask unanimous consent to call order 121.

Agreed to.

GEOGRAPHIC TOWNSHIP OF HANSEN ACT

Mr. Shymko moved second reading of Bill 146, An Act to change the name of the geographic township of Stalin to the geographic township of Hansen.

Mr. Shymko: This bill enshrines permanently in the history and in the land of Ontario for all generations the name of Rick Hansen, which epitomizes the best in humanity, not only to Canadians but to all mankind, following the tradition of other Canadian heroes such as Terry Fox and Steve Fonyo.

His name and theirs have taught us one simple lesson: that true heroism is not in war but in the battlefield of life, to give hope to those who face hopelessness, to give strength to the weak, to give faith to those who are wavering and to show love by one's deeds. The name of Rick Hansen is a symbol of the invincibility of the human spirit, which knows no obstacles and crosses all boundaries, as he has crossed all boundaries.

May God bless him in giving him strength to complete his journey of Man in Motion. Perhaps this is a small journey in the eternity of life, but his tracks are permanent imprints which others will follow in the infinity of the journey of human destiny.

Mr. Rae: I rise to express, together with the members of my party, our pride and the pride of all the people of our province in this remarkable man who has graced us with his presence today as he has graced literally thousands of communities around the world.

When I was in China with the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon), who will perhaps recall this, we visited the Great Wall. We were able to walk up a very steep incline past several sentry points. As we were walking up, our host made a point of telling us that this was precisely the place where Rick Hansen had been in his wheelchair a while previously.

I tell members this for two reasons. One, it is very hard to describe the steepness of that place and the really remarkable physical achievement that Rick Hansen has made. Two, I want to tell Rick Hansen that the impact of his visit in China was still being felt. For instance, I visited a hospital in Nanjing, where they commented on the fact that this remarkable Canadian had been in China and had demonstrated what people with disabilities can do when they set their minds to it.

It is not often that people get a chance to meet someone who has demonstrated absolutely extraordinary qualities of courage. All of us are awed by Rick's physical achievements in the sense of the enormous physical stamina that such a trip around the world must require. All of us are even more awed in a genuine way by his courage, by that sense of indomitable spirit and by the absolutely charming humility with which he has accepted the extraordinary fame that his courage has quite rightly bestowed upon him.

Ours is a culture that bestows celebrity on some pretty strange events. Indeed, one wonders sometimes about the attention society and our commercial culture pay to events and to people to whom most of us feel probably not very much attention should be paid. Every once in a while, however, something happens that brings people from all parts of the world and from all backgrounds together in a unique way because they recognize that something literally extra extraordinary is going on.

This tour has done many things. It has provided a sense of hope and a sense of inspiration to a great many people, young and old, who are disabled. It has also shown the world that Canada has produced some very extraordinary people who have demonstrated to disabled people around the world that there is a chance, there is a way of participating and a way of taking part. I know Rick Hansen would want us to think today not only of him and of this extraordinary event, but also of all the people in our community who are disabled and who in their own ways are having to fight their own battles.

All of us in our various jobs have had to face up to the fact that in our community we do not do all that we can do to make the disabled truly part of our community. The unemployment figures are there, the figures on income are there, the barriers are there. They must come down. I do not want to dwell on that today because I do not think it is appropriate for us to engage in that kind of a political discourse on this occasion, but I do want to say on behalf of our party how proud we are of Rick Hansen, how proud we are to recognize his courage today and just what a marvellous symbol he has become to all those who seek to take their place in the sun.

13:40

Mr. Grossman: Today is one of those days that one sometimes believes and is proud to think only Canadians share from time to time, a day when we should not meet and gather to do anything but celebrate, and, yes, remember a Canadian who somehow has epitomized what each of us likes to believe is somewhat special and unique about Canadians.

In every country of the world, in every walk of life, there are many people who face adversity but few people who challenge it. There are many people who dream of dreaming, but there are few people who actually dream. There are people who dream, yet fail to have the courage to implement that dream, to do something about it.

In Rick Hansen we have that unique coming together of someone who dreams, dares to dream and gets out and does something about it, someone who looks adversity in the face and not only fights that adversity and does something about it, but also seeks to reach so far beyond it as to ensure that as few people as possible need ever again face that adversity as a permanent circumstance. Unfortunately, Rick Hansen makes all the rest of us spectators as we admire, revel in and celebrate his accomplishments, determination, dedication and humanity. He makes the rest of us spectators and challenges us to do what we ought to be doing to make sure that we not only celebrate his accomplishment and his heroic endeavours by virtue of the bill moved by my colleague today, but that we also do what we can to do what he asks us to do, and that is help to solve the problem.

I want to say to Rick Hansen today that this Legislature sometimes greets visitors and ofttimes acknowledges accomplishments. Too often, we do that almost in a perfunctory way. We are genuine about it but still perfunctory. We pause to acknowledge it and then move right on. I want to say to Rick that last week the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) ensured that this Legislature would not just blink and carry on. Somehow, he seemed to seize the magic of a moment and carve into each of us a sense of obligation to make this visit into something far more tangible than just a perfunctory acknowledgement.

The most important thing we can say to you today, Rick, is that we heard the words that were spoken last week by the member for Scarborough West in your absence, but on the occasion of your arrival in Ontario. He made an indelible impression on us. For that we thank him and for that we thank you.

Finally, might I say that night after night, Ontarians and Canadians watch the news. I have been in many circumstances where many people are sitting around watching the television set and watching go by all the news we think we help make and all the things we sometimes believe are so important, and, suddenly, when Rick Hansen comes on the screen, everything stops in those rooms. Everyone's attention is riveted on the day's events and everyone stands in awe, as it should be.

My party, together with all Ontarians, is proud of the response that somehow only Canadians, and especially Ontarians, can have in such a big way. We celebrate your accomplishments. We applaud you. We thank you. We undertake not to forget the message you bring night after night on our TV sets. We stand in awe of you. We thank you.

Finally, we want in a real and sincere way to tip our hats to you. We in this party regret the colour, but none the less we want to take this opportunity, Rick, seriously and with some emotion and sincerity, to tip our Rick Hansen hats to you. Thank you and good luck.

Hon. Mr. Ruprecht: On behalf of the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and the government of Ontario, I am delighted that we have this opportunity to greet and congratulate Rick and the members of the team of the Man in Motion world tour on this historic occasion.

As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, Ontario has proclaimed this week, November 3 to 9, Rick Hansen Man in Motion Week. The Premier has encouraged all Ontarians to support the goal of the tour. He enjoyed meeting Rick earlier this week and is looking forward to follow-up discussions on matters of mutual concern, scheduled for early next week.

We are indeed proud to have this opportunity to participate in a historic event that has drawn worldwide attention to the achievements that are possible when human beings have the will.

The Man in Motion world tour is much more than a sightseeing trip. For Rick, the distance is symbolic and the goals of his journey are selfless. This remarkable athlete, who was disabled in an accident at the age of 15, hopes to increase awareness of the abilities and potential of people who are physically challenged. He is raising funds for spinal cord research to help others like him and to show the importance of sports and recreation in the rehabilitation of disabled people.

I first met Rick Hansen on October 24 in Ottawa as the minister responsible for disabled persons. I am also responsible for co-ordinating the Ontario government's involvement with the Man in Motion world tour. On behalf of the Premier and the government, I greeted Rick as he crossed the interprovincial bridge from Hull, Quebec. I was already deeply impressed by his courage and dedication to his dream, but after meeting him I admire him even more. Rick displays a rare ability to share his vision with others and to instil in them his enthusiasm.

In closing, I will address a few words directly to Rick himself. Rick, you have covered a lot of ground in the past year and a half and we know you still have a long way to go before you reach home. When you leave our province in another eight weeks or so, you will be heading off in the middle of winter, a challenge in itself. Please know that you will take with you the warmth and support of the people of Ontario. We are proud to have had you with us and proud to have been a part of your dream.

You will leave behind a legacy of increased understanding and awareness. Obviously, Rick, we need people like you. We cannot all do what you are doing, but you show us that all people can contribute in their own special way. If I may adapt a line that has become quite familiar of late, we would like to say we are all with you, Rick. Good luck in your travels and have a safe trip home.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

13:50

REMEMBRANCE DAY

Hon. Mr. Nixon: It might be appropriate to ask for unanimous consent for some remarks pertaining to Remembrance Day.

Mr. Speaker: Do we have unanimous consent?

Agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: On Tuesday, November 11, Canadians of all generations across the country will honour those courageous individuals who put their lives on the line to protect and defend those things that we in this county hold to be dear. On behalf of the Premier (Mr. Peterson), I would like to take this opportunity to express the government of Ontario's respect and gratitude.

The Canadian effort in the First World War, the Second World War and the Korean war was immense. More than 1.5 million Canadians served overseas, more than 100,000 were killed and many more were wounded. They gave of themselves, and many of them paid with their lives for a heritage they valued and a vision they treasured. Our way of life is their memorial, our freedom is their legacy and the achievement of world peace is the best monument we could erect in their honour.

In this province and in this country, we are very fortunate. For most of us, war is a remote thing. We see it on television, we hear about it on radio or we read about it in the newspapers. We can be grateful that war is not a part of our daily lives. On Tuesday, Remembrance Day, we have an opportunity to express our gratitude and direct it to those to whom we owe such an enormous debt. Their efforts will not be forgotten.

Mr. Harris: Across the province, in communities large and small, people will bow their heads on November 11 for one minute's silence. Their prayer will not be to glorify the past; it will be a thanksgiving for what we enjoy today, for the ideals that underlie our freedom. This thanksgiving prayer will not be made in a spirit of complacency. The message of the 20th century has been that freedom must be continually guarded in a world where more than three quarters of mankind live in the shadow of totalitarian government. Freedom is a precious flame.

Canadians have defended freedom in two global conflicts. We are not a war-like people. We have never taken up arms for conquest, but we have defended ideas and the rights of people to hold those ideas. Today, with the hope that a treaty between the superpowers will strengthen the dream of peace and freedom that inspired earlier generations to put their lives on the line, we have even greater reason to pause next Tuesday. Peace has its victories that are more lasting than those won in battle, but we live in a violent world. Since the end of the Second World War, more than 200 conflicts have been fought.

Einstein once remarked that peace can only be achieved by understanding. November 11 provides us with an opportunity, at least for one minute, to achieve some small fragment of understanding. Remembrance Day is our day to think about the freedoms that so many Canadians gave their lives to preserve, to think about the peace they won but did not have a chance to enjoy. They have thrown us the torch to hold high, and we in this Legislature must work to strengthen their vision of a free world at peace. We will remember them, not just from a sense of reverence, not to glorify the past and not to boast about great victories, but for their sake, for our own sake and for the sake of our children.

Mr. Rae: In 1916, the British poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote a poem called Song-Books of the War, which I would like to read to the House:

In fifty years, when peace outshines

Remembrance of the battle lines,

Adventurous lads will sigh and cast

Proud looks upon the plundered past.

On summer morn or winter's night,

Their hearts will kindle for the fight,

Reading a snatch of soldier-song,

Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong;

And through the angry marching rhymes

Of blind regret and haggard mirth,

They'll envy us the dazzling times

When sacrifice absolved our earth.

Some ancient man with silver locks

Will lift his weary face to say:

`War was a fiend who stopped our clocks

Although we met him grim and gay.'

And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive,

Marvelling that any came alive

Out of the shambles that men built

And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt.

But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance,

Will think, `Poor granddad's day is done.'

And dream of lads who fought in France

And lived in time to share the fun.

On November 11, we remember, out of that awful experience of the First World War, when literally tens of thousands of Canadian lads from towns, villages and communities all across this country gave up their lives in that awful struggle.

Siegfried Sassoon was writing as if, in 50 years from then, it would be inconceivable that countries and men and women would go to war again, but that has not been the experience of the 20th century. The experience of our century has been very different and very awful.

Canada became a nation in so many ways in that first struggle, and there are still, as we remember them and think of them, a number of Canadians still alive who fought in that terrible war.

I think it would be fair to say that there are very few young lads and, indeed, young women today who would yearn for the fight in the way perhaps generations have in the past. In fact, I think there is a stronger desire for peace in this generation and a better recognition of the horrendous possibilities of war than perhaps ever before.

As has already been said by so many -- and we will have occasion in the next few days to speak our minds as a House with respect to questions of nuclear war, nuclear security and nuclear peace -- without any question, the way in which we can best pay tribute to those young lads, to those women who died in France, to those who died all over the world in the Second World War and to those who died in Korea on behalf of the United Nations, perhaps the best way we can remember them and honour them, and honour and remember their families, their children and their widows is by doing more in our own lives and in our own generation to make sure quite simply that it never happens again.

Indeed, as we speak, wars are going on all over the world, wars as destructive in their way as the wars that were fought by Canadians some 60 or 70 years ago and some 40 years ago. Through our international work we have to do whatever we can to make them stop and to make nations finally realize that nothing is gained by this needless and useless sacrifice of human life.

I firmly believe, as firmly as I believe anything in this world, that the best way for us to pay tribute to those in this country who have died is for us to do everything we can in our own lives and in our generation to see that it never happens again.

Mr. Speaker: It seems to me it would be appropriate if we were to observe one minute's silence in remembrance of those who gave their lives for the benefit of all of us, and more particularly for those of us in this chamber, who enjoy parliamentary democracy.

Please rise with me and observe one minute's silence.

The House observed one minute's silence.

14:02

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

SERVICES EN FRANÇAIS

M. Guindon: Monsieur le Président, permettez-moi de vous dire, en tant que député de Cornwall, combien je suis fier de constater que le projet de loi 8 arrivera enfin après tant de retard et de remises en question.

Cette loi viendra enfin consacrer des pratiques qui étaient devenues courantes sous le régime Davis. Nous avons bâti, petit à petit, brique par brique, une maison dont nous sommes fiers, et le projet de loi 8 représente la consécration de cette oeuvre.

Nous reconnaissons toutefois qu'il ne faut pas s'attendre à ce que tout soit en place dès que l'encre du document officiel sera séchée. Nous savons qu'il reste beaucoup plus à faire et nous désirons en avoir l'assurance formelle. C'est pour cette raison que nous du Parti conservateur demandons un amendement réduisant à deux ans, plutôt que trois ans, le délai de mise en oeuvre des services.

Nous demandons également que le mandat des quatre personnes nommées à la commission soit permanent. La présence des quatre permanents au sein de cette commission donnera au gouvernement plus de chance de faire tout ce qui doit être fait dans le cadre des échéanciers prescrits.

En tant que francophone, je suis fier et j'espère que les efforts seront mis de l'avant afin que tous les Franco-Ontariens puissent, dans les délais prévus, avoir accès aux services promis. Au fait, je ne fais pas qu'espérer, j'attends y veiller avec diligence, car comme nous le disons si bien chez nous: chose promise est chose due. Merci.

CASE OF HARRY KOPYTO

Ms. Gigantes: Lawyer Harry Kopyto has been charged, convicted and sentenced for contempt of court by scandalizing the court. His crime was to tell a reporter in florid, everyday language that our courts favour the testimony of police officers and support their behaviour and misbehaviour as opposed to the testimony and rights of other citizens.

The Attorney General (Mr. Scott) decided Mr. Kopyto had threatened the administration of justice. He had Mr. Kopyto charged. Justice Montgomery heard the case in the Supreme Court of Ontario. The defence was not permitted to have witnesses speak to the validity of Mr. Kopyto's statement. Justice Montgomery said in judgement, "The Crown did not doubt the sincerity of Mr. Kopyto. Indeed, no one doubted the sincerity of his desire to right social injustice. What is objected to by the Crown is the hyperbolic and value-laden language and tone used by Mr. Kopyto." He said later, "I find his words were spoken from anger, not conscience."

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers who performed dirty tricks in Ontario have never been punished by our courts. The Attorney General has seen fit to have court punishment meted out to a lawyer who, in conscience, expressed anger about that fact. The Attorney General is guilty of contempt for free speech. He has scandalized the public's belief in the value of truth and justice.

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

Mr. Stevenson: This is entitled The Search for Farming's Tomorrow.

As one soap opera comes to an end, another is in great disorganization. Our Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) refers to himself as the king in the castle, and when he parades in his kingdom, he is known as Cadillac Jack.

In an early episode in his reign, the king stated, "I am in the driver's seat now," and he appealed to those in his kingdom to jump on and enjoy the ride. In another episode, a group of fruit farmers from Niagara had their crops destroyed by hail. The king appeared in his tower with his wizard and shouted to the farmers to go back to the fields because the crops in other regions of the kingdom were adequate for his needs.

In the latest episode, the council of the township of Stanley in the Huron-Middlesex part of the kingdom has asked for disaster relief in the light of the inadequacy of the king's crop insurance program, but the request did not go to the king, it went to his federal counterpart.

Oh, the suspense and suspicion. Will the king get his part of the $6 billion of massive new revenues his Treasurer has raised in the kingdom in the past two years to help the farmers near Varna? Will the king get part of the $400-million windfall in the past six months, or will the king go out on a trip to Atlanta with his queen? Stay tuned, as we search for farming's tomorrow.

ROYAL CANADIAN LEGION

Mr. Philip: During the next few days, most members will be participating with members of the Royal Canadian Legion and other constituents in services remembering those heroic people who sacrificed their lives to protect our democratic way of life.

The Canadian Legion was established in 1925 and incorporated in the following year. It is well to note that for 60 years members of the Royal Canadian Legion have worked for justice on behalf of all citizens. In 1929, the legion sought a minimum wage for all Canadian workers, and the following year its protests resulted in the cutting of the veteran's indebtedness and the establishment of a pension appeal court.

The legion showed its progressive ideals when, in 1932, it developed a concern about the rights of individual privacy. This resulted in stopping the government from its foul practice of publishing the names, the pensions and the details of disability for disabled pensioners. 1n 1938, the legion took up the cause of inadequate low-rental housing, as Canada was the only western country without legislation supporting accommodation for poor people. The following year, thanks in part to the pressure of the legion, free hospitalization was provided for disabled veterans who could not afford it. In 1951, the legion asked for a federal increase of one third in the cost of living for disabled pensioners, which was approved in November of that year.

We owe the members of the legion our vote of thanks for what they have done for people in our constituencies and for what they have done for all Canadians.

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Mr. Ward: For the past 15 years, the people in my community have been waiting expectantly for work to begin on the Ancaster to Brantford portion of Highway 403. I know this has been a matter of great concern not only for myself but also for the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) and the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon).

Over the course of the past several years, this project has been the subject of many promises but little in the way of tangible activity. In 1981, the then minister announced that construction would begin in 1985; yet no funds ever appeared in a capital budget after that. In 1982, it was announced that consultant engineers had been retained and that design work would be done, but as recently as two weeks ago, only 30 per cent of that work had been undertaken and only 20 per cent of the property had been acquired.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I am sure you can appreciate that my community was delighted when the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Fulton) announced on Tuesday that the precontract work and land acquisition for this most important project would begin immediately. I want to express my gratitude to the minister for his co-operation in this matter.

BRAVERY AWARDS

Mr. Bernier: On Tuesday last, along with the Premier (Mr. Peterson), the Lieutenant Governor and many other members of this Legislature, I had the pleasure of being in attendance at the 10th annual investiture for the awarding of the Ontario Medal for Police Bravery and the Ontario Medal for Firefighters Bravery.

Three of the 21 recipients were from the great riding of Kenora. They are Constables Kevin Adam and Grant Robbins, both of the Red Lake detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police, who combined their bravery and risked their lives to save a woman from drowning in Howey Bay, where she had fallen through ice some 600 feet from shore, and Corporal Steven Perrow, also of the Red Lake detachment of the OPP and formerly of the Campbellford detachment, who, without heed for his own welfare, entered the second floor of a burning building and dragged an elderly lady to safety.

It is very fitting that these outstanding individuals should be recognized this week, the week of a visit from another outstanding, determined and dedicated Canadian, Rick Hansen. All are heroes in their own right.

14:10

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

OUTSTANDING DISABLED ATHLETE OF THE YEAR AWARD

Hon. Mr. Eakins: This has been a truly incredible year of achievement for Ontario's disabled athletes. Our disabled athletes have participated in more than a dozen national and international games and have brought home scores of awards and medals. This month all of Ontario welcomed Rick Hansen, Canada's greatest wheelchair athlete. It is in recognition of such outstanding achievement by our disabled athletes that I am pleased today to announce a newly created and specially designed award to honour Ontario's Outstanding Disabled Athlete of the Year.

The Ministry of Tourism and Recreation honours Ontario's finest athletes at our annual sports awards banquet. This coming April, Ontario will recognize an Outstanding Disabled Athlete of the Year. Subsequently, our government will present a cheque for $5,000 to the Office of Sports for the Physically Disabled to increase participation in the discipline from which the winner is selected.

In Ontario we are privileged to have high achievers in all sports, including sports for the disabled. The Office of Sports for the Physically Disabled co-ordinates programs for amputee and blind athletes as well as for cerebral palsy athletes and for wheelchair sports.

This year Ontario's provincial representatives in disabled sports took many of the top awards at the world championships in athletics and swimming in Sweden, at the Stoke-Mandeville Wheelchair Games in England and at the World Cerebral Palsy Championships in Belgium. Our top wheelchair athletes are now in Puerto Rico, competing in the Pan-Am Wheelchair Games.

Nominations for the new award will be handled by the Office of Sports for the Physically Disabled, a recognized sports governing body of Ontario. They will present a list of nominees to a selection committee designated by the Sport Achievement Award program. That committee will select the outstanding disabled athlete.

Through our Sport Achievement Award program, we award special certificates to Ontario's top athletes in provincial, national and international competition. Therefore, we have a system in place and readily available for use in identifying nominees for the new award.

Many of us can recite the names of past recipients of Ontario's Outstanding Athlete of the Year award, people such as Ben Johnson, Susan Nattras, Alex Baumann and Kathy Kreiner. Through the creation of this new outstanding athlete award, more Ontario athletes, disabled athletes, will become household names as well.

As we watch the outcome of the Ontario Winter Games in Thunder Bay this coming March, we will see disabled athletes taking part in alpine events. We will have the opportunity to see more of our disabled athletes in action at the Provincial Games for the Physically Disabled in North York next August, and at the Canada Games for the Physically Disabled in Brantford, also next August.

At events such as these, the nominees for future Outstanding Disabled Athlete of the Year awards will emerge. I look forward with great anticipation to next April at the sports awards banquet, when it will be my privilege to present the first Outstanding Disabled Athlete of the Year award in Ontario.

HOSPITAL FUNDING

Hon. Mr. Elston: I would like to announce details of the 7.4 per cent or $345-million increase in spending for Ontario hospitals in fiscal year 1987-88 that the Treasurer reported on Monday.

In keeping with this government's commitment to provide great certainty in financial planning, I am pleased to announce that all Ontario hospitals will receive the four per cent increase that was announced last year. We will provide an additional 3.4 per cent or $159-million increase to recognize growth in hospital programs. This will bring total hospital operations spending by my ministry to approximately $5 billion.

The additional funds will be used to support new hospital programs that are scheduled to begin in the next fiscal year. When fully operational, the cost of these programs is projected to total some $100 million.

This money will also be used to fund projects that were started in 1986-87. It will bring into full operation hospitals that were opened this year and it will help alleviate the pressure of work load increases in hospitals having to treat more patients.

These funds will sustain growth in valuable life-support programs in designated hospitals, programs such as renal dialysis, cardiovascular surgery, perinatal health, intraocular implants, chemotherapy and total parenteral nutrition.

Our small hospitals will also be helped. Hospitals with fewer than 50 beds will receive an additional one per cent in their budget.

I am especially happy to announce that a provision is being made to recognize the impact on hospital costs with the introduction of nonionic contrast media. These special dyes are used for diagnostic purposes in X-rays and have greatly helped reduce discomfort and negative side-effects for patients who require their use, but they are more expensive than traditional dyes. I have requested that the Ontario Hospital Association and the Ontario Council of Administrators of Teaching Hospitals meet with my ministry to develop a plan to allocate these funds.

In addition to the increases I have announced in hospital funding, I am pleased to report an average 6.8 per cent increase in spending for the 43 health units providing services across the province. This increase includes a four per cent basic-allocation increase as well as additional funds to continue implementing core programs.

These core programs, made mandatory under the Health Protection and Promotion Act, are being phased in gradually for all health units across the province. The first phase includes community sanitation, communicable disease control, family health services, nutrition, preventive dentistry, school health services and public health education.

I believe the $130.5 million in funding made available this year for health units will permit them to provide the necessary and valued public health services to their communities. This early indication of funding increases will assist in the process of effective local planning and management.

This budget demonstrates the commitment of our government to recognize new priorities for growth and enhancement of our system. We are ensuring that the health care system of this province remains a quality service.

Mr. Andrewes: With respect to the announcement by the Minister of Health today, the minister may argue -- and it is the only thing he can argue -- that the timing of his announcement allows hospitals to do some better planning, but all it does is give those hospitals more time to plan how they will deal with the economic problems he is going to leave them with. If he is looking for accolades, perhaps he should talk to Peter Wood, a spokesman for the Ontario Hospital Association, who said they are expecting a $100-million deficit by the end of the budget year. The 7.4 per cent increase pales beside the 8.7 per cent hike offered in 1985. This is the lowest percentage increase in nearly a decade. Even during the depths of the recession in the early 1980s, governments were able to find greater funds to fund our hospitals.

Where is the minister's commitment to the expanding role for community hospitals, to respite care for the elderly and Alzheimer's victims and to the role of hospitals in health maintenance programs? With respect to his announcement on boards of health, where is his emphasis on wellness? Where is his emphasis on sickness prevention, an expanded role for boards of health, an expanded dental program for the young and the elderly, outpatient programs for those afflicted with mental illness and wellness education in our school system? Tax windfalls are not to be sheltered for election announcements. Tax windfalls are to be applied where they are needed, and they are needed now.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I appreciate the minister's statement, although I think the statistics and the grant increases he announced show more clearly than anything else can what is wrong with our health care system. An increase of 7.4 per cent, or $345 million, will go to our hospitals, while at the same time our public health units, which are the basic, major clinics available to promote public health and prevention of illness, will receive 6.8 per cent. Their total budget is $130 million. The imbalance shows clearly. A couple of weeks ago we had announcements of the integrated home care program. The total amount of money being spent on that program is just over $20 million. We are talking of an increase of about 20 times that amount of money going to hospitals alone.

If we are to make changes in our health care system and if we are to progress to a true health promotion system and not an illness treatment system of health care, we are going to have to start shifting some of those priorities and resources. To continue to throw this kind of money into hospitals, while at the same time not providing enough money to integrated home care programs, public health, community health centres, health service organizations and those types of progressive new programs, is going to mean that eventually the health care system will go broke and we will all be losers.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Hon. Mr. Wrye: One of the major responsibilities of the Minister of Labour of Ontario is to help ensure that illness and injury to workers at work are prevented and that worker health and safety at work are protected.

As far as this Minister of Labour is concerned, the assurance of occupational health and safety is a mission. As far as this Minister of Labour is concerned, this mission is driven by a vision. In the past 18 months, that vision has been manifested by unqualified action.

The policy on the issuance and enforcement of orders under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and regulations has been revamped. The prosecution policy has been rewritten. New resources have been dedicated to the administration of the law, such as the new construction inspectors and new legal branch staff I announced here yesterday. The number of requests by ministry inspectors for prosecutions has risen sharply. A comprehensive review of the act and regulations is being conducted and they will be amended.

Legislation requiring that workers and the community at large have access to specific and pertinent information about potentially hazardous agents in the work place has been introduced. The government has participated, actively and positively, in the federal-provincial-territorial effort to establish a national, work-place hazardous materials information system so that workers everywhere in Canada will have available to them information to help ensure their health and safety.

At the end of this month, I will be meeting in Quebec City with my federal and provincial counterparts responsible for occupational health and safety to put the final touches on implementing WHMIS. Then Ontario will move on its own right-to-know legislation. In short, the government has instilled Ontario's occupational health and safety system with fresh vigour and momentum.

Today I announce a new measure that will give even sharper focus and meaning to the law that is designed to help ensure worker health and safety on the job. The Lieutenant Governor has signed a new regulation under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. It will take effect on Saturday, December 6, 1986. The new regulation is entitled "the regulation respecting the control of exposure to biological or chemical agents."

The current Occupational Health and Safety Act and the regulations have lacked the precision the government requires if it is to prosecute with even greater success. That is why this new regulation has been created. For the first time in Ontario, we will now have a regulation that sets out a legal listing of more than 600 agents of concern to workers and places specific legal limits on work place exposures of those agents.

We will now have a regulation that requires employers to reduce exposures through their use of engineering controls such as ventilation. We will now have a regulation that places major limitations on the circumstances in which employers may forgo engineering controls and, as an alternative, provide protection for employees for personal protective equipment such as respirators. We will now have a regulation that reduces the time for calculating compliance with the chemical exposure limits that are established. In short, we will now have a new means for enforcing the law with greater clarity and success.

As I said earlier, the regulation respecting the control of exposure to biological or chemical agents will increase the government's chances of succeeding in prosecutions against employers whose employees are exposed to unacceptable levels of biological or chemical agents on the job.

In that connection, let me remind honourable members of the place prosecution has in the administration of the occupational health and safety law in this province. The Occupational Health and Safety Act is rooted in the idea that management and labour at the work place are in the best position to ensure worker health and safety and that they have the primary responsibility for it.

It is the government's job to make sure that management and labour are meeting their responsibilities, that the system is working, and when it is not, to intervene to help set things right. This government is dedicated to helping ensure that the work place parties are assuming their responsibilities and working out their own solutions to their own health and safety challenges. It is also dedicated to helping ensure that the work place parties have a realistic and reasonable opportunity to do the job properly and to adapt to new rules effectively.

The new regulation I am announcing will be introduced in a firm but fair way. While I am prepared to see it introduced sensibly into the work place, I will have no patience with employers who, in our judgement, have all the capacity to comply fully and immediately but are careless, insensitive or cavalier.

As I said at the outset, for me, occupational health and safety is a mission. As Minister of Labour, I have dedicated myself to fundamental and ongoing change in this field. When the law has been violated, this government is prepared to bring its full force to bear upon the work place with speed, with strength, with discipline and without apology. The new regulation I have announced this afternoon will enhance significantly the government's capacity to do just that.

Mr. Gillies: The announcement by the Minister of Labour of the new regulation regarding designated substances under occupational health and safety will have to be digested at length. The regulation is 89 pages long and covers about 600 substances, some of which, I venture to say, are only understandable or even pronounceable by someone with a PhD in chemistry, or possibly Keith Norton. We will be going through this item by item to let the minister know what we think about his regulation.

He has framed this announcement to state that he sees this as "a mission," that he is "driven by a vision" and that "in the past 18 months the vision has been manifested by unqualified action." There has been a fair amount of action, but the minister might want to qualify some of it. Some of the action is an external investigation into the activities of his ministry, which is unprecedented in the history of the Ministry of Labour, and public complaints by members of the ministry inspection staff that they are inadequately trained and equipped to deal with their responsibilities. The minister will be aware that part of the reality of the past 18 months is that the work place in Ontario is not as safe a place as it was even a year ago. Accidents are up, complaints are up and, most regrettably, we see no decline in the number of deaths in the work place in this province.

The minister can do what he can, he can put out statements making it sound like the quest for the Holy Grail, but all it really is is hard work, and the minister should get on with it.

Mr. Martel: I was amazed by the minister's statement that "the Occupational Health and Safety Act is rooted in the idea that management and labour at the work place are in the best position" to protect themselves. It is strange that the minister accepts and presents this regulation when he knows the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists established all the standards without one bit of input by the workers, not a jot. Every bit of it was by company flacks, hacks and bureaucrats. Labour was left out, and my friend knows it.

What is even worse is that the levels that have been established are those that management has been able to reach across the country, not those that affect one's health or safety. The levels are ones for which companies can install the equipment. It has nothing to do with protection of the worker. In fact, it is so bad that they are regularly lowered when management reaches a level at which it can afford the equipment, so it says. That is how the polychlorinated biphenyl levels were established in Ontario. Peter Pelmear sat in his office at 400 University Avenue, and when all the companies got down to 10 parts per million, it was dropped from 50 to 10 parts per million.

The Ontario Federation of Labour opposes this. My friend knows it. That is how much he involves labour. They wanted the Swedish system. It has fewer items, but labour had an input. In this one it is all by the bureaucrats and industry. The minister ought to be ashamed of himself.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I am making this statement in my capacity as the Minister of Financial Institutions.

I wish to take this opportunity to inform the House of the government's response to one of the major recommendations of the Slater task force on insurance. As members know, the Slater task force put forward a wide range of recommendations -- 98 in all -- designed to address the cost and capacity problems in the general liability insurance markets.

At this time, I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Slater and to the other members of the task force for their comprehensive report. I would also like to thank all those who subsequently commented on the report for their valuable contributions. We have reviewed and analysed those responses over the summer.

The Slater task force recommendation that generated the most interest in this province is the call for some form of no-fault automobile insurance. Dr. Slater specifically recommended that the province move to a no-fault or partial no-fault insurance system delivered through private insurance companies and not through the government. The main reason for this recommendation was the task force's concern with the longer-term implications for the equity, efficiency and affordability of the present system and the steady increase in average settlements and awards for bodily injury.

In his report, Dr. Slater argued that the existing tort system does not achieve either its deterrence objectives or its compensation objectives. He pointed out that when a judgement is finally delivered and damages are awarded, there may be no relationship between the severity of the damage award and the degree of fault. Dr. Slater further argued that under the current system, more than half of all modern injuries go uncompensated.

It is worth noting that Dr. Slater did not suggest that a no-fault automobile insurance scheme would lower insurance premium rates. We have not yet received any evidence that a no-fault insurance system, publicly or privately run, would lower premium costs in Ontario. However, it would result in a greater percentage of injuries being compensated and, as proponents argue, it could bring stability and predictability to insurance and reinsurance markets.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Slater's no-fault automobile insurance recommendation has received substantial but mixed responses from various interest groups. Virtually everyone, however, agrees that further study is required before we consider the elimination of the tort system. This government is not prepared to reject or endorse no-fault automobile insurance out of hand. While Dr. Slater put forward a very comprehensive argument for his recommendations, he did not have the time or the mandate to design a specific, no-fault automobile insurance program for Ontario.

The construction of a no-fault automobile insurance program is complicated. It requires much thought and hard work. As Dr. Slater pointed out, it is extremely difficult to compare existing no-fault systems fairly. Unfortunately, it is an apples-and-oranges situation. Distribution and commission arrangements differ. Premium levels, investment policies, reserve policies and accounting policies all vary from one model of no-fault to the next. Claims and risk experience and court awards will differ between jurisdictions, as will the overall statistical databases.

While no-fault automobile insurance may turn out to be the best alternative to the current system, this government is not prepared to make such a move blindly. Before making a decision that would affect every member of the driving public, we insist on knowing whether the benefits of a no-fault system would outweigh the disadvantages. We want to be assured that the compensation to injured victims would be fair and adequate under a no-fault system. In short, we insist on knowing the full ramifications of such dramatic change.

For this reason, my honourable colleague the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) and I have established an independent, one-person task force to examine the tort system of compensation for injury by automobile accident and the consequences of the implementation of a no-fault automobile accident insurance scheme.

The Honourable Mr. Justice Coulter Arthur A. Osborne of the High Court of Justice for Ontario has agreed to undertake this assignment and report to the Attorney General and the Minister of Financial Institutions by November 1 , 1987.

In particular, Mr. Justice Osborne will consider and report on the following: the adequacy, timeliness and fairness of compensation to accident victims under the present tort system; the effectiveness of the tort system as a deterrent in compensation mechanisms; the implications of removing tort liability as a basis for compensation in automobile accidents and replacing it with a no-fault system; the cost savings and effectiveness of a no-fault system for compensation for claims arising out of automobile accidents; the appropriate design of a no-fault automobile insurance system for Ontario, including the effectiveness of deterrence in a no-fault system; the effectiveness of rating systems related to driver performance and standards for ratings under such a no-fault automobile insurance system; the desirability of a modified no-fault system with some form of threshold at which recourse to the tort system would be allowed; the basis for determining compensation for injury or death in a no-fault system; dispute resolution and appeal processes for claims in a no-fault system; the need in a no-fault system for a catastrophic claims fund or pooling mechanism to protect small insurers; private versus public delivery of a no-fault system of automobile insurance, and the role of government in any proposed no-fault system.

Mr. Justice Osborne will have the assistance of an advisory committee that he will establish in consultation with the Attorney General and myself. I am sure Mr. Justice Osborne will receive full co-operation on the part of all government ministries, boards, agencies and commissions, the insurance industry and all other interested parties. If, however, he deems it advisable, Mr. Justice Osborne may request any additional powers or resources necessary to carry out his duties and functions.

Mr. Ashe: I would like to respond to the statement made by the minister, who goes along like a tortoise. He has two speeds: slow and slower. That is the Minister of Financial Institutions, who in this case appointed a one-man task force to look at one issue, although I am not putting down in any way the importance and the relevance of the examination of no-fault versus the tort system of insurance.

He referred to the fact that there were 98 recommendations in the Slater task force, all designed to address the cost and capacity problems in the general liability insurance market. He may feel he has already wrestled that problem to the ground, but the marketplace out there feels he does not even have it down to the level of the ceiling yet. He has done nothing about that. He is looking at an issue that is also important, but people cannot buy and cannot afford their car insurance now.

He quite rightly acknowledges here that even Dr. Slater has not said that examining and going to a form of no-fault system will reduce costs, but there has to be something in the meantime. To have a one-man commission look at this issue for a year is too long. If the minister has any time allocation available to him and the advisory committee he is talking about, it should be sooner. I hope the advisory committee is broadly based, with members from the industry and without, and not all Liberals.

Mr. Swart: This statement by the Minister of Financial Institutions relations on the appointment of another person to study auto insurance has to be the most bizarre statement ever made in this House. It has been two years since this problem arose. Although we prodded him every week, it took the minister six months to recognize there was a problem. Then he appointed the Slater task force and gave it three months. Then there were three months to respond to that. Then there were three months of doing nothing. Now we have another year's postponement before there will be any action, simply because there is conflict in the cabinet and the minister cannot get it through.

How do we know that this appointment, this son of Slater, will be the last study? Will there be a son of the son of Slater at a later point? There is not a word in the minister's statement about the urgency of resolving the horrendous problems. Many of them can be resolved by regulation. He does not even mention the problem of arbitrary cancellation or refusal to renew insurance, discriminatory rate increases applied for frivolous reasons, all drivers in the household penalized because of one driver's record, and young male drivers with good records victimized by rates three or four times the average, and so on.

It is disgraceful that he is not going to deal with it in this House for at least another year. I want to tell him we are not going to let the issue die. We will battle in this House for action on these massive problems now. We will tell the story in this House and across this province that there is an alternative and that alternative is public auto insurance. He is holding the people of this province up for ransom.

VISITORS

Mr. Speaker: I would like to inform the members that we have two guests in the Speaker's gallery. We have the Deputy High Commissioner from the United Kingdom, Nigel Wenban-Smith, and the Consul General, Brian Sparrow. Please join me in welcoming them.

Now if I can have order again, it is time for oral questions.

Mr. Grossman: Forgive me, Mr. Speaker. I am still out of breath from the last statement. I want to commend to you, to the Lieutenant Governor and to the government the option of having the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) read the throne speech.

Mr. Swart: Let me write it.

Mr. Grossman: Make me an offer. We can talk later. You see, you missed your chance.

Mr. Speaker: Now can we get back to questions?

14:42

ORAL QUESTIONS

DEVELOPMENTALLY HANDICAPPED

Mr. Grossman: I have a question for the Minister of Health. The House has been discussing for some days the problems that have been faced in nursing homes, and everyone is well aware of the fact that in certain circumstances the conditions are frightening.

I would like to raise one aspect of this that has not been talked about very much, and that is the fact that there are today 72 developmentally handicapped who are residing in those same nursing homes. The minister knows the problem, and I know he will agree with me that every day that passes when we have 72 developmentally handicapped young people living in, of all places, nursing homes, we have a very critical situation.

Can the minister tell the House when he is going to begin to move these young people out of nursing homes and into places where they more properly belong?

Hon. Mr. Elston: The question has been with us for some time, and the honourable gentleman will know it is one that has been studied for quite some time. Together with the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney), I am putting together a way in which we can address that question.

In fact, my colleague answered a question from the third party last week concerning very much the same issue. He indicated that within 18 months progress would be made; and I think the honourable gentleman would probably like to see us make progress as quickly as possible, as all of us would. I do not think there is any disagreement among us that those people should be moved into other facilities.

Mr. Grossman: We know of the minister's ability to stand up in the House and express concern and assure the House he is worried about it and is trying to do something about it. However, he now has in hand the Touche Ross report of 1984. He has in hand a report of September 1985 from the Ontario Association for the Mentally Retarded. He has in hand the 1986 Nursing Home Residents' Complaints Committee report. Each of these discusses the need to move this problem into the Ministry of Community and Social Services and to cooperate with that ministry to get those young people out. I say to the minister in all sincerity that he has had 16 months. He has all the reports. Days go by when these young people languish without sufficient programs or care.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Grossman: In the past few weeks there have been three deaths of developmentally handicapped young people in Ontario who were living in these nursing homes. Does the minister not agree with me that whatever the bureaucratic problems and whatever the squabbles over money, the prudent thing to do today is to move the children out of the nursing homes while the jurisdictional fight between the two ministries is resolved?

Hon. Mr. Elston: If the honourable gentleman had listened closely to the answer provided by my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services, he would know that he indicated there was no disagreement between our ministries on this point. The reports were available to him, as they were to us. Each of us has agreed that should take place. The minister stood in this House last week and indicated a program was being implemented to move these people from the facilities. This will be carried out. I commend to the member following up on the efforts of my colleague in the Ministry of Community and Social Services and activity in the Ministry of Health.

Mr. Grossman: The response of the minister's colleague last week was that he hoped to get it done in a year or a year and a half. If the Minister of Health takes the position there is no jurisdictional dispute, and if he believes no financial impediment is being put up by the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon), why does he not move today, before there are more deaths, to get the children out of the nursing homes and into some sort of setting until this program can be completed? Why does he not do it today?

Hon. Mr. Elston: The member will perhaps remember some of the statements he made about this in his previous incarnation as Minister of Health. In his sojourn in this position, his concern was never converted into practice. I commend to him the fact that this government converts its concerns into action. I have faith in the activities of my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services to move to implement this program.

We do not require a whole series of reports to pile up. We have been making efforts to implement the movement of these people from those facilities. We are committed to it and it will get done. One of the people who is most in support, as we work in implementing these programs, is our colleague the Treasurer.

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr. Grossman: In the absence of the Premier (Mr. Peterson), I have a question for the Minister of Education. Can he tell the House -- I am sure he will have the answer -- what percentage of total expenditures for elementary and secondary school expenditures the province will be funding this year as a result of the announcements made earlier this week?

Hon. Mr. Conway: On the data we have, the province will be underwriting about 54 per cent of the approved expenditures for elementary and secondary education; and overall about 45 or 46 per cent of the expected expenditure, to which I think the honourable member's question probably makes more direct reference.

14:50

Mr. Grossman: In the middle of the election campaign, on March 29, 1985, under the headline "PC Swindles Students," an undertaking was reported to be given by the leader of the Liberal Party.

The Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) should just hand the minister some money, not advice; that is what we need.

The item said: "Peterson said a Grit government would increase provincial subsidies for local schools from the current 47 per cent" -- which it was -- "to 50 per cent over five years."

Hon. Mr. Scott: Let the member for Don Mills (Mr. Timbrell) ask this question.

Mr. Grossman: We know we are getting to them when the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) tries to get involved.

How can the minister explain the fact that, according to information we got from his staff this morning, the percentage has dropped from 48.7 per cent in 1984 to 46.6 per cent in 1985, and to an all-time low of 44.9 per cent this year, notwithstanding the earlier commitment of the Premier?

Hon. Mr. Conway: What did the Leader of the Opposition do while he was Minister of Education? According to this book, when he was Minister of Education, he spent all his time avoiding the tough issues in education. That is what this book suggests.

What has this government done? Under the leadership of this Premier and with the help of this Treasurer, our government has substantially increased the provincial grant to school boards. Last year we increased the grant by 5.4 per cent, with four per cent inflation. This year we will be increasing the operating grant by six per cent. We have doubled the capital allocation for 1987 over 1985. We have provided specific enrichment for affirmative action, for the computers in education program and for distance education.

We will not be able to turn around overnight the decade of neglect to which the honourable gentleman makes reference, but unlike the Leader of the Opposition, who it is reported in this book took great pains not to take the tough decisions, we are facing the reality, we are committing the dollars and we are making the decisions that are going to provide for excellence in education in this province.

Mr. Ashe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Is it possible under our rules of order to allow Pinocchio in this chamber?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Grossman: The Attorney General will want me to remind the Minister of Education that the people of Ontario are watching this afternoon.

The Minister of Education cannot hide behind Rosemary Speirs or selected readings from political books in Ontario when it comes to answering the basic question. We are not going to let the minister run and hide behind Rosemary or anyone else. My question is a simple one. Notwithstanding his leader's guarantee that in five years the provincial share would rise to 50 per cent, does he think it is appropriate that the Ministry of Education's share of total expenditures should have dropped to 44.9 per cent from 48.7 per cent in the year and a half he has been in office? As the minister, does he think that is appropriate?

Hon. Mr. Conway: At 5:30 this morning, while the Leader of the Opposition was fast asleep, I was at my desk thinking of this question. I want to say to him that after 16 months I am quite prepared to stand on our record. Our record is a record of commitment and of real dollars, and it will not be possible for this minister, this Premier and this Treasurer to correct overnight what his people created over that decade.

In the next few days, when we announce the specifics of how we will double in 1987 the capital allocation made available by his government in 1985, it will be clear to the school boards that, unlike the previous government, this government is putting real dollars to the real challenges in education, and we are prepared to stand on that commitment.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Rae: It sounds as if 1987 is going to be a hell of a year. I want to see the Liberal caucus stand for these answers.

EXTRA BILLING

Mr. Rae: I have a question for the Minister of Health. In his press release on the question of uninsured services, and we have not been in the House together since then, he stated, "I am encouraged by the OMA's position that standby charges and excessive administrative fees are unacceptable."

In a phone conversation with a member of my staff this afternoon, Dr. David Peachey, who I understand is the Ontario Medical Association's director of professional services, explained the OMA's position on standby fees. He said, "The OMA is not opposed to standby fees as Mr. Elston suggests." It is opposed only to "excessive and inappropriate standby fees." The minister has been left out to dry, and I want to ask him a question dealing specifically with that.

Does the minister regard a standby fee of $500 by an obstetrician as inappropriate or excessive? Is $250 inappropriate or excessive? Is $125 inappropriate or excessive? Where are the patients of Ontario supposed to go when they have disputes with their doctors about what is inappropriate or excessive? Why does he not do the decent thing and say that all these additional extra charges are against the law and ought to be ruled out?

Hon. Mr. Elston: I thank the honourable gentleman for raising the question. I have not spoken to Dr. Peachey. It was my understanding that all of us had agreed together that standby charges such as that, which militate against people accessing health care, were not to be tolerated.

I will tell the member what I said the last time he raised the question. I do not think it is appropriate for people who are treating patients who are pregnant and going to deliver children to require payment of standby fees for a delivery. I believe it is part of the service that someone requires when she goes to someone with respect to a pregnancy. I repeat my indication that I do not think standby fees are appropriate.

I will also tell the honourable gentleman that when people have difficulties or problems with that, they know they can come to the Ministry of Health because we will deal with the situation as we are advised of it, and we will assist those patients in those situations.

Mr. Rae: We now have a situation that is even more confused after the minister became involved in it than it was prior to his involvement. We have a letter from the OMA which states for the first time -- and it is not set out in any regulation that comes under the authority of the minister -- that consultations by doctors with other doctors or other professionals are going to be chargeable to patients at the rate of $120 an hour.

Let us take as an example those doctors who are participating in the laboratory-initiated foetal emplacement program, where as we know a charge of $500 is being proposed and has been imposed on patients: does the minister not realize that the doctors could well claim that figure covers simply the kind of consultation they have between and among themselves with respect to the progress of the treatment of the patient?

Does the minister not realize that rather than closing the floodgates, he has opened the floodgates for even more extra billing, more than we have ever seen in the history of Ontario, thanks to his intervention?

15:00

Hon. Mr. Elston: I think the honourable gentleman would like to take credit for the passage of Bill 94, along with all of us here in this Legislative Assembly. He knows we have taken steps to take care of those extra charges that do prevent people from accessing insured services.

The honourable member will know that under the auspices of Bill 94, we do have a way in which we can deal with those incidents where patients have been extra billed. Those situations will be addressed and dealt with effectively under Bill 94. When we have the details of each specific incident, we will send out declarations. Declarations will then be filled in and received by us, and we will reimburse those people who have been extra billed.

The member knows that, and I know that. I would like him to help us get the message to the public that they can come to us, that we will reimburse those people who are extra billed and that we do have mechanisms under Bill 94 with which to process the problems that patients bring forward to us.

Mr. Rae: The minister is making exactly the same speech that he made prior to Bill 94 and that the previous Tory incumbents made with respect to all the issues we raised on extra billing. It is exactly the same statement: "If you have a problem, bring it to us and we will try to solve it." That was the OMA position. That was the position of the member for Don Mills (Mr. Timbrell). That was the position of the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman) when he was the Minister of Health.

We now have a government that says it is going to ban extra billing. My question to the minister is, why does he not do it? Why does he not establish a definition of extra billing which means patients are not going to be hit with additional charges every time they turn around and try to see a doctor in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Elston: The honourable gentleman will know that one of the parts of Bill 94 that formed part of an amendment that was put through this House was the fact that patients do not have to pay in advance -- they do not have to pay until they receive reimbursement from the Ontario health insurance plan -- and there are ways in which patients have independence of judgement. I commend the mechanisms of Bill 94 to the people of Ontario to use to assist them in coming to grips with any incident that appears to be extra billing.

The honourable gentleman will know there are no doubt some creative ways being tried by some members of the profession. We are willing to deal with those when we find out about them. I can tell the member we have had, for the first time, a statement from the association that it does not condone those creative and outlandish situations.

Dr. Peachey may be a particular spokesman. I read the letter from the president, Dr. Railton, and it appeared to be much clearer than that.

Mr. Rae: It is clear who runs the question of extra billing. It is no longer being determined by the Minister of Health. It is now being determined by the OMA, and we know what its position is with respect to extra billing.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Rae: My second question is to the Minister of Labour with regard to questions of occupational health and safety. The minister has made a point in a number of recent announcements of saying how many new inspectors he is going to hire and what kind of crackdown we are going to see from the government with respect to health and safety.

I would like to ask the minister about a particular case, just so he can perhaps put the crackdown that is going on into some perspective. It is the case of Pro Electric in London.

On February 21, 1986, which is while the minister was the Minister of Labour, a Pro Electric employee was critically injured as a result of a fall from a scaffold that apparently did not have proper access ladders and railings. The inspector had issued a stop-work order to Pro Electric on February 12, 1986, for the same scaffolding contraventions; that is to say, nine days earlier. He had also visited Pro Electric to follow up on its compliance on February 19, two days before the accident.

Can the minister explain why, when the inspector wrote a report recommending prosecutions against the foreman and the employer for the critical injury of Mr. Groot, those recommendations were not proceeded with? Perhaps I can draw from that another question: what is the point of appointing new inspectors if, when the inspectors suggest and in fact say a prosecution should proceed, it is the position of the ministry that no prosecutions will be going ahead?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: In the first instance, in general, the honourable member will want to remember that we have had recommendations to the legal branch for prosecution -- that is, recommendations that are proceeded with through the inspectorate, through its supervisory personnel, often through the line branch and to the legal branch -- which in the first five months of this year are 155 per cent higher than in the same period in 1985; specifically, almost 300. We expect that by the end of 1986 we will have recommendations to prosecute numbering almost 700. I am very grateful to the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) for allowing extra resources to be given to the legal branch.

With regard to Pro Electric, the leader of the third party will know that is one case Mr. Laskin is currently reviewing, and it would be appropriate for him to await Mr. Laskin's findings in this regard.

Mr. Rae: In the north we had government by Coopers and Lybrand; now we have government by Laskin. The consultant is going to vary day to day, but we are entitled to get answers from the Minister of Labour for activities that have gone on under his ministry while he was the minister with respect to recommendations made to his ministry. We are entitled to those answers.

I would like to raise another case, that of Mike's Window and Floor Cleaners, again in London. The inspector issued orders and recommended charges be laid after one man by the name of Jeffrey Pritchard fell to his death. That was more than two years ago. Charges were never laid. Two years later, in September 1986, another employee fell while cleaning windows and was critically injured.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: Will the minister explain why charges have still not been laid in this case?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I will have to check into the status of the 1986 case. As I said in answer to the member's first question, the case of Mike's window cleaners is one of what I believe are 27 matters the Ontario Public Service Employees Union raised with Mr. Laskin. It has had an opportunity to review those carefully with him, and Mr. Laskin will have an opportunity to respond.

It is very easy to make allegations of inaction, but those allegations become a little weaker when one looks at the fact that this government has said to the leader of the third party, to his seatmate to his left and to all members of the House that if there are issues in which a member thinks there has been impropriety and misconduct, he or she should bring those matters to Mr. Laskin. I am pleased that a number of people have done so and that right now Mr. Laskin is looking at some 71 cases. I look forward to his report.

Mr. Rae: I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Laskin, as many people do. That is not the issue. The issue is that we have a minister here who is hiding behind an inquiry that is going on, one that does not have the power of subpoena, the power to require the production of documents and the power to demand cross-examination under oath. Therefore, the minister should not talk to me about an inquiry. That is not an inquiry. It is a one-person study that does not have any of the basic legal requirements of any study going on under the Public Inquiries Act of the province.

Can the minister explain why almost 90,000 workers were injured on the job in the first six months of 1986, which is the worst in the history of Ontario? Can he explain why 5,395 orders were issued to companies in 1985 and only 292 charges were laid, with only 69 leading to successful convictions? Can he explain why 85 per cent of the injuries resulting in death between July 1985 and June 1986 have not led to a prosecution? Can he explain why only 15 per cent of the deaths have led to a prosecution?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: There were a number of questions. I will deal with the last.

The fact of the matter is that in some of those deaths, regrettably, it was determined that the worker was at fault. The member knows that, and I know that. Those fatalities are carefully reviewed. Certainly there is no work place tragedy so great as a fatality. All members of the House will agree that, where it is appropriate, a full and vigorous prosecution should commence as quickly as possible.

15:10

We are moving as quickly as we can to a new regime, to a new era of health and safety. I acknowledge that the improvement has not been in every place and everywhere as great as I had hoped. I acknowledge readily that I am as disappointed as the honourable gentleman is, and as every member of the House is, that we have had the accident rate we have had in the first part of this year. I am determined that it is going to go down and that we are going to reverse the trend as quickly as possible. That is why we have 13 new safety inspectors for the construction branch. We announced that yesterday and we will be making many other announcements in the months to come.

AGRICULTURAL FUNDING

Mr. Stevenson: I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. What method of allocation maximizes Ontario's share of the $1-billion deficiency payments coming from the feds and what method of allocation is the minister proposing in the splitting of those funds?

Hon. Mr. Riddell: To my knowledge, that decision has not yet been reached by my federal counterpart.

Mr. Harris: What are you proposing? It is a simple question.

Hon. Mr. Riddell: When I answered the question earlier in the week or last week, when the same question was asked, I indicated that the deputy ministers had met in Ottawa and that they had come to an agreement that the allocation would be on the basis of the tons of crops produced in each province. I do not know whether Mr. Wise is giving any consideration to that decision, but we feel it is the fairest way of allocating that $1 billion throughout the country.

Mr. Stevenson: As a result of the United States Food Security Act, the total loss to farmers is estimated at close to $3 billion. Will the minister be doubling the federal funds in the allocations to Ontario farmers?

Hon. Mr. Riddell: No, we will not be doubling the funds, but if the member cares to look at the figures, he will find that throughout the country we are not too far off the $4 billion that the Ontario Institute of Agrologists recommended in its report by way of subsidy to farmers. If the member looks at the programs we have introduced in this province, he will find we have spent about $400 million to subsidize farmers in one way or another. If other provinces do the same and we add the $1 billion from the federal government, the member will find we are not very far off the $4 billion the OIA reported was needed for the farmers of this country. He should take a look at the figures.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Martel: I have a question for the guardian of the swamp regarding Queen's University.

Mr. Speaker: Which minister?

Mr. Martel: Pardon me; the Minister of Labour.

On November 25, 1985, a cleaner at Queen's University was critically injured when he fell through a skylight he was cleaning. The inspector found the university failed to provide the cleaner with a fall-arresting device. On December 3, the inspector issued orders and recommended charges be laid. After the ministry held a mediation meeting with the university, which should not have been held, the charges were dropped. On April 15, the legal branch was told not to proceed with the prosecution. Can the minister tell us why the ministry failed to prosecute the university when, as a result of its negligence, a man was critically injured?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: We can go through the list. We can go through all 71 and the answer is going to be the same. This answer is that this is a matter being looked at by Mr. Laskin. We take these matters very seriously. The last information I have is that of the 71 matters -- I believe 72 matters -- Mr. Laskin has already written up his findings on 45 to 50. I believe he feels he has disposed of most of them. We are quickly reaching a conclusion. I will share the results of the Laskin findings with my honourable friend and with all members of the House. I will lay them on the table and we will see at that time. I remind my honourable friend that all the facts he puts out are allegations and these allegations are unsubstantiated by those who might have a different point of view.

I hope my friend will be fair-minded enough, as I know he is, to wait until all matters are laid forward to see whether there has indeed been something improper there.

Mr. Martel: The minister does not want to answer the question, but I have the documentation on these cases, and it is his responsibility as minister to get up here and answer them and not try to hide behind Mr. Laskin, who is doing a little private inquiry on the minister's behalf.

Does the minister not realize that in 62 per cent of the cases being handled by his ministry charges were withdrawn either through plea bargaining or through decisions of his ministry not to proceed? Can the minister explain why the ministry bargained with the university instead of prosecuting in this case?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: We are going to let Mr. Laskin provide answers and the appropriate response to that, but I say to my friend who keeps making comments about a private little inquiry that the inquiry and the method we have set up to respond to allegations, which this minister and this government take very seriously, and many of which are years old, is endorsed by a lot of people, including the president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, the head of the Canadian Auto Workers and the head of the United Steelworkers, District 6. I just remind my friend of that.

Mr. Martel: You will not answer the question. You do not have the courage.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

PROVINCIAL SYMBOL

Mr. Rowe: I have a question for the acting Chairman of the Management Board. Can he tell this House why in April 1986 his government commissioned a study that has or will cost Ontario's taxpayers between $30,000 and $40,000, to make recommendations regarding the need for new government symbology, thus doing away with the official government symbol, which is the provincial flower, the trillium?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I really am not aware of such a study. The member will remember with great pleasure the publication of the Province of Ontario Financial Report 1986 with that beautiful red trillium on the front. I can assure him there is no thought of abolishing the trillium as a provincial symbol. I will, however, inquire at Management Board about the review the honourable member is waving around.

Mr. Rowe: On page two of the report it says, "and to make recommendations regarding the need for new symbology for the province."

I would like to take the acting chairman through a short history lesson. He will no doubt recall a provincial Premier named Mitch Hepburn and a registrar named Harry Nixon. The year was 1937. The trillium was adopted as the official provincial flower. I say to the acting chairman that it was good enough for his father and it has been good enough for the people of this province for 49 years. Why has his government squandered $40,000 in an attempt at the most crass political move that has been seen in the history of this House?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The honourable member's great-grandfather was the Leader of the Opposition in those days and a very fine one he was. He was the only Leader of the Opposition in the Tory party who never became Premier -- until now.

The member's party knows all about symbology. I have never heard that word before, but is it not a beautiful one? The member and his colleagues have adopted the symbols of the provincial rock, the provincial tree, the provincial bird and the provincial insect; they are all there.

We have many symbols on which we can draw on a wide spectrum, that were approved by the honourable member and his colleagues in the dying months of that unlamented government. The member has asked for some details about a report, and as acting Chairman of the Management Board I will provide them.

15:20

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Martel: This may come as a surprise, but I have another question for the keeper, the guardian. Is the minister aware that charges were laid against Adanac Lock and Safety and Wajax Industries Ltd. because of the fatality involving a worker installing a bank vault in Mississauga in 1985? The court date was set for the --

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is a point of order. Is this question to the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) or to the Minister of Labour?

Mr. Martel: The keeper of the swamp. I apologize, Mr. Speaker. It is to the Minister of Labour.

An hon. member: There is only one swamp, is there not?

Mr. Martel: I thought there was only one swamp, but if there are two that is a new discovery.

Mr. Foulds: The Treasurer is in a different swamp.

Mr. Martel: Is the Minister of Labour aware that charges were laid against Adanac Lock and Safety and Wajax Industries Ltd. because of the fatality of a worker installing a bank vault in Mississauga in May 1985? The court date was set for December 1985, but the ministry prosecutor did not inform the inspector of the trial date and the prosecutor failed to appear. New charges were laid in January, but Adanac appealed on the ground that the nonappearance of the prosecutor from the Ministry of Labour prevented further proceedings against the company and the judge dismissed the case.

Can the minister tell me why the prosecutor failed to appear at that hearing?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I am aware that my friends in the third party have now raised five of the 71 cases. I am also aware of the details of the allegation, which were provided by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union to Mr. Laskin. I had a chance to read the OPSEU brief carefully and, as did my friend, I read a number of the cases with a great deal of concern and worry about the allegations.

Some of the issues that were raised were deeply troubling. Nevertheless, given the very high quality, the outstanding reputation and outstanding abilities of Mr. Laskin, since the government had put in place an inquiry to have Mr. Laskin investigate these and others, I felt it was appropriate to allow the inquiry to take place rather than fully investigating them myself.

I note the leader of the third party speaks very highly of Mr. Laskin, and it is appropriate for him to do so. I am sure Mr. Laskin will get to the bottom of this case, as he will some of the others.

Mr. Martel: We are not being critical of Mr. Laskin; so get off it. Simply put, the question was, why did the prosecutor not appear?

Let me ask another question about a similar case. An inspector of a company called Deep Foundations investigated an incident and recommended charges. Charges were laid and, again, no ministry prosecutor appeared and the charges were dismissed. The minister can hide behind Laskin all he wants. I want to know why the ministry prosecutor did not show up in two cases. The minister does not have to hide behind Laskin to tell us that.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I regret my honourable friend appears to believe there is some difference of opinion between us.

Mr. Rae: There certainly is.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I do not think there is. I have every bit as much a concern and deep regard for the health and safety of workers in the work places of Ontario as does my friend, as does any member of that party --

Mr. Rae: The minister does not know what he is doing.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: -- including the leader of the third party, who continues to make those kinds of comments.

The matter of Deep Foundations again raises a very serious concern. I think the member might applaud the fact that this government has put in place an individual who will not only check to see whether there is impropriety but also put in place the kinds of mechanisms that will ensure in the future that we will not have these problems.

The prosecutions, when appropriate, are carried forward in an appropriate and timely fashion.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

ROBERT SMART CENTRE LABOUR DISPUTE

Mr. Cousens: I have a question for the Minister of Community and Social Services pertaining to children. Our leader asked a question about the 72 developmentally handicapped children in nursing homes. There was no answer there. I hope there is an answer from the minister on this important question.

Hon. Mr. Elston: The member is wrong again.

Mr. Cousens: There have been no answers all afternoon, and the people of Ontario are beginning to be concerned. The question is a simple one. What action, if any, is the minister or his ministry taking to help resolve the month-long strike at the Robert Smart Centre in Ottawa?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: Our prime concern in that strike, as in any others, is the safety of the children. That is being looked after by supervisory staff of Robert Smart and monitored on a daily basis by the staff from my Ottawa area office. We are assured that the children and their needs are being handled. Some of them are being handled at the Robert Smart Centre; some have been returned to their families; and some are being dealt with at the Royal Ottawa Hospital. That is our responsibility. It is not our responsibility to intervene directly in the negotiations.

Mr. Cousens: That is unsatisfactory. We are talking about a very serious strike in Ottawa, dealing with a centre where there is a 40 per cent staff turnover a year; we are talking about staff who are receiving below-average wages; we are talking about a high-risk environment and now a month-long strike. Five of seven group homes are closed down. We are talking about seven children who were previously under the care of the centre and now it is not known where they are.

How many children does it take for the ministry to get involved? Seven times seven times seven? How long is the minister going to wait before he is going to do something to help those children? He has lost out on the money from the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon). Why does the minister not start getting some money to put in that place, which is 95 per cent funded by his ministry?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: To the best of my information, it is not correct that there are any children, including seven, whose whereabouts are not known. My area office knows where each of those children is. They are in their homes, at the Robert Smart Centre or at the Royal Ottawa Hospital. In each case, his or her welfare, progress and needs are being met by competent professionals. I am not and cannot intervene in a strike where there is an independent, autonomous board that has received a funding allocation from my ministry and that must decide in negotiations with its employees how those funds will be distributed.

DOWNSVIEW REHABILITATION CENTRE

Mr. McClellan: I have a question for the Minister of Labour, who will recall that on October 15 the Workers' Compensation Board established a commission of inquiry into the Downsview rehabilitation centre as a result of charges that were made by Ray Lebert of Local 444 of the Canadian Auto Workers, charges involving inadequate patient activity, professional misconduct, including sexual abuse by staff, professional incompetence and inadequate administrative procedures at the health and rehabilitation centre in Downsview, run by the Workers' Compensation Board.

As three weeks are up and the report is due today, I would like to ask the minister why this inquiry into these allegations was carried out by a team which included the director of the Downsview rehabilitation centre, Dr. Ed Kummel, who said on October 2 that he was shocked by the allegations but also said: "A little bum-pinching takes place here and there, but nothing serious. I consider that part of life."

Why did the minister permit this gentleman to undertake this inquiry?

15:30

Hon. Mr. Wrye: The honourable member suggests Dr. Kummel is the only individual involved in the inquiry. As the member knows, the two additional members of the inquiry team are women; one is a board counsel and the other is the human rights advocate for the board. I am told, and it is my understanding, that as recently as last week there were interviews with those who raised the allegations, as reported by Mr. Lebert. We are conducting interviews with the individual patients in Windsor. I hope we will be able to get to the bottom of some very serious allegations. I can only say about Dr. Kummel's comments that they were inappropriate and offensive. I think all members of the Legislature will agree with me.

Mr. McClellan: They were inappropriate and they were offensive. One may say they were sexist, disgusting and degrading, yet the minister permitted this gentleman to preside over the inquiry. My question stands. Why on earth did the minister have so little common sense and so little sense of his own responsibility as to permit this to happen? Why did he attack Mr. Lebert in the Windsor newspapers? The minister is quoted as having blasted him for making one-sided criticisms in the midst of this so-called commission of inquiry. What interpretation is there other than that this is a whitewash and that the minister has no intention of getting to the truth of these allegations?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I am sure the independent, external board of directors of the Workers' Compensation Board, a board that includes the likes of Gérard Docquier, Joseph Duffy and Charles Clark, all of whom my friend knows are outstanding trade unionists, would never tolerate a whitewash. I am sure they will not. The board of inquiry that has been set up was set up by Dr. Elgie, who as my friend knows is the chairman of the Workers' Compensation Board. The inquiry is being carried out into some very serious allegations.

I regret that my friend opposite thinks individuals who go to a place such as Downsview and smuggle in alcohol and trade pills somehow have absolutely no responsibility for those actions. I guess that is the difference between he and I, perhaps between that party and this party, as we take the responsibilities of individuals very seriously.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Gregory: Is there any order in this House, Mr. Speaker? I have a question of the Minister of Revenue, who was lurking under the balcony.

PROPERTY ASSESSMENT

Mr. Gregory: Over the past few days, members of my caucus and I have repeatedly asked the government to release the individual property assessment reports for the 305,000 home owners in Metropolitan Toronto who face increased property taxes. We have yet to receive an acceptable answer.

On October 26, the minister was reported in the Toronto Star as indicating that the government would release the data when Metro council endorsed market value assessment. At the October 28 meeting of Metro council, support for the plan was given in principle and a number of councillors and aldermen requested that the province release the individual property assessment reports.

As Metro council has not only endorsed the plan in principle but also requested the release of these individual reports, when does the minister plan to release this information?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am sure the honourable member, having had responsibility for the assessment policy, will understand that releasing house-by-house assessment data is a matter that could have a negative impact on the assessments as far as the revenues of the city are concerned. It does not affect our provincial revenue in any way. I made it clear that I felt it was not in the best interests of the taxpayers or the municipality to release that information but that my officials were dealing with the officials of the city in this matter.

I am surprised that the former minister raises it again. He must have been in the House yesterday when this was debated and his colleague the member for Durham East (Mr. Cureatz) supported my policy and said he thought it was the right thing to do. Once again, it is difficult to know where the Tories stand on this matter.

Mr. Gregory: I am sure the Treasurer can tell from my question where I stand and what I am trying to get from him. The Treasurer is obviously afraid to release these reports. He knows there is a great uncertainty among many home owners, who fear they will be unable to absorb the increase and will be forced to sell their homes.

We know that 777 home owners in Scarborough's ward 9 will see their taxes increase by more than 1,000 per cent, while 266 home owners in North York's ward 9 will also see their taxes increase by more than 1,000 per cent, or an average of $1,908. Home owners in these two wards and throughout Metro have a right to know how their property taxes will be affected.

Will the minister stop playing Russian roulette with the home owners and give them some advance warning by releasing these reports immediately?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The honourable member should be arguing with the members of Metro Toronto council. I indicated I was not going to force reassessment on the cities of Metro Toronto, and I do not believe the House would have supported such an effort if I had brought it forward. After hours of debate, the council indicated by its vote that it was requesting consideration be given to reassessment. They have not put any immediate time line on it. They indicated that they wanted us to review financing of Metro programs over three years. They want the data available, not on a house-by-house basis but on the basis of regions and classes, which is exactly what we can make available.

I know the member will ask the question on Monday. I do not mind that, because it is his time as well as mine. Our officials in the assessment area of the Ministry of Revenue are dealing with the officials in the Metro Toronto government, and we want to co-operate in every reasonable way we can.

HIRING PRACTICES

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a question of the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of the battery of tests that new applicants for employment are being subjected to at the American Motors (Canada) Bramalea plant? Following a screening by the federal Department of Employment and Immigration, they are required to submit to back X-rays, aptitude tests, manual dexterity tests and drug testing. Does the minister condone this practice, which seems to be leading to an elitist work force in the plant?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I was aware of the proposal by American Motors to do drug testing. The issue that raises is a very complex one, as I think my honourable friend will agree. I notice the president of the Canadian Auto Workers, while he undoubtedly condemned the practice -- and I saw some of his comments -- raised the concern about the appropriateness of drug testing in some extreme cases where health and safety was involved.

I have asked my colleagues the federal and provincial ministers of labour to look at this matter on a priority basis when we meet at the end of this month. I have sent a telegram to Pierre Cadieux, the federal minister, and to Pierre Paradis, the host of the conference, asking that the matter be added to the agenda. It is a very important matter, and I intend to take it up with them. On my return, I intend to raise this matter with my cabinet colleagues.

Mr. Mackenzie: Does the minister not realize and agree that this is a serious violation of individual human rights? It is not voluntary on the part of the workers. The applicants have no avenue of access to the results, they do not have an appeal procedure, they can be vulnerable to the information getting out into the community and being spread and they can be weeded out by something as simple as a curvature of the spine. There is no second opinion, and the company's decision is final. Surely the minister must be prepared to act now and not be firing a battery of wires around the province to decide whether he should stop this nefarious practice.

15:40

Hon. Mr. Wrye: The honourable gentleman raises a very good point with regard to the protections that workers must have. Companies will undoubtedly argue they have a right to ensure that members of a work force, many of whom will be working with heavy equipment, are medically capable and medically fit to do that work.

There is no doubt the matter the member raises is an important one; that is, the right of employees, first of all, to have absolute privacy in any medical testing; and second, to be able to know what the testing showed and to appeal any findings that might be faulty. It would be entirely unfair if a worker who was looking for a job at the new plant or anywhere else were to find he was unsuccessful in getting the job because of some findings which later turned out to be wrong.

I will raise the matter as quickly as possible with the Canadian Auto Workers, which I would have thought would have the matter in hand, but we will look at the policy implications of what is happening at the AMC plant.

LANDFILL SITE

Mr. Dean: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. Can he explain why this government received, last May, the final study of the Upper Ottawa Street landfill site, which is located in my riding in Hamilton, and yet did not release it until Tuesday of this week? In view of that and of the measures recommended by the study to be undertaken right away, will the minister commit to act immediately on the recommendations of the report to protect the residents of this area?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The question should actually go to the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston). I realize he is not in the House at present. I will speak to the minister about the former question.

Mr. Harris: You covered it up. You are the one who covered it up.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member for Nipissing should not make accusations of that kind.

I will be reviewing the recommendations that were made, as will the Minister of Health, whose ministry asked for the report to be undertaken, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye), because there are some occupational health and safety aspects to it, and the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth, because most of the recommendations in the report relate to the region and activities it can undertake. That kind of consultation will go on.

I would be happy as well to receive from the member any suggestions he might have that may be helpful in this instance. I know he has a special interest in it.

VISITORS

Mr. Harris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I would like to introduce members of the best curling team of northern Ontario who journeyed down here today to visit the Legislature. Messrs. Canon, Minogue and Fayerchuk are in our gallery.

PETITIONS

SUNDAY RACING

Ms. Bryden: I have a petition opposing Sunday racing at Greenwood Race Track. It is signed by 131 persons who reside in the riding of Beaches-Woodbine.

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas the Ontario Racing Commission in its hearing into the Ontario Jockey Club application for Sunday racing at Greenwood Race Track has ruled that it does not have the jurisdiction to hear the concerns of residents surrounding the aforesaid racetrack; and

"Whereas many residents have shown their concern with the impact of Sunday racing at Greenwood Race Track on their neighbourhood and have indicated their wish to voice their concern;

"That the government amend the Racing Commission Act to ensure that the rights and concerns of residents in the neighbourhood of the race track and in the surrounding community be considered and protected by the Ontario Racing Commission in setting racing dates, times and schedules;

"Further, that the legislation provide that the long tradition of no Sunday racing at Greenwood Race Track be maintained."

I support this petition.

BOUNDARIES ACT DECISION

Mr. Wildman: I have a petition signed by approximately 235 residents of St. Joseph Island, Sault Ste. Marie and other Algoma district communities.

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and in particular the Attorney General:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the Legislature of Ontario as follows:

"That a complete review be made, including listening to the complete set of tapes of the proceedings of the March 21, 1984, and June 13 and 14, 1984, Boundaries Act decision made by Mr. James N. Gardiner, which adversely affected Mr. D. Nelson."

ORDERS OF THE DAY

House in committee of the whole.

FRENCH LANGUAGE SERVICES ACT / LOI DE 1986 SUR LES SERVICES EN FRANÇAIS

Consideration of Bill 8, An Act to provide for French Language Services in the Government of Ontario.

Étude du projet de loi 8, Loi assurant la prestation de services en français par le gouvernement de l'Ontario.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Monsieur le Président, avec votre autorisation, je préférerais m'asseoir à la première rangée avec trois de mes conseillers.

Le vice-président: Certainement. Faites-le.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Merci.

Mr. Wildman: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I said I was in agreement with the request of the minister, as I am sure all of us are, but I understand it is in order for the chair to ask for the agreement of the House for him to trade places.

The Deputy Chairman: Perhaps you are right. Is there unanimous consent?

Agreed to.

Le vice-président: Tout le monde est d'accord? D'accord.

I have amendments to the following sections: section 1, section 2, section 4, section 5, section 8, section 12, section 14 and section 15. Mr. Guindon has a previous one on section 15a; section 16, the schedule and the preamble.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Je proposerais un amendement au préambule. Je propose que le préambule --

The Deputy Chairman: I am sorry. The preamble has to be dealt with last. Le préambule doit être discuté à la fin seulement.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: À la fin seulement?

Le vice-président: Vous devez commencer par l'article 1.

15:50

Article 1:

Le vice-président: L'hon. M. Grandmaître propose que la définition du terme "organisme gouvernemental" soit remplacée par ce qui suit:

"`organisme gouvernemental' s'entend des organismes suivants:

"(a) un ministère du gouvernement de l'Ontario, sauf que les établissements psychiatriques, les foyers et les collèges d'arts appliqués et de technologie administrés par un ministère ne sont pas inclus, à moins d'être désignés par les règlements en tant qu'organismes offrant des services publics;

"(b) un conseil, une commission ou une personne morale dont la majorité des membres et des administrateurs sont nommés par le lieutenant-gouverneur en conseil;

"(c) une personne morale à but non lucratif ou une organisation semblable, qui fournit un service au public, reçoit des subventions qui sont prélevées sur les deniers publics, et est désignée par les règlements en tant qu'organisme offrant des services publics;

"(d) une maison de soins infirmiers au sens de la Loi sur les maisons de soins infirmiers ou un foyer de soins spéciaux au sens de la Loi sur les foyers de soins spéciaux qui sont désignés par les règlements en tant qu'organismes offrant des services publics;

"(e) un fournisseur de services au sens de la Loi de 1984 sur les services à l'enfance et à la famille ou une commission au sens de la Loi sur les commissions de district pour l'administration du bien-être social qui sont désignés par les règlements en tant qu'organismes offrant des services publics.

"Sont exclus les municipalités, de même que les conseils locaux au sens de la Loi sur les affaires municipales, à l'exception des conseils locaux qui sont désignés aux termes de l'alinéa (e)."

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître moves that the definition of "government agency" be struck out and the following substituted therefor:

"`government agency' means,

"(a) a ministry of the government of Ontario, except that a psychiatric facility, residential facility or college of applied arts and technology that is administered by a ministry is not included unless it is designated as a public service agency by the regulations,

"(b) a board, commission or corporation the majority of whose members or directors are appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council,

"(c) a nonprofit corporation or similar entity that provides a service to the public, is subsidized in whole or in part by public money and is designated as a public service agency by the regulations,

"(d) a nursing home as defined in the Nursing Homes Act or a home for special care as defined in the Homes for Special Care Act that is designated as a public service agency by the regulations,

"(e) a service provider as defined in the Child and Family Services Act, 1984, or a board as defined in the District Welfare Administration Boards Act that is designated as a public service agency by the regulations,

"and does not include a municipality, or a local board as defined in the Municipal Affairs Act, other than a local board that is designated under clause (e)."

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: La modification que je veux apporter, c'est simplement une précision au projet de loi, qui semblait être très ambigu. Les établissements psychiatriques, des foyers administrés, comme je l'ai mentionné, par un ministère, ainsi que les collèges d'arts appliqués, font partie du processus de désignation prévu par la loi. Alors, c'est simplement une précision au projet de loi pour le rendre plus précis.

M. Guindon: C'est surtout pour avoir un peu d'information ici. Moi, j'en ai un amendement à apporter au même article, et je me demande si c'est le moment de le faire ou si je dois attendre.

Le vice-président: Vous pouvez le faire, mais par contre, ce que vous devriez faire, c'est de l'écrire et de me le faire parvenir.

M. Guindon: Vous les aviez tous en fin de semaine.

Le vice-président: Vous l'avez déjà ici?

M. Guindon: Oui.

The Deputy Chairman: He has an amendment.

Proposez votre modification à l'instant.

M. Guindon: À l'instant?

Je propose que l'article 1 du projet de loi soit modifié par adjonction de l'alinéa suivant:

"(da) une université qui est désignée par les règlements en tant qu'organisme offrant des services publics, à la suite du consentement prévu au paragraphe 9(2)."

Le vice-président: Alors, on va se débrouiller, ça ne sera pas long.

M. Shymko: Pendant que vous vous débrouillez, est-ce que je peux poser une question au ministre?

Le vice-président: Au sujet de la modification à la loi?

M. Shymko: Oui.

Le vice-président: Oui, aucun problème. Allez-y.

M. Shymko: Je voulais poser une question au ministre et lui demander si les changements qu'il vient d'introduire viennent de l'intervention de l'Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario et si on ne devrait pas complimenter l'ACFO pour sa sagesse, qui a produit le changement à l'introduction ou à l'explication du projet de loi?

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Que ce soit les francophones, que ce soit l'ACFO, que ce soit qui que ça veut, on travaille en groupe et on ne se mange pas la laine sur le dos.

Le vice-président: Monsieur Shymko, vous avez d'autres commentaires?

M. Shymko: Je voulais dire qu'on les félicite enfin de cette coopération et on indique qu'on accepte cette assistance.

M. Pouliot: J'aimerais brièvement faire écho à ce qui a été dit, même si ça a été fait, vous me le permettrez, Monsieur le Président, avec un peu de méchanceté; c'est le genre d'ambiance qui leur convient.

Mais je voudrais aussi leur rappeler, avec tout le respect qui leur est dû, que même si la patience est une vertu, il s'agit d'être positif, et jusqu'à maintenant, le gouvernement a bien su prendre l'inspiration ou la collaboration où il pouvait.

Il l'a fait chez nous, ensuite il l'a fait chez eux et puis il l'a fait avec les gens qui nous paient le compliment d'une visite, et il le fait aussi dans un esprit collectif parce qu'aujourd'hui devrait être le début des temps nouveaux.

C'est seulement un début. Il ne faut pas se leurrer, mais aujourd'hui, nous avons la chance de devenir comme eux. Aujourd'hui, c'est un jour de fierté collective et de fierté individuelle, non seulement pour les 500,000 francophones; mais ça nous donne à tous et à chacun l'espoir de regarder l'avenir avec confiance. On félicite le ministre et on le prierait de procéder. Nous sommes encore plus impatients.

16:00

Le vice-président: La façon dont nous allons procéder, Monsieur Guindon, c'est que premièrement, nous allons demander au ministre de faire des commentaires sur les alinéas 1(a), (b) et (c). Quand nous serons rendus à l'alinéa 1(d), nous vous demanderons à ce moment-là de faire une modification à la modification du projet de loi. Alors, vous aurez votre chance tout à l'heure. On vous avertira.

Monsieur le Ministre, sur l'alinéa 1(a).

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Pas de commentaire.

Le vice-président: Pas de commentaire? Are there any questions, comments or amendments to clause 1(a)?

Est-ce qu'il y a des commentaires, des questions sur la modification de l'alinéa 1(a)?

L'amendement est adopté.

Le vice-président: L'alinéa 1(b) maintenant. Est-ce qu'il y a des commentaires, des questions?

L'amendement est adopté.

Le vice-président: L'alinéa 1(c).

Une voix: Pas de problème.

Le vice-président: Pas de problème?

L'amendement est adopté.

Le vice-président: L'alinéa 1(d).

Une voix: Pas de problème.

L'amendement est adopté.

M. Guindon: Je n'ai pas de problème avec l'alinéa 1(d). C'est que je voudrais ajouter un alinéa pour les universités et je me demandais si je devrais faire ça à l'alinéa 1(da) ou à l'alinéa 1(f).

Le vice-président: C'est au comité de décider.

Est-ce que vous préférez 1(f)? Auriez-vous des objections à 1(f)?

M. Guindon: Non, je n'ai pas d'objection.

Le vice-président: Alors, continuons. L'alinéa 1(d) a été adopté. Allons maintenant à l'alinéa 1(e). Est-ce qu'il y a des questions et des commentaires, des modifications?

L'amendement est adopté.

Le vice-président: M. Guindon propose que la définition du terme "organisme gouvernemental," à l'article 1 du projet de loi, soit modifié par adjonction de l'alinéa suivant:

"(f) une université qui est désignée par les règlements en tant qu'organisme offrant des services publics, à la suite du consentement prévu au paragraphe 9(2)."

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Au sujet de la modification que mon collègue voudrait apporter, je crois que sa réponse se trouverait à l'alinéa 1(c): "une personne morale à but non lucratif ou une organisation semblable, qui fournit un service public." Je crois que les universités sont incluses dans l'alinéa 1(c).

Le vice-président: Monsieur Guindon?

M. Guindon: Oui, juste pour un moment, Monsieur le Président, pour vous dire que cela va permettre à la loi d'être un petit peu plus claire. Comme c'est là, si on ne mentionne pas les universités, c'est peut-être, à mon sens, une manière de les oublier. Si on les introduit clairement dans la loi, ça va être beaucoup plus clair et elles pourront participer plus facilement.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Sans doute mon collègue est-il au courant du paragraphe 9(2), qui englobe les universités: "Le règlement pris en application de la présente loi et qui s'applique à une université n'entre pas en vigueur sans le consentement de l'université." Alors, je crois qu'encore une fois, ça démontre que non seulement l'alinéa 1(c) inclut les universités, mais le paragraphe 9(2) le fait aussi.

M. Guindon: Je ne suis pas encore satisfait. Même à ça, on l'a vérifié. Oui, nous avons le paragraphe 9(2), qui dit que la présente loi s'applique à l'université et n'entre pas en vigueur sans le consentement de l'université. Je suis d'accord, mais il faut seulement au moins que l'université soit reconnue dans la loi pour qu'on puisse demander son consentement.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Tous les organismes, toutes les institutions sont reconnus, excepté que ça prend le consentement de l'université avant qu'elle soit incluse dans le projet de loi, afin d'offrir des services en français.

M. Shymko: Tout ce que je veux savoir, c'est pourquoi le ministre et le gouvernement hésitent-ils à définir plus clairement le terme "personne morale à but non lucratif"? Ce qu'on essaie d'introduire par cet amendement, c'est la clarté de faire mention d'une institution qui est fondamentale à ce qu'on essaie d'accomplir par ce projet de loi.

Pourquoi cette crainte, cette peur de mentionner l'université dans l'article portant sur les définitions? C'est tout ce qu'on essaie de faire. Cela ne va pas mettre en danger le projet de loi; ça clarifie ce que c'est qu'une personne morale à but non lucratif. Si on demande aux gens ce que ça veut dire, une personne morale à but non lucratif, on ne sait pas ce que c'est. C'est un langage bureaucratique, judiciaire, administratif qui ne veut rien dire pour la majorité des gens. Pourquoi pas mentionner l'université?

Le vice-président: Monsieur le Ministre, vous voulez répondre?

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Oui, je voudrais répondre. C'est clair: le projet de loi mentionne une personne morale. Elle va même plus loin que la Charte des droits et libertés. Alors, si on commence à mentionner tel et tel organisme, il va falloir en ajouter une dizaine de pages de ces organismes-là, et comme je l'ai mentionné tantôt, les universités sont incluses dans le paragraphe 9(2).

M. Shymko: Je demande encore une fois, est-ce que ce serait possible de dire dans l'alinéa, si on revient, si l'amendement 1(f) ne marche pas, pourquoi pas dire -- mais c'est passé, naturellement, l'alinéa 1(c). Mais ce qu'on voulait dire, c'est "une personne morale à but non lucratif ou une organisation semblable, qui inclut une université, qui est désignée par les règlements en tant qu'organisme offrant des services publics, à la suite du consentement prévu," etc. Est-ce qu' il ne serait pas possible d'ajouter que cela inclut une université qui est désignée, etc.? Est-ce que le ministre serait d'accord pour ajouter cela à l'alinéa 1(c)?

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Je répète, une personne morale inclut tous ces organismes-là, et si on incluait les universités dans l'alinéa 1(c), on risquerait d'en exclure, ce qui changerait vraiment l'alinéa 1(c). Alors, non, ce n'est pas acceptable.

16:10

M. Shymko: Je voudrais souligner que la référence à l'université est très importante, si on étudie, par exemple, le rapport qui fut préparé par le Dr Churchill de l'Institut d'études pédagogiques de l'Ontario, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, où l'on parle du rôle très important des universités dans la promotion du français en Ontario.

L'impact des universités, si on regarde les statistiques et le fait que pour les Franco-Ontariens, par comparaison aux autres minorités et au reste de la population, le niveau des francophones dans certains secteurs, par exemple les mathématiques, les sciences appliquées, le secteur de la santé, les arts, les humanités, est moins que la moitié de celui des autres.

Alors, ce qu'on veut indiquer, c'est l'importance que la communauté franco-ontarienne attache à l'université dans le but et l'intention de ce projet de loi et en essayant de clarifier l'article portant sur les définitions, en incluant une université qui est désignée par les règlements en tant qu'organisme offrant des services publics.

Ce qu'on essaie de faire, c'est de souligner l'importance de ces institutions. Cela ne veut pas dire qu'en soulignant une institution, on élimine les autres, qu'on ne veut pas mentionner les autres. Il n'est pas question de préjugés; il est question de souligner l'importance d'une institution qui est à la base de la survie de la francophonie en Ontario.

M. Rae: Je ne sais pas si un compromis serait possible, mais j'aimerais peut-être proposer que le ministre considère -- je ne vois aucun problème. Franchement, on est tous d'accord que les universités, les collèges communautaires et les autres institutions publiques d'éducation et toutes les institutions publiques seront inclus dans la définition. On n'a aucun problème là-dessus. Je ne vois pas d'excuse pour débattre sans fin quelque chose sur lequel nous sommes tous d'accord.

Est-ce qu'il est possible de dire, dans l'alinéa 1(c), que "`government agency' means a university, à community college, a nonprofit corporation or similar entity", ou que "`organisme gouvernemental' s'entend des organismes suivants: une université, un collège communautaire," etc.?

Franchement, je ne vois pas, en tant qu'avocat, où ça pose des problèmes juridiques dans cette situation. On définit plus précisément le problème, et si on est d'accord qu'on veut préciser l'importance des institutions d'éducation, et également des collèges communautaires, eh bien, on peut le faire.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Pour faire une réponse, les collèges d'arts appliqués sont dans l'alinéa 1(a), et je répète, les universités sont mentionnées dans les paragraphes 9(1) et (2). Alors, pourquoi répéter la même chose lorsque, dans le projet de loi, on s'adresse aux collèges et aux universités?

Le vice-président: Est-ce qu'il y a d'autres députés qui désirent discuter du projet de loi ou y apporter des modifications?

M. Shymko: Pour conclure mes remarques à mes collègues distingués non francophones qui sont présents, j'indique que le but de la modification que mon collègue voulait faire à l'article portant sur des définitions, fait référence à une étude du Dr Churchill.

Dr. Churchill is a professor at OISE, and to assist those who do not speak French and do not understand this debate -- they may have problems with their hearing equipment -- I would like to stress that Dr. Churchill says there are some disturbing facts on university participation rates for francophones in this province. These are serious things, and I just do not understand why, were there a reference to "university" under the definition of "government agency," when we refer to "government agency," it would really complicate matters, as the member for York South (Mr. Rae) so eloquently expressed, even by adding community colleges and other institutions.

That is all that is intended. Under the definition of "government agency," we mean universities. When we refer to "government agency," which is referred to constantly in the bill in a number of sections, the minute someone reads the bill and sees "government agency," one immediately knows we are referring to universities.

Le vice-président: Est-ce qu'il y a d'autres députés qui veulent participer aux débats ou qui veulent ajouter des modifications à la loi?

M. Villeneuve: Il manque un mot ici. Moi aussi je dois exprimer mon inquiétude, l'inquiétude de ne pas inclure nos universités, nos écoles, nos collèges. Pour moi, qui n'ai pas étudié le droit, "une personne morale à but non lucratif ou une organisation semblable" veut dire pratiquement n'importe quoi.

Je n'aimerais pas voir une situation où on serait amené dans les cours d'appel pour essayer d'expliquer ce que nous voulons dire par ceci. J'aimerais inclure le mot "université" simplement pour éclaircir. C'est peut-être une des choses -- et je dis ça peut-être un peu en farce -- une des choses que le ministre avait peut-être écrit entre les lignes. Ne le laissons pas entre les lignes, mettons-le sur le papier.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Je crois que mon collègue a parfaitement raison. Les alinéas 1(a) et (c) du projet de loi répondent très bien aux collèges. Cela implique tout le monde. Alors, pourquoi répéter ça?

M. Pouliot: Monsieur le Président, au début j'aimerais que vous -- chose que je ne fais pas souvent; je me force, comme tous les autres, à être à l'ordre. Mais quand je suis arrivé dans ces lieux illustres, cet après-midi, pour prendre part à ce débat historique, j'ai remarqué que le ministre avait quitté son siège habituel, et moi aussi, j'avais l'impression que ça se passait en famille. Mais j'ai oublié une chose.

Le vice-président: C'est tout nouveau pour tout le monde.

M. Pouliot: Quand je me suis levé, ici à l'avant, c'est que noblesse oblige. Puis ayant dit ça, on n'est pas nécessairement en famille. Quand je dis en famille, je dis dans l'ensemble du contexte familial, celui qui convient chez nous où on fait tous ensemble de la francophonie.

Interjections.

M. Pouliot: Ne me forcez pas à dire des choses, mon cher ami de Prescott-Russell, qui quand même seraient regrettables.

Il suffit de dire que le ministre, avec toute la sincérité qu'on lui reconnaît et toute la force qu'il puisse commander -- le ministre est honnête, mon chef, notre Parti, n'ont aucune difficulté; on voit une certaine aisance, une certaine possibilité d'agir. Mais nos amis de droite, nos amis de l'opposition officielle, il me semble qu'ils ont raison. Si le ministre est bien intentionné, et il l'est sûrement, s'il ne s'agit pas ici d'avoir peur, alors pourquoi pas le faire, le mettre sur le papier?

C'est facile. Le ministre nous dit qu'on a tous raison, qu'on parle ici de la même chose. On a l'opinion du ministre. Maintenant nous, ce que nous demandons, c'est une clarification. En toute honnêteté, le ministre me permettrait de demander, peut-être -- on pourrait en reparler un peu plus tard. Il a des gens assez bien portants, et surtout assez bien payés, devant lui. On peut demander l'avis des autres parce qu"on veut l'assurance que le mot "université" y soit clairement inclus et, pour la population, clairement identifié. Pas moins que ça, mais quand même, en terminant, pas plus que ça non plus. Ça ne coûte absolument rien.

M. Villeneuve: À l'article 9, il y a quelque chose ici: "Le règlement pris en application de la présente loi et qui s'applique à une université n'entre pas en vigueur sans le consentement de l'université." Alors, nous pourrions avoir des complications ici vis-à-vis du consentement. Je comprends que le consentement est toujours nécessaire, mais par contre, si on le mentionnait au tout début, on couvrirait ces choses-là.

16:20

M. Rae: Une autre chose à ajouter, c'est que, comme le ministre le sait, j'ai un amendement à l'article 15 sur la participation des municipalités. Alors, si l'amendement que j'ai à proposer est accepté, ça aura des conséquences pour l'article portant sur les définitions, et j'espère que, peut-être avec votre consentement, Monsieur le Président, il sera possible d'en revenir au premier article pour l'adapter aux amendements que j'ai à l'article 15.

Le vice-président: Seulement quand vous serez rendu à l'article 15.

M. Rae: Je veux expliquer que j'ai un amendement spécifique, la participation des municipalités et le droit des citoyens dans les municipalités à commander certains services en français, et ça produira des effets sur l'article portant sur les définitions parce que l'article proposé par le ministre exclut spécifiquement les municipalités. Alors, on devra changer cet article si on accepte l'amendement que j'ai à proposer. C'est tout.

Le vice-président: C'est l'article 15? Quel paragraphe?

M. Rae: L'article 15a.

Le vice-président: L'article 15a. Est-ce qu'il y aurait des commentaires sur la proposition faite par M. Rae?

M. Shymko: Est-ce que je peux reprendre la remarque du député de York Sud, que si l'amendement à l'article 15a a le soutien de la Chambre, il faudra en revenir à l'article portant sur les définitions pour le clarifier. Alors, je suis totalement d'accord que si n'importe quel changement dans les autres articles du projet de loi exige des amendements à l'article portant sur les définitions, on le fera, bien qu'on suive les amendements article par article.

Est-ce qu'on peut avoir votre permission, Monsieur le Président, d'en revenir à l'article 1, s'il en est besoin, si c'est nécessité par les autres amendements?

Le vice-président: Est-ce qu'il y a des objections à la proposition faite par M. Rae? Alors, la proposition est soutenue?

Des voix: D'accord.

Le vice-président: D'accord. Est-ce que ça veut dire tout simplement que, maintenant, on oublie la modification portée par M. Guindon?

M. Shymko: Non.

Le vice-président: On la garde. Alors, ce que vous voulez dire, tout simplement, c'est que nous retardons le vote sur la modification à la modification du projet de loi apportée par M. Guindon. C'est ça? D'accord. Tout le monde est d'accord? C'est que l'article 1, en entier, est rapporté quand M. Rae discutera de l'article 15.

Nous allons maintenant discuter de l'article 2.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Nous avions une autre modification à apporter.

Le vice-président: À l'article 1?

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Oui. "Organismes gouvernementaux" en première et deuxième lignes. Alors, est-ce qu'on retarde l'article 1 en son entier?

Le vice-président: À l'article 1, ça?

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Oui. Est-ce que nous retardons --

Le vice-président: Oui, nous allons le retarder tout simplement.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Très bien.

L'article 1 est reporté.

Le vice-président: Maintenant, nous allons discuter des modifications à l'article 2.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Je n'ai aucune modification, Monsieur le Président.

Le vice-président: J'ai ici un amendement striking out "services" in the first line and inserting --

Les articles 2 et 3 sont adoptés.

Article 4:

Le vice-président: L'hon. M. Grandmaître propose que l'article 4 du projet de loi soit modifié par adjonction du paragraphe suivant:

"(1a) Le procureur général présente à l'Assemblée législative les traductions visées au paragraphe (1) afin qu'elle les adopte."

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Cette modification précise leur statut juridique. C'est une précision.

Le vice-président: Est-ce qu'il y a des commentaires, des questions?

M. Guindon: Pas d'objection.

M. Shymko: Je voulais savoir si on exigerait ça des autres ministères, des autres ministres qui auront référence -- le ministre de l'Éducation, par exemple.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Toutes les lois ou toutes les traductions.

L'amendement est adopté.

16:30

Le vice-président: L'hon. M. Grandmaître propose que le paragraphe 4(2) du projet de loi soit modifié par adjonction des mots "et recommande les traductions au Conseil des ministres ou à l'autorité compétente afin que le Conseil ou l'autorité les adopte."

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître moves that subsection 4(2) of the bill be amended by adding at the end thereof "and shall recommend the translations to the executive council or other regulation-making authority for adoption."

L'amendement est adopté.

Motion agreed to.

L'article 4, modifié, est adopté.

Article 5:

Le vice-président: M. Guindon propose que le paragraphe 5(2) du projet de loi soit modifié par substitution, à "trois" à la première ligne, de "deux".

Mr. Guindon moves that subsection 5(2) of the bill be amended by striking out "three" in the first line and inserting in lieu thereof "two."

M. Guindon: J'ai quelques commentaires. À propos de la loi que nous allons maintenant faire pour les services en français, nous avons déjà fait des études, elles ont été faites par OISE, par le Dr Churchill, comme on l'a mentionné tantôt, et nous savons déjà les problèmes. Attendre trois ans quand on sait où sont la plupart des problèmes, je ne vois pas pourquoi on ne pourrait pas raccourcir ça à deux ans, même à un an: mais on va prendre la route du milieu et on va dire deux ans. Pour le moment, c'est tout ce que j'ai à dire sur le paragraphe 5(2).

M. Poirier: Je trouve intéressant, à titre de Franco-Ontarien, qu'évidemment ça fait longtemps qu'on attend la loi, un petit peu plus qu'un an.

M. Shymko: Ça mérite un discours.

M. Poirier: Oui, voilà, ça mérite un discours justement, mon collègue du parti du goutte-à-goutte, parti qui a eu 42 ans à s'empresser d'amener la loi, parce que nous avons eu un problème, nous avons hérité d'un mécanisme qui n'est pas en place.

Le vice-président: Il faudrait discuter de la modification à la loi.

M. Poirier: On voudrait l'avoir demain matin. Ce qu'il faut faire, si ensemble on va faire un système qui va être effectivement capable de répondre le matin même où un Franco-Ontarien ou une Franco-Ontarienne s'adresse au gouvernement en demandant son droit d'être servi en français, nous avons la responsabilité de nous assurer qu'il y a en place un vrai mécanisme pour répondre à des vrais droits, et non des faveurs, et des privilèges, et des nananes.

Cela étant dit, les députés, qui connaissent bien le système qui est en place actuellement, savent très bien qu'il n'est pas capable, demain matin, et je ne sais vraiment pas s'il serait capable dans deux ans, de fournir un système efficace pour que le francophone parte avec, entre ses mains, les services et le matériel qu'il aura demandés au gouvernement. Et si nous avons décidé que ça prendrait une période de trois ans, ce n'est pas par caprice, ce n'est pas par entêtement, ce n'est pas un luxe, mais c'est parce que nous croyons sincèrement que nous allons avoir pleinement besoin de cette période de trois ans.

C'est avec regret que je dis ça, bien sûr, parce que je voudrais bien que ce soit demain matin. Mais soyons réalistes. Pour une fois, je pense que le réalisme a sa part très intégrale à jouer dans l'adoption de ce projet de loi, et je demande aux députés de reconsidérer cette période de deux ans. Cela ne suffira pas, il y en a trop à faire.

M. Guindon: Juste pour faire un peu la mise au point des choses, mon collègue de Prescott-Russell (M. Poirier) parle de réalité, mais la réalité est que la commission va seulement suggérer; il faudra que le Cabinet l'approuve. Pour que cette loi-là entre en vigueur, il faut que les agences, ou les universités, ou toutes les personnes morales l'acceptent, comme le ministre l'a mentionné dans sa loi. Il y en a qui ne l'accepteront pas dans 10 ans. Il y en a qui ne voudront rien faire de ça dans 10 ans de temps. Donc, deux ans, trois ans, c'est bien plus important de commencer à mettre ça en jeu pour ceux qui sont vraiment prêts à le faire, aujourd'hui. Il y en a. On n'oblige pas tout le monde. Ce n'est certainement pas la loi ici qui dise que tout le monde est obligé de donner des services en français. Ce n'est pas vrai, ce n'est pas dedans. Si les députés comprennent ça, qu'ils fassent signe que oui.

Je ne vois aucune différence parce que plus tard dans le projet de loi, comme nous allons le voir, si on a vu tous les amendements que je veux apporter, c'est qu'on voudrait aussi établir la commission à titre permanent pour la période de deux ans, au lieu d'avoir trois ou quatre membres à temps partiel et seulement un membre à temps plein.

On peut facilement précipiter les choses un peu plus vite, d'un an, sans causer aucun problème.

M. Pouliot: C'est une des rares fois où je suis d'accord avec mon ami de Prescott-Russell, sinon avec le style et la méthode habituellement employés par lui; mais aujourd'hui, la substance lui convient. Moi aussi. ayant écouté quand mon ami encore de Prescott-Russell parlait des gens de droite comme le parti du goutte-à-goutte, je me suis dit: ce n'est pas le moment de se pencher et de parler de l'ancien régime.

Mais, par contre, nous du parti de la conscience sociale, chez nous on sait plus que quiconque ici que la patience est une vertu. On nous a appris - - parce que nous sommes depuis la Confédération, dans notre petit coin, nous sommes si peu -- à attendre, à attendre souvent. On aurait aimé que le mécanisme soit en place demain, le député l'a souligné, ou dans peu de temps.

On s'est dit: est-ce que ce serait un luxe ou une nécessité pour laquelle il faudrait savoir attendre? Je crois que tous ensemble, collectivement, dans une chose qui nous concerne parce que c'est surtout notre affaire, c'est qu'on parle un peu de la même chose. On essaie de créer une situation ambiguë parce que ça nous convient de créer une nuance.

Mais vraiment, quand on nous dit deux ans ou trois ans, on parle de la même chose. Nous n'avons aucune difficulté à accepter la proposition de trois ans et nous nous allions à l'idée que si on a besoin -- moi, je crois que oui -- de sauvegarder, et pour que ça ait l'air qu'il y a du monde, pour que ce soit une invitation à un système stable, bien, on dit, autant que ce soit fait par exemple, prenons l'année suivante si ça nous convient.

Sur ça, et en terminant, c'est à cause de cette substance que nous nous rallions à la position du gouvernement. Donc, nous acceptons trois ans. On aurait préféré deux ans, on aurait même préféré demain; mais on n'a aucun problème avec trois ans.

M. Shymko: Je veux souligner l'ironie suprême des remarques que je viens d'entendre de la part du député de Prescott-Russell. Voilà un parti qui a déclaré publiquement, ouvertement, sa position politique sur la question du bilinguisme, qu'il soutient l'idée que l'Ontario devienne, un jour, une province bilingue, inscrite dans la Constitution, comme le sont le Nouveau-Brunswick et le Québec.

Mes chers collègues de gauche se rappellent très bien cette déclaration répétée: nous visons à en arriver au jour où l'Ontario sera une province bilingue. Voilà une réalité du jour: le parti au pouvoir est soutenu par le tiers parti, qui aussi a comme but et qui a constamment déclaré que sa politique était aussi de faire en sorte qu'un jour l'Ontario devienne une province bilingue dans le cadre constitutionnel, un jour, un jour, un jour.

Mais on parle maintenant, ce jour, cet avenir. Le député de Prescott-Russell dit qu'on doit être réaliste. Il parle de la réalité, et la réalité veut dire la politique: la politique avec un p majuscule, élection avec un e majuscule.

16:40

Le vice-président: Monsieur Shymko, il faut discuter de l'article 5.

M. Shymko: Alors, je ne peux pas comprendre, si en effet on vise à ce but, pourquoi on hésite à donner plus d'ampleur à une commission qui travaillera de façon permanente, pas à temps partiel mais de façon permanente, sérieusement, activement et efficacement à réaliser ce que le ministre mentionne dans sa politique: d'en arriver, un jour, à la réalité que l'Ontario deviendra une province bilingue.

Pourquoi a-t-il peur de le faire dans deux ans? Pourquoi pas donner un peu d'ampleur, un peu de vitesse vers ce but? Vraiment, en réalité, on voulait exiger un an, pas trois ans. Mais nous, nous sommes réalistes. On dit: soyons modérés. Alors, on propose deux ans. Mais trois ans, ce sera après les élections, naturellement. On sait très bien que dans trois ans, ce sera 1989. Mais pour ne pas faire de politique, ce qu'on essaie de faire, par la suggestion de deux ans, c'est de faire de cette commission une agence permanente qui va travailler efficacement à présenter des recommandations, des propositions au Conseil exécutif et, espérons-le, au sein de cette Chambre, et à réaliser les besoins, les intérêts de la francophonie, pour lesquels on se bat depuis des décennies.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: J'espère qu'on a filmé ça, parce que je crois que mon ami vient de gagner un Oscar. J'espère qu'il va se souvenir de ses paroles. J'espère qu'il va pouvoir convaincre ses collègues de penser de la même façon et de voter de la même façon.

Je crois qu'il est insensé de penser à deux uns. Je comprends l'anxiété de mon collègue le député de Cornwall (M. Guindon). Moi aussi, je préférerais un an, je préférerais six mois. J'accepte son anxiété, excepté qu'il faut se rendre compte que présentement, plusieurs de nos services ne sont pas adéquats. Rien n'empêche les ministères qui peuvent offrir des services adéquats présentement de mettre ces services-là en vigueur avant le délai de trois ans; mais pour ceux qui ne sont pas adéquats, on préfère le délai de trois ans. Je crois que c'est rempli de bon sens. Ce serait mal servir la population francophone de cette province que de lui faire accroire qu'on pourrait le faire dans deux ans.

M. Shymko: Je n'ai pas compris ce dont le ministre parlait lorsqu'il disait que ce débat, cet échange devrait être filmé. Filmé dans quel sens? Est-ce qu'on aurait dû filmer ce que je viens de dire? Si le ministre veut dire que les remarques que j'ai faites ne sont pas sincères ou sont contre mes opinions personnelles, eh bien, je voudrais savoir ce qu'il veut dire par "filmé".

Ce que j'ai dit, ce sont des convictions personnelles que je partage avec le Parti libéral et le Nouveau Parti démocratique. Je voudrais citer les remarques qui ont été faites au mois de janvier 1982, au Sénégal, au congrès international de l'Association internationale des parlementaires de langue française, quand j'ai dit ce qui suit: "Pour nous, les membres de l'Assemblée législative de l'Ontario, nous nous sommes efforcés de faire accepter l'épanouissement du fait français à tous les Ontariens et d'appuyer toute politique qui nous mène à ce but. Ce n'est pas la fin, c'est le début vers un Ontario entièrement bilingue. Alors, ce que j'ai essayé de dire --

Le vice-président: Veuillez vous en tenir au paragraphe 5(2), Monsieur Shymko.

M. Shymko: Je veux dire qu'on est d'accord sur le but de ce projet de loi. Ce qu'on essaie de faire c'est de lui donner un peu de force, un peu de vitesse, un peu d'ampleur, un peu d'efficacité en n'attendant pas trois ans de plus, mais en faisant ce qu'il est possible de faire. Il est possible de faire ça en deux ans, de le faire aussi vite que possible.

M. Rae: Ce serait injuste de donner l'impression que si on n'accepte pas la proposition du député de Cornwall, ça veut dire qu'il n'y aura aucun régime pour le présent. Parlons franchement: nous avons le paragraphe 5(1), qui offre certains services dans le présent. Alors, comme réponse à mon ami le député de High Park-Swansea (M. Shymko), tout ce que je peux dire c'est que sa sincérité n'est pas en question. Le député est peut-être un peu trop susceptible face aux remarques qui ont été faites.

Je crois que tout ce qu'on veut dire c'est qu' il y en a dans tous les partis qui sont en faveur, disons-le franchement, d'une déclaration officielle de la part de notre gouvernement que le français devrait devenir une langue officielle dans la province et que nous devrions accepter certains articles de la Constitution du Canada en ce qui concerne l'enchâssement des droits linguistiques dans la Constitution du Canada et dans la Constitution de l'Ontario.

Lorsque j'ai fait cette proposition à M. Davis, il a dit non; lorsque je l'ai faite au premier ministre (M. Peterson), qui occupe d'habitude le siège occupé en ce moment par le ministre des Affaires municipales (M. Grandmaître), il a dit que non, il ne le considérait pas comme quelque chose de pratique. Et s'il veut entendre de ma part, encore une fois, une déclaration claire et nette, il en aura une.

Nous sommes en faveur d'un amendement à la Constitution du Canada en ce qui concerne les langues officielles de la province, mais ce n'est pas la question dont nous discutons maintenant. La question dont nous discutons maintenant en est une de pratique. Le gouvernement a proposé un moyen d'agir, c'est-à-dire une commission qui aura certaines fonctions et un gouvernement qui répondra aussi vite, dit-il, qu'il estimera possible.

Je crois qu'on doit reconnaître, de la part du gouvernement, une certaine obligation. Ils sont, effectivement, le gouvernement. Je ne suis pas tout à fait heureux de cette situation tous les jours; je préférerais être membre du gouvernement moi-même.

Le gouvernement nous dit qu'il y a des questions de détails pratiques. Alors, nous pourrions, nous deux, mettre en vigueur le délai de deux ans, mais si tout ce que ça voudrait dire c'est que le gouvernement nous reviendrait dans un an ou un an et demi pour nous dire que ce n'était pas possible, que ça ne pouvait pas se faire, eh bien, qu'est-ce que nous aurions vraiment accompli?

Alors, je veux dire deux choses au ministre. D'abord, nous voyons ce projet de loi seulement comme une étape vers l'enchâssement du français dans la Constitution de l'Ontario; et deuxièmement, j'espère qu'il va préciser pourquoi la question du délai de deux ans est si difficile et si on ne pourrait pas en arriver, encore une fois, à un compromis qui clarifierait plus précisément le fait que nous voulons nous assurer, aussitôt que possible, que les services seront offerts et que le paragraphe 5(1) sera remplacé par le nouveau paragraphe 5(2).

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Je crois que le chef du troisième parti a toujours parlé sincèrement lorsqu'on parlait des droits des francophones dans la province de l'Ontario. Je le remercie, je le respecte même plus que jamais, surtout lorsqu'il parle du bilinguisme officiel en Ontario. Si jamais l'occasion se présente, je suis sûr que le chef du troisième parti sera le premier à se lever pour porter le drapeau.

16:50

Maintenant, en ce qui concerne l'amendement, je répète que certains services existants sont adéquats; on n'a pas besoin d'attendre trois ans pour mettre en oeuvre ces services-là. Cependant, trop de services ne sont pas prêts, présentement, à être offerts dans un délai de six mois, un an ou peut-être 18 mois. Si nous voulons que les 27 ministères et les cinq secrétariats respectent volontiers la loi, de façon qu'ils offrent des services adéquats en français, le délai de trois ans est nécessaire.

Je répète que si jamais l'occasion se présentait, d'ici trois ans, d'offrir des services acceptables et adéquats, le gouvernement serait prêt à offrir ces services-là en français.

M. Villeneuve: Pour dire seulement quelques mots, 1990 me semble une durée un peu trop prolongée. On sait que dans le monde gouvernemental, à certains moments les années allongent au lieu de raccourcir. Alors, j'appuie fortement l'amendement au projet de loi que mon collègue le député de Cornwall apporte.

Nous sommes à la merci du Conseil des ministres de la province de l'Ontario. Il semblerait que nous ne soyons pas assez sages, assez matures pour pouvoir faire les choses dont nous avons besoin pour devenir maîtres chez nous. Nous sommes 500,000 ici. N'oublions pas que l'ancien gouvernement a apporté le bilinguisme au système d'éducation, au système juridique. J'espère que les députés ne vont pas me demander combien d'années ça fait. Ils vont me dire 42 parce que c'est le seul nombre qu'ils semblent se rappeler.

Mais par contre, ces choses-là sont en place. Alors, ne nous servons pas de certaines situations où on apporte du symbolisme. J'ai été attaqué à certains moments parce que j'avais toujours l'impression que si on apportait du symbolisme, on dirait: vous avez ce que vous avez demandé, symbolique. Allez-vous-en chez vous. Vous avez réglé vos problèmes.

Je dis au ministre: deux ans. Nous sommes assez matures pour pouvoir répondre aux nécessités. Nous avons déjà en place plusieurs de ces services. Pourquoi attendre au-delà de 1990? Il me semble une durée très longue.

M. Guindon: Pour en revenir aux remarques que le ministre a faites tantôt, il parlait de faire des faveurs ou de rendre service aux francophones, mais je crois que plus longtemps on retarde la loi, moins on va donner de services aux francophones; plus on va avoir de jeunes qui vont avoir laissé l'école trop tôt, plus on va avoir de gens qui ont des problèmes avec la loi.

C'est facile de voir que, même au point de vue des services de santé, si on peut offrir certains services de santé dans moins de deux ans, pourquoi ne pas le faire? Nulle part dans la loi dit-on qu'après trois ans, tout sera garanti quand même. Je ne vois pas pourquoi le ministre s'attarde à vouloir rendre la commission responsable d'en venir à une décision dans moins de deux ans. Après ça, c'est son ministère qui prend ça. C'est lui qui devient roi et maître de l'article.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Je répète que, du fait que certains ministères ne sont pas remplis de francophones ou de personnes bilingues, le délai de trois ans est nécessaire.

Pour revenir à ce qu'on disait tantôt, on parlait de gestes symboliques et on ne peut pas toucher à ça. On ne veut pas reculer en arrière, excepté qu'on le fait encore au compte-gouttes.

On veut nous rafraîchir la mémoire. Mais moi, je me rappelle qu'en 1978, un Libéral avait présenté un projet de loi; son nom était Albert Roy. Cela n'a jamais été accepté par les mêmes personnes qui nous critiquent aujourd'hui.

Le vice-président: Questions, commentaires, modifications? Sinon, nous allons mettre aux voix la modification proposée par M. Guindon.

Mr. Guindon has moved that subsection 5(2) of the bill be amended by striking out "three" in the first line and inserting in lieu thereof "two."

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

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the nays have it.

M. Shymko: Est-ce qu'on peut retarder ça, Monsieur le Président?

Le vice-président: Tout le monde est d'accord? Jusqu'à quand?

We will delay it until when? Until the end of the bill?

Une voix: Oui.

Mr. Martel: When we finish clause-by-clause.

Le vote est reporté.

Les articles 6 et 7 sont adoptés.

Article 8:

Le vice-président: L'hon. M. Grandmaître propose que l'alinéa 8(1)(a) du projet de loi soit remplacé par ce qui suit:

"(a) désigner des organismes offrant des services publics, aux fins de la définition du terme `organisme gouvernemental'."

L'amendement est adopté.

Le vice-président: Nous allons maintenant discuter de l'alinéa 8(1)(d). Il y a un amendement de la part de M. Rae.

M. Rae propose que l'alinéa 8(1)(d) du projet de loi soit modifié par adjonction des mots suivants:

"et si elle ne porte pas atteinte à l'objet général de la présente loi."

M. Rae: Cet amendement n'en est pas un de petite importance; c'est un amendement d'une importance assez claire et nette. Le ministre se souviendra peut-être que dans nos discussions lors de la deuxième lecture, j'ai soulevé une question de principe assez importante. Il y avait une différence d'opinions entre nous et le gouvernement sur la question des pouvoirs qu'il fallait donner au Conseil des ministres, c'est-à-dire le Cabinet, et quelle sorte de pouvoir on devait donner ou reconnaître de la part des citoyens, et surtout quelle sorte de pouvoir on devait donner aux cours.

17:00

Eh bien, dans la législation que nous avons, l'article 8 dit clairement que le gouvernement peut, par règlement, faire des changements à la loi qui vont, en fait, annuler les droits reconnus dans les articles 2 et 5. L'alinéa 8(1)(d), proposé par le gouvernement, dit que le Cabinet "peut, par règlement:...

"(d) exempter des services de l'application des articles 2 et 5 si, de l'avis du lieutenant-gouverneur en conseil, cette mesure s'avère raisonnable et nécessaire."

Eh bien, ces mots "raisonnable et nécessaire" pourront être interprétés de n'importe quelle façon par le Cabinet et pourraient, comme je l'ai dit, absolument annuler l'effet des articles 2 et 5.

Naturellement, le ministre se rendra compte que les partis de l'opposition ne sont pas heureux d'une situation où le Cabinet peut, par règlement, changer la loi que nous avons adoptée, et c'est exactement ce qui est proposé dans les règlements. Franchement, je n'ai jamais vu un article de projet de loi qui donnait tant de pouvoir au Cabinet de contredire l'effet d'une loi adoptée par la Législature.

C'est pourquoi je propose un amendement qui est, du point de vue politique et du point de vue de la philosophie du projet de loi, une proposition absolument fondamentale. C'est-à-dire que nous disons que le Cabinet peut faire des règlements qui peuvent exempter des services de l'application des articles 2 et 5; alors, nous allons aussi loin que possible sur le chemin du gouvernement. Mais nous apportons une restriction importante au pouvoir du Cabinet en disant que le Cabinet ne peut faire de tels règlements que si ces règlements "ne portent pas atteinte à l'objet général de la présente loi."

Let me speak in English for a moment. It is a very old battle within the legislative process. Cabinets try to give all their powers to themselves by means of regulation, and parliaments try to get as many things into law as they possibly can so regulation does not have the effect of nullifying, completely and totally, the legislation we have passed.

By sleight of hand, this legislation proposes that the Lieutenant Governor in Council -- that is to say, the cabinet -- can make regulations that exempt services from the applications of sections 2 and 5 where the cabinet feels that is reasonable and necessary. Let us put ourselves in the position of somebody who is or wants to be on the receiving end of services, and the cabinet decides, for whatever reason, that it is convenient for it to do so. That is what we are saying here: it is a convenience test. It is convenient for the government to say, "You are exempted." That is more convenient than it is for the individual. We do not see that this law should be based on a question of convenience.

I urge the minister to accept the amendment, which is not unreasonable. We are not arguing that clause 8(1)(d) should be completely eliminated, which at another time I might have urged the minister to do and which, if I had my druthers, I would be urging him to do. What we are urging him to do is to add a section in which we say, "and where the exemption does not derogate from the general purpose and intent of the act."

We cannot give the Lieutenant Governor in Council such extensive power that it completely and utterly nullifies the effect of the bill. What we have to do is to give to the individual some rights to demand of government those services to which we say the individual is entitled. When one has to choose between the rights of the individual and the rights of the cabinet, we have chosen the rights of the individual.

L'hon. M. Grandmâtre: Je crois que la sincérité du nouveau gouvernement s'est déjà fait valoir et nous avons l'intention de continuer. Alors, voici pourquoi le Cabinet se réservait ce droit, si on peut l'appeler ainsi, un droit.

Il faudrait que le Cabinet, ou le lieutenant-gouverneur en conseil, démontre une raison pour diminuer ou abolir un service en français. En plus, dans le projet de loi, on mentionne que si jamais un de ces services est annulé, le Cabinet doit, par préavis de 45 jours, le publier, et pendant ces 45 jours-là, les opposants, ou ceux qui acceptent ces services, pourront se faire entendre.

Un autre outil c'est l'outil de la commission qui sera en place. La commission doit évaluer et, en plus, faire des recommandations au gouvernement sur ces services-là, et elle pourra les faire publiquement, donc pas en cachette. Si jamais le gouvernement décidait de se dispenser de certains services, il lui faudrait en faire la publication pendant 45 jours, et en plus, la commission aurait un mot à dire dans toute l'affaire.

Le vice-président: Monsieur Rae, vous avez d'autres commentaires?

Mr. Rae: I am not very convinced by what the minister has said so far.

M. Shymko: Mes collègues, les collègues de mon parti, vont soutenir l'amendement du député de York Sud. Ses remarques sont raisonnables, du fait que dans l'alinéa 8(1)(d), on donne au Conseil des ministres le pouvoir, en effet, de détruire l'impact de cette loi.

Par l'amendement qui dit, "si elle ne porte pas atteinte à l'objet général de la présente loi", on protège ce projet de loi contre ce pouvoir. On ne sait pas quels seront les règlements, et comme mon collègue l'avait indiqué, on voit ça toujours dans les projets de loi.

Un projet de loi devient loi, puis on voit toute la liste de règlements, et en les regardant, ça détruit presque la moitié de l'efficacité de cette loi, et même l'objet général de la loi. Alors, ce qu'on essaie de faire par cet amendement, et je soutiens mon cher collègue de gauche, c'est de protéger l'objet général de la présente loi, et je ne comprends pas pourquoi le gouvernement, le parti au pouvoir, l'honorable ministre aura des réserves ou des objections.

17:10

Le vice-président: M. Rae a proposé que l'alinéa 8(1)(d) du projet de loi soit modifié par adjonction des mots suivants:

"et si elle ne porte pas atteinte à l'objet général de la présente loi."

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the ayes have it.

L'amendement est adopté.

Le vice-président: Nous allons maintenant discuter du paragraphe 8(2).

M. Guindon propose que le paragraphe 8(2) du projet de loi soit modifié par substitution, à "trois" à la première ligne, de "deux".

Le vice-président: Est-ce qu'il y a des questions, des commentaires?

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Je pourrais offrir les mêmes arguments encore.

Interjection.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Je parle du paragraphe 8(2).

Le vice-président: C'est le même? Je n'ai pas tout à fait compris.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Le même argument: deux ans à trois ans. Je répète les mêmes arguments.

Le vice-président: Est-ce que la question sera la même?

M. Guindon: C'est la même question qu'il y avait au paragraphe 5(2) et ce sera la même au paragraphe 15(1).

Le vice-président: Voulez-vous voter, ou encore voulez-vous qu'on reporte toutes ces questions-là au vote?

M. Guindon: C'est la même motion, Monsieur le Président.

Le vice-président: M. Guindon a proposé que le paragraphe 8(2) du projet de loi soit modifié par substitution, à "trois" à la première ligne, de "deux". Plaît-il à la Chambre que la motion soit adoptée?

Que tous ceux qui sont en faveur de la motion veuillent bien dire oui.

Que tous ceux qui sont contre veuillent bien dire non.

À mon avis, les non l'emportent.

C'est encore la même chose --

Interjections.

The Deputy Chairman: Five members have to get up if you do not accept it. I declare the motion lost.

Mr. Guindon: How can you lose one and win one?

The Deputy Chairman: There are supposed to be five people. It is up to you. It is your vote: you are the ones who decide. I do not decide.

Mr. Shymko: We have been stacking votes, Mr. Chairman.

The Deputy Chairman: I know, but the thing is that we --

Mr. Breaugh: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I take it that some kind of point of order has broken out here. I understand that you have stacked previous votes, that you have an agreement to stack votes and that at the request of a member to stack the votes, and with the concurrence of others, we traditionally have done that. I have just entered the chamber, but I assume that is what just happened, is it not?

M. Shymko: Lors du débat sur le premier amendement, on a demandé, vous vous en souvenez, Monsieur le Président, de le retarder.

The Deputy Chairman: The procedure is that the question is put for each amendment. We put the question for section 5, and then five members stood up. I asked the same question for subsection 8(2), and only three people stood up. Therefore, the motion is lost.

Mr. Shymko: No. We said, "Stack it."

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could assist you a little bit. The normal process, as I understand it -- and I have been here only 11 years -- is that you will call the vote, you will hear it the way you hear it and you will say it wins or it loses. If there is an agreement to stack votes, someone will make that request, and the formal vote will be held at a later time.

I have never been here on an occasion, when there is agreement to stack votes, where you insist that five members stand up all the time. If you want, we can do that, but it is going to be a slightly longer afternoon than you were anticipating.

The Deputy Chairman: Would you like me to put the question again?

Mr. Breaugh: That will help us out of this one. Thank you.

The Deputy Chairman: Mr. Guindon has moved that subsection 8(2) of the bill be amended by striking out "three" and inserting in lieu thereof "two."

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

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the nays have it.

Interjections.

The Deputy Chairman: Five members have to stand up. Thank you.

Le vote est reporté.

Vote stacked.

Les articles 9 à 11, inclusivement, sont adoptés.

Article 12:

Le vice-président: M. Guindon propose que l'alinéa 12(2)(d) du projet de loi soit supprimé.

M. Guindon: C'est encore notre fameux -- il faut changer le nombre de trois à deux. Ce n'est pas tout à fait ça.

Le vice-président: Ce n'est pas pareil.

M. Guindon: Non. Donnez-moi une minute. La motion que je propose au comité, c'est que l'alinéa 12(2)(d), qui dit: "faire enquête sur les plaintes des membres du public en ce qui concerne la prestation des services en français et répondre à ces plaintes", soit supprimé. Je propose qu'on laisse ça à la commission.

Le vice-président: M. Guindon propose que l'alinéa 12(2)(d) du projet de loi soit supprimé. Est-ce qu'il y a des questions, des commentaires, des modifications?

17:20

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: On vient de mentionner que la commission devrait avoir une durée de deux ans. Alors, imaginons-nous: qui va écouter les plaintes après les deux ans?

M. Guindon: C'est vous.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Merci bien. C'est l'Office des affaires francophones qui va remplacer la commission. Mais entre-temps, ça prend quelqu'un.

M. Guindon: Il me semble que durant la période de deux ans de la commission, il faut qu'elle soit au courant de tout ce qui se passe. Il faut au moins qu'elle soit au courant des plaintes. Il faut au moins qu'elle soit capable de régler les problèmes des gens qui auront des plaintes à porter.

Donc, il me semble que ce serait de leur devoir de s'occuper de ces plaintes. Puis je ne vois pas pourquoi le ministre est en désarroi. Je trouve qu'après les deux ans, après que la commission va avoir fini son ouvrage, eh bien, c'est le ministre délégué aux Affaires francophones qui prendra la relève; après ce temps-là, c'est lui qui fera l'ouvrage. Je trouve qu'en plus, ça pourrait donner à son ministère le temps d'expérimenter des moyens à résoudre les problèmes.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Si jamais la durée de la commission était diminuée à deux ans, elle aurait du pain sur la planche. Alors, je répète, il ne faudrait pas surcharger la commission. Là maintenant, on veut ruiner la commission.

M. Guindon: Est-ce que le ministre pourrait répéter ce qu'il a dit? Je n'ai pas eu la chance de comprendre ce qu'il vient de dire.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Ce que je viens de dire c'est que si jamais on diminue la durée de la commission de trois ans à deux ans, et en plus, qu'on s'attend à ce que ce soit la responsabilité de la commission d'entendre ces plaintes durant cette période-là, on va ruiner la commission, on va la surcharger de travail.

Je ne veux pas revenir à mon premier argument, mais trois ans, c'est beaucoup plus raisonnable qu'une période de deux ans, si on s'attend à ce que la commission ait toutes ces responsabilités-là.

M. Shymko: Moi, j'avais toujours l'impression que le mandat du ministre et de son ministère était de faire enquête sur toutes les plaintes, quoi qu'elles soient, des membres du public. C'est son mandat de faire enquête sur les plaintes des membres du public. Je ne comprends pas pourquoi on devrait mettre ça dans un projet de loi.

C'est le mandat de chaque ministère, en effet, de chaque ministre, des membres du Conseil des ministres, de faire enquête sur les plaintes des membres du public, dans le cas présent, en ce qui concerne la prestation des services en français et de répondre à ces plaintes. C'est ce qu'il fait chaque jour. Pourquoi le mettre là, à moins qu'il ne veuille changer ça? Ce n'est pas qu'il puisse le faire. Il doit le faire; il le fait, en effet. Alors, cet alinéa-là ne veut rien dire.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: En réponse, premièrement, ce n'est pas un ministère; c'est un ministre qui est délégué aux affaires francophones, et c'est présentement l'Office des affaires francophones qui est responsable des plaintes. Ce n'est pas un ministère; c'est un ministre qui est délégué aux affaires francophones.

M. Shymko: J'ai une question, et pardonnez-moi, Monsieur le Président, si je n'ai pas compris l'explication du ministre. Si le ministre est responsable des affaires francophones de notre province, est-ce qu'il y aurait, parmi ses responsabilités, un devoir -- je demande même, est-ce qu'il y aurait un pouvoir et est-ce qu'il y aurait un devoir présentement, dans le cadre des responsabilités qui sont définies, de faire enquête sur les plaintes des membres du public en ce qui concerne la prestation des services en français et de répondre à ces plaintes? Je voudrais savoir si ce pouvoir existe et si ce devoir existe, en effet. Sinon, ça change la position de mon collègue, et la mienne aussi.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Présentement, c'est la responsabilité de chaque ministre de répondre aux plaintes, et je crois que ce devrait être la responsabilité d'une personne ou d'un comité, d'un ministre délégué aux affaires francophones, de répondre à ces plaintes-là.

Je ne connais pas le passé, mais je suis sûr que ce n'était sûrement pas la responsabilité de chacun des ministres de répondre à toutes les plaintes que le gouvernement recevait, du fait que nous n'avions pas de projet de loi. Maintenant, par ce projet de loi, on veut simplement centraliser ces plaintes et que la commission et l'Office des affaires francophones soit vraiment au courant des besoins et des lacunes dans les services.

M. Shymko: Alors, si je comprends le ministre, le but de cet alinéa c'est de centraliser la responsabilité du ministre responsable. Mais je voudrais savoir si, en centralisant son pouvoir et en lui donnant ce pouvoir, on élimine la responsabilité des autres ministres, soit le ministre de l'Éducation, soit le ministre de la Santé ou n'importe quel autre ministre, de faire des enquêtes, ce qui existe présentement.

Oui ou non? Je peux parler pour donner à mes collègues un peu de temps d'élaborer leur position. Je crois que le ministre, le député de York Sud et mon collègue le député de Cornwall sont en train d'avoir de petites négociations.

Je voudrais enfin demander au ministre si, à part l`amendement de mon collègue, on pourrait peut-être substituer, aux mots "il peut" dans le paragraphe 12(2), "il doit".

Le vice-président: Mais il faudra apporter une modification à la modification.

M. Shymko: J'ai demandé au ministre de nous dire exactement quel est son mandat comme ministre responsable. Est-ce que c'est écrit quelque part?

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Non. Je suis sûr que mon collègue reconnaît que lorsqu'un ministre est délégué, c'est simplement une façon de parler. C'est exactement ça, tant que les affaires francophones ne deviendront pas un ministère reconnu. Présentement, c'est un ministre délégué. Alors, c'est pour ça que nous avons en place l'Office des affaires francophones.

M. Shymko: Je me demande si on n'aurait pas eu ce débat aujourd'hui s'il existait au sein du Conseil des ministres un ministre des Affaires francophones, au lieu d'un ministre délégué aux Affaires francophones. J'ai compris que le ministre est pour cette suggestion. Alors, on devrait avoir une petite conversation avec le premier ministre.

En effet, je comprends que le ministre chargé des affaires francophones -- ou responsable, ou délégué, etc. -- veut dire qu'il joue le rôle d'un coordonnateur, mais sans pouvoir réel, enfin, de faire des enquêtes, et ce qu'il veut faire c'est de se donner ce pouvoir par ce projet de loi. C'est ça?

17:30

Alors, personnellement, avec le respect que j'ai pour le ministre et sa sensibilité, sa compassion, etc., et pour ses efforts de donner un peu plus d'ampleur à la francophonie en Ontario, je soutiendrais n'importe quel projet de loi, ou article de projet de loi, qui lui donnerait ce pouvoir, qui n'existe pas à ce moment-ci.

Mais je voudrais demander ceci: si on lui donne ce pouvoir par ce projet de loi, est-ce que ça élimine son rôle de coordonnateur, est-ce que ça élimine la responsabilité de chaque ministre, chaque membre du Conseil des ministres de continuer à faire enquête sur les plaintes des membres du public?

Vhon. M. Grandmaître: Non, sûrement. Avec les pouvoirs du ministre, ça va renforcer le tout, ça va nous donner du pouvoir, et nous allons agir au lieu de se traîner la patte.

M. Shymko: Mon collègue le député de Cornwall n'est pas ici. Je voudrais savoir ce qu'il va faire avec son amendement. Est-ce qu'il va le retirer ou non? Je voudrais demander au député de Cornwall de rentrer en Chambre pour nous indiquer ce qui se passe au sujet de son amendement, et je voudrais souligner que le but de cet amendement, selon ma compréhension de l'intention du député de Cornwall, est une intention sincère de renforcer le pouvoir du ministre, certainement pas d'éliminer ses responsabilités ou son pouvoir.

Mr. Breaugh: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: We are begging the member for High Park-Swansea to talk. This is going to happen only once this century. Let him use the occasion to do so.

The Deputy Chairman: That is not a point of order.

M. Shymko: Ce qui se passe aujourd'hui, c'est vraiment un moment historique. C'est la première fois dans l'histoire de l'Ontario qu'on a eu un débat totalement en français. Alors, c'est historique, ce que l'on fait. Malheureusement, ce qui n'est pas historique, c'est que quand on pose des questions, on n'a jamais de réponse du côté du gouvernement. Ça, ça ne change pas. Moi, je pensais qu'avec le changement qu'on voyait dans la réalité de l'Ontario, qui après 42 ans --

Mr. Wildman: We are one government today.

M. Shymko: Oui. Je pensais qu'il y aurait un changement. Je ne le vois pas, en réalité. Je n'ai pas de réponse. Je demande même au ministre de dire oui ou non, et sa réponse est: pas de commentaire, une conspiration du silence, de consultations dans lesquelles il s'engage pas seulement avec les conseillers de son ministère mais aussi avec mes copains du côté de l'opposition. Je vois en ce moment des consultations très importantes dans le cadre du pacte qui fut signé au mois de juillet, l'année dernière. Ce que je ne sais pas --

Le vice-président: Monsieur Shymko, il faut parler de la modification.

M. Shymko: J'en parle, Monsieur le Président. On m'a chargé de la responsabilité de parler. Je fais de mon mieux. C'est un fardeau de responsabilités que je porte sur mon dos.

Je voudrais dire que je comprends que le ministre est dans un état de confusion --

M. Pouliot: Totale.

M. Shymko: -- totale. Il ne sait pas où donner de la tête à ce moment-ci. Alors, en essayant de l'aider dans la panique dans laquelle il se trouve, je vois mes collègues de gauche qui lui donnent de l'assistance, je vois le grand chef du tiers parti qui lui donne de l'assistance, mon collègue de gauche et mon collègue le député de Cornwall qui essaient de lui donner un peu d'encouragement. Moi-même, avec tous les moyens disponibles, intellectuels, émotionnels, physiques, etc., j'essaie d'encourager le ministre délégué aux Affaires francophones à nous expliquer exactement quel est son mandat.

Sa réponse? Il n'en a aucun, me dit-il. Il n'y a rien d'écrit. Ça me donne l'impression que c'est un mandat divin, qu'il est un interlocuteur avec je ne sais pas qui. Si, en effet, la direction vient du bureau 231 -- c'est quel bureau, ça, le bureau du premier ministre? -- alors, on devrait attendre que le premier ministre de cette province vienne en Chambre pour donner un peu de direction. Non?

Alors, je m'arrête. Espérons que je vais terminer, un jour. Je voudrais indiquer que la réalité, le moyen réel de choisir un chemin modéré pour réaliser ce qui est exigé par la communauté francophone --

Je voudrais savoir si, en effet, le ministre a des responsabilités directes de coordination avec le ministre de l'Éducation, par exemple. Nous savons que, depuis 1969, c'est dans le domaine de l'éducation qu'on a donné tant d'ampleur, et le projet de loi que nous voyons maintenant continue ce qui fut commencé il y a une bonne vingtaine d'années par le Parti conservateur, sous la direction de notre ancien premier ministre, William Davis.

Interjection.

M. Shymko: Ah, bon. Je souligne la direction qui fut donnée par l'ancien gouvernement et je veux rappeler au ministre et à mes chers collègues que c'était en 1969 que se sont ouvertes les premières écoles secondaires publiques de langue française. Je veux rappeler à mes chers députés que c'était en 1972 que le gouvernement établit un conseil supérieur des écoles de langue française. Je voudrais leur rappeler --

Interjection.

M. Shymko: Est-ce que je devrais terminer mes propos?

M. Pouliot: Oui, c'est ça qu'on veut.

M. Shymko: Bon, voilà. Alors, je vais cesser de parler de la liste des réalisations, de l'ouverture vers les services aux francophones qui fut déclenchée par l'ancien gouvernement conservateur.

Alors, espérons que le ministre reconnaîtra le mandat et qu'il reconnaîtra enfin la sensibilité de la part des députés de ce côté-ci qui lui donnent un peu de direction dans ce qu'il essaie d'accomplir par ce projet de loi.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Mon seul commentaire, c'est que mon collègue me dit que toutes les bonnes choses qui ont été créées pour les francophones en Ontario existent grâce à l'ancien gouvernement.

Laissez-moi vous dire, Monsieur le Président, qu'ils n'ont jamais eu l'audace de donner du pouvoir à ce ministre-là; ils n'ont jamais eu l'audace de le dire ni de le faire. Alors, le nouveau gouvernement de 16 ou 17 mois va de l'avant, et aujourd'hui, nous en sommes rendus à un projet de loi qui va respecter et donner des pouvoirs justement à la communauté francophone qui l'exige depuis 100 ans.

M. Shymko: Je veux corriger --

Interjections.

M. Shymko: Non, c'est important, ce que le ministre vient de dire. Je voudrais corriger le commentaire du ministre en citant le Toronto Star du 19 novembre --

Le vice-président: À l'ordre.

M. Pouliot: Je comprends maintenant qu'il va falloir que ça se passe dans une entente tripartite. Je ne ferai pas comme certains collègues qui demandent qu'on revienne à Samuel de Champlain, qu'on revienne à nos ancêtres; mais plutôt, avec encore toute la coopération que nous devrions commander de nos collègues, que les choses se fassent rapidement pour le bien-être de la francophonie, qu'elles se fassent rapidement pour qu'enfin on donne à un peuple fondateur du Canada, évoluant dans la plus grande province de ce beau pays, la possibilité, en 1986, d'être, d'évoluer, de vivre comme les autres et d'arrêter de mendier et de végéter.

C'était l'abbé Pierre qui nous avait dit: vous nous offrez une goutte alors que --

Le vice-président: À l'ordre. Monsieur Pouliot, je vous rappelle à l'ordre. Je vous rappelle que nous discutons de l'amendement au paragraphe 12(2) proposé par M. Guindon.

M. Pouliot: Je dis tout ça pour nous amener à nous demander si on devrait avoir un ministère de la francophonie.

Le vice-président: À l'ordre.

M. Pouliot: Vous savez qui a raison, Monsieur le Président.

Le vice-président: À l'ordre. Est-ce qu'il y a d'autres questions ou commentaires sur la modification à la loi apportée par M. Guindon?

M. Poirier: Oui, Monsieur le Président.

Le vice-président: Sur l'alinéa 12(2)(d)?

Interjections.

M. Shymko: Il la retire.

M. Poirier: Il la retire? Bon.

M. Guindon: Monsieur le Président, je voudrais retirer l'amendement que j'ai proposé au paragraphe 12(2).

La motion est retirée.

L'article 12 est adopté.

Les articles 13 et 14 sont adoptés.

Article 15:

M. Guindon: Monsieur le Président, je veux retirer mon amendement à l'article 15a qui avait rapport aux bylaws for bilingual administration services.

Le vice-président: Je n'ai pas compris. Nous en sommes rendus au paragraphe 15(2).

M. Guindon: Paragraphe 15(2)?

Le vice-président: Oui. Vous venez de dire que vous avez retiré l'article 15(1). Monsieur Guindon, vous le retirez?

Mr. Rae: Yes, he is withdrawing it.

The Deputy Chairman: He is withdrawing it. Vous le retirez.

Maintenant nous allons discuter du paragraphe 15(2).

Mr. Rae: Perhaps it could be made clear that it is my understanding there are only two other amendments, one that I am going to put to add a new section 15a and one that the member for Cornwall is going to put to section 16. If it clarifies events that have taken place while the debate has been going on, those are the only two amendments that are going to be proposed, because we want to complete the debate today.

Mr. Chairman, you should be advised that there is agreement among the parties that we will complete the debate today. We will deal with all matters and report the bill this evening, after we discuss the two amendments I mentioned. That is my understanding, and I see the minister nodding. Perhaps he can confirm that this is the understanding.

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: Yes, it is.

The Deputy Chairman: The member for Cornwall is withdrawing all his amendments, except for the amendment to section 16.

Mr. Shymko: What about the ones that were stacked?

Mr. Rae: We are going to come back to them.

The Deputy Chairman: You have an amendment to add section 15a.

Mr. Rae: That is right. I have a new section 15a, which deals with municipalities.

Le vice-président: M. Rae propose que le projet de loi soit modifié par adjonction de l'article suivant:

"15a(1) Le conseil d'une municipalité située dans une région désignée à l'annexe peut adopter un règlement prévoyant que l'administration de la municipalité se fera en français et en anglais et que les services municipaux au public, ou une partie précisée de ces services, seront fournis dans ces deux langues.

"(2) Lorsqu'un règlement municipal visé au paragraphe (1) est en vigueur, chacun a droit à l'emploi du français ou de l'anglais pour communiquer avec tout bureau de la municipalité et pour recevoir les services visés par le règlement.

"(3) Si une région désignée à l'annexe fait partie d'une municipalité régionale ou d'une communauté urbaine et que le conseil d'une municipalité située dans la région adopte un règlement en vertu du paragraphe (1), le conseil de la municipalité régionale ou de la communauté urbaine peut également adopter un tel règlement en ce qui concerne son administration et ses services."

Mr. Rae: I think it is clear what the amendment is intended to do. I want to make one point clear. It is a permissive piece of legislation. It says "may." It does not, to put it bluntly, force a municipality to become bilingual when it does not want to offer services in the two languages, if it is in a designated region. It makes it permissive and, therefore, it is a practical amendment. I hope the government will be able to accept it.

Le vice-président: Est-ce qu'il y a des commentaires, des questions?

M. Rae: Je n'ai pas de commentaire et j'espère que ça sera adopté aussi rapidement que possible par le gouvernement.

L'amendement est adopté.

L'article 15, modifié, est adopté.

17:50

Article 16:

Le vice-président: M. Guindon propose que l'article 16 du projet de loi soit modifié par substitution, aux mots "que le lieutenant-gouverneur fixe par proclamation," des mots "où elle reçoit la sanction royale."

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Accepté, Monsieur le Président.

L'amendement est adopté.

L'article 16, modifié, est adopté.

L'article 17 est adopté.

Article 1:

Mr. Rae: I am not a draftsman. Can the minister's staff perhaps think of wording that will take into account the amendment he has just accepted?

I refer the minister back to his own amendments. Est-ce qu'il peut accepter: "sont exclus les municipalités, de même que les conseils locaux au sens de la Loi," etc., "à l'exception des conseils locaux qui sont désignés aux termes de l'alinéa (e) et à l'exception des municipalités" --

I do not know how you would phrase it. Perhaps one of the minister's draftsmen can think of a wording in the next 30 seconds. Does the minister see what I am trying to say? We want to include a municipality that has passed a bylaw, as provided in section 15a. I can say it in English, and perhaps someone can provide the translation.

L'hon. M. Grandmaître: Je crois que ce n'est pas tout à fait nécessaire, du fait que la décision concernant la municipalité de Kapuskasing indique très clairement qu'une municipalité peut se déclarer bilingue.

Mr. Rae: I will withdraw that. I accept the definitions section as proposed by the minister.

Le vice-président: Est-ce que l'article 1, tel que présenté, est adopté en son entier?

Mr. Breaugh: Are there any votes outstanding before we rise and report?

The Deputy Chairman: The Clerk tells me there are two more.

Mr. Breaugh: Can we get them on the paper? There seems to be some feeling that we would like to vote on those this afternoon.

Mr. Rae: We are prepared to vote on those now.

Le vice-président: L'hon. M. Grandmaître propose que la définition du terme "service", à l'article 1 du projet de loi, soit modifiée par adjonction, après "organisme gouvernemental" aux première et deuxième lignes, des mots "ou une institution de la Législature."

L'amendement est adopté.

Le vice-président: Est-ce que l'amendement à l'article 1, tel que proposé par Monsieur Grandmaître, est adopté?

L'amendement est adopté.

L'article 1, modifié, est adopté.

Annexe:

Le vice-président: L'hon. M. Grandmaître propose que l'annexe du projet de loi soit modifiée par substitution, aux mots "Le village de Chesterville", à la colonne de droite en face de "Comté de Dundas," les mots "Le canton de Winchester."

L'amendement est adopté.

L'annexe, modifiée, est adoptée.

Préambule:

Le vice-président: L'hon. M. Grandmaître propose que le préambule du projet de loi soit modifié par adjonction, après "éducation" à la cinquième ligne, des mots "attendu que l'Assemblée législative reconnaît l'apport du patrimoine culturel de la population francophone et désire le sauvegarder pour les générations à venir."

M. Guindon: Pourrait-il le lire au complet?

Le vice-président: Si vous le préférez. Alors, je vais le lire au complet.

Interjections.

Le vice-président: Ce n'est pas nécessaire?

L'amendement est adopté.

Le préambule, modifié, est adopté.

The Deputy Chairman: We have deferred the division on two questions. The first is that subsection 5(2) of the bill be amended by striking out "three" in the first line and inserting in lieu thereof "two."

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the nays have it.

Motion negatived.

L'amendement est rejeté.

L'article 5 est adopté.

The Deputy Chairman: Now we will deal with the motion that subsection 8(2) of the bill be amended by striking out "three" and inserting in lieu thereof "two."

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the nays have it.

Motion negatived.

L'amendement est rejeté.

L'article 8 est adopté.

Mr. Wildman: There is a strange feeling of unanimity in this place.

Mr. Breaugh: It is called solidarity.

The Deputy Chairman: This was history today.

Bill, as amended, ordered to be reported.

Le projet de loi, modifié, sera rapporté.

On motion by Hon. Mr. Grandmaître, the committee of the whole House reported one bill with certain amendments.

À la suite d'une motion présentée par l'hon. M. Grandmaître, le comité plénier fait rapport d'un projet de loi avec certains amendements.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Van Horne: In the absence of the government House leader, I would like to indicate the business for the coming week:

On Monday, November 10, and Tuesday, November 11, which is Remembrance Day, the House will not sit.

On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon, we will deal with Bill 116, Loan and Trust Corporations Act, and then legislation from the list as follows and as time permits:

Bill 22, regional municipalities, in committee of the whole House; Bill 123, Metro Toronto: Bill 23, line fences; Bill 25, Muskoka; Bill 48, Metro Toronto; Bill 114, Metro Toronto; Bill 66, business corporations; Bill 119, Liquor Control Board of Ontario; Bill 120, Liquor Licence Board of Ontario; Bill 121, land titles; Bill 122, registry office; Bill 14, oleomargarine; Bill 58, Time Amendment Act, in the name of the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan).

On Thursday morning, we will deal with private members' public business standing in the names of the member for Simcoe East (Mr. McLean) and the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel (Mr. J. M. Johnson).

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.

6 novembre 1986