Journal des débats 1987-févr-05 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Cureatz: As my understanding has it, I have the opportunity to read the resolution before my time begins to run; so I think I will take advantage of that. As everyone is getting prepared for this morning's debate and coming in from his cup of coffee, including the Minister of Education (Mr. Conway) and the House leader for the New Democratic Party, I will give members all an opportunity to listen to this resolution and reflect on what we are trying to do.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. Will you please read your resolution? Time is flitting for other members.

Mr. Cureatz moved resolution 79:

That in the opinion of this House, the Minister of Agriculture and Food should ensure the continuation of an active farmer being allowed to retain a retirement lot by severance; and, further, that the farm community should be allowed in those circumstances where farms have unworkable agricultural lots as ravine lots, small bush lots, inaccessible areas for large farm equipment, and other such land and in the discretion of the land division committee to take in further considerations, one of which would be the size of the property; and, further, upon the said adoption of said policy by the county or regional government, to be allowed to sever off such said parcel, and any future owners of said severed land would acknowledge the farmer's right to farm on surrounding property.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Cureatz has moved resolution 79. The honourable member has up to 20 minutes for his presentation and may reserve any portion of it for the windup.

Mr. Cureatz: This morning we do not have big weighty issues such as those we have heard the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) announce in terms of the extra money he has in his budget, but I will tell members this is a little concern that is out there bubbling in the farm community, for those of us who have had the opportunity in the past of representing the agricultural community know the plight of our farmers and farm families over the last few years.

I have become a little more conscientious about these kinds of concerns because now, under redistribution, my riding of Durham East has changed substantially. Before, I represented a major portion of the city of Oshawa and all that we refer to as the town of Newcastle. However, under redistribution, I lose most of the city of Oshawa and move farther north into areas called Scugog, Manvers township and the north end of the town of Whitby, more affectionately referred to as Brooklin.

The reason I am going into some detail about the change in my riding is actually for the people at home who have the opportunity of watching us debate first thing this morning or will have the opportunity at some later time during the day or the week. They will be tuning in, and I am suggesting to them the problems of redistribution and what my riding is like, so they will have a little synopsis of what I am trying to talk about.

I am going to have an aside for about one minute and mention something, as I have done periodically. I know I get a lot of laughter from a lot of members about this, but I think our television people up on the third floor and the people responsible for the microphones do an excellent job around here, trying to get our message across or trying to get the message out to the people of Ontario, but I actually think there is one further step we could take, and that is, believe it or not, a colour commentator.

I know that particular person would have to be chosen with some sensitivity. Possibly a member or former member from each party could rotate in terms of commenting on what is taking place in the debate. If someone tunes in to the television, instead of just watching a member for a riding stand up and debate, not fully understanding what the debate is about or what has happened before and what is expected to happen, there could be a colour commentator who could interject between pauses, interject when one speaker is sitting down and the other speaker is standing up, briefly explain what the debate is about, synopsize what a member has said and the possible direction the comments will take in the future, either for his party or for all the assembly.

I mention this in passing, hoping that some-where, some time, someone will take it into consideration. Maybe we could hire Bob Fisher of CBC television to be the colour commentator or Rosemary Speirs, who writes a wonderful column; and who, by the way, if members have not noticed, has a lovely smile when she in the press gallery. She does not even have to mention my name. We should take it into consideration to try to get some enthusiasm up there, I say to the Minister of Education, so that we can get across to the people of Ontario in a better fashion what is taking place in these chambers.

I think a colour commentator would go a long way in that process. If anyone at home is interested, write to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Queen's Park, M7A IA2; or write to me, Sam Cureatz, Room 105, North Wing, Queen's Park, and say: "That is a good idea. We should have a colour commentator." I say to the Minister of Education that if someone suddenly tunes in right now -- I am going to get to my resolution -- he may not, as explicitly as I am going to explain my resolution, have a full appreciation of what it is all about. A colour commentator would be able to fill in the gaps for those areas I may miss or rush over because my time is already running.

Back to the resolution. What is the synopsis of it? I am looking forward to some comments from the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party. Actually, it is quite simple. There are two aspects of the resolution. The first is that we should ensure that a bona fide farmer or farm family will have the opportunity of having a retirement lot.

I can tell the members that out in the farm community there is a mixed message from the government and from these chambers in terms of the kind of severance possible for a retirement lot. With redistribution, I have had a chance to speak to a lot of farmers, a lot of farm families and a lot of organizations and there is a huge rush on the land division committee in the region of Durham. I have not had the opportunity of checking the other land division committees across the province, but I suspect it is the same. There is a huge rush by farmers to the land division committee to try to get a retirement lot in fear that it will be taken away from them. Even with the restrictions on a retirement lot now -- I believe it is 10 years it has to remain in the family and sometimes we put a one-foot reserve around the remaining land -- there is fear in the farm community that this possibility will be taken away from them.

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The first part of the resolution is to ensure that the farmer and farm family will indeed have the opportunity of retaining the retirement lot. I want to remind the urban voter at home, if he has the opportunity of watching me, that the days are long gone now when the farmer had the opportunity of selling the farm for a big cash profit and retiring on that. Those days are gone. With the restrictions we have on zoning and with official plans, there now is becoming an aspect of a top limit on what farm properties are worth. With that in mind, we have to ensure that these men and women, these farm families who are producing food for our province, are going to be looked after in their retirement age.

That is the first aspect: nice, straight and clean, simple, no big to-do. It is to ensure that farm families have the opportunity of retaining a retirement lot. Now we have the second aspect. It is a little more delicate. I am looking forward to the debate, to comments from members who represent farm communities to see whether we cannot reach a compromise on this.

What is the second aspect? The second aspect is that we should be taking a look, first of all, at bona fide farmers. I am not talking about those people, those individuals, corporations or companies that rush out into the farm community, buy 100, 200 or 300 acres, then run to the land division committee, sever off what I propose and then sell the rest of the farm. I am not talking about those people. I am talking about bona fide farmers.

If you go in front of a land division committee, you will see the kind of questioning that takes place by the members of the committee. They get out of those farmers whether they are bona fide, how long they have been in operation, whether the families are involved and whether the sons and daughters are living on the farm. That all comes out in evidence, so I have no fear in terms of establishing whether they are bona fide farmers because our land division committees do a good job on that.

The point is that we should allow our farm communities, our farm families, the opportunity to sever such other portion of property where the severance makes some sense. I am not talking about doing away with valuable agricultural land. I think everyone in this chamber is supportive of that and I am sure the urban voter in Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor and across Ontario is saying the same thing. But I want to remind the urban voter that we have a responsibility to help our farm community and our farm families. One way we can help them is by taking a look at their farm operations.

There are many farms such as this across Ontario. I have not had the chance of travelling in southwestern Ontario as much as I am sure the members who represent that area have had, but in eastern Ontario, east of Oshawa, I have had the opportunity of travelling around an awful lot. On many farms there are particular parcels of property that are conducive to severancing. What parcels, the members ask, can be severed off?

We can take a look at them. It is very practical. We have ravine lots. We have bush lots. We possibly have a little swampy area where there is some high ground. Here is another one: in today's mechanized farm community, there are parcels of property on the farm where large machinery cannot get in. It is simple things such as turning around or backing up. If that can be looked at and it can be logically explained why the farmer cannot get into that little stretch of area, he should be allowed the opportunity of severing that portion of property.

I have to admit I am not looking at strip development across and down the road. We do not want that. We do not want strip development. The land division committee would have to look at the practical aspects. There might be one possibility, maybe even two possibilities of those kinds of severances from the farm.

I want to stress that we do not want three or four lots right down in a row. We want the land division committee to look at the practical aspects, the logical aspects. If they have to sit more regularly, give them the required funds so they can do that. Give them the required staff. Give the support to our farm communities, so they can come in and explain what they want to do.

I had the chance of speaking with Roy Maxwell, who is the farm commentator on CBC radio, and I will be speaking with him again this afternoon. I enjoy his show a lot. As I travel hither and yon across Ontario, as we all do, I try to tune in CBC radio. I get a little annoyed at some of the announcers; they seem biased sometimes. However, I enjoy Roy's show, and I am paying much more attention now because of my greater representation in the rural community.

He mentioned a couple of interesting things to me. He is from the southwestern part of Ontario. He said: "I must admit the retirement lots do bother me, but I do not see why they have to put them right in the middle of valuable agricultural land. They should at least move them to one side."

That is great; there is a compromise. Let us not put the retirement lot right in the middle of the agricultural land. Have the land division committee move it to one side, out of the agricultural land; but allow the land division committee the opportunity, when the farmer comes forward for further severance because of those parameters I have mentioned, to be able to sever.

My time is running. I am going to hear from some of the members: "We do not want those people from urban Ontario moving out into the rural communities. They are going to start complaining about the manure spreaders." I know the member for Grey (Mr. McKessock) has probably had a few complaints about the corn dryer making too much noise.

Here is one I have had: the pig farm across the road. I have a strip development in my community today and right across the road is a pig farm. I do get a little annoyed sometimes. Periodically, people call up my riding office and complain about the smell of the pig farm. As are all members, I am extremely polite; but in the back of my mind I do say: "Jeepers, the farmer was there with his pig farm first. He is producing a product that all of us enjoy in Ontario. There has to be some give and take." We go to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) and the ministry people come out. The farmer has met all the necessary regulations on the process he has to follow for a pig farm, and we try to reach a compromise.

I know I am going to get that. I know I am going to get, "Doggone it, those urban people are going to get out and start complaining about the farmers, the noise and the fact that the snow is not ploughed."

I say that henceforth any purchaser who is buying that property acknowledges the farmer's right to farm in the surrounding area; that should be put in the deed of that particular portion of property we are going to allow to be severed. He cannot start phoning his member of Parliament, municipal councillor, mayor or reeve and start complaining about the farmer, his noise and the fact that he is up at four o'clock in the morning and has the lights on late at night cutting hay. We will put that in the deed. We will nail it down, so we are not going to have those kinds of problems from people moving into the farm community and complaining.

Lastly, I have gone the extra step to compromise. I have said, "We will not make this an automatic policy from right here at Queen's Park, the Parliament of Ontario. We will set the policy, but we will leave it up to the municipality;" not the local municipality but the regional councils and their planning staffs or the county councils and their planning staffs. When those local municipal councillors are elected and sit at the county or regional level, let them have the opportunity of adopting this kind of policy. Who knows their particular areas better than those local municipal representatives?

It is my understanding, in speaking with the member for Durham-York (Mr. Stevenson), our agricultural critic, that this policy might not fly in southwestern. They do not want to hear about it. They are happy. I am looking forward to the comments of member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. Newman). He might bring some enlightenment into this debate, if that is true. That is fine.

Let those councillors make the policy decision that they will not adopt this policy of severing other parcels of property for the farm community, but let those councillors in other parts of Ontario, such as eastern and northern Ontario where this policy would be conducive and would be accepted, adopt the policy and put the process in motion, so we will have the opportunity of -- what? What will this allow us the opportunity to do?

Being Deputy Speaker here for three or four years, I have heard a lot of speeches. If I heard one from the Treasurer, I heard thousands. One of the things he talked about, besides the yellow lamps on cars that he often thought would zap him -- now that he has one, he does not talk about that too often; it is on the limousine -- was: where is that farm budget? Where is the increase of the farm budget here in Ontario? He would list huge percentages of increases in roads and increases in health and education. The Treasurer knows -- and I have to admit -- the increase has been low; it has not been high in terms of the other percentages for the other ministries.

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Mr. McKessock: We have it now.

Mr. Cureatz: That is good. No doubt they will get it with the $900 million they are saving up for the provincial election coming this spring. They will spend, spend, spend.

The Treasurer is a farmer. I am from a farm background. My parents were farmers. I had the opportunity of being allowed to go to law school and becoming a lawyer in this wonderful province. Farmers and farm families are a proud group. They do not want government handouts. They do not want the Treasurer, who I respect very much, or the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) -- who I like, I have to admit begrudgingly, although he does not get along with our critic very well -- running around the province waving cheques and saying, "Here is $1,000 for you, $5,000 for tile drainage and $10,000 for the new combine." They do not want that. The Treasurer knows that. The farm community and farmers of our province are an independent lot.

This allowing of the extra severance would allow them the opportunity to have, suddenly, some fast input of capital. It may just be enough in terms of the margin they require for the continuation of their family farms. I can go on at great length because this is of great concern to me and to the farmers in Ontario.

The urban people in Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor and Thunder Bay are probably not giving it too much attention. If they are looking for cheap food, they will still be able to get it but we have to ensure that we can help our farmers in Ontario. This is one of the little ways we can do it without government grants. We can put in a small little policy that will allow them the opportunity of being independent.

We are not infringing on valuable agricultural land. We are ensuring that those people who are buying those properties will not be complaining about the farm community. Last, we are saying to the local areas, "If you want to adopt the policy, you can adopt it, but if it is not conducive to your area, be it southwestern Ontario, you do not have to adopt it."

I want to thank members for the opportunity of allowing me to bring this forward. I am looking forward to saving the last two minutes and 10 seconds so that I may respond.

Mr. Hayes: In principle, I am in favour of an active farmer being allowed to retain a retirement lot. I know there are some people who work on the farm all their lives. They put their whole life into it. When it comes time to retire, they find it very hard if they have to move out of that particular area. It could be a real social shock to them to have to move out of that agricultural area into, say, an urban area.

I support the principle of a farmer being able to retain a retirement lot or even being able to sever a lot for his or her son or daughter who would continue to be actively farming.

The intent of the resolution sounds great, but how many of us have seen what happens to the lots that were severed for retirement or for sons or daughters? Before you know it, these particular lots are sold to someone from outside the community.

I have some mixed feelings when we start talking about preserving agricultural land. The government makes such a big fuss about severing land for retirement purposes or creating strip development, but it does not seem to hesitate about taking highly productive land out of production for urban or industrial development. Urban and industrial development can occur without destroying agricultural land, but it has happened much too often where we have seen good agricultural farm land taken out of production for industrial or urban development use when other suitable lands could have been used.

It is rather hard for a farmer, especially in my area, to understand why his or her request for a severance is turned down or denied, when they look at their neighbour and they see their neighbour's prime agricultural land turned into an industrial site. It is pretty hard for them to accept that.

If the resolution were for the purpose of allowing a farmer a retirement lot and if it had safeguards to avoid abuse, then I would tend to support it; but it is really too open-ended. I know my colleague the member for Lambton (Mr. D. W. Smith) has a concern about these lots in particular: that it would be fine if they were used only for a farmer to retire on, but many times these lots are sold and then someone else might buy the farm. There are maybe two or three houses on it, too many houses for that particular farmer to take care of, and before you know it he is back in for more severances and we continue to have further strip development.

The resolution also talks about severing bush lots for the purpose of building homes when really what the resolution should be talking about is preserving our bush lots. We should be preserving them, we should be looking at encouraging farmers to grow more trees and to start to increase our woodlots in this province. We should be looking at giving them incentives to do that.

In the other area, I believe that municipalities should be looking at adopting in-filling policies. Mainly because of poor planning that has taken place in the past, and especially in southwestern Ontario where strip development has occurred, we have areas where we might have a corner lot, say, of one acre or three quarters of an acre that might be all that is left of that particular farm; or we might have areas where 200 or 300 feet of property is left because of strip development, where there are already houses on each end. I think we should be looking at those particular areas because those are areas where nothing is grown but weeds. It makes more sense to me to allow severances in these areas than it does to take a chunk of a productive piece of property at random.

But I do not feel the property should be severed for the simple reason that it is inaccessible to large farm equipment, as the member for Durham East (Mr. Cureatz) was saying.

When I was on council in the township of Maidstone, I would hear the arguments from various property owners when they wanted to rezone their property to industrial or residential. They used the argument that the land they had was too narrow to farm. I really sympathized with that particular argument until I took a drive along Highway 3 and saw the farmers working land that was a lot narrower than the land these people were talking about. It was narrower land than others said they could not farm.

In some cases these lands are bought by speculators, people who do not have any intention of farming that land in the first place. It is quite amazing that these people who own these narrow strips of land will rent the land out and a farmer can work that land, but then when it comes time to develop it, all of a sudden it is too small to work. It is quite amazing how they can make a turnaround on that.

Does this resolution mean that if a piece of land is prime agricultural land that is too narrow or too small for large farm equipment it should be taken out of production? Does it have to be farmed with large equipment? I feel we have lost far too much prime agricultural land to urban and industrial development. If this resolution is passed, it will only worsen this condition.

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As I said earlier, if the purpose of this resolution was to allow for only retirement lots or in-filling policies then I might support it, but it is too open-ended and it is not in the best interest of preserving agricultural land.

Therefore, we are not in favour of this resolution as it is written.

Mr. Reycraft: I am pleased to have an opportunity to join in the debate on ballot item 33, the resolution of the member for Durham East.

I will speak very briefly on the issue because I know my colleague the member for Grey has an opinion on this resolution that differs from mine and I want to give him an opportunity to express that opinion.

I interpret the resolution to promote two things. It suggests, first, that any active farmer should be able to sever a retirement lot; and second, that farmers should be able to sever residential lots and parts of their farms that are unworkable.

The resolution gives the assembly an opportunity to debate an issue that has been a source of controversy for a long time in rural Ontario. It is an issue with which I am very familiar, having spent a good number of years on planning boards and planning advisory committees in Middlesex county, both at the local and county levels. It is an issue in which people who have views on both sides hold those views very strongly.

I have seen the issue of rural residential severances divide communities, and sometimes the feelings aroused during those local debates stay for a long time.

Those who tend to support rural residential severances do it, basically, for three reasons. First, they believe that retiring farmers should be able to remain in their homes after they no longer wish to continue as farmers. That is a very commendable objective. It is one with which it is very difficult to argue.

The second reason they support it is that it allows municipalities to expand their tax base, their assessment base. That, too, is a very commendable objective with which it is difficult to argue.

The third reason -- and it is the one that is usually unexpressed -- is that it permits a farm owner who wants to sell his farm to be able to increase his return by selling it in two separate parcels, the farm separate from the residence, as opposed to selling it as a single unit.

Sometimes, that motive is often the real motive. It is not often the one that is expressed, but it is often behind one of the other reasons that is cited.

With respect to the first two motives behind rural residential severances, there are better ways to achieve both those ends. For a retiring farmer, there are other options to be considered that will allow him to remain in his home for the rest of his life; options such as selling the farm and leasing back the residence, or an agreement as part of the terms of the sale that allows the farmer to continue to occupy the dwelling for as long as he wishes. Both of those are better ways to achieve that first objective than severing the lot and doing something that is irrevocable.

In terms of municipalities expanding their assessment base, I think there are better ways to do that as well. Certainly, for a municipality, there is a much greater economic benefit to directing residential development into towns, villages and hamlets, and even into rural subdivisions, than in allowing severances to occur on a random pattern throughout the township.

The resolution offers a short-term benefit, but it creates problems that others are going to have to solve eventually. I do not have any problem with a single severance or even with a few severances along a particular block of country road. It is the cumulative effect of these severances that we have to have concern for, because the cumulative effect is not insignificant. The reality is that retirement lots do not remain retirement lots. Eventually, and sometimes very quickly, they simply become rural residential lots for the urban dwellers of whom the member spoke.

Eventually, they are going to be occupied by people who have very little knowledge or understanding of agriculture. No matter what we say, no matter what kinds of conditions we put in place now and no matter what kinds of right-to-farm protections we put in place, those people are going to complain about the odours and noises of which the member spoke a few minutes ago. It is a reality that if we allow those nonresidential lots to proliferate, eventually there is going to be a shift in political influence from the farmers to the nonfarmers in our rural communities.

Because I know others wish to speak on this matter, I will conclude my remarks now by saying something that someone else said a long time ago. I do not know to whom the quote should be attributed, but the person said: "We have to stop thinking of our agricultural land as something we inherited from our ancestors. We have to start thinking of it as something we borrowed from our children." We are not doing any favours to the future farmers of Ontario by turning the back roads of this province into residential laneways.

Mr. Sheppard: It is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak in support of my colleague's resolution. In essence, my colleague proposes ensuring that an active farmer be allowed to retain a retirement lot by severance and, furthermore, that any future owners of the said severed land would have to allow farmers on surrounding property the right to farm without complaint.

The economic plight of the farmer in Ontario and throughout Canada needs no elaboration. We have discussed this several times in this House as well as in our own ridings. Every day on the news we hear of the dilemma our Canadian farmers are facing. Some of us here, as farmers, may be experiencing some hardships as well. As we know, the Minister of Agriculture and Food released a proposed policy statement on food land preservation last February. At that time, a new advisory committee was established to examine the need for new measures to protect the right to farm in Ontario. The committee was to recommend options that would protect Ontario farm operations from incompatible land uses and from complaints against normal farm practices. The committee was to report its findings to the minister in June 1986, which it did. It was later released to the public in August of last year.

As we are also aware, the minister is still reviewing the committee's report, which is why I chose to speak on this resolution today. The loss of prime food-producing lands to urban and other associated land uses has been a recurrent issue of concern in Ontario. Most of Ontario's urban centres originated as agricultural service centres and are located, as a rule, in the midst of high-quality agricultural soil. In other words, the growth of these urban centres has generally been at the expense of agricultural land. I understand and firmly believe that preserving our prime farm land should be one of our highest priorities. Prime farm land is one of our most precious natural resources in Ontario and Canada, and we must protect it for generations to come.

We may not always have an abundant surplus of food. What is more, development of new crops is a very important part of planning for the future. In order to do that, we must preserve and protect the prime agricultural land we will need to grow the crops. We need to provide a stable land base in an environment in which farmers can make long-term plans with confidence. In order to keep our options open, future land use planning must ensure that as much prime agricultural land as possible remains available for farming. We must be able to meet tomorrow's food production needs; there is no argument about that.

Since the introduction of the proposed policy statement of the Minister of Agricultural and Food, there has been considerable concern within the agricultural community in my riding about the restriction of land severances. I am concerned that because of the need to serve the wide spectrum of Ontario agriculture, the needs of individual municipalities will be overlooked. We must keep in mind that one solution suitable for central and southern Ontario could prove detrimental to the eastern and northern sections of this province.

In no way does this resolution propose to create ribbon development or a massive influx of housing where sewers, water and other such services are not available. This resolution does propose, however, particular consideration of the farmer and the region in question. On many large farms there are parcels of non-arable land that are not suited for agricultural purposes but could definitely be used for housing needs.

Instead of having an overall multipurpose policy of no residential housing in agriculture-zoned areas, there should be a policy that could be governed by municipalities. This policy would permit a limited number of rural residential lots where such lots met certain criteria. The program, of course, would be set up with an overall provincial guideline; yet the final onus could be placed on municipalities or regional governments to adopt or reject such a program.

It is obvious that the proposed program might not apply to various municipalities, which is why the final decision should be left up to those elected officials at the local government level who know the area best. Even the Association of Municipalities of Ontario agrees that farm-related severances should continue to be permitted on agricultural land at the discretion of the municipalities, according to the Policy Guidelines and Position paper issued in August 1986.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food, in his address to the Ontario Vegetable Growers' Marketing Board in February last year, used farm severances as an excuse for the increasing conflicts and lawsuits in rural areas. He said:

"Often people from the city buy these country lots and move in unprepared for the sounds and the smells of farming operations next door. Complaints arise from the smell of manure or the noise from farm machinery early in the morning or late at night. Farmers, on the other hand, complain about trespassing on their property, damage to machinery and crops and pilfering."

He continued to say, for those reasons I just mentioned, no severance would be granted for retirement or for housing for farm help. He said "This will lessen potential conflicts in rural areas where farm operations that have been established for years suddenly find themselves under siege by nonfarm neighbours."

Ironically enough, the Minister's Right to Farm Advisory Committee found not only that nuisance complaints were forthcoming from urban rural dwellers, but also that in large measure complaints were coming from neighbouring farmers. In fact, the percentage of farmer-to-farmer complaints was greater than all of the other complaints combined, according to a survey conducted in a limited area of southwestern Ontario.

I am going to sit down, because I know some of the other members would like to take up some of my time.

Mr. Charlton: I, too, am pleased to rise in the debate on this resolution by the member for Durham East. As my colleague has already said, I am going to rise in opposition to the resolution.

The resolution that is before us here today is a resolution that is ill-defined. That is not to say we do not understand the sentiments the member for Durham East is trying to express in proposing this resolution, but it is ill-defined because it does not set criteria that are workable in the context of the planning we have had to deal with in Ontario, the planning and restrictions we have had to put in place to avoid the kinds of problems we have had in the past.

As my colleague the member for Essex North (Mr. Hayes) has said, we do not have any problem with the retiring farmer's right to sever a lot where he or she can spend the rest of his or her life. It has to be controlled so it cannot be abused, and it has been abused in the past. That is one of the things of which the member for Durham East has to be aware. One of the reasons that we now have restrictions, the guidelines, on retiring farmers severing lots is that the process was abused in the past.

It is the second part of the member's resolution, the part that he openly admitted in his opening remarks was the sensitive part of the resolution, about which we have our greatest concerns: the severance of ravine lots and small bush lots in areas inaccessible for farm equipment. Again, I think we understand the sentiments the member is putting forward, but I think he has to understand that those are the kinds of things that have gone on in the past and have caused very serious problems for the very agricultural community that he is talking about in his resolution.

I recall, for example, a case in Ancaster, in Hamilton-Wentworth, where some 20 years ago precisely what the member is talking about here was allowed to occur without any real understanding of the implications of that action. A large ravine area at the back of two farms that happened to be abutting the side road was severed. A rather extensive residential survey eventually went into that ravine area because it was very beautiful -- no question. Very expensive housing went in; very nice, appealing housing with lovely lots. Everything looked wonderful. People who lived there loved it.

Unfortunately, because of the number of houses put in place, the municipality had to deal with the question of whether the land could adequately service septic systems or whether there would have to be some kind of a sewer and lagooning system, which it ultimately ruled there would have to be. As well, it had to install storm sewers because there were enough houses and road footage to cause a problem if it did not put storm sewers in.

Naturally, as members know, most ravines are ravines for a reason. There happened to be a stream in the ravine. That is where the storm sewers drained and that is where, ultimately, the lagoon water was let out, albeit at a regulated rate. That action, giving the right to two farmers to sell those ravine lots, caused serious problems for all the farmers down the entire remainder of that stream.

Those are the kinds of things that have to be taken into account and that, ultimately, severance committees are not well suited to do. First, the planning for whatever development is being proposed is not far enough along at that point in most cases for the severance committee to take the consequences into account. There are ravine lots and woodlots, and although it is not in the resolution, the member mentioned marshy areas and swampy areas. These are the kinds of things we have been spending a lot of money on in this province. We have been studying wetlands. These are the very things we should be preserving in agricultural Ontario.

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We would probably have no objection to the severing of these kinds of lots if it were the conservation authorities that were looking into buying them. In fact, as the member knows, without his resolution ever passing, that is going on all the time, but to allow, in a very loosely worded resolution such as this, the severance of that kind of land from farms in rural Ontario would open the door to accelerating the process of encroachment on farm land. Whether it is the member's intention to allow this to happen, and after having listened to his comments I do not think it is, this is the kind of door that will be opened and the kind of problem that will be faced down the road if those kinds of severances are allowed to happen.

Even if the municipalities say at the point of severance that the severance is not for residential purposes, industrial purposes or commercial purposes, but for recreational purposes or whatever restrictions happen to be put on it initially, eventually somebody is going to find a way to bring political pressure to bear to change the designation or restriction on the now-severed land that is no longer part of an agricultural piece of land.

We will end up with situations such as we ended up with in Flamborough with a steel foundry going in right in the middle of a major agricultural block of excellent farm land, and with the steel foundry setting up dumps at the back of its property for its industrial waste, with the wells of all the surrounding farms ultimately getting damaged or totally contaminated by that inappropriate use of agricultural land.

In wrapping up, after having listened to the member for Durham East I honestly feel the kinds of things I have talked about are not his intention in this resolution, but the kinds of things he is proposing in this resolution will open the door to the inappropriate and destructive way in which agricultural land was handled in the past. We will have inappropriate situations such as I have described today start to happen, perhaps not immediately but somewhere down the road, as people start to find ways through political pressure or whatever other legal means they might find to remove restrictions and to move to inappropriate uses for the land the member is talking about.

Mr. McKessock: I want to congratulate the member for Durham East for his resolution, which I endorse in its entirety. Definitely, a farmer should be allowed to sever a retirement lot; definitely, some lots should be allowed in rural areas where the land is unworkable for modern-day agriculture; and, definitely, the farmer's right to farm should be upheld where conflicts arise from such severances.

First, let me deal with the issue of allowing a farmer a retirement lot. The question arises, should we allow any agricultural class 1 and 2 land to be taken out of agriculture? I am all for saving as much agricultural land as possible, but when I hear that 300 or 400 acres of prime agricultural land has been rezoned residential or industrial near Brampton, Burlington or wherever, and we do not want to allow a farmer half an acre for a retirement lot, it makes me sick.

Furthermore, the majority of farmers in Ontario have a few acres that are not suitable for agriculture which could be severed for a retirement lot. Some areas, such as Kent and Middlesex counties, may find it difficult to find any poor land. Then maybe we should let the individual counties decide their own policy on farm-related severances. There is no need for the regulations to be the same all across Ontario.

Another concern is that if something happens to the father or the son in a father-son relationship through death, accident or marriage breakup, if the second house is severed the mother or the daughter-in-law will have a home without forcing the sale of the whole operation.

Now let me deal with the severance of rural lots in general. Again, it should be allowed in areas where it can be done without interfering with prime agricultural land. Some worry about strip development. We can guard against that by allowing only so many in a mile of road. Some worry that the township councils will be called upon for more services. The services are already there. The schools are built, the school buses run down the road anyway, the garbage truck goes by, the roads are snowploughed and maintained all year round and the fire protection is in place. Why not make better use of these services? Why not let those people who love the country live in the country? Surely our cities are full enough and to live there continues to get more expensive.

I have heard it said that if we allow rural lots, soon we will have people there asking for sewer and water systems. Do not be ridiculous. Natural springs, drilled wells and septic systems have been working well in these areas for generations. I know of septic systems that have worked well for over 40 years and have not been touched. Now they have to be inspected and meet the standards of the local health authorities. Surely with all these extra inspections, rules and regulations today, it will work even better. But then again, sometimes governments meddle too much.

I believe in the preservation of agricultural land, but this is a vast province. Three or four per cent of our land is prime agricultural land. Let us not deprive those who would like to live in the country from settling on some of that other 96 per cent. If agricultural land is to be preserved, it should be the class 1 and 2 land in the southern sections of the province near the cities, where the land is level and free of stone and the heat units are better.

The final issue is giving farmers the right to farm. It should be a policy of the land division committee to inform people applying for severances that rural residents will have to contend with normal farming practices. As the member for Durham East said, it should also be registered on rural deeds that farm odours and noise at certain times of the year must be accepted. At the same time, farmers must adhere to an agricultural code of practice that minimizes the impact of these irritants and limits any detrimental impact on the environment.

I would like to set the member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Charlton) at ease by saying that if someone settles in ravine lots, the erosion is more apt to be controlled than if no one is inhabiting that area. It is always in the areas where no one lives that deterioration takes place and erosion is not controlled. Wet lots will also not be interfered with, because who wants to build a house on a wet lot?

This is a good resolution. If we want to be fair and just to the people in rural Ontario, we should support it.

Mr. Cureatz: It is my understanding that I still have about two minutes and 30 seconds, plus the 45 seconds I have left.

First, I want to thank all members who had the opportunity to participate in this debate, albeit for a short time, as it was. However, I think we have a kaleidoscope of ideas of what this resolution is trying to do.

I want to centre in, of course, on everyone's comments. It is impossible to do that, but let me say to the third party that I appreciated the comments of the member for Hamilton Mountain, especially in terms of the assessment experience I know he has had over the years, because that has brought to light some of those interesting aspects that the Liberal member for Essex North brought into play, and that is in terms of assessment. I want to say to the member for Essex North --

Mr. Hayes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Cureatz: No, it was not him. The member for Middlesex (Mr. Reycraft).

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Mr. Hayes: I do not want to be accused of being a Liberal; that is all.

Mr. Cureatz: I can understand that, albeit I do not understand why the member is supporting them. We can talk about that another time.

The member for Middlesex said severances divide the communities. My point is that we have to take on that responsibility. That is our job, not to divide the communities but to face the hard issue: are we out there to help the farmers?

I do acknowledge and appreciate the member's comments on something I had not brought my attention to. I will have to give further consideration to the shift of political influence. Maybe he is right. Will there be that great an influx of new people coming into the farm community who will be outvoting the farmers in the voting process? I do not know. My gut feeling is that it will not happen. We are not going to have that kind of huge influx. But it is something that should be considered and we will put our minds to that.

I would also like to thank my friend the member for Northumberland (Mr. Sheppard) for his support and his centring in on the local option, which I stressed in the resolution, and my good friend the member for Grey (Mr. McKessock) who supported me on this 10 years ago, if he remembers. I cannot believe it has been that long. The member for Grey pointed out another aspect which I did not give consideration to, the fact that farm families have family problems too, deaths and divorces, and the extra severances may alleviate those kinds of concerns.

I am disappointed, of course, that this TV coverage will not take place in the farm community, but farmers who are interested can write to Room 105, North Wing, Legislative Building, in terms of their support for this resolution.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Martel moved second reading of Bill 149, An Act to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

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

Mr. Martel: I want to start by indicating to the House where the power lies in the present legislation before us. Bill 70 gives total and absolute power to management. At the hearings I held in Sudbury, Inco said to me quite pointedly, "If upper management decides not to allow health and safety to work, it will not work." It is only when upper management decides that the health and the safety of workers is important that we will have health and safety.

The present act works under the internal responsibility system. I hope my friends will listen to the statistics because they are devastating. The joint health and safety committee is made up of equal numbers from management and labour. They can make recommendations but they can do nothing else. Under the existing legislation, the recommendations do not have to be accepted. They cannot make changes.

Under the legislation, the workers can refuse to work, but most of them are fired, intimidated and sent home if they refuse to work. Although section 24 of the act says they cannot be intimidated, they are. All kinds of people have been fired in this province for refusing to work. The Ministry of Labour has never used section 24 to protect a worker against this reprisal.

Now let us see what is happening in Ontario where the bill applies. Let us look at what is happening. These are the constituents of my friends opposite I am talking about. In 1983, 232 workers were killed in Ontario; in 1984, 234 were killed in Ontario, in 1985, 193 were killed in Ontario; in 1986, 211 were killed in Ontario. Can members imagine the reaction if they were policemen? We would turn this country on its head. But they are workers, one almost every working day for the past four years. In a five-year period, 1,250 workers have been killed in this province. Is there no end to the carnage in this country, in this province?

Just two weeks ago, the Ontario Law Reform Commission, in its annual report, working paper 53, said 3,600 working people die annually from cancer induced in the work place; 3,600 die annually. In a report, Dr. Keogh said -- let me quote briefly: "If you poison your boss a little bit each day, it is called murder. If your boss poisons you a little each day, it is called threshold-limit value." There are 3,600 who die annually from cancer from the work places.

Let us look at accidents. The number of accidents reported last year in this province was devastating. Let us look at a couple of years: 1983, 344,000; 1984, 388,000; 1985, 426,000; 1986, 442,000. Those are people injured. Those are the statistics from the Workers' Compensation Board on the number of people injured in the last four years. Take any of those figures. There were enough injured people in Ontario to fill Maple Leaf Gardens to capacity for 26 consecutive nights, and one wonders.

Let us look at construction, for example: 1984-85, 8,663 accidents; 1985-86, 15,424. That is almost double in one year. If one looks at the industrial sector, there were 86,000, in round figures, in 1984-85 and 151,000 in 1985-86. Today, members will vote against this bill because it is going to give power to the workers to protect their lives and safety.

The carnage does not end there. Let me quote from the Provincial Auditor's report so that my friends understand what they are voting against. The Provincial Auditor is not biased. I am. The auditor states: "A significant number of companies not considered for inspection" -- they did not need an inspection -- "should be considered. In fact, two workers were killed" -- two fatalities -- "and eight critical injuries occurred in work places not even registered in the province with the industrial health and safety branch." They were not even registered. Two fatalities and eight critical injuries.

That is part of the carnage going on. If one wants to look beyond that, one could look at the orders against companies. This is significant because the companies have all the power, total and absolute, over the working lives of people in this province.

In 1984-85, there were 78,000 orders issued against companies -- can you imagine? -- that had failed to comply with the act. In 1986, the figure was 76,381 violations of the act by management, which has full prerogative under this legislation. Those are the members' people who are getting injured, killed and slaughtered and who are dying from toxic substances. These are not my figures. These are all figures from the Workers' Compensation Board and the Ministry of Labour. If the members are prepared to allow that carnage to continue, there is something wrong with us as a society. There is something dreadfully wrong, my friends.

Let me tell the members how bad it is. Again, I remind them that management has total control. There was a survey done, which I asked the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) for a number of times. Seventy-eight per cent of the committees that operate in this province do not function properly. The survey showed that. Who is in control of those committees? Management is in control. That was not my survey; it was Dr. Harvey's. It was done and paid for through the Ministry of Labour. In the annual report, 78 per cent of the committees are not properly constructed and do not comply with the legislation.

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There are accidents. There are deaths through injury. There is cancer at an unacceptable level. There are contraventions of the act. There are orders that are ignored with impunity because even in this great report, the Laskin and McKenzie report, those people in charge said as the only criticism against management, "However, fines awarded by the courts have averaged approximately $2,000 and a jail sentence has never been given." In these circumstances it is not surprising that some employers have opted to pay a fine rather than comply with an order. That is the only criticism in this report. Management has all of the power. All the statistics I have quoted are factual.

We are going to see some people vote against this bill today. I will tell the members why in a moment, but let me finish before I go through what my legislation requires.

The Minister of Labour himself, the minister for labour as he likes to call himself, said on Dateline Ontario two weeks ago the following about accidents in the province: "I am not afraid to sit here and be a little critical of the safety practices of some of the workers in the province. They are just downright sloppy. We have too many injuries right now that are caused by sloppy work practices." That was said by the Minister of Labour; I am quoting from the transcript.

Workers have no control of the work place. I say to the member for Chatham-Kent (Mr. Bossy) across the way that they have nothing under the act that protects them. They have no power under the act. I do not care what the Minister of Labour told him. Under the present legislation, they have absolutely no power whatsoever; none.

What does my bill do? I know people are going to get up and say: "Your bill goes too far. You give too much power to the workers." They should tell me how to do it.

What we have done is suggest that the health and safety committees should have power and that they should have one more worker than there is management to get around the key issue that if there are two and two, and you want to test the work place and the health and safety committee makes the recommendations but management says, "No, you are not going to test the work place," it is dead.

We can go to the Ministry of Labour which does not have enough staff. We have about 230 inspectors in the province, fewer inspectors in the work place than there are conservation officers. There are probably 15,000 or 18,000 police in the province. There are five times as many accidents in the work place as on the highways and we pumped in $200 million more last year to get rid of the carnage on the highways. But we are not prepared to put the money in to protect the workers. That means the minister cannot hire adequate staff. They should tell me how 250 staff can inspect over 200,000 work places in Ontario. It is impossible. The minister will never be able to hire 1,000 more inspectors. I have listed for him the accidents, the fatalities, the contraventions of the act with all of the power, which to this time has remained with management, total and absolute.

So in my bill I said, and I did it very deliberately, that on the health and safety committee there should be an extra person to break the imbalance, because we could never get the inspectors. Surely people have the right to protect their health and their safety. I do not care about dollars, quite frankly, if it comes down to a worker's life, and the members should not either; so I gave some power to the workers.

Let me give members an example. Most of the powers are contained in subsection 2(3):

"It is the function of a committee and it has power to,

"(a) identify situations that may be a threat to the health or safety of workers."

I know a worker -- I have his record -- who, in a mining company last year, reported unsafe conditions on four occasions. He ultimately was killed by a gate, because no one from the Ministry of Labour went in and made them clean up. That man is dead today.

That is why I gave power to the workers. They are not irresponsible. They are the same people members meet with and fraternize with all the time. They are not going to shut down the means of production, as that crazy McKenzie said in his report. They are responsible people. Tell me how many workers members have met who are irresponsible. They are responsible enough to produce the money and the wealth in the factories and in the mines of the province, but they are not responsible enough to protect their health, and they do not have that power. Do members not understand that?

The members opposite will vote en masse against it, because I am told the word is out from the Minister of Labour that they must vote against it.

Let me give members a second example of where we gave tremendous power. We said they have a right to conduct tests in the work place. I gave members cases in this House where orders were issued a year ago and have not been complied with yet, with respect to lead, silica and isocyanates -- all three of them designated substances, all three of them totally devastating to people's health in the work place.

All I am saying is that they have a right to conduct those tests and they have a right to hire the company to do the tests appropriately. Is that expecting too much, that they should be able to test for the substances that are affecting their lives? Members opposite will vote against it, though. They do not have that power, do they? Some of my friends whom I buried in Sudbury died from cancer from the old sintering plant: 125 of them. Members are going to deny that power this morning, and do not tell me about the minister's impending legislation, because it does not rectify the imbalance that exists; it does not. Surely working people have a right to equal power to protect their health and safety.

I am not talking about the methods of production. That is what McKenzie's stupidity was in his report.

What else do they do? They can "approve any machinery, chemicals or innovations before they are introduced into the work place." Should we not be preventive? Should workers not have the right to say: "No, no. That thing does not work yet. That chemical has not been tested properly yet"?

They do this in Europe. Europe has not been brought to its knees, has it -- Sweden, England, France, Germany -- by these powers? Industry is not moving out en masse, as Laskin and McKenzie said. Do they have the right to make sure that what is installed is safe.

Let me tell members one more; then I will take my place. I want to save about two minutes to the end. They can "approve all protective devices used or worn in the work place." Just a year ago, one of the doctors from the Ministry of Labour allowed the use of certain masks at an air plant in north Toronto that would not protect the workers from the exposure there, the threshold-limit values that poisoned a little bit all the time. He said, "Go ahead and wear them." They would not protect the workers because the dosage was too high.

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These are the types of powers to which I am saying the workers have a right, and I suspect you people will vote en masse against it.

I will save the remaining one minute and 54 seconds.

Mr. Polsinelli: As an individual who comes from a working family and whose father suffered a serious work place injury, I am happy today to speak on this very important bill, Bill 149, An Act to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Bill 149 offers us an opportunity to delve into issues that are too important to overlook, both as legislators and as custodians of the occupational health and safety regime of this province. Members of this Legislature will know this government shares in the objective of improving that regime, while further promoting conditions that prevent illness and injury to working men and women in this province.

Bill 149 contains much that is worthy of our consideration. Regrettably, however, it also contains serious flaws that will not provide the protection to workers that it ostensibly claims. In particular, I refer to Bill 149's design for joint health and safety committees and its call for diminished representation from management. Joint health and safety committees are central to the internal responsibility system and, as such, work place parties must share in their obligations and responsibilities. Without an equal commitment from both management and labour to work place health and safety, no occupational health and safety legislation will work. Bill 149 unfairly shifts the burden of that responsibility on to the shoulders of the workers.

This government believes an expansion of the rights and responsibilities of joint health and safety committees is in order. We believe the best approach to improving health and safety in the work place is to strengthen the shared responsibilities of both management and labour.

To that end, the Advisory Council on Occupational Health and Safety made a number of very worthwhile recommendations in its recently tabled report. These included: that worker members of the joint health and safety committees be allowed preparation time for meetings as an official function of being a member; that management be required to advise the joint health and safety committee of policy and program decisions that affect its operation; and that management should respond in writing to all written recommendations of the joint health and safety committees.

Also noteworthy are the advisory council's recommendation that minutes be distributed and that workers be given an opportunity to meet with the joint health and safety committees during working hours. These are responsible suggestions, some of which have already been incorporated into Bill 101, with which the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) is very well familiar.

Members should also keep in mind that the objective of any change is to ensure that workers have a real opportunity to participate in the achievement of a healthy and safe working environment. Our government wants the joint health and safety committees to work. These committees are at the core of the occupational health and safety system in the work place.

The advisory council also made a number of other proposals for improved committee functioning, including the suggestion that there be a minimum frequency of inspections, perhaps once a month, and that if there are to be exceptions to that once-a-month inspection rule, then those exceptions are to be approved by the ministry.

Training of health and safety committees is another issue that is addressed in Bill 149. Without a doubt, there is wide support for better training. This support comes from labour and from management. It also comes from the Advisory Council on Occupational Health and Safety. Education and training for workers and management are a high priority in the development of an occupational health and safety program.

We believe this is essential. Bill 101, the right to know, addresses this question, and future amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Act will also address the question of training.

This government believes Bill 149 is too narrow an approach to the entire issue of occupational health and safety. It is our party's belief that a complete, balanced set of amendments to the act would be more appropriate than what is proposed in this bill. I would be remiss if I did not point out some of the actions already taken by this party, this government and this minister in the area of occupational health and safety.

When the present government took office in June 1985 --

Mr. Warner: Do not speak drivel. Your government has not done a bloody thing.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Polsinelli: -- it was obvious that the health and safety legislation could be improved to provide workers with the additional right to know about toxic substances. The Minister of Labour played an instrumental role in forging a national consensus on the work place hazardous materials information system.

In January 1986, the government introduced Bill 101, proposing fundamental improvements to the workers' and the committee's right to know about toxic substances. Bill 101 calls for the labelling of products used in the work place and the provision of training for workers concerning hazardous and protective measures. This bill provides for the development of an inventory of toxic substances which would be available to workers and the community. This proposed right to know goes beyond the WHMIS provisions.

Following the introduction of the bill, the Minister of Labour was a leading force in the negotiations which culminated in a national agreement announced last month. The agreement cleared the roadblocks on the remaining issues of trade secrets and funding, so the federal and provincial governments will now move in concert to enhance the information available to workers about toxic substances. The provincial government intends to proceed with Bill 101 at its earliest opportunity.

The Minister of Labour has additional amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Act under active consideration. Issues such as enhanced penalties, increased scope of joint health and safety committees and expanded training requirements are all receiving detailed study. The government plans to introduce a package of amendments to this House very shortly. The review of the act underscores the government's commitment to enhance the rights and responsibilities of the work place parties to protect the health and safety of workers. It also emphasizes this government's resolve to take vigorous action when those responsibilities are not met. In the light of such measures, I feel that Bill 149 is simply not far-reaching enough.

There is no question that when we took office a short 18 months ago, we felt, and we still feel, that the Occupational Health and Safety Act requires serious study and very many amendments to protect the workers in this province. We have begun to address the very serious failings of the occupational health and safety system in the province. We believe, however, that a comprehensive set of amendments that have been fully discussed with all the work place parties is essential to ensuring better health and safety for the working men and women of this province.

Integral to that is, I repeat, the shared-responsibility aspect. I cannot believe a system will work if one of the sides is unequally represented in the joint health and safety committees. We need a fair representation and a commitment from both parties.

Mr. Martel: That is what is going on now, you dummy.

Mr. Hayes: Come on, wake up.

An hon. member: Come out into the real world.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Yorkview has the floor, and he is on a time limit. Please do not interrupt him.

Mr. Polsinelli: I can understand how my friend the member for Sudbury East becomes very emotional when he is dealing with these issues, and so he should be. They are very serious issues and concerns. Our objectives are the same, to protect the working men and women of this province. However, we fundamentally disagree -- at least I do with him -- on the operation of the joint health and safety committees. I say again that those committees cannot work if there is not equal representation, equal parties and equal commitment from both management and labour.

In the light of the foregoing, I believe Bill 149, as proposed by the member for Sudbury East, is an inadequate and incomplete response and, as such, I cannot support it today.

Mr. Martel: Who has the power now?

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Gillies: I am very pleased to join this debate on Bill 149, as proposed by my friend the member for Sudbury East.

The decision of our caucus, arrived at after considerable debate through two meetings, I might say, is to have a free vote on this question. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that as an individual member and as Labour critic for our party, I will be voting in support of this bill for a number of reasons. I would like to put them on the record briefly, because the way the rotation works this morning, I want to be sure to allow enough time for my colleague to speak.

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I think it well for us to remember we are voting on second reading. We are voting on the principle of the bill put forward by the member for Sudbury East. I do not agree necessarily with every aspect, every dotted "i" or crossed "t," in this bill, but we all know the parliamentary process. The process is that we debate the merits and demerits of the principle of the bill on second reading and that the bill should then go forward, I suggest, to a standing committee for amendment and discussion on a clause-by-clause basis by the members of this House.

We will only have that opportunity with the member for Sudbury East's bill if the bill passes; otherwise, it is relegated to that ash can that for all too many years has been the repository of private members' business in this House. I urge members of this assembly to vote for this bill. If there are things members do not like about it, we can talk about it and examine it in depth.

That is important. It is important because of the deteriorating situation in this province of occupational health and safety; it is important in terms of the complete inability of the current Minister of Labour to come to grips with this situation, and it is particularly important in the wake of the McKenzie-Laskin report, brought forward as the minister's excuse, his response to all of the anguish and concerns put forward by members of this assembly with regard to occupational health and safety.

I said on the day that report was brought forward that it was a whitewash, that it was not a meaningful response to the problems cited. I say it again today. When are we as members going to have an opportunity to discuss these problems? When are we going to have a chance to sit down with the minister and his officials and ask, "What the devil is going on?" We did not have that opportunity in the case of the McKenzie-Laskin report, a report which has not even been tabled in this House. We will have that opportunity if this bill goes forward to a standing committee. It is an opportunity we need.

The kind of response we need is not the kind of response offered by the McKenzie-Laskin report, a report which blamed in sequence the media, the opposition and activists with a hidden agenda. It blamed those three parties for the problems in occupational health and safety. It was a report that did not look meaningfully at the problems within the Ministry of Labour and within the work force. I am determined that we have that opportunity.

My friend the member for Yorkview mentioned he comes from a working family. I do too and I know my friend the member for Sudbury East does. Maybe that is why we are so darned concerned. Maybe it is because my father worked in factories all his life. Maybe it is because I had to work in factories and other industrial settings to get through university.

I have worked with dangerous chemicals. I have worked with fluoride, chlorine and other designated substances. I have seen workers working in areas where they should have had respirators or where there should have been retrofit engineering controls, but they were not in existence. I have worked in situations where the very structure of a building where workers were expected to work every day was not safe.

Like all of us, I as a member have had the kind of calls I think my friend's bill will address, when a worker calls my office anonymously because of a situation he wants to report in his plant but dares not do so because he is afraid of the reprisals and intimidation if his concerns are made known. I have had people call my office and say: "I am working next to a concrete wall in a dilapidated building. My co-workers and I are afraid it is going to fall down any day." I said, "Please tell me where it is and please tell me your name." He said, "I will tell you the name of the plant, but I will not tell you my name because I do not want to lose my job."

Whether it is done by improved legislation from the government -- and I accept the desire of my colleague the member for Yorkview that this situation be improved; I know he is sincere about that -- whether it is done through that mechanism, private member's legislation or any method we have available to us, it must be done.

I will conclude because there is not a lot of time for this debate. I wish there were a lot more. In the first 11 months of 1986, 248 workers died from work-related disease or injury in this province. There were 138,000 people injured seriously enough to lose time from work, and these figures are up from 1985. The direction we are moving in in this province is completely the wrong direction. The situation is getting worse.

With that in mind, how can we vote against the principle of improving occupational health and safety in our province? If we have problems with a couple of clauses in the bill of the member for Sudbury East, let us talk about them in committee after it has passed second reading.

Mr. Mackenzie: I rise to support my colleague's bill. I will try to be as reasoned and calm as I can, but I want to tell members there has seldom been a bill on the floor of this House that I think has more implications for workers in Ontario, for any member of this House and for this government, if it fails to take a serious look at putting this bill forward for some debate.

I think my colleague has done an admirable job in Ontario. I can tell members very frankly that he has a hell of a lot more respect than the Ministry of Labour has in terms of raising, researching and trying to focus on the issue of industrial health and safety for workers in Ontario. I can tell members also that this bill of his is the result of widespread consultation with dozens, probably hundreds, of people in the trade union movement, the Ontario Federation of Labour, safety and health groups and many independents. It is not a bill that was drafted without real, serious input from a variety of people directly involved, the frontline troops in safety and health matters in this province.

It stands in sharp contrast to the McKenzie-Laskin report. That is a disgrace. I want to get the figures from the government for the total cost of producing that. It is something this government should have to answer for. That assessment of the McKenzie-Laskin report is not just an assessment by this caucus. It is an assessment, almost unanimously, by the trade union movement, an assessment of hardened professionals in the trade union movement who know what the safety and health issue is all about. That is a disgrace.

I say to my colleague the member for Yorkview that he may come from a working-class background and family, but he totally misunderstands -- probably beaten only by his minister -- the depth of feeling and the seriousness of the problem of safety and health in the work place. When he talks about amendments coming in from this government, he has totally lost his credibility, as this government has on this issue. One of the reasons they have lost it is the kind of nonsense we got in the McKenzie-Laskin report. I cannot for the life of me understand exactly where this government, given some of the things it has said during election campaigns, is going in safety and health in the work place.

This government literally does not have one organized effective body in the trade union movement that thinks it worth the powder to blow the government to hell when it comes to safety and health. Sooner or later, that has to sink through to these people.

On top of that, I cannot help but state -- because how often do we get it thrown at us? -- that the kind of ridiculous comments about the ideological biases that we saw from the authors of this report clearly indicates the stupidity and lack of any value of that report.

What are the problems? I am not going to go into great detail. I have only another seven minutes. They are designated substances. If we had followed a schedule, which we did not, that we had way back in the 1977-78 Labour estimates, a promise at that time -- and this government has been no better than the previous government on this course -- we would have 30 or 40 designated substances now. What do we have in Ontario? We have 10. We have considerably less even than they do in the United States. Many of them are not tough enough and some of the standards are not tough enough. With lead, we are not as good as they are in the US. We are allowing people into the plants at the level at which they take them out of the plants in the US.

We should be ashamed of the levels we have set in terms of polychlorinated biphenyls. With regard to styrene, there is a boat industry in Sweden, counter to what the Minister of Labour said in his response to one of my colleague's questions the other day, and the standards there are 25. They are 50 here now, and 100 if one is in boat-building, which can be even more dangerous than the actual production of it. We are a disgrace in terms of the standards in styrene.

I remember well the arguments -- I think it was during the 1978 estimates -- with Ministry of Labour people over the threat of arsenic and lung cancer to gold miners. I remember being told by Ministry of Labour personnel, some of whom are still in that ministry -- and that is one of this government's problems -- that the arguments we were making about the threat to gold miners from lung cancer were ridiculous.

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I cannot remember the name of the lovely woman from Timmins who was down here at a press conference we had just recently.

Mr. Martel: Leger.

Mr. Mackenzie: Leger, representing some 30 or 40 other widows of gold miners who died as a result of lung cancer. We have not yet established it clearly as a cause with the Workers' Compensation Board, but we now recognize it is a problem, a problem about which this health and safety ministry was telling us we were nuts when we were raising it eight, nine, 10 years ago. I was involved in some of that. We have a legacy of widows and dead miners all over northern Ontario as a result of it.

The noise regulations: What the minister is doing on those noise regulations is an insult to and betrayal of workers. I remember well John Lennie of the United Steelworkers of America, now retired and having some health problems himself, telling me, "Bob, we may be facing as many as 50 per cent or 60 per cent of the workers at Stelco," the plant he knew best, "ending up with some hearing impairment when they retire."

I know of the letter -- I do not have time to read it into the record -- from Ken Valentine of the steelworkers to this minister just within the last two or three weeks, in which he asked him to start over again. He says: "What have you done to us? What are you doing to us? You are setting the standards at 90." They thought there was an agreement over the last couple of years on 85 decibels, which already causes fairly severe hearing problems. Now we are looking at regulations on noise, when we get them, that are going to be at a level that is going to do us no good whatsoever. As he said, and he is on the advisory committee appointed by this government, "A strict betrayal of the workers of Ontario."

The enforcement of orders: We have catalogued it day in and day out in this House. It simply does not happen. We wait too long. We wait months. We have orders issued and reissued and reissued, and there is no enforcement. There is no indication at all that the government is serious about the protection of workers in the work place. There is the reliance; on the internal responsibility system the assistant to the minister made it again today. He knows -- how many times do we have to tell him? -- that you can only recommend. He also knows that the authority and the power in a joint health and safety committee today is with the company. There is no other answer.

I say directly to the parliamentary assistant to the minister, the thing that annoys me and the thing I have difficulty being rational on is that I do not think you will find a health and safety committee in Ontario, in any industrial plant and many other work plants, that will tell you otherwise or that will not give an argument. We have said that to his people, we have said that to his minister, we have said that to the assistant and we have said that to this government.

The internal responsibility system is a crock; it does not work. Why does he think he has the uproar? Why were 250 workers down here yesterday? I do not know what they said to the press. I know they interviewed many of them individually after the press conference and after they talked to the leadership. There was certainly no split, and I did not hear a worker telling him that internal responsibility was worth the powder to blow it to hell. It simply was not.

That does not provide protection. The workers have to be given the authority that my colleague speaks about. The internal responsibility system is simply not working in industrial safety and health in Ontario. There are not enough inspectors. I do not think the ministry has the money to hire enough, and that is exactly why we are making the argument as strongly as we can that the responsibility has to switch to the workers, substantially. It is the only one. An industrial site should never begin to hire enough. There is no reason there could not be a safety and health officer on every work site, but we also have to give them the authority. The same thing applies to the safety and health committees that we set up in the industrial establishments in this province.

We simply have to transfer that authority, and it is one of the things that my colleague speaks about and starts trying to do in his particular piece of legislation. We go after the ministry for workers' health and safety clinics. They made an application, well documented, supported by the Hamilton and District Labour Council, Local 1005, the Ontario Federation of Labour -- I understand they are now in the process of updating that application -- back in July 1985. We are still waiting for any kind of funding to move on that clinic, and that is not the only one we are having difficulty with across Ontario.

I do not know an area that really, seriously deals with this problem where his ministry has responded adequately. I honestly and truly do not, and I am trying to be as rational as I can with that. The minister has a serious problem. The government may not like all of this bill. There is no credibility in what the minister is talking about. We have not seen it yet. We have not seen anything he has brought in that we like, nor have the workers -- it is not just us -- and many independents in the health and safety field as well. This gives us some concrete moves that are a little different, that do transfer some of that authority and do require a number of other changes that we need in terms of industrial health and safety.

We are saying: "Pass this bill and, for God's sake, for once, free the fetters across the way" -- and I appeal to my Tory colleagues -- "and send it out to committee. Let us take a serious look at where there may be shortcomings in it." We acknowledge that. I do not think I have ever felt as serious about an issue in my life as I have about this one. I am telling members right now that if the mood of this House is to reject my colleague's Bill 149 with the faint excuse that we have all kinds of amendments coming in -- which is something we sure have not seen from this government -- then this government is going to answer for it.

I am dead serious about that. I hope the government does not get carried away with what it thinks might be its popularity in the polls, because one thing workers do know is that we need changes drastically and the government's changes have not been those changes.

Mr. Knight: I am pleased to be able to participate in the debate on second reading of Bill 149 introduced by the member for Sudbury East. I might say that the member does articulate his concerns and solutions quite well. We might differ on the latter, but I assure him that we do not differ on the former.

My colleague the member for Yorkview has spoken about some components of Bill 149 and I would like to address several others.

Bill 149 extends the Occupational Health and Safety Act to farming operations. The Ontario Task Force on Health and Safety in Agriculture has made numerous recommendations regarding this and there is a consultation process under way, a process that was requested by the agricultural community itself. Agricultural community representatives have held extensive meetings with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Ministry of Labour to ensure that this process covers all bases.

Bill 149 also says that schools and universities should be brought under the act. I remind honourable members that teachers are already covered under the act by regulations. One of the most important areas of Bill 149 addresses the right to refuse work. Members know that Ontario has one of the most meaningful right-to-refuse-work provisions in the country.

Bill 149 would extend this provision to policemen, firemen and correctional officers. There is no doubt that their work is dangerous, but in extending this important right to police, firemen and correctional officers, one must be careful not to jeopardize public safety. Bill 149 is limited in that it does not address all the important questions surrounding this issue.

Bill 149 is seriously flawed in one other way. The concern about automatic substitutions that occur in some places when a worker refuses to work is not adequately addressed. There are other matters arising from Bill 149 that need some extra discussion with respect to the right to refuse work. One is the question of wage protection for workers under work stoppages for reasons of health and safety. Other concerns include to what extent the matter should be a shared responsibility, how long the refusal should last and what protection is proposed for abuse.

For my part, I believe it should be a shared responsibility. When this government took office, it found that the resources devoted to the occupational health and safety program had been seriously eroded. The program did not have the resources to deliver the services required under the act. It certainly did not have the resources to deliver a health and safety program that could meet the expectations of society and of government.

Since June 1985, the government has allocated about 98 new positions and about $3.7 million to the program. These resources will enable increased inspection programs in the construction and industrial sectors. They will enhance the enforcement of designated-substance regulations. They will enhance the training provided to the inspectorate. They will help to improve the identification and control of unstable rock conditions in the mining industry.

Bill 149 represents one perspective on the question of health and safety. It is not the only perspective, nor I submit is it the proper perspective. The essential components of a proper health and safety regime are in the recognition of mutual shared responsibilities in the work place by work place parties. I, for one, am not interested in establishing a much more adversarial approach to the problem. I am certainly not interested in moving the balance on committees away from a sharing and co-operative mix and relationship. Arising from this relationship, where the parties cannot or do not fulfil their responsibilities, the government must and will improve and enforce the law.

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Mr. Cousens: I rise to speak on Bill 149, the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment Act, proposed by our New Democratic Party colleague the member for Sudbury East. There is a limited time in which one can discuss and debate this bill, but I would like to make three points in the time that I have. The first point I will make is on the importance of safety in the work place. My second point is on the problems I see with this bill and why I cannot and will not support it. My third point is a recommendation I would like to present to the House on how we can have a safer work place.

No one in this House can underestimate the importance of safety in the work place, whether it is the safety of miners in Sudbury and Timmins, the safety of steelworkers in Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie, the safety of auto workers in Oshawa and Oakville, the safety of our manufacturing work places in Cambridge and Windsor, the safety of our farmers in Northumberland and Haldimand-Norfolk or the safety of office workers in the Toronto-Dominion Centre or on Bank Street in Ottawa.

In transportation, harvesting lumber, hospitals and schools, in every part of the work place, safety is important. All of us in government, in business and in labour have to work together to make sure we have a work environment for employees and workers that is clean and accident-free. No one can deny the importance of this great subject and of the value of life and its importance for the economy of our province.

I would like to underline the problems with this bill and why I cannot support it. Unfortunately, because of the time constraint within this private members' period, one cannot make amendments to change the bill and to correct it. The bill itself is flawed. First, the power of the health and safety committees has shifted. The unions or employees will now control these committees. One wonders just what will be done with that control.

Smaller businesses and farmers across the province will now be compelled to have health and safety committees. This will be a new, forced mechanism to bring about certain changes which for them can happen in other ways. Plants and businesses could be shut down over disputed safety issues. The new act will provide unlimited compensation for time lost because of safety-related work stoppages. The delicate balance of management and labour has now been shifted. The new act would change the health and safety committees into adversarial forums. I believe strongly that all people in management, in labour and in government must work together in a balanced way to come up with solutions that will address the safety of all people in the work place.

I also believe that the bill as presented by the NDP gives a new role to the safety inspector, who becomes a provincial offences officer. The emphasis now will be an adversarial policing function rather than an educational facilitator, which we have at present. This bill has problems in the very concept behind it, which suddenly shifts the power to one group rather than having a shared responsibility of management and employees working together to ensure that an environment is created for everybody to work in harmony.

It becomes a threatening scare to business people who want to start a business today. I think we have to consider that for business to survive and thrive, we want to create an environment for businesses to prosper and grow. That environment is one where you have the balanced relationship of both employees and employers working together to try to come up with solutions.

Mr. Martel: Where is it now?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Cousens: I listened with patience to the speeches and addresses of other members, and I wish they would be more sensitive and more caring about other members' remarks in this democratic House.

I would like to make one recommendation that has to do with what the Minister of Labour could do. If he could meet with all elements of the community -- with business, with labour and with management -- to establish a joint commission of government, labour and management to sit down and devise a solution to the serious problems in the work place that concern all of us, and at the same time review the McKenzie-Laskin report in the light of the serious occurrences this bill addresses. This bill should be a signal to all employers that workers' safety is extremely serious. Let us seek a solution that is fair and just to all.

Further, the Minister of Labour should be bound to draft legislation that would take into account the concerns put forward by this joint commission after a full and proper discussion has taken place.

Through the debate this morning we have been alerted to the concerns of all people to the need for safety. We are concerned that safety continue to have an emphasis in Ontario, but we want to see a solution that addresses the concerns of all people so we can move forward together in a harmonious way to create an environment in which business can continue to prosper in this province. I believe that can happen. I do not believe we can do it by passing a bill this morning that is flawed in a number of ways. It tilts the balance from the beginning and there will not be the opportunity for those who consider other concerns to present those views fairly and squarely.

I hope that this House will reject Bill 149 this morning and that this House will come back to discuss at another time the whole subject of safety and bring forward balanced recommendations that reflect the kind of environment Ontario can and should have.

Mr. Martel: I want to quote a few statistics and destroy or dispel one myth that has been bandied around by both sides. In 1983, 232 workers were killed; in 1984, it was 234; in 1985, it was 193; in 1986, it was 211. There was one worker killed in this province each day for the last four or five years; 1,250 in the last five. The numbers of accidents in the last four years were 344,000 in 1983, 388,000 in 1984, 426,000 and 442,000. My friend who is a great advocate against smoking will be pleased to learn that the Ontario Law Reform Commission last week reported that 3,600 workers die annually from cancer induced from material they are exposed to in the work place.

Those are the statistics. Let me tell the member the other stats. There were 80,000 orders issued against management last year, the year before and the year before. I say to my friend, those are all contraventions of the act.

Let me dispel one myth that my friend across the way, the member who just spoke, tried to put across. There is no balance in the present legislation. The full power of this present legislation rests with management. In the internal responsibility system, the workers have nothing but an advisory capacity. He can talk about shifting the balance. I want to shift it in favour of the people who are dying in the work place every year. If that is too much to expect from this House, then there is something sick in this House.

I say that with the greatest conviction I have ever had with anything in my life.

FARMERS' RETIREMENT LOTS

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Cureatz has moved resolution 79.

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the ayes have it.

Motion agreed to.

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OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY AMENDMENT ACT

The House divided on Mr. Martel's motion for second reading of Bill 149, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes

Allen, Baetz, Breaugh, Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Davis, Fish, Foulds, Gillies, Gordon, Grande, Grier, Guindon, Haggerty, Hayes, Henderson, Hennessy, Johnston, R. F., Lane, Laughren, Lupusella, Mackenzie, Mancini, Martel, McCague, McClellan, McLean, McNeil, Mitchell, Morin, Morin-Strom, Philip, Pollock, Pouliot, Rae, Reville, Sheppard, Sterling, Treleaven, Warner, Wildman.

Nays

Andrewes, Barlow, Bossy, Brandt, Conway, Cooke, D. R., Cordiano, Cousens, Dean, Epp, Ferraro, Gregory, Jackson, Knight, Marland, McKessock, Miller, G. I., Newman, Offer, Polsinelli, Reycraft, Rowe, Runciman, Smith, D. W., Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, Villeneuve.

Ayes 42; nays 27.

Mr. Speaker: Does the bill automatically go to committee of the whole House?

Mr. Martel: No, the standing committee on resources development.

Mr. Gregory: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Could we ask the Clerk of the House for that count again? Twenty-seven votes against does not sound reasonable.

Interjections.

Mr. Gregory: We can count over here too.

Mr. Speaker: I will have to ask the members for majority approval. The standing orders state there must be majority approval to go to standing committee. Is it agreed? Agreed.

Bill ordered for standing committee on resources development.

The House recessed at 12:10 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

ACCESS TO HEALTH SERVICES

Mr. McLean: With the government's institution of socialized medicine in Ontario, there is a growing number of specialized services being withdrawn or otherwise becoming unavailable. I am referring to the fact that extremely highly skilled specialist surgeons such as the few who perform microsurgical procedures have determined that they simply can no longer afford the time to perform those procedures on patients because of the inadequate payment available from the Ontario health insurance plan.

A constituent doctor with whom I have been in contact has explained that, because of the lack of funding from OHIP, he no longer has the services of one specialist in Toronto who performed microsurgical procedures. These patients are being denied the services of the highly skilled specialists of Ontario and are now being referred to a government clinic. No longer may these patients make their appointments through their trusted family doctor. They must drive long distances to a major medical centre such as Toronto to sit and wait at some government clinic, shorn of dignity and privacy. I shudder to think of the extra stress this causes the aged and the infirm.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Elston) must accept that the needs of medical professionals are interwoven with the needs of those they serve and that he cannot play with people's lives by creating impossible barriers that prevent the proper care of the citizens of Ontario.

SCHOOL FUNDING

Mr. Allen: I would like to reflect for a moment on the announcement made by the Minister of Tourism and Recreation (Mr. Eakins) on Monday that the government was providing $3.5 million for the consolidation of elementary school instruction in Victoria county, thus closing five small elementary schools and, at the same time, subjecting children in that county to one and a half hours on the bus in the morning and one and a half hours to return in the afternoon, for a total of three hours in a school day of about five to five and a half hours. At the same time, the government refused $700,000 of renovation money that would have made it possible to maintain those five small schools as effective instructional units.

For some reason, conventional wisdom and the ego of ministers suggest that large and big in schooling are better and that small is somehow or other to be despised. In fact, recent research makes it quite plain that small instructional units can be very effective, certainly as effective as large, if they are given proper support. Urban schools, now emphasizing individual instruction, crossage and family grouping, peer tutoring and so on, appear to be mimicking the small schools.

I say shame on the government, shame on the minister and hooray for the Haliburton board, which decided in the last few days to keep its 20-student school open.

ANIMAL RIGHTS

Mr. McGuigan: I believe it is time that members spoke out on the subject of animal rights. I want to make it clear that whether one is an animal lover or not the mistreatment of animals is something that any sensitive individual cannot tolerate.

One has to wonder about the value system of animal activists who place their obsession with humanity towards animals above the wellbeing of human beings. These animal worshippers, if they had their way, would wreak genocide on northern peoples, whose very existence depends on animals to provide them with food and shelter and a way of life. In the land of the midnight sun, the climate eliminates vegetation on which man can live, but not vegetation on which animals can feed. In the six-month period when little or no sun deprives mankind of the ability to synthesize the sunshine vitamins, these people would die of scurvy were it not for the vitamins they receive from vitamins stored in the fish and animals' fats and oils.

These animal worshippers reject the scientific theory that man evolved on this planet as a meat eater. The facts are that man ate raw meat before fire was discovered and mastered, whereas it is impossible to eat raw grain. Raw grain creates a raging brewery in the human digestive system. Further proof is that there are few, if any, cases of man being allergic to meat, whereas cases of allergic reaction and even fatal reaction to plant foods are very common.

If these people believe animals are equal to man in the --

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry. The member's time has expired.

SCHOOL FUNDING

Mr. Stevenson: Today I want to address the special needs for increased funding in education, particularly in the northern municipalities of York and Durham regions. I am going to use specific figures for York region. When the educational needs of York and Durham regions are discussed, usually the rapid growth areas in the south end of these two regional municipalities get the most attention.

I wish to point out to the Minister of Education (Mr. Conway) and to this House that the problem of funding is not isolated to the most southerly municipalities. Specifically, in York region, when we rank the number of portables per school, Georgina has the highest with 4.8 per school, followed in ranking by Markham, Newmarket and East Gwillimbury, in the 10 municipalities.

When we look at building utilization, the ratepayers' group which got these figures, came up with the following order: Markham, Georgina, Newmarket and East Gwillimbury. When we look at the number of students per teaching space, again, the ranking came out: Georgina, East Gwillimbury and then Markham. Even with excellent representation on the school boards, the special needs of these more northerly municipalities in these regions have not been addressed. I urge the minister and the ministry to keep in mind the situations in these municipalities when these rapidly growing areas come to them.

LABOUR DISPUTE

Mr. D. S. Cooke: The other day during question period I raised the issue of the strike at Maple Leaf Monarch in Windsor, a company that has advertised in our local newspaper with the following advertisement: "Temporary production workers, Maple Leaf Monarch, a division of Archer Daniels Midland Agri Industries Ltd. is hiring for temporary production workers in the plant. The beginning rate is $14.03 an hour."

In addition to this advertisement, where it was asking for scabs, the local Manpower office was recruiting scabs for this company. In interviews that took place with the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) after question period, the member for Windsor-Sandwich who, when he was appointed the Minister of Labour, called himself the minister for labour, was reported as saying the following:

"Wrye refused to say whether or not he approves of the company's attempts to hire temporary workers during the strike which began on January 25. Pressed later by reporters to say whether he personally opposed the hiring of strikebreakers, Wrye said, `I am not going to express any views on it. The laws in this province are clear. The laws allow replacement workers.'"

If the Minister of Labour wants to be the minister for labour, he should introduce legislation in this province similar to that in Quebec and outlaw the use of scabs during legal strikes.

TAX REVENUES

Mr. Ward: Recently, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman) made several public statements suggesting there should be significant tax cuts in this province. Although this kind of proposal has a simplistic appeal, it ignores reality. Shortly after the May 1985 election, the previous government introduced a budget with a projected $2.6-billion deficit. By comparison, in just two budgetary periods, it would appear that deficit would be reduced to somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1.3 billion.

In addition, it should be remembered that in 1985 youth unemployment was nearly at 20 per cent. The universities in this province were funded at the lowest level of any jurisdiction in Canada. Our education system was deteriorating badly through a lack of capital funding.

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As a result of these pressing needs and many others, I believe this government has acted responsibly in ensuring that our health care system is adequately funded over the next five years; that our university system was entitled to and received a rather significant 11 per cent increase; that capital funds for our public school system increased by over 50 per cent.

In short, I believe this government has overwhelmingly responded to the concerns of our citizens and has acted responsibly. About the only thing that can be said in defence of the former Treasurer's proposal is that under his management, the least of their worries was surplus revenues.

CITY OF TIMMINS

Mr. Pope: I wish to draw the attention of the members of the assembly to the fact that this year marks the 75th anniversary of the incorporation of the city of Timmins, a town which was created in the gold-mining heart of Ontario and of North America, which now is a modern, thriving city full of optimism and hope.

On behalf of Mayor Vic Power and Bill Boychuck, chairman of the 75th anniversary, I would like to invite all members to come and visit us this year.

MEMBERS' PRIVILEGES

Mr. Laughren: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: On November 20, this Legislature passed for second reading the Ontario Lottery Corporation Amendment Act. It was passed by all three parties and then referred to the standing committee on resources development. We proceeded to schedule hearings for this week, and they are continuing today.

Since Monday, as chairman of that committee responsible for the scheduling, I have been subjected to harassment and personal abuse by people who are opposed to this bill. I have been called a liar, a crook, and accused of taking a bribe from the Ontario Lottery Corp. I have received telephone messages from a Dr. Cyanide and from the Slaughterhouse Corp.

I have made arrangements for security measures in the committee this afternoon, but I can say that in my 15 years as a member, I have been lobbied by a wide diversity of organizations and individuals and not once have I been lobbied in a way that I thought was inappropriate until this week. I find it totally unacceptable that any member of this assembly should be subjected to that kind of lobbying simply because that member is doing his or her job. It is not because it is I who am involved in this case; I do not think any member should be subjected to that kind of harassment simply for trying to do the job.

I would ask that this entire matter be referred to the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: This is the first I have heard of this situation, but I completely support every remark the honourable member made. He will have the support of the government in fulfilling his ambitions in this regard. We cannot tolerate any of that kind of harassment in this House. The member is quite right to bring it to the attention of the House. He will have whatever security arrangements are necessary for the committee, for himself, or for anyone else who goes into this.

You may want to investigate this even further, Mr. Speaker, through police investigations or whatever. That should not go on in the circum-stances. If the member recommends it, knowing the details personally and intimately, we can certainly have the Ontario Provincial Police look into the matter.

Mr. Stevenson: On behalf of our party, and being a member of the resources development committee, I would say we have also been receiving a number of phone calls, some of them fairly forceful, but at least to my office none of them intimidating. I do, however, certainly take the member at his word. Assuming the calls are what he says they are, we certainly support that the matter be looked into.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any other comments? As the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) has brought this matter to the attention of the members of the House, supported by the other two members who have spoken, it would appear to me that it is the feeling of the House that there may be a possibility of a case of privilege. If the member desires to present a motion to the House, I think that would be in order.

Do you wish to make a motion now?

Mr. Laughren: If it is appropriate to do it in a verbal way, I will do so.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Laughren moves that this matter be referred to the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: As usual, we prefer the motion in writing, if the member would present that to the chair.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

INTERVENER FUNDING

Hon. Mr. Bradley: One of my first initiatives as the Minister of the Environment was to declare the Ontario Waste Management Corp.'s proposals for industrial waste treatment and disposal subject to the full process of environmental assessment under the act.

I decided at the outset that this proposed undertaking required and deserved the best planning and most rigorous public review. Realizing that lack of resources is a barrier to effective citizen participation in projects of this scope, I have made a commitment to intervener funding. Today I am announcing the funding program.

Within the coming month, the chairman of the Environmental Assessment Board will appoint an independent funding panel to conduct a funding hearing in Toronto and near the municipality where the OWMC site is proposed.

Citizens' groups, public interest and ratepayer groups and the local and regional municipality are eligible for funding under the criteria provided to the board.

In its initial hearing, the funding panel will identify all public interest participants who wish to appear in the consolidated hearing to be held jointly by the Environmental Assessment Board and the Ontario Municipal Board. The panel will provide them with the basic ground rules in terms of eligibility and administration of funding. It may also consider and make recommendations on requests to amend these ground rules.

The proposed criteria for the funding include the provision that up to 60 per cent of an eligible group's approved costs and up to 100 per cent of legal fees, based on legal aid tariff, will be paid by the province.

To minimize duplication of effort and to eliminate unnecessary costs to the taxpayer, the panel will be urged to make every effort to encourage joint effort. If two or more parties have interests and positions that are essentially the same, they will be urged to make joint submissions with common expert witnesses and legal counsel.

At the same time, we have made it clear that this funding is to encourage a focused, thorough and timely review of the proposals and to help ensure that the public's concerns are fully considered in the consolidated hearing.

Within 60 days of the funding hearing, we expect the funding panel to advise the government on the number of potential participants in the consolidated hearing, the funding criteria and the total amount of funding required. This process is a key element in the proper planning and development of industrial waste facilities in Ontario.

The Environmental Assessment Act and the Municipal Act, which apply to the review of the OWMC's proposal, are the best vehicles to ensure thorough public review and evaluation of the proposal.

The process has begun to provide the resources to local municipalities, citizens and public interest groups so they can participate fully and contribute their knowledge and expertise to that public review and evaluation. Everything is in place for full public involvement in an important public decision.

RESPONSES

INTERVENER FUNDING

Mr. Andrewes: I wish to respond to the statement of the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley). My colleague the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt) tells me this is a reiteration of a commitment he made while he was the Minister of the Environment. We are always pleased to hear from the minister on policies that were initiated by the Progressive Conservatives and that he sees fit, as the Liberal Minister of the Environment, to support.

This move is in no small way a result of considerable badgering on the part of groups that have a fundamental and primary interest in the Ontario Waste Management Corp.'s activity in the riding of Lincoln, not the least this member himself, who has on occasion, by way of statements, questions and whatever other vehicles at his disposal, pressed the minister for a response on this issue.

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I feel very strongly about that response because the whole credibility of the process is at stake. If a crown corporation with the resources that the OWMC has at its disposal is allowed to be the only one at the hearing who can make an effective presentation because of those resources, then the hearing process becomes a sham. It is certainly most appropriate, in this case and in others, that the Minister of the Environment come to grips with the whole process of intervener funding that has been recommended to him by several people, including the courts of Ontario.

Dr. Chant and the OWMC indicated some time ago -- I believe two or three weeks ago -- that they are preparing to go to public hearings some time next fall. Although the announcement by the minister today is timely, it would have been even more timely had it come six months ago. I would urge the minister in his discussions with Dr. Chant to review the timeliness of the fall 1987 hearing, and I would suggest that since this process is now under way and resources are going to be made available, Dr. Chant should reconsider his attempted date of the fall of 1987.

Mr. Rae: I want to say to the minister that we welcome his announcement today. I might have thought he might have made reference to the number of questions that have been asked in this House by the member for Lakeshore (Mrs. Grier) with respect to the question of intervener funding. It might have indicated a level of generosity on the part of the government that, while uncharacteristic, might have been welcome in its uniqueness.

But I do want to say to the minister that it is obviously something that is necessary. A number of hearings have been held where there has not been appropriate funding. I can think of the environmental hearing, for example, in London, which involved a number of groups that were not funded, with respect to the stack at Victoria Hospital.

This is indeed a welcome move and l look forward to a very lively process of representation from the communities with respect to this very important matter. I want to say this is one move by the government that we welcome.

Mr. Reville: In a spirit of generosity, I would like to offer for the Minister of the Environment's consideration yet another initiative in this respect: that he should make all waste management proposals, be they public, private or crown corporation proposals, subject to the full process of environmental assessment under the act and that intervener funding be provided to those citizens' groups so that they can have full access to the process.

I would commend this action to the minister, particularly in the case of any energy-from-waste proposals that might occur in south Riverdale and elsewhere across the province, of which I believe there are 16 on the drawing board. It would be a good time for the minister to beg the House for leave to speak again so that he can announce that he is going to accept our generous offer and make all waste management proposals subject to the full process of environmental assessment, and with intervener funding of such a magnitude that citizens' groups can clearly be involved in the process, as I know he wants them to be.

ORAL QUESTIONS

TAX REVENUES

Mr. Grossman: I have a question for the Treasurer. We might call it "Let's find the missing billion dollars." In trying to help determine just how he managed to move around some of the money, I have a very simple and straightforward question for him coming out of yesterday's financial statement.

He has reported under his expenditure increases a $36-million increase for his own Ministry of Treasury and Economics, reflecting "the reclassification to operating from capital expenditure."

Can the Treasurer explain how, when he moves $36 million from a capital expenditure to an operating expenditure, that increases his total spending by $36 million?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Actually, it does not. It occurs on the expenditure side. We decrease the segment labelled "capital expenditure" -- or at least we increase it -- and remove it from the Ministry of Treasury and Economics.

It is interesting to note that when this budgetary item was first put forward, it was thought it would be used for assistance of a certain type for the economy across the province; but with the situation involving northern Ontario, particularly the community economic transformation agreement program, which the honourable member will remember, we felt the funding was better reported as indicated in the Ontario Finances.

Since there was that change in the numbers, balanced, without changing the effect, we felt the honourable member would like a note of explanation.

Mr. Grossman: If this accounts for "an increase in expenditures," one speculates on the absence from the Treasurer's accounting, which he so carefully laid out here, of an explanation that he had, in fact, reduced capital expenditures in the following areas to account for a reduction in capital spending of $36 million. He did not report that in his financial statements, yet that is the explanation he wants to offer to the House today.

In addition to this $36 million, this morning we called Revenue, one of the Treasurer's other ministries, to try to find out where it had spent its extra $17 million. We know it did not spend it on the guaranteed annual income system for the aged or the disabled, Gains-A or Gains-D. We wanted to find out where Revenue might have spent that money.

Lo and behold, this new phrase the Treasurer has developed to hide money popped up again. We were told the $30-million increase in spending has resulted from -- listen to this phrase -- transfer of small business development corporation moneys from capital to operating. It begins to have a certain ring about it.

My question of the Treasurer, once again, is this: we have now found $66 million of increased expenditures allegedly having occurred because he has moved an item from capital to operating spending.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Grossman: Can the Treasurer try, once again, to explain to the public of Ontario how that additional $66 million was invested on its behalf?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The Ministry of Revenue has the responsibility for the SBDC program, which, once again, the honourable member is aware of. We inherited that. There is going to be an underspending in that allocation, although it has been extensively advertised and taken up in northern and eastern Ontario. We may have been a bit generous in its allocation. It is going to be transferred to regular utilization in the ministry for a number of programs in that connection.

Mr. Grossman: If the Treasurer has underspent in one area, i.e., capital investment, which creates a lot of jobs, he surely should report that in his quarterly statements. That is the practice.

In his answer a moment ago -- which, when he gets back to the ministry, he may want to rethink - - he suggested that there is $66 million worth of capital projects which he is not proceeding with and he has therefore moved them to operating.

My final question is this: is the Treasurer saying, as I heard his first two answers, that he has stopped $66 million worth of capital expenditures, as is reflected in the statement? Second, can he explain how, when there is underspending in one area and overspending in another area, he stands up and reports a net increase of spending of $66 million, which is just a transfer from one account to another?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The honourable member probably is not aware that since his days in the Treasury there have been a number of substantial changes, one of them being that the capital accounts from all ministries are reported under one item and the operating accounts are reported separately. When we transfer from one to the other with the approval of Management Board, it is reported in this particular way.

There is nothing concealed. The honourable member seems to have a penchant for finding conspiracies in the financing of the affairs of the province. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, and every other reasonable person that there is no conspiracy. This is open reporting of the business of the people.

Mr. Grossman: No one, including the Treasurer's banker, would believe that.

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GUARANTEED ANNUAL INCOME SYSTEM

Mr. Grossman: I have a question for the Premier. Could the Premier tell us whether he believes that $7,260 a year is an adequate income for a single disabled person in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Obviously, it would be extremely difficult to live on that amount of money; there is no question about it.

Mr. Grossman: The federal government, as was discussed in this House yesterday, made available an extra $150 a month for those single disabled people, and the Premier and this government have chosen not to pass a nickel of that money on to the single disabled people in this province who are being asked by him to live on $7,260 a year.

My question to the Premier is this: if he believes what he said a moment ago, that $7,260 is not an adequate income for the single disabled in this province, why does he not pass on the money?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I think the minister could better answer that question.

Mr. Grossman: No; this is a supplementary.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: He is referring this to the minister.

Mr. Gillies: You cannot refer a supplementary question.

Mr. Speaker: Order. As I well recall, there are many occasions when ministers have transferred the question or the supplementary.

Mr. Gillies: The supplementary, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: Yes. I understand the Premier has asked the minister to respond.

REDIRECTION OF QUESTIONS

Mr. Harris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I do not have a difficulty with the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) answering a question that the Premier (Mr. Peterson) does not understand. However, Mr. Speaker, you have indicated many examples where this has occurred, and to my recollection -- and I admit I have not been here as many years as some -- it strikes me that this is a precedent I have never seen before, and I would ask you to check that.

Mr. Speaker: I will be glad to check it.

GUARANTEED ANNUAL INCOME SYSTEM

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman) will be aware of the fact that the changes in the Canada pension plan were agreed to all across the country. It was not just in this province and it was not just by the federal government; it was a joint agreement by the provinces and the federal government.

The effect in Ontario is that some 80,000 disabled people will receive that increase. Of those 80,000, approximately 13,000 also receive some top-up benefits from the family benefits program of my ministry. The other agreement between the federal and provincial governments is that when that extra money comes in, we must deduct dollar for dollar from our program to that level. That is what we have done.

I would also point out to the honourable member that there are about 83,000 people in the province who receive a benefit, and we would have no way of giving that additional benefit just to those 13,000. We would have to give it to all 83,000, and quite frankly we cannot afford to do that.

Mr. Grossman: He cannot afford to do that? Yesterday the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) admitted to having $919 million additional over his original budget requirements to spend on the people of Ontario. He just reported a moment ago that he is shifting money between capital and operating accounts willy-nilly to the tune of $65 million; his government attempted to give $17 million to a friend of the Premier for Exploracom on the waterfront; it has reduced its high-tech fund from $100 million to $100,000, and the minister can stand up today and say he cannot afford to pass on a meagre sum of money to people who his Premier (Mr. Peterson) said a moment ago would find a difficult time living on $7,200 a year.

My question to the minister is this --

Mr. Speaker: Order. I thought that was your question.

Mr. Grossman: No, it was not.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Grossman: My question to the minister is this: given the fact that the Treasurer reported 919 million additional dollars coming in this year, and given the fact that disabled people are expected to live on $19 a day, how does the minister justify the fact that disabled seniors live on $19.89 a day while executive assistants to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) live on $167 a day or $60,000 a year.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: The figures the honourable leader quotes do reflect the quarterly report of Ontario Finances, and he will find in there that the Treasurer has allocated to my ministry an additional $92 million for a range of social services. He will also find that the Treasurer has allocated to the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of the Environment additional sums of money which the member and his colleagues have indicated should be allocated. It cannot be done both ways.

Mr. Grossman: How much do the disabled get?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: My question is to the Premier. Yesterday was not a good day for disabled people in the province. First, there was the knowledge of the Premier's affront to one sector of that population and then his apology. Then we gave evidence of 13,000 people being ripped off by the government's not passing through that Canada pension plan amount in its totality.

Can the Premier explain to me why, with the provincial $1-billion windfall, he cannot do what he talked so much about before he was elected Premier, and that is to make a major move towards narrowing the gap in this province between Gains-D recipients, who are disabled, and Gains-A recipients, who are elderly? Before he became Premier, he said he was committed to that.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I will refer that to the minister.

Mr. Stevenson: Why do you not get briefed between pictures?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I understand that is referred to the Minister of Community and Social Services.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: In fact, the gap between the seniors on Gains-A and the physically disabled on Gains-D has been narrowed. I would draw to my honourable colleague's attention, however, that while the support that we provide to the elderly is restricted to Gains-A, there are a number of other support mechanisms that we provide to the disabled that are not available to the elderly.

For example, for the disabled who have earnings there is a basic earnings exemption of $175, which is not available to the elderly. There is an automatic dental program for the disabled that is not available to the elderly. There is a payment to the disabled of 100 per cent of heating fuel costs, which is not available to the elderly. There is a whole series of other programs that we have made available to the disabled, including the attendant care program, the integrated homemaker program and the sheltered workshop program. The narrowing of the gap is done in different ways.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I wish to go back to the Premier, because it was a matter of government policy I was asking for, not the kind of nonsense that we have been getting from Frank Drea over there.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Does the honourable member have a supplementary for the Minister of Community and Social Services?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Why can I not direct it back to the minister I asked the first question of?

Mr. Martel: He has a right to direct his question where he wants it to go.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

REDIRECTION OF QUESTIONS

Mr. McClellan: I have a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have to hear my point of order.

Mr. Speaker: I was hoping to. I understood that I would be able to hear it now.

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Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in the standing orders that permits the Premier (Mr. Peterson) to refuse to accept a supplementary question, and there is nothing in the standing orders that permits you to rule that my colleague cannot redirect his supplementary to the minister. As a matter of fact, the standing order says, "A minister to whom any oral question is directed may refer the question to another member who is a member of a board or commission to which the question applies."

There is no excuse, except a fear, I think, of answering the question, a cowardice on the part of the Premier in refusing to answer this question. There is nothing in the standing orders that permits you to refuse to allow my colleague to ask this question.

Mr. Speaker: On the same point of order, the member for Nipissing.

Mr. Harris: Mr. Speaker, if you will check your precedents -- 103.9, a precedent from "May 1, 1981 (see 102.11)"; and also a precedent from November 24, 1981, pages 3832 and 3833 of Hansard -- you will see that "only original question, not supplementary question, may be redirected."

I suggest, as I pointed out earlier, that you set a new historical, first-time ruling precedent in the history of this House. I now think that has been verified. I suggest one of two things has to occur. You must allow it to be both ways. If a supplementary arises out of an answer that should follow to another minister, then you have to allow it that way, if you are going to allow a redirect after the original question has been answered; or you should apologize for the error in your ruling at the beginning and start all over.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I think you handled the situation rather well.

Mr. Grossman: Did you enjoy the pipeline debate?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Yes.

The Speaker said he would consider the ruling, and until he had a chance to make the ruling he would allow the question period to go forward. Honestly, I am not at all sure the precedents quoted by the House leader for the official opposition, which were based on an orderly and rational question process, can really take account of the introverted, backward approach to the question period shown by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman). After all, he said, "Is this enough money to live on?" The Premier answered the question. Then the member wanted the details of a program that is the prerogative and responsibility of the minister. What could be more reasonable than referring it to the official?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. l hope all members are aware that I have tried to be as fair as possible and tried to uphold the traditions that have been set in this Legislature. I appreciate there are other legislative chambers where the rules are somewhat different than here.

Mr. Gillies: This one is ours.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I agreed with what the honourable member requested earlier regarding the first point made during this question period. However, I must state, and I am sure all members will agree, that when a supplementary arises out of a response, that supplementary must go to the --

lnterjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Gillies: Stop the clock.

Mr. Speaker: Order. No.

There have been many occasions when members have wanted to redirect questions to other ministers. It has always been my understanding that it has always been the case here that a supplementary must flow from the answer.

Mr. Martel: I want to see where that is. You are going to produce that somewhere, are you?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The answer was given by the Minister of Community and Social Services; therefore, the supplementary must go to the minister.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I would ask you, if I might, to look at my question. I directed it specifically to the Premier about things he said, and it should not have been redirected. I would like you to look at that. It was not appropriate.

GUARANTEED ANNUAL INCOME SYSTEM

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Can the Minister of Community and Social Services explain why it is his policy not to pass through this entire amount of $150 while all the private insurance companies of this province, not always known for their largess, are not affecting the private rates for disabled people across the province but are passing through the entire CPP amount?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I would presume the reason is that they do not have, as we have, a contractual agreement between the two levels of government that we must reduce the increase dollar for dollar. There are 83,000 Gains-D recipients in the province and 13,000 of the 83,000 are also receiving CPP. The arrangement under our program is that if the CPP payments due to those recipients fall below a certain amount, then we will top it up with our family benefits program. That is what we do. When their total income from all sources exceeds that amount, then we do not top it up.

My understanding is that the only way we can continue with our contractual relationship with the federal government is if we top up by a similar amount all 83,000, not just the 13,000. The cost of that would be in the neighbourhood of $200 million.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: It may very well be, but I might also remind the minister that it was his policy that this should be done, that he should move towards Gains-A and not to supplementary programs in the ridiculous way he was saying before.

I want to ask the question because it came out of the mouth of the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) just a second ago that this is a tradeoff from the Canada assistance plan. Is that exactly what is happening? Is this a tradeoff or deal the minister has made with the federal government of savings basically just being transferred out into the Canada assistance plan from CPP? Is that what is happening here?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: That is not what I was trying to suggest. What I was saying is that a range of benefit increases was agreed to by the federal government and all the provinces. This happens to be one of them.

The other reference I made was that our agreement, not just for this program but for all transfer funding programs between ourselves and the federal government, is based on a needs test, and I have described what that is. When income increases from one source, we must reduce it from the other source because the federal government quite fairly argues with us that if it is giving extra money on CPP, it is not prepared to give the same amount of money to the same person through transfer sharing costs.

Mr. Rae: What the minister is clearly saying is that people who are on welfare are, in effect, paying for the CPP increases, which I would think anybody in his right mind would regard as a social obscenity in 1987.

DAY CARE

Mr. Rae: I would like to ask the Premier a question in relationship to a fundamental point of policy. I do not know whether he is going to duck this question as well or whether he is going to be able to answer it. It relates to a series of very unsatisfactory exchanges I have had with the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) on the question of day care.

If the city of Toronto started paying a direct grant in 1984 to nonprofit centres in the city, and the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) has just announced yesterday a $919-million increase on the revenue side, a $919-million windfall just in the last year, can the Premier tell us why the people of Ontario have still not seen a plan whereby nonprofit day care centres are funded on an operating basis by Ontario?

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Hon. Mr. Peterson: The minister speaks for the government on that issue and I am going to refer it to the minister.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: As the honourable leader of the New Democratic Party referred to it earlier, it is possible under the present agreement we have between ourselves and the federal government for us to pay a direct grant to a nonprofit centre; but since those nonprofit centres represent only 50 per cent of the system, it has seemed to us as the government that it would not be equitable, fair or just to give the additional money and have the parents in half the system benefit from it and the parents in the other half of the system not be able to benefit.

This is why we have gone to our federal colleagues and asked for a change in the criteria so that we are able to share that money with all the families in the province that are using day care centres in Ontario. That seems the fair and just thing to do.

Mr. Rae: I would like to get back to the question of how much it is costing working families. We have already demonstrated with respect to what is happening to disabled people that they are the ones who now are paying the cost for the increase in Canada pension plan. We can demonstrate that working families are paying the cost. At the same time as that is taking place, the government of Ontario is reaping an incredible windfall in terms of revenues over the past year. It is an incredible unfairness.

Can the minister tell us why he will not carry out a program that would allow for the direct funding of nonprofit centres at precisely the time when the government of Ontario has the money and at precisely the time when working families, as a result of his failure to provide it, are having to pay literally tens of millions of dollars out of their own pockets for a service that most people in this province feel ought to be there as a matter of right, and which the Premier even agreed in the accord would be there as matter of right and not as a matter of welfare? Why does he continue to operate it as a welfare service when it should be there as a matter of right?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: The leader is correct in terms of our clearly enunciated intention to move the day care system in Ontario from a welfare system to a public service system. He is also very much aware that my Premier, just a couple of months ago in Ottawa, indicated very clearly that it is the intent of this province to move on a number of fronts. Direct grants to day care centres is one of those fronts. We have said we are going to do that. What we are trying to do now is to put together a mechanism and a process that will enable us to do it in the fairest and most just way to all the families in Ontario, and not just to 50 per cent.

Mr. Rae: The minister has talked with pride on many occasions about the number of new subsidized spaces the government has provided for. I wonder whether he would care to comment on the fact that in Metro Toronto alone, allowing for whatever increase took place over the last two years, there now are 2,308 families waiting for subsidized spaces -- these are the Metro Toronto figures -- which is a 50 per cent increase over last year.

How does the minister justify sitting on his duff? He says the Premier was in Ottawa. Most of us know only that he had his picture on the front page of the Toronto Star skating on the Rideau Canal and jumping over barrels. He should give us a break. When is the minister going to move on an issue that matters to people? Working families are having to pay out of their own pockets when the government is rolling in dough, is rolling in money and is unable to provide for basic benefits for working people, forcing them to get it out of their own pockets. How does he justify that?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: We have co-operated very closely with Metro Toronto with respect to subsidized spaces. I can point out to him that approximately 2,700 new subsidized spaces were allocated to Metro Toronto over the last 18 months. The officials of Metropolitan Toronto have very clearly indicated to us that this is the largest allocation of day care spaces it has had in its history over that period of time. We will continue to move in that direction.

SALE OF LANDS

Mr. Gillies: My question is for the Premier. In the Premier's absence yesterday, we questioned in the House the knowledge, or lack of same, and the involvement of several of his ministers with regard to allegations of municipal corruption in the town of Vaughan. In the course of that questioning, we received a great deal of conflicting information. The Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Sorbara) indicated he brought this matter to the attention of his colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Grandmaître) in May of last year. The Minister of Municipal Affairs denies ever having discussed the matter with the other minister.

We could question about this matter from here until kingdom come in this House and probably never get all the facts. What we would like to know is whether the Premier as leader of the government has sat down with his two cabinet colleagues and tried to get to the bottom of this matter.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: No, I have not sat down with the two of them. It is in the hands of the Ontario Provincial Police, as it appropriately should be.

Mr. Gillies: I take it from the Premier's answer that the activities of the two ministers in question are under investigation. Would he as leader of the government not agree that the questions being brought forward by citizens in the town of Vaughan are serious enough to merit investigation? Would he take the responsibility to ensure that the OPP investigation does cover the involvement of his two ministers? Does he not see that as his responsibility as leader of the government?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: First, I am not the commissioner of the OPP. I expect the OPP to follow up fully every possible problem that could be raised in this entire matter, and I have confidence that they will do that. The member is asking whether there is any suggestion the ministers are under investigation. There is no suggestion I have heard from anyone, except the member, who would like it to happen. I understand the suggestion --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: -- just a minute -- the innuendo he has made in this matter.

I have great confidence in the OPP. They are following up on this matter and I am sure they will deal with it in a highly professional way.

PLANT SHUTDOWNS

Mr. Rae: I want to go back to the Premier on a question involving a fundamental question of policy. l do not know whether he will choose to duck it or not. It involves the question of a number of plant closures and layoffs that have taken place over the last year. I know the Premier is a former president of a company and might have some views on this.

Is it the view of the government that it is fair for an employer to offer one package in terms of severance, retirement and pension to its management and salaried employees and a completely different -- and, I might add, worse --package to employees who are part of a bargaining unit?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: In broad terms, one could say it appears unfair on the face of it. As the member knows, there are different legislative and contractual conditions on those particular matters, different employment contracts and that kind of thing. I gather that accounts for some of the discrepancies one would see in some of these individual circumstances.

On the face of it, it may sound unfair, but I cannot comment in the absence of specifics and without knowing the contractual relationships between the parties the member is discussing.

Mr. Rae: I can document these for the Premier. In virtually every case where it takes place, there are at least two, if not three, different packages. In some cases, the employees who are salaried or management employees are offered very generous benefits in terms of early retirement, while people who are part of a bargaining unit are simply offered the very minimum that is provided for in the collective agreement.

By way of supplementary, since we now learn that of the jobs to be lost this year, 71 per cent are from American-owned companies, 80 per cent are from companies that are foreign-owned and, whether or not we engage in a free-trade treaty with the United States, we are in the middle of an extraordinary industrial re-adjustment -- even at a time of relative prosperity in southern Ontario, we see the number of plants that are being closed -- I wonder whether the Premier can explain how the government justifies this.

We are now a year and a half into the life of the government. There has been no legislative framework provided for adjustment, training, rights, notice, justification or any of those basic requirements in a civilized society which will ensure that workers are not simply going to turn up one day and be told the company is going to be closing the next day.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member puts his finger on one of the great structural weaknesses in the Canadian economy and, indeed, the Ontario economy. There is a very high percentage of foreign ownership, roughly 50 per cent in the industrial sector. I was not aware of the figure he mentioned, but I gather he shared with the House that 83 per cent of the companies that had layoffs were foreign-owned. That figure in itself points out, at least in a prima facie way, some of the dangers of foreign ownership. It has been an ongoing problem in this country, as the member would be aware.

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That being said, there is this industrial restructuring going on, and the member is absolutely right. There are great changes going on in the work place. However, my honourable friend should not be quite as pessimistic as one would read the way he presented that question, at least at first glance. There have been 153,000 new jobs created and a lot of those people have gone on to other jobs. He knows and I know that we cannot hold the situation static; that the world is going to change and has been changing. One of the measures of Canada's capacity to survive in the future will be its ability to change. Every one of us is included in that regard. We have great programs from this government to assist people with training and that kind of thing.

With respect to the last part of the member's question about the framework of looking at these questions, the government has been wrestling with the question of notice and other things. We hope to be able to present in the not-too-distant future a legislative framework that would make some of these things more helpful. I cannot tell the member specifically the date that will be brought forward.

ACCESS TO CHILDREN IN CUSTODY

Mr. Offer: I have a question of the Attorney General. Recently, I had a meeting with a group of individuals who are known in their association as a committee for justice. This association is made up of noncustodial parents who are in a family breakdown situation. They have as their main concern the enforcement of reasonable access to their children. What steps are being taken by the ministry to make certain that the noncustodial parent is given effective enforcement of access orders?

Hon. Mr. Scott: I thank the honourable member for the question. I know he, together with the member for Kitchener (Mr. D. R. Cooke), have been very concerned about the issue that is presented by the access laws that exist in Ontario. As members will know, the noncustodial parent obtaining access by agreement or by court order, in a case where an illegitimate default in access occurs, can only obtain by way of court remedy, either a fine or imprisonment. The groups to which the member refers are very concerned about that and believe there should be a more effective and expeditious remedy in access circumstances.

I have met with them. We have looked at the experiment in Michigan in which, in cases where the access order has been wantonly breached, a replacement order for access is made. We anticipate that the government will make a decision very shortly about the course to be taken in this case. I will be grateful to have suggestions from all members about how this very serious problem can be dealt with effectively and soon.

Mr. Martel: Enforce the original order.

Hon. Mr. Scott: That is precisely what we intend to do with these new initiatives.

Mr. Martel: Then do it. The Attorney General does not need a new initiative.

Hon. Mr. Scott: The honourable member does not know what he is talking about on this particular subject.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Interjections are out of order.

SALE OF LANDS

Mr. Gillies: I have a question of the Premier on the Vaughan matter. The same ratepayers who expressed the original concerns about the sale of these two parcels of land informed us yesterday that they brought this matter to the Premier's personal attention in June 1986. Can the Premier inform the House what action he took after these concerns were brought to his attention?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Mr. Meyers phoned my office, and I return my phone calls when I possibly can. I phoned him back. I had no idea what he was talking about. He said he was making some allegations. I asked, "Would you mind putting them in a letter to me?" It came to me and I referred it to the minister.

Mr. Gillies: It really is a question of responsibility for the conduct of his ministers. We have here a copy of the letter the Premier sent to Mr. Meyers, which is five lines long and, indeed, says exactly as the Premier just indicated; that he acknowledged his concern and referred it to the minister.

When a citizen is questioning the conduct of a number of officials, and implicitly one of his ministers, does the Premier not see it as his responsibility as leader of the government to undertake personally an investigation into that matter?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: No; the answer to the member's question is no. I say to him that I get these kinds of suggestions quite regularly, as he knows. I get letters from all sorts of people questioning everything that everyone does around here and we follow up in the normal course. I refer them on and they are dealt with in an appropriate way, as this one is.

DOCTORS' FEES

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I have a question of the Minister of Health. Is he aware that the doctors who manage the laboratory-initiated foetal emplacement program continue to charge up to $500 for administration fees for in vitro fertilization? Dr. Steven Richie of Brantford sent his patients a letter stating that he would continue to charge as much as 50 per cent above the Ontario health insurance plan fee schedule, and we have dozens of letters on file that are still coming in, in which doctors suggest that they are charging for such things as sutures, bandages and injections.

I would like to ask the minister whether these types of charges are legal. If they are not legal, when is he going to start laying charges against doctors who are violating Bill 94?

Hon. Mr. Elston: The honourable gentleman knows that each one of those items can be referred to us in a specific case matter and that the patients will not be disadvantaged. We will, in fact, reimburse those people who are being extra billed.

I can tell the honourable gentleman that we are in the process of analysing exactly what steps next need to be taken. I can tell the honourable gentleman that I am aware, for instance, of the letter by Dr. Richie from Brantford. It has been brought to my attention by more than one of the honourable members, not only by this member but there are other people. We are taking appropriate steps to deal with the question of those charges which are acting as genuine barriers to insured services, as is required under our legislation.

I also am aware of the question of charges for in vitro fertilization programs, and the people in the ministry staff are busy dealing with that particular matter.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: The Bay Centre for Birth Control reports that almost two thirds of the doctors who do therapeutic abortions charge administrative fees ranging from $25 to $175. Dr. Morton Brown of Toronto charged a patient $70 for storing his medical records for seven years.

Since the minister has refunded patients over $7,000 -- and we know that is only the tip of the iceberg -- he then has accepted that in those cases the doctors have broken the law. The first refunds took place several months ago. When is he going to charge the doctors of this province instead of having the people of this province pay for a ban on extra billing?

Hon. Mr. Elston: The honourable gentleman is correct; there have been reimbursements and, in fact, we look after the needs of the patients first and primarily. We will be taking the necessary action in those cases where there is a lack of voluntariness in terms of reimbursing the people of Ontario.

ACID RAIN

Mr. McGuigan: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. While he is returning to his seat, I would like to quote from an article in the Globe and Mail today. It says, "Acid rain and the pollutants that cause it are serious threats to the health of humans, especially children." This came from medical doctors of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association and Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. This was to a Senate committee.

Mr. Speaker: And the question is?

Mr. McGuigan: I understand that yesterday the minister met with Lee Thomas, head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and US Ambassador to Canada Thomas Niles. Can he tell us what his hands-on impression is of the importance they now place upon the control of acid rain?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: I think I have indicated on a number of occasions that where I see some encouragement in the acid rain question is more in the US Senate and the House of Representatives. In other words, for the kind of program we would like to see implemented, which would have actual reductions of acid rain, a number of bills have been put forward in the Senate and the House of Representatives that I think would be useful. The kind of information the member mentions, which he read in the article, is further ammunition, and perhaps in the long run it may be more effective in convincing people that there is a major problem with acid rain.

My assessment is that many in the administration still believe the jury is out as to the consequences of acid rain, and we are still some distance, as far as an administration-initiated program is concerned, from what we would call a specific program for the reduction of acid rain. They are still large on research and believe that their clean-coal technology and so on will be effective, but I do not see a program being initiated by the administration which would be similar to that which we have in Ontario.

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Mr. McGuigan: I understand that the minister manned a booth in New York City a few days ago and took his case to the American people. I wonder if he can report to the House what reaction he received from that.

Mr. Laughren: Ministerial statements.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: lnterestingly enough -- and I will be suitably brief for the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) in this regard -- where one might have anticipated resentment of Canadians indicating to Americans the problems about acid rain, in fact the reaction was exactly the opposite. It was probably the most popular information booth that was at a show that is a national show, and our ministry officials who were there did an excellent job in presenting the case against acid rain and for acid rain abatement. We explained our program and talked about the damage that could be brought about by acid raid, and I think it was very worth while to do so. I hope other provinces and the federal government are involved in that in years to come.

ELECTRICITY EXPORTS

Mr. Andrewes: My question is to the Premier, who three years ago was quite an expert on Ontario Hydro and now has, apparently, conveniently forgotten the details of those briefings.

Ontario Hydro in 1983 exported electricity to the United States that was valued at $447 million; in 1984, the value placed on those exports was $429 million; and in 1985, the value was $350 million. The impact of those exports in 1984 was to reduce home owners' rates an average of 4.5 per cent. In the light of the importance of those exports, what discussions took place while the Premier was in Washington last week relative to the export of electricity?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am glad the honourable member raised that question. It was not discussed with any potential buyers, if that is what he is asking me, because that is not where the buyers of power reside -- at least it is a different form of power there -- but there were some broad discussions about the potential for some kind of countervail on the exports of hydroelectricity.

As the member knows, there is some movement in some of the midwestern states. There are a lot of concerns at the moment about the potential for countervail action. I instructed the chairman of Hydro and the president, upon my return, to work closely with Manitoba Hydro and Hydro-Québec, which are potentially exposed to the same kind of thing. I think it is proper that we prepare in case some assault comes.

Mr. Andrewes: The Premier will know that the American coal lobby for some time has argued that Canada's aggressiveness on the acid rain issue is simply a means of trying to reduce the amount of coal burned in the US and encourage exports from Canada of Canadian-made electricity. Is the Premier's failure to pick up on Mr. Mazankowski's offer to discuss greater quantities and greater use of western coal simply an attempt to pander to that American coal lobby?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I do not believe even my friend opposite believes what he just said. I do not believe that even my honourable friend here believes that. It is nonsense, and my honourable friend knows that.

I can tell him that we will be meeting with his close friend and associate Mr. Mazankowski.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Finally? It was on the books long before this kerfuffle started, and we are very happy to do this.

I have met with Premier Vander Zalm. I have discussed the matter with Premier Getty. Officials have been meeting for a long period of time and we are anxious to increase our coal purchases from western provinces. I am not sure what exactly my honourable friend's problem is, but I cannot believe it is the problem as he stated it, because he is too intelligent to believe that nonsense.

JOB CREATION

Mr. Warner: I have a question for the Minister of Skills Development, who reportedly is distressed, according to the Globe and Mail, by the cut of $200 million plus in the job creation program announced by the federal government. He may be distressed, but he certainly should not be surprised, and nor should we, because this is the minister who failed when he negotiated the agreement which seriously undermined our community college system and has not created any jobs.

Mr. Speaker: Now the question.

Mr. Warner: The question, of course, Mr. Speaker. The negotiating skills of this minister remind me of the chicken which pleaded, "Please, Mr. Fox, teach me gourmet cooking."

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I recognize the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere because this is question period and I believe the member would like to place a question.

Mr. Warner: Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since the minister has been baked, fried and scallopinied, I would like to know when he will announce his job creation scheme. When can we expect an announcement from this government as to what plans it has to create jobs for the more than 100,000 young people who are unemployed in this province?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: It is good to have a question from a member who cares about the issues rather than, shall I say it, the plumbing.

My friend the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere refers to a statement I made last Friday in Ottawa concerning the Canadian Jobs Strategy and the federal government's intention to cut drastically its financial commitment to the Canadian Jobs Strategy. The member also refers to the agreement we signed. He will know, because we have discussed this in estimates, that under that agreement, the federal government has committed itself to spend more on training in Ontario than it did relative to 1985-86, and that commitment carries on for three years. Whether the federal government is going to abide by the agreement it signed, only time will tell.

My expression of distress in Ottawa was with some sort of indication from the federal minister that, above and beyond the $200 million that we knew was going to be cut from the Canadian Jobs Strategy, completely separate and apart from the training agreement an additional $200 million was to be cut. That would be bad news, not only for the people of Ontario but also for people right across this country.

Mr. Warner: The minister is unbelievable. He is talking about some kind of race between the province and the federal government. Are we supposed to bet on the snail or the turtle?

I would like to know why this government has rejected the notion, put forward not only by ourselves but also by Mr. Dryden earlier, of coming forward with a strategy for employment and training. Why does the minister not agree to bring forward a strategy within the next six months for full employment and for a rational education training system for the young people of this province? Why does he refuse to do that?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I am rather shocked at the comments of my friend the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere. He knows very well that Ontario announced a training strategy on September 4, 1986, which doubles the budget this government has allocated to training of the people and the workers of Ontario. In addition, he knows that the Futures program in this province is perhaps one of the most successful youth unemployment programs in North America.

He also knows that in the past 19 months, unemployment in this province, not simply among young people but right across the board, has dropped dramatically. Unemployment among young people in the Toronto region is down as low as six per cent.

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While he makes nice speeches about calling for a strategy of full employment for young people, is he telling me it is only young people who should have full employment and that the rest of the work force should not have full employment? He should acknowledge, if he is being honest, fair and believable, that dramatic things have happened in this province over the past 19 months.

NEWCOMER SERVICES

Mr. Callahan: My question is directed to the Minister of Citizenship and Culture. It has been a brief period of time since a number of refugees arrived in Canada, in Montreal. I would like to know whether any of those refugees have come to Toronto. If so, what services are being provided by her ministry to assist these people?

Hon. Ms. Munro: My colleague will know that Ontario is always able and willing to reach out through its community services and through our ministry, other ministries and this government to welcome and support refugees and immigrants who choose to come to this province. We have had some refugees from Montreal and we have been assured through our networks that they are being taken care of to the best of our ability.

TECHNOLOGY FUND

Mr. Pope: There has been a 48 per cent increase in layoffs in northeastern Ontario, a 250 per cent increase in layoffs in northwestern Ontario. The minister is darn right in that dramatic things have happened in this province, and he has done nothing as Minister of Skills Development (Mr. Sorbara) to help those people.

Mr. Speaker: The member's question is to the Minister of Skills Development?

Mr. Pope: My question is to the Premier, who is in charge of this, about his $17.5-million gift to his friend on the Exploracom grant. He gave without condition, by letter, $17.5 million of the taxpayers' money. I want to know now, because the Premier has given instructions to his lawyer, who is meeting in five minutes with the representative of the employees, how much is the Premier's mishandling of this investment and this public money going to cost us. What is his bottom-line position? How much are we going to have to pay for his mistakes in this matter?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I gather the honourable member used to practise law; maybe he still does part-time, though I have no idea. He would realize that if he were serious in wanting an answer to his question, it would be highly inappropriate for me to answer that question.

I think my honourable friend has inadvertently misrepresented the nature of the transaction. There was no grant; no moneys were forthcoming. As he has pointed out to me, I gather the lawyers are discussing it, and it is in the hands of the courts.

Mr. Pope: The Premier continues to try to claim that the moneys were not forthcoming. He is therefore saying that when he puts something in writing, when he gives $17.5 million of the taxpayers' money of this province to one of his friends and puts it in writing, it does not mean anything and that it is not a commitment. He knows darn well he committed $17.5 million of our money to one of his friends and he had no criteria and no reason to do it.

Mr. Speaker: Is that the member's question?

Mr. Pope: The Premier will not answer the question about what his bottom line is, how much he is prepared to pay of our money to bail out on this matter. He has given us no information.

The Liberal members refused to give information to the committee this morning. They tried to block our attempts to find out what the Premier is doing. When is the Premier going to fess up and tell us what he is doing in this matter and how much it is going to cost us in this province?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The honourable member, who spent three years being trained in the law and another two years being admitted to the bar, does not honestly expect I would answer that question or even attempt to, and would even recognize it is most inappropriate in the circumstances. He should not, in my view, go on continuing inadvertently to misrepresent the facts in the case.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I said, "inadvertently misrepresent"; inadvertently misinform. Could that be a better interpretation?

I want to say to my honourable friend opposite that he knows the chronology of events in this regard. We did not want to get into the same situation that his party got into with Minaki Lodge where, because of a $550,000 loan, that government spent $50 million of the taxpayers' money; or into another thing, like Suncor, which that government did. This government is prepared to make these tough decisions. I am thrilled to see the conversion of my friend opposite, who originally was against the loan. He is now in favour of it. He has switched his position, as his party switches its position on every single issue.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The time for oral questions has expired.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: There will be another day.

TABLING OF INFORMATION

Mr. Wildman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: You will recall that on January 14 I raised a point of order related to standing order 31(i) dealing with petitions. At that time, you ruled that I did indeed have a point of order and indicated that you were certain the government House leader would take careful note of the comments I had made and make certain the problem was corrected. That problem still has not been corrected.

I submitted a petition on behalf of my constituents on November 6. We received an interim answer on November 24, which indicated there would be a full and final answer by December 18 from the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations and Financial Institutions (Mr. Kwinter). We have still not received that answer. Perhaps we could get at least an explanation as to why the minister has not fulfilled his commitments.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: As the honourable member has referred to my previous undertaking, I will reiterate it.

Mr. McClellan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: On July 2, 1986, I asked the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) a question about the release of a report by Dr. Annalee Yassi of the occupational health centre of the Manitoba Federation of Labour, which was part of the Weller task force. The minister promised to release that report, and here we are in February 1987 and the minister still has not followed through on the commitment made to this House.

Mr. Speaker: Was that a written question or an oral question?

Mr. McClellan: It was a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: Oh.

MOTIONS

COMMITTEE SITTINGS

Hon. Mr. Nixon moved that the standing committee on resources development be authorized to meet on Tuesday, February 10, 1987, following routine proceedings and on the morning of Thursday, February 12, 1987, to consider the estimates of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Nixon moved that the select committee on retail store hours be authorized to meet on Wednesday, February 11, 1987, following routine proceedings.

Motion agreed to.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

SOUTH AFRICAN TRUST INVESTMENTS ACT / LOI DE 1987 SUR LES PLACEMENTS SUD-AFRICAINS DÉTENUS EN FIDUCIE

Hon. Mr. Scott moved first reading of Bill 195, An Act permitting Trustees and Other Persons to dispose of South African Investments.

L'hon. M. Scott propose la première lecture du projet de lot 195, Loi permettant aux fiduciaires et à d'autres personnes d'aliéner les placements sud-africains.

Motion agreed to

La motion est adoptée.

Hon. Mr. Scott: Let me briefly explain the problem this bill addresses and the effort we have made to respond to it. Many people, including members of this House, have expressed concern that despite the nature of the regime in South Africa a large number of corporations incorporated or managed outside South Africa have subsidiaries in that country or carry on business there. These companies are seen as directly or indirectly supporting South African government policies since they contribute in some measure to the economic prosperity of the country but benefit largely the white minority.

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As a result, there is a widely held opinion in Canada that these companies should stop doing business in South Africa. As honourable members will know, many Canadian individuals and businesses have already accepted for themselves a policy of divestment, that is, a policy by which shares in South African companies or companies doing business there are disposed of.

Many institutional investors, such as pension funds, have expressed to government their desire to participate in a voluntary program of divestment respecting assets held by their firms. The problem is that these investors face a legal barrier to divestment, the law of trusts, which this bill is designed to remedy. The law imposes a legal obligation on trustees to maximize the economic return to the fund. Buying and selling on moral or political grounds is forbidden by law if this reduces the profitability of the investment portfolio.

The purpose of this bill, which is the first of its type in Canada as far as we know, is to permit the divestment of trust assets on the grounds I have set out. Of course, it is an option that under the bill will be open to a wide number of trusts, charities and pension funds in Canada, whereby the beneficiaries and trustees of those funds can express in a voluntary way their disapproval of the policy of apartheid in South Africa.

Mr. Sterling: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: It is my understanding that after a member or a minister introduces a bill, he has a chance to make a brief statement about what the bill has in it.

In this case, the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) has used his time to give not only a brief statement of what is in the bill, but also to give all the reasoning and background around it. That is more appropriate in a ministerial statement. Although he kept fairly brief in his statement, I ask the Speaker to remind the Attorney General to do that during ministerial statements and not at this time.

Mr. Speaker: The member makes a very good point.

Mr. Rae: In the presence of the House leader and the Attorney General, could I say that it is very rare that I would ask the government to make a statement, but I think a suspicious mind, which I do not happen to have, would wonder why the minister would choose to introduce a bill of this importance without making a statement in the House.

The only reason I can surmise is that the government did not want to hear from those of us who know precisely what options were available to the government and who also know that this was the very least the government could have done. This was the route of least resistance. This was the most conservative possible stance that was put forward in terms of what could be done. The Attorney General knows that. He also knows what the response would have been from this member, from my colleague from Thunder Bay and from other colleagues who have raised this issue on many occasions in the House.

I am a little surprised, not to say perplexed, that the Attorney General would have chosen to use the introduction of a bill as an occasion to justify the measure when it is the very least the government could be doing in the circumstances.

Hon. Mr. Riddell: You will have a chance to debate it.

Hon. Mr. Scott: On the honourable member's point, I note it and I am grateful for his comment. With respect to the honourable leader's point, I am perfectly prepared to debate the bill and, with leave of the House, I am content to have second reading right now, and we can get on and pass this bill.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Let us have the debate first. That is what we are having. Is this not a debate on first reading we are having?

Mr. Speaker: To the member for Carleton-Grenville (Mr. Sterling), I am not certain whether that really is a point of order. It is a point of information or a point of view. As we know, the rules are such that it is not up to the Speaker to inform members how to present bills and how to make statements.

Mr. Harris: On a similar point, Mr. Speaker, since you may have ruled the other one not a point: both the member for Carleton-Grenville and the member for York South (Mr. Rae) have raised very valid points, and I concur with both of them, particularly with the member for York South vis-à-vis a statement. They both tie in because I believe he, having not made a statement, further attempted to slip one in during another period of time entirely out of order so there would not be and could not be responses. I might also point out that it would be normal for a compendium to be tabled at the same time. I wonder if that has been tabled with the Clerk of the House.

TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Davis moved first reading of Bill 196, An Act to amend the Teachers' Superannuation Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Davis: The purpose of the bill is to broaden the number of persons who have their retirement allowances computed on the basis of their best five years. In 1983, the five-year criterion replaced the seven-year criterion as the basis for calculating the allowances. Under the act, teachers who retired on or after May 31, 1982, benefited from this change. The proposed amendment would eliminate that restriction and make the five-year criterion applicable to all retired teachers.

There have been numbers of petitions directed towards the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) asking him to recalculate the pensions of all teachers based on the best five years. There has been little response. We believe it is imperative that all teachers are treated fairly and justly. We would also point out that in 1984 there was an actual surplus in the teachers' superannuation fund of $693 million and that the financing of this initiative can be taken from the fund without any recourse to the government's own input of money. We are moving it because we believe it is time this issue be dealt with by this House.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, OFFICE OF THE PREMIER AND CABINET OFFICE (CONTINUED)

On vote 601, Office of the Premier program; and vote 101, Cabinet Office program:

Mr. Sterling: Last Monday we were talking about the openness of the Liberal administration. We talked briefly about the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the reluctance of this government to bring that forward, even though it was the first bill it introduced. I only hope that since that time the Premier (Mr. Peterson) has impressed upon his Attorney General the importance of this legislation to both the Progressive Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party.

I want to talk about another aspect of open government. I think the Premier gave a very distinct impression when he took that office that he would gladly meet with groups and open his heart and mind to new ideas and thrusts in terms of his administration. While he made those statements and said those words, I see, unfortunately, little evidence they are coming to fruition.

I want to put forward two examples that I will ask the Premier to comment on. One relates to a visit to Ottawa recently, on January 20, when he joined with many people to open the Ottawa courthouse. I am going to read to him from an editorial of a small weekly newspaper, the Kanata Kourier. The editorial is entitled "See No Evil, Hear No Evil."

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Hon. Mr. Peterson: I have read it.

Mr. Sterling: I am glad the Premier has read it. Perhaps the other members of the Legislature and people in the public would also like to hear it.

"One is reminded of the experience of the Ottawa Citizen which, one day in September 1984 during the Pope's visit to Canada, ran a report about a speech that John Paul II had given in the Northwest Territories earlier in the day. The following day a somewhat embarrassed and shamefaced Citizen editorial note explained that the Pope had never been in the Northwest Territories due to bad weather. They had published the report in anticipation of the event.

"A slightly analogous situation is that of the Bridlewood residents who on Tuesday, January 20, plan to confront Premier David Peterson on the steps of Ottawa's new courthouse to ask him why his government is ignoring their concerns." They are predicting what is going to happen at this time because this article was written either one day or two days prior to January 20.

"Peterson won't even give the residents five minutes of his time. They plan to wave placards and shout slogans to get his attention. For the purposes of this editorial, we will assume that Ontario's Premier did, on January 20, exactly what he has done on the other occasions when he has had to come face to face with people who have concerns: give them a superficial smile, a glib `Nice to see you' and a regal wave.

"It is a strategy that, of course, is intended to minimize political damage, be it people worried about the erosion of rent controls, doctors worried about the erosion of their paychecks or Bridlewood residents worried about their children and their community. The Peterson strategy is a `See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' one.

"It is a sad comment on a government that pretends to be accessible and open to all. Bridlewood residents should not have to march around a public building with signs and slogans in sub-subzero January weather to be heard. They have a right to expect better from their government. Maybe when it comes time to pass judgement on the Peterson regime, voters all across Canada will pause for a moment to contemplate the Bridlewood-Hydro corridor dispute."

Not only did the Premier not stop to pause to meet them, he also went in the back door. Perhaps the Premier would like to comment on that before I go on to the other matter.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am delighted to comment. I saw that editorial and I do not accept that particular point of view. I understand the feeling of that editorial writer, but that is one person's opinion. People are entitled to that, particularly people who feel they have a strong stake in an issue.

The member should understand that I get picketed almost everywhere I go. There is not an issue that people do not feel strongly about. Everyone has the right in a free and democratic society to do that. If my honourable friend had been with me during the discussions we had with the doctors and the number of people I met in that regard and the number of pickets I talked to, he would not take that view of the situation.

I remind the member also of facts he may not be aware of. The Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Grandmaître) has met, I believe, six times with that group. I know very well the position of that group; they know our position. They have been corresponded with and everything else. They were across the street from the courthouse. The member is right. We went in the back door through the garage underneath the courthouse. Was the member there that day? We came out the front door.

As I have said to my honourable friend -- and he will be familiar enough with it because he used to be a minister of the crown -- first ministers and ministers of the crown get shouted at by a lot of people who want to make their case. We are quite familiar with that case.

This government has been open and accessible but that does not mean I can be all things to all people. That does not mean I can take both sides of every issue. Sometimes one makes decisions that people are not particularly happy with. I venture to say we have made a lot of them. I get no joy out of doing that but, at the same time, I get no joy out of doing nothing either, being so paralysed by people with picket signs or a few editorial comments that we end up doing nothing.

The member, above all others, should know the difficulties of making tough decisions. His government would not even make a decision on freedom of information; we have.

I will go through the chronology of that, because after it was brought to my attention by the members opposite -- I will get to that in a minute -- l went back and tried to find out where that bill was stalled. I am told the committee has been doing other things; it has not been because the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) is not willing to sit down and discuss the bill.

I am happy to talk to my honourable friend. He or anyone else can bring up concerns. I meet with hundreds of people regularly. That is not to say I meet with everybody in the province all the time on a particular request. There are thousands of interest groups and they all have that legitimate right.

Mr. Sterling: All they wanted you to do was to be straight with them.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We have. We have corresponded with them. Here is the problem: We are straight with them, we tell them the position and they do not like it, just as when I am straight with the member and tell him where we stand, he may not like it. However, we are very straight about it and we do not try to be all things to all people. Those people -- and I respect them all -- do not like the government's position.

Mr. Sterling: Why did the Premier go through six meetings with them if that is the case?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member was criticizing us for not meeting. He cannot have it both ways. Frankly, his point does not make sense.

I said we had lots of meetings. The minister has been meeting, and I am very familiar with the position. The member says there are not enough meetings and then he is mad at us for making a decision. He cannot have it both ways.

I wish we could please everybody, but we cannot, nor do we aspire to do so. These are very hard decisions. These are decisions on transmission lines. It was not our decision, as the member knows. The government just affirmed the decision of the joint board. We have gone through transmission-line-corridor discussions I do not know how many times in this House. I have never seen a happy debate. Every time I see a happy member on the one hand, I see an unhappy member on the other hand. The decision was made by an impartial body.

Mr. Sterling: All they want is a fair hearing. They have not had that.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: They have had hearings. I am not the judge and jury in all these situations on where lines should go. It went through a democratically, legislatively constituted body and it came back. Now the member is saying they did have a fair hearing, although he said they did not a few minutes ago. They sat with the minister many times and they know the issue.

We know their position. I believe they have had a fair hearing. Everybody wants to get our attention, wave signs and get his face on television. That is fine; I have no problem with that. We try to be sensitive to these needs and I have communicated with literally thousands of people in the last month and a half. However, when these tough decisions are made, unfortunately, there are people who are upset about them.

If the member wants to go back to freedom of information, here is the note I got, on going through all the committee meetings, of what has transpired. There were public hearings on Bill 34 and then the committee could not sit, because it had not been given permission by the whips, from March 27 to April 30.

Does the member want me to go through the entire chronology of the year? April 30 was organization; May 7 and May 14 were public hearings. Then they had to go to simultaneous translation; then they were into public sector appointments; then they spent time on the legislative dining room; then they were into estimates of the Office of the Assembly.

In June they went through other matters, a walk-through of the bill, section by section. Then there was discussion of the job applications for Clerk of the Legislative Assembly in July. On July 9, they went into organization. Then they went into conflict-of-interest discussions; then they did not sit for a while. They went back to organization. Then they went into television in the Legislature, the Aird report, the Ivan Fleischmann matter and a lot of other things. What I am saying is that the committee, according to the information I have, decided it had other priorities along the way.

The minister or his parliamentary assistant is quite happy to sit down and work that bill through the system. Unless I am misinformed -- and that is the chronology I have -- he is happy to sit down and work it through. There may have been problems on the odd date, but I am told by him that he is anxious to see this thing go through and to work with the committee. The committee decides its own priorities.

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Mr. Sterling: I feel I must explain to the Premier the process that goes on around here. He obviously knows his House leader negotiates with our House leader and the House leader of the third party as to the business of the committees. If he had kept some of his ministers, like the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Fontaine), out of problems, we probably would have had a chance to deal with Bill 34 a long time ago. The hearings concerning the member for Cochrane North took up a major portion of the committee's time over the past summer, probably resulting from the Premier's lack of interest in conflict-of-interest guidelines for his own ministers.

I am going to go on to another issue.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: May I have a moment?

Mr. Sterling: Certainly.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I just got a note from the secretary of the cabinet. I will share it with the member for his information because it relates to my responsibilities. We just got a telex from Premier Getty. He is organizing a Premiers' conference, at the request of Premier Peckford, on Monday or Tuesday evening, either in Toronto or Montreal, with respect to the Newfoundland fishing issue Premier Peckford feels so very strongly about.

I will provide a little background. He telexed Premier Getty a couple of days ago, with a copy to us, and suggested we meet in Toronto. We offered our facilities. We would organize the details, if Premier Getty, our chairman, chose to do so. He has chosen to do so, so we will be having that meeting, here or in Montreal, on Monday or Tuesday. I wanted the member to know that.

Mr. Breaugh: May I intervene for a second on this matter of Bill 34? I can report to the members that as of yesterday the information given to the committee was that we had agreement from the whips that we would deal with, I think, two other matters. We have agreed that we will set aside two weeks, I believe, in the latter part of March and the first part of April.

It is our understanding that the Attorney General will be available during those weeks to process Bill 34. That is my understanding as of yesterday afternoon. I have to report we have had similar undertakings for the last year and a half and it has not happened yet, but it appears the processing of Bill 34 is under way. That is as far as I care to go on that.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The secretary of the cabinet confirms that. I appreciate this estimates process because I learn things I may not know, as well. When I heard the member's speech on this the other day, I tracked it down, because it was something I deemed a priority, and I conveyed that down to the ministry and others. I hope this matter gets dealt with expeditiously.

This is a valuable process in terms of learning things that are of priority to the ministers, and where my assistance can be helpful, I am anxious to give it. I thank the honourable member and I will convey to the Attorney General that we should get this matter cleaned up. I got the message, phrased a little more elegantly, but I got the point.

Mr. Sterling: The other matter I would like to relate to the Premier is his attitude and his government's attitude towards the legislative thrusts of members of this Legislature, other than those from the government side, in the cabinet.

The Premier well knows there have been a number of private members' bills, which are debated on Thursday mornings, and a number of private members' resolutions, which are debated on Thursday mornings.

It is all well and nice for the Premier to talk about open government, to be receptive to new ideas, to have an open mind as to what could be good or bad for all citizens of Ontario. That is the way I think every politician should think about every issue. Then there are some limitations around on how far one can go on that particular tack because of financial constraints, because of what one's colleagues might think about a particular idea, etc.

I have noticed the attitude of the government in terms of private members' bills. They allow them to be debated and voted upon. It is not their choice as to whether or not they be debated, but on whether they are to be voted upon there is an opportunity for the government to shut down a vote by having 20 of its members rise in opposition to a particular matter and block a vote. They have not done that, and I congratulate them on that.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We do not whip it. We do not block it. It is completely unlike the past. You should acknowledge that.

Mr. Sterling: I acknowledge that under the past government that was done too often, but perhaps it was a kinder exercise than the exercise this government is going through at this time, because what it does now is allow the bill to be called for a vote on second reading, allow it to go out to committee, allow the public to put a great amount of effort --

Interjection.

Mr. Sterling: The government allows the bill to be put out to committee. Public groups come in and make their presentation on the bill. They do a lot of work on it. The committee goes through a clause-by-clause analysis of the bill and the bill gets reported back here for third reading.

The government has failed to call any of those bills, save and except for a bill that changed the name of a township. I believe it was put forward by the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Shymko). It was not really a private member's bill. It was debated in private members' time.

I would like the Premier to practise what he was preaching when he was sworn in on June 26, 1985, and look seriously at the bills. I want to relate this particularly to one of the four private members' bills which I have put forward to this Legislature.

Bill 71, as the Premier knows, is called the Non-Smokers' Protection Act. It was brought into this Legislature in January 1986. It was debated here. The vote was 40 to nine in favour. In September 1986, the standing committee on general government heard something like 15 or 20 groups talk about the different provisions of that bill that controlled smoking in the work place and in public places.

The committee, in late December, went through the bill on a clause-by-clause basis. Meanwhile, the committee was being watched by the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and a number of other ministries, but all the while saying nothing. They were not saying to me, as a member, nor were the Liberal members on the committee coming and saying: "We object to this particular part of the bill because this would be impossible or impractical to implement. This would be too costly to implement for private industry. This would abrogate some other people's rights. There have not been enough hearings on this."

What the Premier has done is well seen on Bill 71. He has given it a fair hearing. It was held over from January 26, because of negotiations among the three House leaders. It was held over for another year, which I appreciated, but what the Premier has done, by turning a blind eye and ignoring the bill, is not an open government. That is a farce. It cannot be an open government unless he is willing to listen, debate or oppose.

I asked the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston) whether he agreed with Bill 71. He said, "Yes, I agree with it." I asked the Minister of Health, "What provisions of the bill do you disagree with?" Evidently, he does not disagree with anything. I did not hear from the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye). I did not hear from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. O'Neil). I did not hear from the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell). I did not hear from anybody over there about why they would oppose Bill 71, the Non-Smokers' Protection Act.

It leads me to the conclusion that there is only one reason he will not call it. It is supported by over 30,000 people in this province who do, I hope, have some bearing on the Premier's decision, because it shows a significant amount of public support across this province.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We do not govern that way.

Mr. Sterling: I think support for any public measure is important. Support by 30,000 people writing to me and to the Premier indicating their support for Bill 71 does not mean anything to the Premier? The Premier is shaking his head negatively. It does not mean anything to him. I cannot believe that.

Mr. Runciman: It is not his bill. That is the reason he is not bringing it in.

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Mr. Sterling: That is the conclusion I come to, what my honourable friend says. The record of the Premier in terms of the smoking issue is abysmal. From 1985 to 1986, what happens to our young people and smokers in Ontario? The rate goes up by 20 per cent. Is he proud that when he took over the reins of this government, 31 per cent --

Mr. Ward: Better than yours.

Mr. Sterling: When we were in government, sir, it was falling. There were fewer young people smoking than there now are under the Liberal government because it is protecting the tobacco farmers and the tobacco industry. They are hacks of the tobacco industry. The member for Wentworth North (Mr. Ward) ought to be ashamed of himself.

In 1985, 31 per cent of young people smoked and now it is 37 per cent. There were 175,000 new smokers last year, new young people taking up the habit. Because of smoking, 35 people a day die. The government's budget for publications, for education on the hazards of tobacco smoke, has gone from approximately $1,250,000 to about $70,000 this year. We went from having the second-highest tobacco taxes to having the third-lowest in Canada. Smoking is dropping among young people in every province except this province.

Does the Premier not think he has to do something about this habit? I will withdraw Bill 71 if he promises to do something else about it. I will withdraw it today if he will do it because I want to see it happen. I do not care whether I get political credit for it. It does not matter in my riding whether I get political credit or not. The Premier has to do something. He has to start listening seriously to other ideas. I would like him to comment on Bill 71 and his attitude towards private members' bills.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am not going to stand up and disagree with my honourable friend's facts and figures about smoking. Obviously, we cannot justify it. He wants to blame this government for the increase in smoking. Perhaps he wants to blame us for blue mould, car accidents and everything else. Frankly, I find his logic a little farfetched.

I understand the passion the member feels on this issue. Sometimes that distorts reason in the apportionment of blame. He says I should accede to a 30,000-people petition or something such as that. It does not cut any ice with me. Regularly, I get people coming into my office saying, "I represent a group of 100,000," or, "Look at all these signatures on this piece of paper," or, "Look at this poll that agrees with my position." That cuts no ice with me at all, none.

There is a fundamental difference between the previous government and ours. We have government for the public interest. This is an aside from the particular issue the member is talking about. I cannot argue with my friend, but I say to him it does not cut any ice with me because I get threatened by everybody almost every day, with various suggestions of the support they have and the various ways they can do horrible things to this government if we do not support their position. It does not cut any ice with me at all and I do not think politicians should be corrupted by that kind of pressure or perceived pressure. I pass that on to him on this issue and every other issue.

I am not disagreeing with the substance of the issue in this regard because it is a serious problem. I do not disagree with that. We are looking at various alternatives in that regard, including his bill.

Let me talk about private members' bills for a moment. The member gave me a tongue-lashing, because he does not think we are open because we do not deal fairly with private members. I was here two years ago and he may have been here as well. Does he know the difference between the way private members are treated now and the way they were treated two years ago, or in the way opposition parties are treated now and the way they were two years ago?

We have television in the House. We have changed the rules. It was Mr. Davis who said, "We have to have Wednesdays for cabinet day and we are going to make the members come back on Friday." There was a lot of controversy at that time, particularly with members from out of town who wanted to get back to their ridings. We have bent over backwards to accommodate the private member. We have doubled, tripled or quadrupled their budgets. They have research money coming out of their ears that we did not have in those days. They have legislative assistants and secretaries to do things.

Mr. Shymko: What counts is what is happening here.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am telling the member we have changed the rules so members can stand up for 10 minutes and make statements on anything. Every time we make a statement, members can stand up and criticize. We have debates where members can stand up and respond.

I say to my honourable friend how short our memories are. When the member stands up here and gives me a lecture about respect for private members or open government, I say to him -- and I do not want to be unkind -- he has no credibility to do that. He was a minister of the crown and he spoke for that government. When one speaks as a minister of the crown, one speaks for the entire government. Maybe the member had different views privately, but I can speak about his government at the time.

I can say to him at the same time that the member for High Park-Swansea had a good idea at a very appropriate and symbolic time. It was not an idea I had thought of; he thought of it. It moved very quickly. It was applied. The member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) had an idea on time. We moved quickly on that and passed that together.

Sometimes we do and sometimes we do not pick up a private member's bill. I do not know how that record compares to the last 10 years, but I do not remember -- and I may be wrong; I was not here every day -- in my time in opposition, a private members' bill that ever came into law.

Mr. Sterling: The Family Law Reform Amendment Act.

Mr. Gillies: Jim Breithaupt's family law act.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: That could be. All right, there was one in 10 years, and now there have been at least two in a couple of years.

I say to the member that I cannot accept his feelings on this matter. We have gone out of our way to be respectful with members. We have taken them on trade delegations -- when has that ever happened before? -- offered to both parties, and we are happy to do that.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I do not remember a time, and my colleagues do not remember any times. If the member has some instances, he can tell me some time.

We have tried to share the problems we can share. Obviously, there are issues we are going to fight about in the House, and we have a place to do that. But we have tried to treat the members opposite with a respect they were not treated with in my day. I remember that; the member may not. Perhaps when the member gets so exercised about this situation, he may want to think back to what he did.

There are some people who think that to the victor goes all the spoils in this business. I do not believe that. I believe it should be shared and the members of this House should be treated respectfully.

Mr. Sterling: Do something about it then: Listen.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I say to my honourable friend, do not get all bent out of shape, because I am just looking at the logic of his situation. Then let me go on to private members' bills.

They are easy. I was in opposition and I understand it. It is easy for a member in opposition to be all things to all people. We all want to be that, I guess, particularly in opposition. When you have so few friends, you are anxious to have anybody you can coalesce or to carry any picket sign you pray they will allow you to join. I understand that.

There is no responsibility at all that goes with that -- not a whit. If a bill comes in and is wrong, it is our responsibility. It has to be paid for; it is our responsibility. There are certain rules that have developed in the parliamentary system that recognize one party is responsible. Everything that goes wrong in this province, the member would argue, is my fault, be it smoking or blue mould or car accidents or acid rain or anything else.

Mr. Sterling: I am not blaming the Premier for all the smoking that is going on.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member just did. He wanted to hear my views on private members' bills. I think it requires a great deal of responsibility on both sides. When we can move easily, we do. When we are satisfied they are right and it is the proper approach, we move ahead with them and are happy to share that credit with the members opposite.

l do not think we have ever blocked a bill on this side. They were regularly blocked. We treat the expression of opinion from this House very seriously. It does not mean we agree with it, but we treat it very seriously. We allow them all to come to a free vote; we do not whip the votes on this side of the House. It is very different from the past. That is very different from the past.

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We get different opinions on all sorts of bills. The cabinet may be split on it. The cabinet may have a different view on the situation. I think it is wholesome and salutary that you can have a different opinion and not be committed to one, and let that be a free expression; but when the government adopts it, it becomes the government's position, and we have the responsibility to finance it, to make it work and to carry it through. Believe me, it is not a question of credit; we are happy to share credit with whoever in this House has good ideas.

My honourable friend should look over the list of things we have done, the different approach taken in this House. Do members know who the chief author of this is? The person who probably has more respect for this institution than any other I have ever seen and who cares deeply about it and about the privileges and rights of the members, and that is the government House leader, the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon).

It is remarkable that we have a man who has served here for 25 years with this great respect, who knows more about it and cares more about the private members' rights than he does about government prerogative or government initiative. When he stands, he always speaks knowledgeably and from the heart on these issues. That is the kind of leadership I am delighted our House leader is providing in this matter.

I do not think we have anything to be embarrassed about with respect to our record on private members' business. When the member wants to get exercised at me, he should perhaps think back and consider himself lucky that we do not treat him the way the previous government used to treat us. He should think back about that.

That being said, the smoking issue is a serious issue --

Mr. Sterling: Are you talking about now or the future? Why are we going back? You were the guys who said you were going to have open government.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member for Carleton-Grenville is the one who made the great speech. He wanted to hear my views about private members' bills and I am telling him about them.

Mr. Sterling: Nothing has changed.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: To quote my old friend, "We are over here and you are over there." A great deal has changed, and I think the member perhaps does not understand that.

It is a serious issue. We are looking at it very seriously from a variety of different points of view. It is not a question of being captive of any lobby any more than the member is captive of the 30,000 signatures that he would say all support him. I am not captive of any other lobby in this regard.

l agree with the honourable member; it is a serious issue. We are looking at serious ways to attack it. I can tell the member that we will look seriously at the appropriate parts of his bill, and they will be incorporated into the legislation if it is changed at all.

Let me say one other thing. We are always looking for good ideas. Let me give another example. How many speeches has our friend the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) made in this House about hockey violence? He cares about the issue. Some do not care about the issue and some do care about it, but that is one way an individual has an influence on public policy.

He worked on the previous government. He worked on our government. He was knowledgeable. He held hearings. He brought his knowledge. He moved the public policy process and brought this government to a position where we have responded, I hope, in an intelligent way, doing not everything he would have done but a large measure. He influenced that and, in my opinion, his influence has been very important in the public policy process. I know it is frustrating for members opposite. I went through all that myself; there were things I would have liked to change, but I could not change them.

Mr. Runciman: That only happened because they are holding you guys up.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member can argue that; he is quite entitled to interpret our motives any way he sees clear. He will see cynical motives in whatever we do. Perhaps we could say the same about the members opposite, perhaps even worse, but I take members at face value. We look for good ideas wherever they come from. I am not intelligent enough to divine motives in that regard, and we have to have a process that looks for the best from everyone. I think we are doing that, not perfectly perhaps, but far more responsibly than was done in the past and at the same time maintaining the traditions of the British parliamentary system and responsible government.

Mr. Sterling: I find it absolutely amazing that the Premier talks about the tremendous increases in the private members' resources. In fact, today we are considering the estimates of the Cabinet Office which, over the past year, have increased from $3.6 million in 1985-86 to $7.5 million. Cabinet Office has doubled, and he is telling us about the great amount of money we have now as private members, the increased ability of all of us here to attack the government and how much better things are than they were before.

I do not know what that means in terms of his own personal expenses. The Office of the Premier, it appears, is going down by some amount. I suspect he is just shifting expenses from one area to another. I do not know whether that suspicion is right or wrong, but it kind of looks that way.

I am also amazed at what the Premier has said to me. I would like him to clarify this, because a lot of people in this province, particularly on the petition for Bill 71, wrote to me asking for a petition form and went out and collected names across this province. I did not organize this thing, other than out of my Queen's Park office. The word got out, and the thing just kept going out. There was no organization by the Progressive Conservatives, the lung association or anybody else on an overall, province-wide basis.

I would love to mention one individual's name, Harry Henchley from Renfrew, who went all over Renfrew and collected something like 1,000 names on petitions from various people. I have met him once. Actually, I think he is a Liberal, to tell you the truth, or maybe he was a Liberal. Anyway, Harry believes very strongly in Bill 71.

What is the Premier telling Harry Henchley and all those other people who went around and said, "Norm Sterling has a good idea here, Bill 71, the Non-Smokers' Protection Act"? He went around and talked to people. If one reads the petition and the brochures that went with the petition, he has explained in as simple terms as I could what the bill is about. I was not asking people to say yes, no or whatever. Is the Premier telling Harry Henchley and all those other people that there is no sense in letting their government or their elected members know where they stand?

There were 3,000 people who wrote to him about the Bridlewood corridor and their opposition to Ontario Hydro going through that centre. Is he telling those people there is no sense in sitting down and trying to write a letter to their Premier to indicate their concerns about a particular issue? Has that no effect on him?

I thought that when I was a politician, if I were a good politician, I would go back to my riding on the weekend and not only talk to my political people, those people who were Progressive Conservatives and on my executive or whatever, but also go to the dance, the carnival and the grocery store and talk to people about what was bothering them and that kind of thing. I get input that way. People come to my constituency office and tell me their problems. That does help to form my opinion. It does not necessarily mean I will bend over backwards if 90 per cent of the people who come to see me profess one belief when I know in my own mind I cannot support it, but I do admit it makes some impact on me.

I am going to ask the Premier two questions. One, will he clarify this particular matter with regard to petitions? Is he telling me that I am going to go back, write these 30,000 petitioners and tell the people who have collected these names that there is no sense in doing that? We might as well write presentation of petitions out of the standing orders. If they do not have any impact on what a person feels, there is no sense in bringing one into this Legislature.

The expression of public support is an important part of our democratic system. People should be able to do that, and I think the Premier should pay attention to it.

Mr. Ferraro: That is not what he said.

Mr. Sterling: That is what he said. He said 30,000 signatures on a petition is --

Mr. Ferraro: Get serious. He did not say they could not do it.

Mr. Sterling: He said it had no effect on him.

Mr. Ferraro: Be truthful, will you?

Mr. Sterling: Mr. Chairman, is that proper parliamentary language by the member?

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The Acting Chairman (Mr. D. R. Cooke): I think the member for Wellington South (Mr. Ferraro) would like to withdraw that comment.

Mr. Ferraro: I did not say he lied. I just asked him to be truthful.

Mr. Sterling: Are you satisfied with that, Mr. Chairman?

The Acting Chairman: There is still an implication. I suggest strongly to the member for Wellington South that he withdraw the implication.

Mr. Ferraro: Lest I bite my tongue when I say it, I withdraw it.

The Acting Chairman: Thank you.

Mr Sterling: So graciously done.

Mr. Ferraro: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: With respect to the proceedings of the House, can you explain to me why we have to listen to this member's pet cause and why we are not dealing with the estimates of the Premier's office and cabinet? With the greatest respect, we all have pet projects we would like to discuss ad infinitum, but I am not sure this is the necessary forum for such a cause, so to speak. Can the Chairman explain to me whether that is proper?

The Acting Chairman: The chair rules that the member for Carleton-Grenville is within the terms of the Premier's estimates, because it is a very wide area of discretion, but I would ask the member to try to make certain his comments continue to be relevant.

Mr. Sterling: Would the Premier explain to me why the estimates have almost doubled from 1985-86 -- $3,621,000 to $7,528,000 in one year? I would also like the actual expenditures for 1985-86 for the Cabinet Office.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am happy to do that, Mr. Chairman.

I think the expression of opinion is very important in the democratic process. It is very important that people want to sign petitions, carry placards, write their members and come to the constituency offices. I am like the member. I talk to thousands of people, maybe even more than the member does, all across the province, in many constituencies. There is not an issue on which I am not lobbied on both sides. If someone gives me 30,000 names on a petition on one side, I can easily find 30,000 on the other side of any issue, or 5,000 or 500,000, for that matter.

I say to my friend, in as kind a way as I possibly can, if that becomes the basis upon which we make public policy, we are all doomed. It is going to be run by the guys who can get the most names on the petition, rather than doing the right thing. It is governing by polls. They tell us what people wanted yesterday. They do not tell us what is necessary tomorrow.

I want my honourable friend to be very clear on where I stand on these issues. We have made a lot of judgements as a government, which, if I had listened to polls, we would not have done. Members will recall a very difficult debate on Bill 7, for example, and other ones where people voted their conscience and their heart and not by the polls. Some may have voted the polls.

I say that is the way to govern. It is not always easy. It is terribly difficult. If one looks at the number of tough issues this House has handled in the last year and a half, be it separate schools, extra billing, Bill 7 or the rent issue, these are of historic proportions in terms of their severity, their breadth, their grasp and their complexity. If we had been guided by the number of names on a petition, we would have a very different history. I have a very different view of my responsibility to govern.

With respect to the member's questions on the numbers, we have had a substantial number of changes in the office. One of the things we try to do is to separate the political function from the bureaucratic function. We came in as a new government with a public service that, very frankly, I was not very familiar with -- a lot of names and faces and people I had never even met. I had never met the now secretary of cabinet prior to my being sworn in.

We decided to make the system quite different from what it was in the past so that there is no blurring of the civil service and the political staff. The political staff has specific responsibilities and the bureaucratic staff or the civil service has other responsibilities. These demarcation lines are extremely clear in today's government. They are not unclear, as they were in the days of Hugh Segal, John Tory, Ed Stewart and others.

There are various ways to run governments. Bill Davis ran an efficient government. He had lots of chemistry with the people he worked closely with and I respect that. I am just saying we chose to do it in a different way and respect completely the independence of the civil service. If something happened to us tomorrow and someone else was in office, they would treat the new political masters with the same thorough professionalism with which they treat us. I can say that with absolutely --

Mr. Shymko: That may come soon.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: It will come some day. Of course, it will come some day. When that day comes and I hand over the keys to my office to my successor, of whatever party, he will be well served by the public service in this province with the same loyalty I have had. I will go to them and thank them for their help. The reason I am telling the members this is that I treat them in that way and they treat me in that way as well. They have their responsibilities and I have mine. I say that because it affects the numbers and philosophy.

Mr. Sterling: Where is the political line? Is the Cabinet Office political?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am sorry; no. I guess I am getting mixed up between the Office of the Premier and the Cabinet Office because we have shifted a number of functions between the two. The numbers go back and forth. At the same time, we got rid of the three policy secretariats, as the member knows. I gather the member held one of those jobs at some time or other. We felt, frankly, they were not constructive appendages and were just being used as a dumping ground for -- I will not finish my point; I will just say we did not find them all that constructive and we do not miss them.

Originally, they were established to be the senior ministries with the most powerful people in government, and through evolution they had the least powerful people in government. It was not the original design. It goes back to the Committee on Government Productivity, COOP, by John Cronyn and Jim Fleck; if my facts are wrong, the member can tell me. That grand design did not work so we put it to a graceful death and saved a substantial amount of money.

Mr. Sterling: How much did you save?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I can tell the member that. Ongoing savings are $1,309,636. The staff, drivers, expenses, political staff, three savings on deputy ministers and a bunch of salaried employees; it is $1.3 million a year.

Mr. Sterling: That is a long way down from the $16 million the Premier talked about before.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Then there were some policy co-ordinating functions that we took into the Cabinet Office to co-ordinate some of those things. We have beefed up the policy unit in my office. To the best of my knowledge, there was no policy unit in the Premier's office before. We do have a policy unit now and I find it extremely helpful. It co-ordinates with the ministries.

We have made a number of other transfers and there are other things we have done. We established a new office of executive resources, something I felt was very important. The member may want me to talk about this for a moment. One of the things I felt was that we were not managing the civil service well enough. It is a huge operation, depending on how many members one counts. There are 80,000 people with contract or noncontract. It was my view we could get a 10 per cent increase in productivity with proper management techniques. We brought in a number of new devices to do that.

We now are bringing in a new performance review system on deputy ministers and our senior staff, something that had never been done before. They actually have to be accountable to their year's plan. People will be rewarded for success and punished for failure. We will have a severance policy that will not just shunt people aside but will also remove the ones who are not productive in the system and reward those who are capable. There will be no automatic merit pay for anybody; you have to earn the merit pay. We will adjust salaries concomitantly.

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One of the things we had to do was to better manage our senior personnel in particular. Members have to recognize that deputy ministers are not very well paid relative to people of comparable responsibility in the private sector. You can argue there are other benefits such as security and all that good stuff, but relatively speaking, they are not well paid. It is a real problem in recruiting deputy ministers, so we have created a new position, the associate secretary of cabinet for executive resources, Pat Jacobsen, who has put emphasis on that personnel management function. That has added $141,300 a year to my office. I think it is extremely important and we will get dividends in the long term as well as in the short term on that.

We have established a special advisory group on crown corporations. That was John Kruger's group which undertook the review of the crown corporations. That cost $255,700, and members will know of the things that were closed down. There was the Urban Transportation Development Corp. and IDEA Corp. There was a lot of work done on Suncor but there was not enough money to get rid of it and other things. That group has now disbanded. It has done its work and gone and dispersed.

We also transferred the correspondence and public engagement unit from the Office of the Premier to the Cabinet Office last year because it was felt that was a better place for it.

In addition to salaries and that kind of thing, and taking all those adjustments into account, that is what we have done in reorganizing the office. I think it nets out cheaper than it was before, with everything in and the same functions.

Mr. Sterling: I would like to know what it costs for the two Ministers without Portfolio who are basically covering the same function as that of the former provincial secretariat for social development: the member for London North (Mr. Van Horne), who deals with aged people, and the member for Parkdale (Mr. Ruprecht), dealing with disabled people. Does the Premier have the total of their two budgets?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: That is not part of these estimates, but I could easily find it for the member. I do not agree that they are the same. They are Ministers without Portfolio but for specific responsibilities, one for seniors and one for the disabled, both given attention that had not heretofore been given or profiled in the way they are now. I agree with the member that those functions were absorbed in other ministries in various different ways, but they were not profiled and paid attention to in the way they are at the present time.

It was in a sense an experiment in both cases, but an experiment that we find is working out extremely well. We find that the people we work with are responding very positively to the arrangement, more positively than they were to the previous institutional arrangements. That is not a reflection on any personalities. That is just a way of organizing how we keep in touch with our client groups and how we can work with them to advance their goals and ambitions.

Mr. Sterling: The government has done away with the secretariats. I believe I once heard the Premier, I believe very early in his position as Premier, tell this Legislature he had saved $16 million. We find out today it is $1.3 million.

Two Ministers without Portfolio have taken over the function of the former Provincial Secretariat for Social Development. Some other responsibilities have been added to them, I agree, but I venture to say that their budgets combined would be much in excess of $1.3 million, outside of the programs.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Can I say something?

Mr. Chairman: Order. The member for Carleton-Grenville has the floor.

Mr. Sterling: The budget for the Cabinet Office has gone up by $3.9 million for next year, from $3.6 million to $7.5 million. That is a lot of reorganization. It is more than a 100 per cent increase. It is nice to call it nonpolitical or whatever it is, but who is kidding whom about saving money by doing away with ministries?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: If the member wants to take everything into account, there are far fewer ministers than there used to be. I think the cabinet of the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller) had 32 members. Am I right? I do not know how many we have today. Twenty? One never knows. We are into about 20 or something. We are running the government far more efficiently in terms of limousines, deputies and ministers. All our ministers are working very hard over here because of the extra responsibilities a lot of them have. I think if the member takes total administrative expenses, it is just like the airplane. One can point to an individual member's expenses. Overall use of airplanes is down 25 per cent over the comparable prior 18 months. That is government efficiency.

Mr. Gillies: I understand the discussion going on between the Premier and my colleague. I think I may be able to explain some of the confusion. If one took the total budget of all the secretariats when they existed and their various programs -- I do not know what it would have been. My friend may be correct that it was in the neighbourhood of $16 million or whatever, but we have to remember, and I am sure the Premier will agree, that many programs that were under the secretariats have been moved into other parts of government.

For example, the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens' affairs (Mr. Van Horne) now has the Ontario Advisory Council on Senior Citizens and all those things that used to be under the Provincial Secretary for Social Development. The youth secretariat, which accounted, even in the years when I was associated with it, for some millions of dollars, will now be over in the Ministry of Skills Development. I think the disagreement may be over administrative costs as opposed to program costs.

Mr. Shymko: I would like to comment in a very nonpartisan way. I have listened to the remarks of the Premier. We must admit there have been occasions when some of us, myself in particular, have been privileged to have a private resolution passed unanimously. We recognize some of the explanations I have heard from the Premier with regard to changes that have been implemented recently.

I think there is no member of this Legislative Assembly who will not admit that the increase in research staff, moneys allocated in this area and some improvement in physical equipment -- be it the computer system we have in our offices, be it the television system we have -- all these things have been long overdue. I congratulate the Premier and his administration on having recognized that --maybe because of the number of years of frustration they had, 40-odd years, on this side of the House.

In my assessment, all these things are fine; but what good is that television set in my office, what good is a computer, what good is all the research I have if I, as a private member, expected to contribute in some way to the lawmaking process in this province, have no hope in hell, if that is parliamentary, or very little hope of ever having any major input, through the advice I give, to the improvement of these circumstances and the environment in this country through private legislation, when my private bill or any private bill, including those of members of the Liberal caucus and on the other side of the House, will never see daylight and has no hope of ever being passed into law? What good is all this?

This is exactly what we are trying to say. The Premier has the power and the discretion to select certain bills, certain resolutions, that he deems important enough to be passed into law.

It is ironic that when we have seen a massive majority at the federal level, the numbers of members on the government side, one would expect a very arbitrary system of decision-making. Yet, it was at the same time, with a vast majority, that we saw the McGrath report, a report issued at the federal level giving greater powers to standing committees and to private members at the federal level.

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We would have expected this to have been quite normal that when there is a minority government here in Ontario, there would be greater sensitivity even now than at the federal level to recognize the need for increasing the role, the importance and the impact -- and I mean legislative impact -- of private members and of standing committees. All of this equipment I see as a means in the line of strengthening my role as a private member, in providing me the means to effect some input into the passage of law.

It is no surprise, if I may point out the irony again, that it is indeed a member of the Premier's caucus, a member of his party, the member for Humber (Mr. Henderson), who introduced a very historic resolution referring to the McGrath report in Ottawa. It was passed unanimously, as I recall, on January 22, very recently, and has gone to the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly. If I may remind the Premier, what it says is that that committee should study and report on the desirability and the feasibility of reforms, including those of the proposed McGrath committee, to strengthen the role of private members. This is what I believe was the essence of the comments by the member for Carleton-Grenville (Mr. Sterling), my colleague on this side of the House, and this is the essence of my comments as well.

It points out the lack of logic. For example, Bill 71 or, in my case, Bill 133, is supported by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Kwinter), who is totally in agreement that there is nothing wrong in pursuing a change whereby chemical ingredients in our liquor products should be labelled. He agrees there was something wrong when we saw a coverup for seven years within the Liquor Control Board of Ontario of chemical ingredients that were used and that cabinet was not aware of, we were not aware of. We cannot cater to any lobby, be it the liquor lobby or the tobacco lobby, when the health and the lives of our citizens are at stake.

It makes no sense to me that my bill, for example, which received unanimous support in passage on second reading, may die in Orders and Notices. Really, it is in the Premier's power to make that bill go to third reading and be voted on, or simply die in Orders and Notices. That is the way the system operates. We appeal to him that he should continue in the trend and the steps he has taken, for which I congratulate him and every member of this Legislature congratulates him, in opening up and realizing the importance of the role of private members.

He has opened up this process. We ask him to continue in that direction and to look at other jurisdictions, particularly the jurisdiction at the federal level, which, as I say, has a massive majority. Because one has that massive majority of the government party, one is expected to do one's utmost to protect the individual member of Parliament.

We would have thought that, because of a minority situation and the fact of the Premier's experiences of frustration on this side of the House, he would give greater weight, not in the equipment, not in pieces of machinery -- be it television or computers or other things -- not to the means but to the end result for which these means are to be used, namely, right here. This is where the buck stops. This is the test case of whether all of those means and the facilities that have been increased, for which we are very grateful, will result in anything.

The function that I understand of our role is lawmaking, impacting in question period through the questions we ask through our very constructive criticism, which sometimes may be questioned by the Premier, though the aim is constructive, and also in the introduction of private bills, whose intention is to have the government introduce public bills in a direction where the interests of the public are at stake.

I am most willing to withdraw my private bill, Bill 133, as the member for Carleton-Grenville has indicated he will withdraw his bill, if one of the Premier's cabinet ministers deems it acceptable to have it introduced as a government bill.

We are not doing this for the sake of credit. As a matter of fact, if I really wanted to get credit, I would hope my bill would die in Orders and Notices. Politically, it is to my advantage that my bill not see daylight. Politically, it is to the advantage of the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande) to have Bill 80 die in Orders and Notices, because he can then point to the governing party and say it does not care about heritage languages.

Politically, it is to our advantage to continue petitioning, to have write in campaigns, to solicit consumer groups. We get credit as individual members for this, but what do we accomplish by this confrontational approach? Nothing. We do not accomplish anything. I am not being partisan in any way. I may be here today and I may be gone in a few months. Our lives as politicians are like the lives of terminally ill patients. We really do not know when the day will come. But I will tell the Premier, he may know --

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I know and I am not telling.

Mr. Shymko: I speak philosophically. No matter who may be nominated from the Liberal Party in the great riding of High Park-Swansea, and notwithstanding border changes, I am very confident I will have the opportunity of being re-elected and serving the citizens of Ontario in this Legislature.

Notwithstanding all this, what I am trying to get at is that the comments may have been perceived as being partisan -- maybe the eloquence of my colleague surpassed the limitations of nonpartisan comments because we tend to be frustrated, as the Premier once was -- but the aim is basically the same as that of his own member, someone who is not a renegade, someone for whom the Premier has a great deal of respect, someone who has the courage to stand up for certain principles he believes in. I refer to the member for Humber, who introduced a bill that is important to all of us as private members.

I appeal to the Premier. I have spoken to the House leader about my bill and other bills and I have asked him if he could give consideration to certain private bills that should see daylight, if I may use the expression, and that should become law. I suggested during that debate that perhaps any private bill which goes to second reading and passes, unanimously or through a vote, should be allowed to go to third reading within the life of the parliament in which that private bill was introduced and went through second reading.

I know the problem is that the perception out there might be that it is not the governing party that really governs, but the back-benchers who really pass laws. That is the extreme conclusion the Premier may reach, but it is a selective process. I think all of us would be most willing to withdraw our private bills should the Premier deem them important enough to become government bills.

The other point I would like to raise is the role of standing committees. I would like the Premier to comment on my suggestions to allow third reading for private bills and to strengthen the role of standing committees.

My colleague to the left, the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh), has raised this issue in the past. In November, the Premier will recall that a report from the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly was presented to allow standing committee to process appointments to government boards, agencies and commissions. The Premier had the power to appoint these people, to choose them.

We are not advocating a congressional system such as the one that exists in the United States, which perhaps has more clout and more power and takes away from the power of the US President. I would like to hear his comments, because his answer to the member for Oshawa was not quite clear as to his intention in regard to what he would be doing on our report, which was unanimously passed in the Legislature, to allow for some input, for some processing through a standing committee, of the individuals whom he appoints. I will tell the Premier that in the light of some of the allegations of corruption -- and I say allegations -- it is certainly not a climate that is desirable to any party in power.

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In the light of the climate that exists today in Ottawa, and to some degree in this province, people have lost total confidence and faith in public officials and politicians. This is why the Terry Foxes, the Steve Fonyos and the Rick Hansens of this world are true and genuine heroes who symbolize and epitomize the best and are perhaps people who are heroes to citizens of this country and of this province.

We certainly are not. Our integrity is in question, certainly more now than ever before. If there was any time to clear the air, to show the Premier is not hiding anything, that he is indeed open, I think the Premier should give great and serious consideration to the recommendation of the committee that a standing committee of the Legislative Assembly somehow process the individuals in terms of finding out who they are and what their qualifications are and make recommendations to the Premier.

It will be to the Premier's advantage. Politically, I do not see anything that would harm him. It fits in perfectly with what he deems to be his approach to politics, what he wants the public out there to perceive him as representing, openness, that the Premier has nothing to hide.

These appointments are very important. The media have, for example, listed a whole list of various umbrella organizations from our ethnocultural communities which the Premier will regularly consult on appointments. We do not have the entire list, there are many that have been missed, and there are questions in Orders and Notices to ask the Premier to explain the process. Notwithstanding all that, it addresses a need. There is a vacuum for some input either directly from organizations in the public or indirectly through a standing committee of the House.

The third issue I wanted to ask of the Premier is about a report that will be issued very soon from the standing committee on regulations and private bills. It refers to the problem of some of the regulations that have been passed recently -- I mean in 1985-86 -- that did not comply with statutory acts of which they were part as regulations. There is a whole list of these. The processing of regulations is, as I understand it, now done by the cabinet. We had a system in the past of a cabinet regulations committee, which was chaired by a member of the executive council, by a cabinet minister, usually a cabinet minister without portfolio. The entire cabinet regulations committee was made up of parliamentary assistants.

I will tell the Premier the importance of that system. Those parliamentary assistants who are not in cabinet were in closer touch with the reality out there. They had more time and really scrutinized those regulations. I recall having had the privilege of sitting on one of those committees, of regulations being sent back to cabinet, saying: "There is no way this regulation will pass because it did not go through a public consultation process. There is something wrong." Scrutiny of our regulations system is very important.

Mr. Martel: It was only government members, though. That is what the member's government did. In Ottawa, the opposition chairs it.

Mr. Shymko: It is worse now.

Mr. Chairman: Order. If the member would address the chair, the interjections would not bother him.

Mr. Shymko: At least we had noncabinet members who had more time and who scrutinized this much more. I understand that because there are only 50 or so members now, thanks to the desertion of a certain party to the other side who, for some unknown reason, preferred to be Liberal instead of New Democrat -- it is a mystery we cannot -- we will let history decide that.

Mr. Chairman: Back on the estimates.

Mr. Shymko: The Premier has 50 members now. Maybe he should reconsider the system he has now and allow for input from individuals who may not be members.

By the way, I congratulate the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) on the passage of the private bill. I am sorry I was not here to vote for it, but I would have supported him.

I want to point out that maybe there is another system; maybe a standing committee should be doing this. In Ottawa, for example, changes have been implemented once again, not because the Conservatives are in power -- the Liberals could have been in power or the New Democratic Party, for that matter.

I congratulate the federal government. Do members know that they can withdraw regulations? The House of Commons has the power to change regulations. They can demand changes and withhold and do all sorts of things. One cannot imagine this happening in Ontario.

My final question to the Premier is with regard to important events that the member for Parkdale (Mr. Ruprecht) recalls. When the member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson) became the Premier and we saw this historic change occur in 1985, I did not hesitate to provide him, through his parliamentary assistant, with a list of commemorative, important, significant dates to many citizens of Ontario that should be recognized by way of a proclamation flowing from a decision of this Legislature.

I understand and I recall the eloquence of his speeches as he presented these plaques, be it to the Lithuanian community in Mississauga. I recall the eloquence of the Minister without Portfolio, and I am confused because I understand he is responsible only for the disabled. What happened to multiculturalism? Is he still responsible for that? I recall his eloquence.

I recall the meetings he has had, and now they have been held in his Liberal caucus room; they are not in neutral places. This is where the plaques were presented on Armenian memorial day. For some reason, some communities were surprised that, all of a sudden, he withdrew these things. The Canadian Polish Congress was surprised that on November 11 of last year no plaque was officially presented to it. I may have a clarification.

Hon. Mr. Ruprecht: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I think this member, as well-intentioned as he might be, has got all his facts wrong. The Premier has never withdrawn any of his signatures nor his plaques. I wish the member would simply stick with the truth on these matters.

Mr. Chairman: It is not a point of order.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we can move along just in case any of the rest of us have something we would like to raise.

Mr. Shymko: I am completing my remarks. I have always enjoyed the eloquence of the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) and I would never have dared to interrupt to tell him to cut his comments. I have always enjoyed them and I am completing my comments.

I just want to point out that there have been rumours in the Premier's office and there have been statements made by his secretary to certain communities that he is reviewing this policy, that he will not be continuing to give out these plaques. I remember a statement from the House leader saying, "You know, these ethnic affairs, I just wonder what the function is of those plaques." That is really the attitude of the House leader, personally expressed to me.

There may be some pressure by his cabinet colleagues that it is a can of worms, that he cannot satisfy everybody. If he proclaims the independence day for one group, somebody else screams for the proclamation of another event. I am sure it takes diplomacy and discretion on his part, but it is happening in other jurisdictions. Mayors have no problem with that. If there are rumours and if perchance he may be thinking of changing that, I would like to know, if he does change that, whether he would be contravening a resolution of this House or whether it is his discretion to take a joint resolution addressed to him and either follow it or not. No doubt the Premier has that discretion, but the fact he has accepted that and continued these traditions speaks a lot, not for us, but for the people out there to whom certain resolutions and acts and certain things he does are very important. They are much more than merely symbolic.

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I may have spoken at length. I have tried to be nonpartisan and fair in congratulating the Premier in some of the initiatives he has taken. My remarks are constructive and they are there to help all of us to re-establish the integrity and confidence we enjoyed much more from our citizens than we enjoy today. It is only to help the Premier, because how he acts and how his party in power acts is a reflection on all of us.

If there is a corruption by a governing party or by certain members of a governing party, it reflects badly on all of us. I think we should restore the confidence of the people in elected officials, governments and parties, which is being eroded more and more. Some of the comments I and my honourable colleagues have addressed are aimed at restoring that for the good of all of us.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: l appreciate the honourable member's comments and, indeed, the spirit in which they have been given. He raised four points. We are not changing our policy, so he should not worry. That makes short work of the issue. I will not tell him why, but I do respect the communities that come to this country, and I am one of those who believes this country was built by new Canadians. We are multicultural. It is something of which we are very proud. It is one of our unique and rich differences and should be encouraged and, indeed, is encouraged and supported by all parties at all levels of government. It is a recognized fact of public policy today and we do not dispute that. That is the way it should be approached.

I am also one of those, I say to my friends from other lands, who expects the wars to be left in the other countries. We do not want to refight historical battles in this country. When they come here, we can all be Canadians together as well as recognizing our heritages together. I think the two are completely compatible and I do not want to get Canada into a situation where we are refighting history. I am sure the member is the same way.

I am not in a position, and neither is he, to redress some of the real historical outrages or grievances that people have and feel very strongly about. We are not in a position to do that, but we are in a position to set a model for the world of tolerance, decency, civility and kindness to each other. That is probably one of the greatest roles we have in the world today.

The member raised a number of points with respect to how this place operates. I understand his point. We have gone through this on several occasions. The member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) is very knowledgeable on this point and has raised it with me. It is a difficult thing to reconcile these points, and I am prepared to examine any way to make this House work better.

Sometimes this House works beautifully and sometimes it does not. Sometimes partisanship and mud slinging overtake it. Certain members make a habit or business or have a reputation of casting innuendo at each other. Some people are only concerned about partisan advantage on any single issue and others genuinely care about this House working. I have seen a few examples of both lately.

One of the things that happens in the sense that the executive is not responsible, is that it gets into the hands of people who want only to score partisan points or who are not prepared to take the responsibility for their actions. It can degenerate very quickly. The member has seen it. I have been on both sides and I am not pure in this matter.

I do not pretend to be pure in the situation, but what I am saying is that if that is the reality, whoever is there, then one has to make sure that someone is responsible for this place. That is what I am saying. When partisanship overtakes it, everybody can walk away from the mess that is caused except the government.

Look at some of the real differences of opinion we have had in this House on Bill 105 and the amendments thereto on the pay equity bill. Here we have a chairman of the committee who said a major spending amendment was out of order. The committee voted -- and the committee has the power to vote because it is in opposition hands -- to make a major amendment to the bill. Now we have two bills in the House that run into each other and it is a major embarrassment for everybody.

The opposition's argument was that it did not trust the government to do what it said it was going to do. We said we were, and we did it. The point is, no matter who was right or wrong -- members should look at it -- the Speaker becomes overruled in a situation like that. Everybody and every constitutional precedent says it is wrong, but this Legislature is supreme. This Legislature can vote anything.

Under the member's system, unless we had the power to control Orders and Notices, the opposition could say that black is white tomorrow, and that would become the law of the land. It could introduce bills and put them through.

Mr. Martel: You have the right to call a vote.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: That is what I said, unless the government had control of the order paper.

Mr. Martel: They must have control.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: That is what I am saying. My honourable friend is operating on the premise that we should call everything that comes up; that is his point. My friend the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) understands the danger of this.

I believe very strongly in the role of the private member. I do not think a House functions well when partisanship overtakes it. It is always going to be here. I am not in a position to clean up 400 years of British parliamentary tradition. I understand that, but I also know that in the functioning of this House, if we could have more Bob Nixons and Mike Breaughs, who understand the process and have a great respect for it, maybe we would not get into some of these things. We would have, shall we say, self-imposed limits on the inordinate amount of power we do have.

We are in a minority situation right now and that gives the government a great deal of respect. There is a great deal of power in the government's hands and, obviously, we have to function with a high degree of respect. It is interesting that we have come through the third minority government in four elections. It could very well be around here for a long time to come.

I need not tell members that this is the only province with a mature three-party system. Minorities worked in 1975 and in 1977. There were different rules, different players and different situations, but they worked. It is working now with a different set of rules. All that is well and good.

Mr. Shymko: It can work until 1989. Do not call an election.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We can ask, "Did the 1981 government work better than this government or did the 1977 government work better than the 1981 government?" Everybody has his own sense of history and perspective on these matters.

I tell my colleagues not to assume that a majority would be any easier than a minority. It has lots of difficulties, just different kinds of problems. Mr. Mulroney has the most commanding majority in the history of this country. Have you ever seen a government with more problems than his has?

Democracy is messy; the system is tough to handle. It requires responsibility, restraint and good judgment on all sides to work, because the truth is that a very few people can pirate the system if they so choose.

I am not saying the rules here are not archaic; I am not saying they should not be changed. I am not saying we should not look at them. We have changed a whole bunch of them and I am prepared to change more. I really have no fixed view on the situation. What we have to do is respect them once they are in place.

I am being honest with my friend opposite. There were a couple of instances that jaded my opinion a little bit. One was the two reports on Elinor Caplan, as opposed to one, and one was the Bill 105 situation which in our judgement, by any objective standard, was a clear violation of parliamentary tradition. Those things get out of hand.

Those are exceptions. Let us not build a whole case on those. However, if those things become the order of the day rather than the exception, this place could quickly deteriorate.

What is the Krazy Glue that keeps this place together? I do not know. Fear of an election, the accord, respect for each other, wanting to govern, each taking our own responsibilities to govern and doing the best we can? I do not know what it is and I am not prepared to give all the answers today on that subject.

I am prepared to look at any new rules. I do not think I can give the member a blanket assurance that all private members' bills that go through second reading will become government bills, but I will give the member this firm commitment: We will work with ideas we think are sensible.

The member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen) had a good idea on the chairman of Hamilton. There were a few things we did not like about his bill; it was changed by the honourable member. It came as a government bill, but it was his idea, his initiative and it was acknowledged as such. It is not a question of credit but a question of us all working together because we believe so much in the system.

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The member remarked about the extra services and facilities the honourable members have now. He is quite right. There are computers, legislative assistants, executive assistants, secretaries. He knows the stories, he has heard from the member for Elgin (Mr. McNeil) and others about the old days, when the only desks were right here in this House and that is the place where the members had to be.

I am not going to make a judgement on it, but it would be interesting for some of the people who have been here a lot longer than I have to ask themselves: "Are we giving better quality speeches than we did then? Are we serving our constituents any better now than we did then?"

Mr. Martel: Yes. That is the key.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: There might be some who are and some who are not. I do not know. The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) served his constituents without a constituency office until the last election when he became a minister of the crown. Harry Worton never had a constituency office.

Mr. Sterling: Nor did Osie Villeneuve.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Neither did Osie, and there are others. I am just saying there are different traditions. We may think we are doing better and some of us may be; some of us may be doing just a little less and some of us may be using all the resources that the government is paying for just to get themselves re-elected, as opposed to doing stuff that is for the benefit --

Mr. Martel: Governments do that too. They use taxpayers' dollars to get re-elected.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am not ascribing motive to the member. I did not want to agitate my honourable friend. I did not want to rattle his cage. I just want him peaceful and benign because I know how dangerous he can be when he is exercised in that regard. We have to look at this thing very carefully.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: How many plaques have you handed out?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: How many what?

Mr. D. S. Cooke: How many plaques have you handed out?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Zero.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: You have never handed out any plaques?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Nope.

Mr. Martel: I watched you downstairs with the police.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Oh, those plaques. We all have our own ways of doing these things and we all function in different ways. There are some marvellous people in this House who have served thousands of people and there are other people who make real contributions to public policy. Some have done both in varying degrees and varying ways along the way.

This House is a microcosm of our society itself: the good, the bad and the ugly, the bright, the smart; Liberals and others in that particular regard.

Mr. Martel: You are not partisan at all.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I do not mean to be partisan in any way.

We should keep examining the system. In my judgement, there are real problems in a number of the suggestions the member has made with respect to the authority of the executive council. I find it very hard to reconcile some of those things with the responsibility we have.

We have talked about committees for appointments and things like that, which is not a bad idea in some regards. Members of that committee become brokers for their friends. They are not responsible for it, but they become lobbied by their friends to ensconce them on some board, agency or commission somewhere; and they, at that point, have no responsibility.

I have spent enough time in the United States, lately and before, and I am enough a student of the system to tell the member that the system is in a virtual state of paralysis. I am not saying there are things we cannot adopt; more power for the committees and things like that. I have no problem with that, as long as they use that power responsibly, wisely and well. Sometimes they do; sometimes they do not.

Members can see what is happening right now. They can see the thrust some people are on. In the US it does not work. It is not just me, there was a marvellous article in Harper's, I believe about a year ago, on how Washington is being ground to a halt. It is being run by the 30-second clip. That is all the senators and congressmen care about, running out and getting their faces on television. No one is in control.

Mr. Breaugh: Where have I heard that accusation made before?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The only interest is in getting the message back home. It is run by special interest, constituency interest. No one speaks for the entire country, except presumably the President. He has to broker these interests along the way; with the checks and balances nothing happens. It is a completely frustrating place to do things and get things done. It is remarkable that the system works as well.

They were so worried about the system running out of control or somebody having too much power that nobody has any power. No one individual is very important. It is the system, as I said. It is no wonder it has spawned literally tens of thousands of lobbyists trying to plug into the system at various points, because it needs so many people to keep putting input into the system.

Our system is a lot better from a number of points of view, though it has its flaws. In terms of getting to the locus of power quickly, making decisions a lot more quickly, and in terms of accountability, I prefer ours, no question about it. But if there are things my honourable friend wants to examine, let us do it. We will look at the committee reports and other things.

I cannot give the blanket assurance that every bill is going to come through the House; particularly some of the bills that have spending attached or where social costs or a tax expenditure is involved, with great ramifications. Sometimes those bills are constituency driven, which I understand can have ramifications in other parts of the country that are kind of dangerous. However, it is something we should constantly re-examine. I do not think anything is sacrosanct. I think we should continually try to upgrade our process.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would like to raise three matters with the Premier, and I am pleased to see that the Minister without Portfolio responsible for disabled persons (Mr. Ruprecht) and the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) are here.

Hon. Mr. Van Horne: Do you not like me?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: The matters I want to raise are about the disabled.

The first revolves around the remarks the Premier made in the speech honouring the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon). We have had in this House and around this House in the last year or so several occasions on which we were all embarrassed -- they have been on both sides of the House -- and which we all regret. We have had a variety of sorts of apologies for those remarks.

I had not had the chance even to read the information yesterday in the papers about the Premier's comments, but I did arrive home last night to see the footage and I was shocked to see how that was handled. We all make mistakes, and I understand he has apologized to the scrum outside about the remarks.

I think it is really important and I want to raise this with him now in all seriousness. As Premier, because of the extra responsibilities he carries and the importance of his presence and the symbolism of his office around issues affecting the disabled --and I would like his comment on this -- I am not sure a retraction to a scrum should be the end or the final response to this.

I think of the minister responsible for the disabled, who has, as we know, an advisory group of people who work with him to try to affect various departments within the government around sensitivity to the needs of the disabled. Obviously, that has an impact on the Premier and the Cabinet Office. That is where the buck stops and the decisions are made, whether it is around home renovations, as was recently announced, or other matters.

I know people on that advisory committee who are developmentally handicapped. There are organizations in this province, such as People First -- I had the honour of speaking at one of its founding conventions -- upon which we all rely for information about how to deal with issues around the developmentally handicapped and which have very much wanted to say: "We want to take charge. We do not want to have only people such as the association for the mentally retarded speak for us. We want to say we speak for ourselves."

Then there are alliances such as PUSH, Persons United for Self-Help in Ontario, which has among its group people who are developmentally handicapped upon whom, again, the Premier and his ministers rely.

I really wanted to know today from the Premier what action he is going to take in terms of passing the message back through to those people about how seriously he considers -- as I gather he does from his apology in the scrum -- those remarks as they came off the tip of his tongue, I presume in the sort of schoolyard kind of things that we were all raised with and that now and then do erupt, there is no doubt about that. But he sees it as very important to have a direct contact with those groups and state to them how important he feels it is for him to retract that publicly and indicate why that was a very inappropriate thing to say. That is the first matter I wanted to raise.

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I am glad the Minister of Community and Social Services is here, and the Premier does not have the opportunity to redirect at this point as he did in question period today. I want to raise with the Premier this whole question of what has happened now, I gather with all provincial governments and the federal government, around the Canada pension plan's extension of funds to the disabled, the $150 these people all thought they were going to be guaranteed as extra income for themselves. The Premier will remember that the maximum payment under the guaranteed annual income system for the disabled in Ontario, as of January 1, is only $600 and a bit a month to live on, a couple of hundred dollars less than a single senior receives to get by on as the minimum.

Instead of that $150 being passed through to them directly and the Gains portion being adjusted accordingly to allow that to take place, the provinces, Ontario being one -- I am discouraged to find out that Manitoba is another; I phoned yesterday to discover that -- have decided that because of an agreement with the federal government, they will not top up.

The reasons for not topping up with family benefits have been given here. First, that would not be allowed. Second, if we did that for all the disabled, it would be too expensive, perhaps as much as $200 million, if we did it in its entirety; not even the partial topping up, because there has been no gesture in that area at all by any of the provincial governments, as I understand it. I am not sure it would be such a bad decision to do that total topping up from a windfall of $900 million, but even a partial topping would have been an interesting gesture.

The government did not do that because the deal, the fix that was in between the federal government and the provincial government, was that the federal government would increase the CPP amount by $150 if it did not have to pay its portion of the Gains amount under the Canada assistance plan, and it did not want to see the provincial government passing it through.

I thought to myself, "That is a really nasty thing." Then I wondered why the provinces would have agreed to that. Then it came to me, because of something the Treasurer said about the Canada assistance plan as the Minister of Community and Social Services was answering today; that is, the clear tradeoff has been that the $20 million to $25 million that is going to be saved from the Gains payments to these disabled people now is being put into CAP and is in fact going to all the other people who receive social assistance in the province, and that amount is being matched by the federal government.

That was the deal. The government has essentially taken money out of the pockets of the disabled people and, as a part of a tradeoff, has made it a part of the government's cost-sharing for all the other people on social assistance. That is an outrageous tradeoff that has been done. It is totally unconscionable, especially when the government has the kind of money it has. I can understand that with the large deficits, other provinces like Manitoba may very well be afraid at this point of the financial consequences, but how can this government be?

I remind the Premier again -- and this is not the first time I have done this in this House -- he made promises before the election and his party's critics talked all the time about the need to bring the disabled up to the same level as the elderly in terms of their basic income. This was his opportunity to do it. This was the time to do it. Instead there has been this really sordid pass-through of dollars taken out of the hands of these people who need it desperately.

If the Premier looks at the cases I raised yesterday, one person is living on just over $400 a month. He is $22 better off under this new system, so he has to go to it. That is one of the cases I raised, but he is still living on a pittance. The $135 that he was expecting has been taken from him and is being spread among other people in the social services system through this tradeoff. I would ask the Premier to reconsider the morality of that kind of exchange.

The third thing I wanted to raise, very briefly, is that the other day I introduced my legislation, the followup to the nuclear weapons free zone resolution we all passed. At that time, the Premier had not had a chance to read the copies I had sent to him. I was prepared to receive his response about my quoting him as a source and how appropriate he thought that was in terms of my referring to the need for private members' resolutions to be more respected.

I would like to know today what the Premier intends to do around making the principle of that resolution a reality. I have now provided him with model legislation as a one-two punch in this for taking responsibility in Ontario for our decision here that we should not profit in this province by our complicity in nuclear arms proliferation.

What I have done, as he knows, is to put in one motion to change the Planning Act so that all official plans would not allow any new manufacturers to develop new plants for nuclear weapons parts or undertake any conversions of existing plants for that. That would stop things for the future. If he wanted to make exceptions to that, the minister would have to come and explain to this House in a public way why he wanted an exemption, like an environmental assessment exemption, for instance.

The second half of it was for those companies that are involved in contracts now. They must develop plans with their workers for what they do at the end of the contract and how to protect them. I would have put an amount in that bill as to government money going into that if I were allowed to under our rules; but as he knows, I am not, so instead there is just an employer's portion in it.

I would really like to know what he is willing to do. The way things are, people do not want statements of principle. They want to see some action, and I think I have found him a way for Ontario to do something very specific and very meaningful that could set a great precedent for other jurisdictions in the western hemisphere and elsewhere for dealing with the whole question of the morality of profiting by something that we are supposedly opposed to, and that is the proliferation of nuclear arms.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: With respect to the member's first point, I did apologize. I do apologize. I apologized publicly. It was ill-advised and poor judgement. I talked to a number of people in the community and I can say they were very understanding and charitable today and quite accepting of that at face value; probably more accepting than the member is.

With respect to his second point, I understand the debate. I do not pretend to be an expert on it. It is complicated. On the other hand, I do not see this great conspiracy or tradeoff that he would see in the circumstances. It is under a complicated set of rules and, as the member knows, the guaranteed annual income system for the disabled does not cover everybody who is disabled; it is only a percentage of it.

He would argue that that entire amount should be passed on, and I understand the argument. I am not trying to justify anything here, because clearly they do not get enough and clearly a lot of other people do not get enough either. I cannot pretend to the member that anybody can live on that or on welfare, for that matter, or on family benefits. We would like to see all of these higher. It is not something any of us are happy about or proud about. It is a question of the integrity and overall fairness of the system.

We do want to see the disabled match the elderly, and that is a goal of this government. But as the member knows, when you do one thing for people on Gains-D, it impacts on the entire community. The overall bill, I am told, is in the $200-million range. Is that the most effective way to do it? This particular transfer affected only about 7,000 of those people, as I understand it.

I am not saying it is rational; I am not saying there are not ways we can make it better, and we will aspire to those goals in the future. It is not as if I am launching a spirited defence. I am offering an explanation and a commitment to attempt to do better, but it is not a question of a conspiracy to do something nefarious. Look at the figures. It is up $92 million in terms of transfers to the Ministry of Community and Social Services in the last supplementary estimates. There is money there.

The member may disagree with the programs. He may say it should not have gone out that way or he would argue that it would take an enormous amount more money to be spent, but I am just telling him there is a commitment of this government and we have seen some real progress.

Look at the things we have done on the spouse in the house and other things that are long overdue but are enormously expensive. One has to ask oneself the most effective and sensible way to target those moneys.

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The member refers to the money that is there and he is right, but I can tell him that $700 million or the vast majority of that money is not sitting around in a sock somewhere; it has been spent in ways he can look at and analyse on things we are screaming for in this House. Ten per cent of that money was spent in Community and Social Services on a whole range of programs. The minister pointed out today what they are.

I know the member thinks he is a pretty effective spokesman, but I can tell him there is no more effective or caring person in this province than the Minister of Community and Social Services. He has more credibility than anybody I have ever seen. I pass that on to the member. He wants to be careful before he takes a holier-than-thou position with him. It is easy for him to sit there and preach, which he does on occasion. If the member ever had the responsibility, I suspect there is no way he could deliver any better in real terms with real effect on other people's lives than this minister, of whose performance I am so terribly proud.

The third point the member raises is the question of a nuclear free zone and his solutions thereto. I have looked at them and others are looking at them as well. I am not sure it is a solution. He kind of wants it both ways. He wants the jobs. He thinks it is so easy; everybody can make up plans how to have jobs in the future by forcing companies to make plans. If companies were so clever about making jobs, everybody would be employed. The member has the impression that jobs can be plucked out of the air, created and everybody will be employed.

He cannot have it both ways in a situation such as this. He cannot on the one hand demand the jobs be there and on the other hand demand that they produce what he wants them to produce. We are looking at the situation. It is a general sentiment that I feel extremely strongly about. It goes back to other discussions we have had. Governments, by definition, are forced to be practical and to implement real things that are doable and to care about real people's jobs.

If he wants to see a classic dilemma, he should look at the Kimberly-Clark situation. One could not walk into a tougher situation for a government than the ministry walked into on pollution, with the jobs and everything. I think it was a win-win situation but it was a very tough fight for a long period of time. I use that as an analogy in this respect. We are looking at it. We are not sure he has the solution. I support the general resolution wholeheartedly, but we do not know whether the specifics used in the Planning Act are the appropriate way. We do not know the answer at this point as to whether it is practical and workable, but we will continue to look at it. I cannot give the member any assurance in this matter.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: There are just two matters I want to clear up. The $92 million that has been referred to has only a little to do with income maintenance and we should be very clear about that. If we look at the actual increase in income maintenance over this last year, it is suspiciously close to the amount of money that now is being passed through here in terms of the provincial share, rather than the federal government share included. I say to him I do not think that is the appropriate way for income maintenance increases to be made; that is, taken out of the pockets of people who are expecting them, the disabled in this case, and put in the hands of others.

On the first matter, I would like to say I do not know whether the Premier has spoken directly to the organizations I mentioned, but I think such organizations should hear from him directly, if that is at all possible. I hope I am accepting his apology as graciously as the people he says did. I accept it at face value. I am just suggesting that perhaps the extra step is very important symbolically at this point.

The final thing I will say on the nuclear weapons thing is that it is true my second bill, the conversion bill, is there to try to help find plans for alternative jobs, but it also says if that is not the case, at the expiration of a contract -- not ending a contract; at a time when all the jobs would supposedly be lost --there must be more protection for the workers and so there is a topping up of benefit provisions in it as well as the job search.

I am not suggesting in any way that it is easy to make the decisions, and especially to find the jobs. What I am suggesting is that in the phasing out we must protect the people who are working in that system now as their contracts end and that in the future we should be setting up a mechanism that makes it impossible for us to get into this bind of the choice between the economic desire to have jobs and our decision as to what kind of jobs. Are they jobs that are involved in the production of Armageddon, and is that the kind of approach we want to take? That is why there are two solutions.

Mr. Gillies: There are a number of points I would like to make on a variety of subjects surrounding these estimates. I will try not to take too much time, because I am sure there are other members who want to participate.

It is a rather public forum for the Premier and I to have a heart-to-heart, but there are a couple of things I would like to say with regard to some of the things the Premier alluded to earlier. Partisanship, the atmosphere around here, perhaps trying to make the place work a little better: I would like to touch on that first in the hope that the Premier will take it in the spirit in which it is intended and that perhaps some good will come of this.

First, I want to say I would agree with the Premier that the atmosphere around here of late, particularly in the last four or five months, has been intensely partisan. That seems to have been an escalation through the last year.

The Premier, of course, from where he sits, would want to say that is entirely the fault of the opposition and those who are primarily interested in scoring political points and so on. I would like to suggest to him, I hope constructively, there are aspects of this phenomenon which I believe come home to roost with the Premier and with a leadership style. I believe there are things he could do in terms of the way he deals with the opposition that could help improve that situation; and it is a two-way street, I am the first to admit that.

Let me give the Premier an example of what I am getting at. I think it is an approach he takes sometimes towards the opposition that raises the stakes on some issues, and I think sometimes unnecessarily. I will never forget the day last June when I first raised the question of Wyda and the Caplan involvement and so on. I am sure, looking back now, the Premier would agree -- we would all have to agree -- that that was a very serious situation in terms of somebody negotiating a government contract and so on and that we did have to take that matter very seriously and that it was something that had to be brought before the House.

When we raised that question, the reaction of the Premier was rather interesting: a great deal of anger, a couple of names called, etc. Then, with the passage of a day or two, as it became obvious the situation was serious and some of the details came out, he then took the steps in terms of calling in his minister and having an internal inquiry undertaken by Mr. Carman and so on and so forth, which led to an appropriate disposition of the issue, the appropriate disposition at that time being the resignation of the minister, the inquiry and all that flowed from that.

The point I would make is that on a number of issues that have been raised -- partisan issues, I grant you -- the Premier's reaction in the way he responds to them sometimes in the House I think raises the stakes and does not improve the atmosphere in here. Of course, we snap back; that is what oppositions do. It took us a while over here to figure out what the heck an opposition party was supposed to do, because we had not been one before. I see my friend from Windsor nodding. My years in the back bench as a government member ill equipped me for what my friends to the left have been doing, very ably, for a while, and that goes for many of my colleagues.

But I say to the Premier, it is a two-way street. In terms of increasing the civility and co-operative atmosphere of this House, there is a lot we could both do. I offer that thought to the Premier and I would be sincerely interested in any reaction he might have to that.

I think the fact we have mounted a tough opposition, at times a fierce opposition in this House, has led over the last period of months to a change in attitude on the part of many members of the Premier's government which has been positive. It is an old adage: I believe Churchill said that a government is as good as its opposition. I think the exercise we have been through in the last year and some of the battles and so forth --

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Are you saying we are good or you are good?

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Mr. Gillies: I do not know; neither perhaps, but I would say that the attitude we saw creeping into this government, especially at the midpoint of 1986, which was perhaps one of not taking the opposition that seriously in terms of our queries, the points we were bringing forward and the issues we were raising, has changed for the better. I credit the Premier and his ministers in recent months for, I believe, taking us somewhat more seriously when we raise things. I think that is a natural evolution.

Especially through the first year since this government took office in June 1985, it has enjoyed tremendous public popularity and a rather protracted honeymoon, which continues to a degree to this day. From where I sit -- and of course, I am a partisan politician like the rest of us -- that was leading to an attitude and a mindset in 1986 in this government. There was the kind of feeling among some people close to the government that they really could get away with anything, get away with murder. Because of the rather remarkable honeymoon situation, they could perhaps skate around some things and not be called to account. They were called to account. From where I am sitting, I have detected a somewhat more careful and a somewhat more responsible approach to some of these issues in recent months.

I know the Premier thinks I never have anything good to say about him or his government. He may be surprised to learn that is not the case. I think some of the initiatives he has undertaken are good. Some of them were alluded to earlier by my colleagues. Some of the legislation the government has brought in was good and I have supported some of it in the face of opposition at times from numbers of my colleagues. I just say to the Premier to file that away.

With a bit of work on both sides of the House, I really do think we can make a dramatic improvement in the atmosphere around here. In terms of a co-operative parliament, I am not saying that we as an opposition want to roll over and die, and I do not think for a minute the Premier wants to stop making a fierce defence of his government's policies. That is not what I am talking about. What I am talking about is perhaps an attitudinal change that could spill over on both sides of the floor and could improve this place.

I want to ask some specific questions about the estimates, the numbers, the organization and so on. Before I get to that, I would like to speak to two things the Premier has alluded to during these estimates, one being the situation with Bill 105 and the other being the two reports on the member for Oriole (Ms. Caplan). I understand he has raised these in the context of things that annoyed him about the way things were going around here. Let me speak first to the latter situation.

As the Premier will know, the original draft of the report that came from the standing committee on public accounts on the matter of the member for Oriole was very carefully negotiated. The Premier will know -- I do not think it is any secret -- that we negotiated practically word for word at various points. The members of the three caucuses on that committee went back to their respective leaders' offices for some guidance. That was no big secret at the time; neither has it been since. There was a very clear understanding underlying that first report, a very clear understanding.

The understanding that we all had behind closed doors in that committee was that the findings basically were that Mr. Caplan was in conflict of interest by virtue of his actions; that the conflict-of-interest guidelines covered ministers and spouses and, therefore, the member for Oriole was in conflict of interest also, although we conceded in the report that we do not believe she set out deliberately to frustrate the intent of the guidelines, by which she was caught because of their structure.

If one were to talk to the member for Wentworth North (Mr. Ward), the member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp) or any of the members on the committee, that was the understanding we all had. Where it all flew apart was in the media conference, at which point we were unveiling that report and where, I say with great respect, the Liberal members speaking on behalf of the Liberal caucus in that news conference went off on quite a different tack, waiting for the cameras to flash on and immediately starting into a very detailed analysis of how the member for Oriole was not in conflict of interest when indeed, by virtue of the guidelines, one could draw no conclusion but that she was.

That led to the anger and the reaction on the part of the opposition parties, which led to the second report. I put that forward as the other side of the argument the Premier put, the feeling of the opposition parties that in fact the understanding we had as a committee had been broken and that clearly we had to state our findings in that committee somewhat more clearly.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: If justice was to run like that, we would have anarchy in the system.

Mr. Gillies: I have heard the Premier's point of view, but it goes back to the operations of this place, not only in this chamber but also in the committees. We really are only as good as our word around here. That deal, that report, flew apart because of the perception of the majority of members on the committee that some members had not come out in public with the understanding we had in private. I do not expect the Premier and I to agree on this point, but in point of fact, as he raised it, I felt I should put the other side of the argument.

The question of the pay equity bill, Bill 105, is another point of contention. I am sure the Premier, who was here during the previous minority from 1975 to 1981 -- I was not here as a member, although at one point I worked in the Premier's office -- under the previous administration obviously. During that period of time, there were bills brought forward by the Davis minority which were substantially changed by the opposition. An obvious example is the spills bill. The government of the day was so frustrated with that one that it did not implement it because of the contentious clause. We could argue the merits of whether that should have been the case, but there was legislation changed because of the will of the majority of members in a minority House.

That has happened again. It happened with Bill 105. I believe in the parliamentary system. While the chairman of the day did not uphold the decision of the committee, that was of course subject to challenge, as any decision of a committee chairman or Speaker around here is subject to challenge. Indeed, the committee again successfully upheld the challenge of the day.

Having said that, I listened very carefully to the exchange the Premier had with my colleague the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Shymko) earlier, and I would be the last person around here to suggest the government should in any way lose control of Orders and Notices. That truly would be an anarchic situation. In a minority parliament especially, the government has to keep control of Orders and Notices and order its business as is the prerogative of the ruling party, subject to defeat in the House on any piece of legislation. I guess that is the ultimate power of the opposition in a minority House. Who knows? One of these days it may happen. But I certainly want to subscribe to the point of view put forward by the Premier earlier that, minority or majority, the government has to order its own business. I do not think any of us in the chamber are suggesting that situation should change.

The third area I would like to get into is the question of the Premier's office, the organization and restructuring to which he alluded earlier.

Does the Premier want to respond?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The reality is we cannot lose the right to order business. I fully agree with the member. We go out of our way to be accommodating. In spite of the difficulties we have here, it works fairly well between the House leaders. There is good chemistry. They respect each other. They take each other's word. That helps the system work fairly well.

I do not want to get into a fight with the honourable member, but if he realized how pompous he sounded when he was giving me that lecture, I do not think he would like himself very much. As soon as he raised the matter of the member for Oriole -- I had never heard of the situation, of Wyda or anybody else -- I said: "Turn it all over to the standing committee on public accounts. Look at all the facts." That was my immediate response, knowing nothing. We exposed this whole situation. It was my immediate response.

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Accusations are made. I take them seriously. Obviously, these things come along and you have no idea, as the first minister; you are very upset; you are fond of these people; how could this happen; were there errors of judgement? I said to them, as I say to the member, and I said to him in the House immediately, "If there are any facts, they should come out."

What other governments have exposed these kinds of situations to a completely partisan court, i.e., a public accounts committee? We did that. We offered that. It took the members opposite three or four days to pick up that challenge. The members said they would do it. They did not even take advantage of the situation and we forced the committee, as we did with Mr. Fontaine, because if things are wrong, we have to pay the price. We are a long way from being a perfect government. No one is perfect.

We have to make tough decisions; we accept the consequences of that and we are prepared to make the tough decisions, just as I know the honourable member opposite has made tough decisions. I respect him for his moral courage in some of the tough decisions he has had to make. We have all had to make them on occasions, and I recognize that.

At the same time, I say to the member, there is nobody who has been more wrong in this House than the member opposite. He has been sued. He has had to retract for his promiscuous use of the facts. That is a matter of record. As for his performance in the last couple of days, people think it is all very cute; it is all very there. I think it is a very serious error of judgement on his part. So when the member lectures me on my attitude, when he tries to associate my friends with things when he has been wrong so often, I say, "This should not surprise the member at all."

He may enjoy the attention he gets. He may think it is all quite wonderful. He is obviously relishing his role. But I say, when one plays with people's reputations -- if the member knew what he did with Mrs. Caplan, and I heard his explanation, I know his explanation, but I cannot justify that -- it is like a judge passing judgement on someone. The convict insults him or something on the way out and the judge calls him back in and sentences him again.

We do not believe in double jeopardy. This reaction and this running back, I think, was a --

Mr. Philip: You believe in leaking reports though, do you not?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: What the member is saying is that he is going to hold Mrs. Caplan up because he has some disagreement with Liberal members. The member is prepared to interfere with someone's --

Mr. Philip: No, with the Premier and his office.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: If the member could be quiet for a moment, we will deal with him later.

If he is saying that because he had some difference of opinion with Liberal back-benchers on the committee, he was prepared to put Mrs. Caplan -- an individual, a peer of ours -- through what I would consider is unkind, at the very least, I think it reveals a real lack of sensitivity.

We have made a lot of mistakes in this House, individually. I have, just recently. I am not in the least bit proud of it. Other members have, on many occasions. As I recall, my friend opposite has had the same embarrassment on occasion. Who is so pure in this House?

Some people call for other people's heads in these situations; others do not. Others are more charitable and understanding. As I recall, we were quite understanding about the member's situation. At least I was, because I do not think I am perfect. I do not think anybody in this House is perfect.

However, I am telling the members, if the place is going to work well, we are going to have to be a little less promiscuous with our allegations. We are going to have to be a little more factual. The facts have to stand on their own.

As I recall, the first interpretation of the report on Mrs. Caplan was that she was guilty of an error in judgement. It did not say a conflict of interest. That was boiled up by the second report, the member has told us now, because he was mad at some Liberal back-bencher. It is like being mad at someone and letting somebody else hang for that.

So I say to my friend, this judgement, this business takes maturity and strength. I do not pretend I have it. I make lots of mistakes -- mistakes of excess, mistakes of partisanship. In lots of issues, I look back in retrospect and wish I had handled them in a different way. There is no question about it. When these questions about my colleagues come up, they have to be investigated. All the facts will have to come out.

The member has a habit of prejudging these things and being very wrong about them. I would advise my good friend not to get too pompous or supercilious about this situation. I say to my honourable friend that none of us is perfect.

As we conduct the business of this House, we have seen a government prepared to face some issues but we do not get agreement on them. I do not mind bills being amended. Look at Bill 7. It was amended by the member for Ottawa Centre (Ms. Gigantes) and we agreed with that. That was not violating the responsibility of the House. She had every right to do what she did.

Bills are amended every single day. The member does not see me squawking about amending bills. That is a right of a minority parliament. We have the right to withdraw a bill; we have the right not to proclaim a bill. They are the rights of a minority parliament, but that is not what I am talking about.

Almost every single bill that comes through here is amended somehow or other by the opposition, if not by us. Bill 105 is completely different. The member's colleague, the chairman and the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt), on advice from the clerk, lawyers and others came to the conclusion that amendment was ultra vires.

The member knew that and the parliamentary experts knew that. The partisan people were prepared to disregard that in the name of partisanship. Anybody who is knowledgeable about parliamentary situations can argue that was intra vires. It was ultra vires that responsibility and created, subsequent to the fact, an embarrassment for everybody, including the opposition.

I have no problem amending a bill. Amend it. Members have a right to do that but they do not have the right to violate the traditions of this House. Members have authority and I have authority. The genius of having authority is not to abuse that authority. Members have immunity in this House. We can stand up and say anything we want to about anybody in the whole world and not get sued. Some people use that irresponsibly; some people use it responsibly. Some people use their soap box outside very effectively; some people do not.

If all of us exercise self-restraint and judgement --and I include myself in this; I am not holier than thou -- I think this place will work better.

Mr. Gillies: First of all, if I sounded pompous earlier, I apologize; I did not intend to. I was choosing my words very carefully because I think this is a rather important debate that perhaps has been a long time coming.

The Premier is very fond of saying the matters I have raised in the House have almost invariably been wrong. I challenge that. We clearly were not wrong on the Caplan affair; we were not wrong on Exploracom; we were not wrong on Graham Software; in my opinion, we will prove not to have been wrong on the waterfront apartment development, Huang and Danczkay. Putting that aside --

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Wrong about what?

Mr. Gillies: The Premier said it. He said I raised these allegations and we have been wrong. I do not think we have been wrong. We have raised a number of matters that were being handled very questionably in and around the government --

Hon. Mr. Peterson: You just throw muck and hope some of it will stick.

Mr. Gillies: Not at all. We have raised matters in and around the government that have been questionable and we have almost invariably been right. I think the people of Ontario have benefited as a result of this, as some matters have been averted or avoided that could have been very serious; for example, $17.5 million to Exploracom.

On the other hand, I think moneys have been lost. I believe millions of public dollars have been lost through some of the IDEA investments and so on that we considered questionable. Perhaps that could have been saved if we had been listened to a little more seriously in an earlier instance. That is all --

Hon. Mr. Peterson: You will not get any disagreement from me on that. You should have wound it down earlier. It was your board, your ideas, your mess.

Mr. Gillies: We can get into a protracted argument about IDEA. The Premier points out that it was our board. It was, but over 60 per cent of the money was expended under the Premier's administration. Coincidentally, those are the investments that are going sour.

I suggest to the Premier that we have many disagreements. That is part of the way things work around here; it is part of the system. I also suggest that the Premier take a look at some of the things the official opposition has raised. There are not that many that have been wrong.

Mr. Ferraro: How did the people of Ontario benefit from what you did to Keyes? Explain that.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Mr. Gillies: I did not raise the Keyes matter. The member will have to ask somebody else about that.

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I suggest the Premier take another look at some of the things the official opposition has raised. I think he will find that actually, in most cases, we were right. In most cases, we were raising them in the best interests of the people, and the people benefited from them.

I will close off this subject by saying one thing. The Premier mentioned earlier we all make mistakes, and we surely do, I not the least among us. But I will say there are things that happen, things that are said, which I as an individual do not believe people should be hung out to dry for. I just want to tell the Premier -- for the matter he has recently been roasted over, I guess -- I watched television last night and I thought he handled it very well. He was clearly very upset about the situation and more than honourable in the way he handled that.

I suggest that most of us in this House have said something at some point, be it jokingly or inadvertently, that we have regretted. Much more weight is put on it when one is a minister than when one is a back-bencher, and much more weight is put on it when one is the Premier than when one is a minister, but I think we can afford to be a bit charitable on some of these things.

I have some specific questions I want to ask about office organization and so on, but my friend the member for Sudbury East is chafing.

Mr. Martel: Yes.

Mr. Gillies: Although he owes me one today.

Mr. Martel: Yes, I do.

Mr. Gillies: None the less, I will yield the floor to the member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Chairman: Excuse me. Does the Premier have any comments? No? The member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Martel: I appreciate my friend's giving me a few moments because I want to go back to the way the place works. I take it as a given that the government has the right to govern. I have never questioned that.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Some days we think you do.

Mr. Martel: Not really. However, I think there is a problem here, as in most legislatures. While I do not agree with the American system, what it does do is allow not only opposition members but also government back-benchers to think and use their abilities. Unfortunately, our system does not allow back-benchers the ability to use their talents. It does not allow opposition members to be positive. The role is a lousy role. My friend the Premier knows that.

It is an awful role when one is in opposition, because one is forced to be almost constantly negative. That becomes rather frustrating for back-benchers on the government side. I have talked to them all over the years. They get frustrated because they feel like a seal. If they put their hands up, if they say something that embarrasses the government, they are not supposed to. They play this little game, "You do it in caucus." That is silly.

We have to find a way to use the talent in this chamber. There is a lot of talent in here and a lot of it goes to waste. It really and truly does. In fact, one of the interesting things about the Legislature is not the chamber itself; it is committees. It is quite a fascinating experience to work in committees because you can get agreement. It may be because you are not in the limelight, but you can get people who are prepared to give and take and come out with a unanimous report, which I think in the long run is probably the best thing that could happen in Ontario. We do not have the mechanism for it. I think there are some things we could do.

I looked at today's Orders and Notices, for example, and right now there are just too many things going on, but members do not know what is going on. Look at today. There are four committees and the Legislature sitting this afternoon. Everybody is thinly spread. Everybody is going for hours. Nobody has time to get back to his office and clean up his desk. It is like insanity. Members can recall when I was House leader. I just would not allow it. There is a set of rules that protects against that sort of thing.

We wanted to add one hour to the day. I tried to get it through about two months ago in the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly. I could not get the Liberal members to go along with me. They were prepared to adjust the hours because the press wanted it. Can you imagine? The press wanted it at 1:30 p.m., so we moved it back to 1:30 p.m. We could have moved it back to 1 p.m., sat until 6:30 p.m. and had no overlap of three and four committees sitting at the same time, which would have freed up people to do the other jobs they had to do. No, we could not, come hell or high water. As I spoke to that committee, it was like talking to the wall. They had received their marching orders from someone that nothing was to change except to give a half-hour more so that the press could get out its stories.

You ask yourself, "What gives?" I could devise a schedule that would give me an hour a day more so that we would have committees sitting, but we would not have four sitting at the same time. We could man the committees, or our people could be there, and they could go back and do their telephoning and so on. Ministers would not have to be on duty for three and a half or four hours straight in a committee.

I would get rid of estimates, but I think I would devise a system such as the people in Quebec have. If you talk today about the fact you are going to spend $50 million, there is an opportunity to get that discussed that day, not six months after the money is spent, as we do in Ontario.

It is the most ridiculous system we have. We voted on the budget in December. The money had been long spent. We are talking about confidence motions, and the money has been spent. We are nuts. We should have an estimates committee that looks at three or four estimates per year.

For the government to get that, it has to give the opposition something, and that is a type of committee that could review things.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I thought you were going to give us -- I thought that is what you wanted.

Mr. Martel: No. The government wants to get rid of estimates. They are 420 hours of what? Nobody looks at an estimate. We talk policy but we really do not study estimates, because governments do not want to part with the documents that lead to those estimates that are being considered. How do you analyse a set of estimates when you have them? You get the public accounts from two years ago, or a year ago, and next year's estimated spending.

Has anyone ever heard anything so ridiculous? When you do not have a document in front of you to determine how government even arrives at that, it degenerates to a discussion about policy. Things could be done. I am not sure we have the sense that we want to make it better for Ontario, because that is ultimately what it is.

One of the things we should do is have a four-year timetable, and that is it. If the government has 50 members for four years, so be it. That is what the public voted for. Let someone tell me about all the silly confidence motions. We have been moving motions. There has been government after government where budgets have been killed or bills have been killed, and when it was convenient for the government, it came back the next day with a confidence motion so it would not get defeated.

Mr. Pearson did it constantly. We sit around this silly House talking about how, if we lose a bill and if it is a money bill, we go down the tube and there is an election. What a lot of nonsense. We only do that when it is convenient. If we do not want an election, we can find a way around it, but if the polls happen to be right, good. I think when you have four years, buddy, that is it. There are four years. That is what the public voted for, and you run with it.

We will not change that. We are not even smart enough to have a schedule that tells us when we sit and when we do not sit. I am tired of listening to the silly civil servants who tell me they cannot get a budget ready ahead of time and say we have to sit until April, May or June. That is nonsense. It is time we stopped listening to them and said we need a schedule so that we can organize. We are not sitting back 20 years ago when I first came here. That was when we finally started to sit six or eight months a year. Prior to that we were here six or eight weeks.

How do you get through -- what is the budget? -- $30 billion and try to pretend we are still living back when I came here, when the budget was $2 billion.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: It is all because of you. You are overstaying.

Mr. Martel: It is all my fault. I thought I had something to do with it.

It worries me that we want majority. Let me give an example. The Premier goes down tomorrow and says to the Lieutenant Governor: "Look, Guv, we want an election. I am dissolving this place."

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am going right now.

Mr. Martel: Except His Honour says, "Now wait a minute, Mr. Premier. There is another party that has 50 members who might be able to make a government." We have all heard of King-Byng. The press wants an election. The people who are clamouring for an election today are not the people of Ontario. Frankly, they are happy. It is the newspaper people and the media who want it. Every time there is one word out of line, the media say, "Aha, another election." They are trying to get an election going.

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If we want a repeat of the King-Byng situation, the stage is set. His Honour could say: "No. Let me see if I can get a government formed." The Premier could fight as Mackenzie King did. What did Mackenzie King say? What was his line? He said, "Has the Governor General more authority than the Prime Minister of Canada?" What a phoney lot of baloney, because our legislation and our assembly work under that fashion.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We will prop you up for two years. How is that?

Mr. Martel: The Premier does not have to prop me up.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: You will want to go back where you are, let me tell you.

Mr. Martel: I think my friend the Premier is right. Government governs, but he and his party walked out a couple of times previously. They would not come in and answer the bells for days on end. They learned that from the Tories in Ottawa. They are both pretty sanctimonious. I can remember when they walked out of here and would not come and vote.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: And you are not?

Mr. Martel: I am not. I am anything but humble, but I never allowed my caucus to use that tactic when I was House leader. I thought about it. The government has a right to govern. That is where I started from. When the Tories walked out in Ottawa and were out for 19 or 21 days, and when the Liberals walked out here over a budget -- I remember that -- they were flying in the face of the democratic process. That showed total disrespect for the process we have in Canada.

I make those points because I think we need changes in the rules. We have to get on with the business. It is interesting. If we look at the best social legislation we have in Canada, and we are probably ahead of everybody else, it was always with minority government that it came about. Good legislation has not necessarily come from massive majorities -- just the opposite.

One thinks of Muldoon today having problems, but John Diefenbaker had his problems with 208 seats. There has to be a will. Maybe they get bogged down. There are ways we can change the rules, to use the talent that is here for the benefit of Ontario. We have to unshackle it somehow, for everyone's sake.

Let me make two other points. I would like to ask the Premier to divorce himself and his government totally from the McKenzie-Laskin report on occupational health and safety. In my 20th year here, that is the worst document I have ever read. It is the most biased, one-sided, unfair document I have ever read.

Under the act in existence in Ontario today, management has total control -- absolute and total control. McKenzie and Laskin are saying: "Fix up the little things that cause the problems in the Ministry of Labour, but leave everything as is. If you leave everything as is, hire a few more inspectors, etc., but we will still have management in absolute control."

In 1982-83, we killed 232 workers in this province; in 1984, 234; in 1985, 193; in 1986, 211. Management was in control. Workers did not have a right to say no. One guy can walk off the job, but the ultimate decisions rest with management. The whole of that act relies on what is called the internal responsibility system. That committee can make recommendations, but that is as far as it goes. Unless upper management decides to implement it, there is not a thing they can do except bring in the Ministry of Labour.

I am saying it has to be equalized. Somehow that decision-making power must be equalized. If the Premier wants some statistics that are horrifying, let him look at the number of accidents. In four years, they have gone from 344,000 to 442,000. That is costing billions in lost income, billions in expenses for medical care. It is out of control, and management has had the total control to this time. I do not make that up; that is the way the act works.

When one looks at almost 80,000 orders issued against management last year and the year before by the Ministry of Labour, one says to oneself there is something wrong. McKenzie and Laskin, who wrote an entire two-volume report, in one place were critical of management.

He kicked the hell out of the Ministry of Labour. I have done that. He kicked the hell out of organized labour; these people have done that. But the people who have the power under the act and who are responsible for refusing to implement it, they get one shot by McKenzie and Laskin in the whole report. Why does he think the trade union movement was so angry yesterday when it was here? I ask the Premier to divorce himself from that totally.

I could talk about the north, without short-term solutions. This government is making the same mistake the Tories made. The north will not develop in the way the south develops. The north is going to be developed only when government gets involved. I am not talking about crown corporations. I am not talking about takeovers. It has been that way in other countries when the government decided it had to get involved. When I was with the select committee, we went to West Germany. How did they get people to locate near the Russian border? The government became the catalyst. It put up a little cash and became the catalyst for something to develop in an area it wanted developed. They did not try to run it. All they wanted was somebody on the board.

We have been extracting resources from northern Ontario for lo these many years. Look at Sudbury: billions taken out, and not a thing related to nickel, copper, platinum, gold; nothing. It is going to happen only when somebody says: "We become the catalyst to make it happen. We are not going to do it. We are going to entice a company to come in there. We are going to entice pools of capital and we are going to look carefully."

It might be fertilizer. We are importing fertilizer today into Ontario. We have the emissions going up the stack, which is devastating the countryside, and we have phosphates sitting in Cargill township. One brings those things together. We stop importing. We are not going to hurt anybody by stopping importing. We stop these gases from going up the stack and devastating the country. The Muskoka area is being ravaged by SO₂, a form of acid rain.

That is the kind of thinking this government has to get into: What is it we have in the north that we can relate to some secondary industry, and how do we attract pools of capital to come there, and we will act and assist in making that happen.

If it were going to happen in the traditional free-enterprise system, it would have happened 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, when we led the world with 85 per cent of the world's nickel. It did not happen. It is much too easy to extract it and take it south of the border, out of the north.

If the Premier thinks we will make it nice and people are going to go there willy-nilly, he needs a wishing well. It is not going to happen that way. It is going to take some real, sound planning and looking at what we have and saying, "How can we best utilize some of the money in this province to make certain things that we want in the north happen, without government control or takeover?" Nothing short of that is going to see the north develop properly.

I know the Premier is going to say he is moving ministries to the north. We understand that. It is going to create jobs in the long run. In the short run, he is going to bring in some jobs. What do we do with the people who are already there and do not have jobs? That is my worry.

I want to give the Premier an opportunity to respond to some of those suggestions. I am looking forward to those responses.

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Hon. Mr. Peterson: Let me thank the honourable member for his comments. I understand when he speaks about the frustrations of a private member opposite. I spent 10 years -- and the member has spent 20 years -- doing the very same thing. I know the days I would leave here and chew my nails, frustrated with a government I thought was arrogant. I guess oppositions by definition always think governments are arrogant, and that is fair enough. There were things I thought were so wrong and could be corrected; I once made the comment that a cabinet minister could do more in the afternoon after tea than I could in a lifetime as a member of the opposition. I was attacked viciously on that by my opposition during the next campaign, saying "Elect me, and I will be a cabinet minister." I am probably overstating it, but there is some truth in it.

I say to my friend that he is an example of a private member who has made a big difference around here. He is the acknowledged expert on occupational health and safety. Even though I do not always agree with his point of view -- and I do not, by the way, pretend to be as knowledgeable as he is -- he has personally made a difference. When the history books are written, he will have his stamp on them. It is a difficult exercise, far more difficult than it is being a minister or a cabinet member, when one has to hammer away day after day. I remember the speeches I heard from a lot of the member's colleagues and our members on the northern question. How often are speeches made by southern people who do not understand the north? I have been hearing the same speeches for 10 years.

When we got into a position to do something about it, I learned from all that. Sometimes it puts one to sleep, but on the other hand, one picks up things and gains the sensitivities of one's colleagues.

The member has also made a great difference on the issue -- I talked about it earlier, before he arrived -- of hockey violence. There is no question that the member has individually sensitized this Legislature to the issue. I could say it of other members. There are the contributions from the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) on legislative reforms around here and the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) on northern concerns. There are a lot of others.

Mr. Warner: I am waiting.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Warner) is just back. He has taught us how to call for a minister's resignation with great dignity. It does happen. I am prepared to wrestle with the member and other members about building that role of the private member, at the same time trying to be sensitive of the responsibility of the government for the execution of those decisions. In a lot of ways, we have transferred powers to the private members. The member's suggestion of the use of the committee system is good.

This House tends to be supercharged with partisanship; that is just the tradition of the thing. That is why we are two sword lengths away from each other, so we will not slit each other's throats. Committees do work. Not every one, but I have seen some remarkable work out of committees. One of the joys we have is that, by and large, everybody around here likes each other personally, and when we get into that forum without the pressure on, it does work. Lots of good things have been accomplished by committees over the last 10 years.

I certainly have no problem exploring those ideas, how to get those ideas into the House, getting members better informed, like the select committee on economic affairs working on the trade issues. Those are pretty big issues just to comprehend; one cannot understand them just by reading them in the newspaper. One must struggle and wrestle with them and get briefed by experts.

Even with the higher level of education we all have, the reality is that one cannot be an expert on every issue around here. The problem with being Premier is that people come to me and say, "What is your opinion?" I cannot pretend to be an expert on every issue. There is just too much to absorb. But I am certainly anxious to pursue any ideas the member and other members have for enhancing the role of the private member.

I think we have made some big strides. I think we have made more strides in the last year and a half than we have in the previous 20 years in terms of a quantum leap. That is not to say we cannot go farther.

I am dedicated to trying to run this parliament on as civilized and as humane a basis as we can. I understand fights and I like a good scrap. I do not mind a good fight about policy; there is nothing the matter with that. It is the personal fights, the meanness -- that is the kind of stuff I have problems with. I want to go home, and I am not very proud of myself. I am not saying I have not been involved in them, but they do not enhance any of us at all.

Let me go on to McKenzie and Laskin. I cannot tell my friend I can stand here and disavow it completely. I am not going to do that. I know how unhappy he is with it, how unhappy the labour movement is with it, and Wilson, whom I have had an opportunity to meet and for whom I have a great deal of respect. We have chatted about it. I know how deeply he feels. I do not think I have ever seen a report that I have seen more harsh words used about.

One could say oppositions are never happy with any report they get that does not agree with them. One could say that or one can look at the subject and say there are other areas they should have gone into.

What is any report? It is one or two people's opinion. You can argue they are the wrong people; you would have preferred to hire someone who would agree with you. Somebody else would prefer somebody who agreed with them. What is a consultant? Sometimes I think consultants are just paid to tell you what you want to do anyway. I have some problems with all those kinds of things.

The sense was that they were competent, with no particular axes to grind, and they could be helpful in analysing some problems that exist. There is no question about that. My honourable friend opposite knows those problems better than anybody, and if we did not know them, he sure brought them to our attention.

The report does not matter; it is what we do with the report that matters. It is under very active consideration and work by the government. The minister has worked hard on this. It is not an easy issue.

I understand the point of view of the member opposite. He has expressed it to me privately. He is worried about the balance. Obviously, management is worried about the right to manage and to organize a company. On the other hand, how do we handle this health and safety business, because it is extremely important?

My friend the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) tells me the real environmental problems are industry-related. We talk about the problems of acid rain and topics, and those are real problems, but the Minister of the Environment will tell us the real problems are occupational health and safety. They are really tough ones. That is a reality, so we have to make progress, and we are making some in that regard.

I cannot honour the member's request to disavow the report, but I will try to see it through his eyes and try to take a balanced view of the situation.

With respect to his suggestions about the north, I do not want to be unkind, but I have heard that same speech for 10 years around here.

Mr. Martel: I have been giving it for 20.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am glad I have not been here for 20; that is all I can say to that.

There are lots of great theoretical ideas about making potash and using the sulphuric acid and others. I say to the member frankly, there is not a reasonable idea we will not participate in. Look at peat. I have heard of every saviour for the north: peat and processing and tourism.

Mr. Martel: Not tourism, no. You will not get --

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Not the member. No one would go to visit him personally anyway, and I can understand that.

There is not a solution I have not heard from somebody. Everybody says we need more planning, but they do not know what they are planning. Theoretically, when you are planning something, you should know what you are planning. If you are planning to build a house, you should know you are trying to end up with a house.

He knows -- maybe he knows, maybe he has the secrets of all this; I am not sure. I want to share this with him, and I have shared this with him before, but I will tell him again.

Mr. Chairman: Might I draw the Premier's attention to the clock? In other words, share very quickly if you would.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Order in a pizza, Mr. Chairman, and we will keep going.

We are trying to put emphasis on initiatives that northerners will sponsor. I assure the House there is not a reasonable economic idea we will not support. We are trying extremely hard to get secondary industries. We are trying to work on using every single natural advantage we have, and there are many, the resources, the scenery, the people and everything else, to bring economic activity. There are things happening.

I think the key is northern people with the support of government here. It is unlocking the creativity that is there. One of the problems of the north is that its history has been large, foreign-owned corporations. It was built by pioneers 50 or 100 years ago, but taken over by these great foreign corporations. We have to break that mentality. The people now who are looking for work and things to do in the future have to work with their own entrepreneurial spirit. We have to play a supportive role and we are prepared to do it.

If members will come back next week, I will finish my speech and I will tell them the keys to unlocking the great potential of the north.

Mr. Chairman: Is there some understanding or does the committee feel that is enough time for these estimates?

Mr. Breaugh: I will just bring to your attention, Mr. Chairman, that there is some general agreement that we could carry these votes just before we rise and report this afternoon.

Mr. Wildman: We will do anything to facilitate government.

Mr. Gillies: With less than an hour left in the estimates and our wish to move the business of the House along, we are prepared to agree to that.

Mr. Chairman: We are carrying both estimates, the Office of the Premier and the Cabinet Office programs.

Vote 601 agreed to.

Vote 101 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Shall the estimates be report-ed? Agreed.

On motion by Hon. Mr. Elston, the committee of supply reported certain resolutions.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Elston: I would like to indicate the business for the coming week.

On Monday, February 9, we will deal with legislation in the following order: Bill 189, mining tax; Bill 192, Hamilton-Wentworth; and will continue debate on Bill 170, pension benefits.

On Tuesday, February 10, we will conclude debate on Bill 170, pension benefits, followed by Bill 159, insurance and Bill 190, mental health, plus any other legislation as agreed to, time permitting.

On Wednesday, February 11, we will have third readings of all bills completed next week, followed by estimates concurrences.

On Thursday, February 12, in the morning, we will consider private members' business standing in the names of the member for Durham West (Mr. Ashe) and the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman). On Thursday afternoon, we will proceed with budget windup speeches and the supply bill, royal assent and the prorogation speech by His Honour.

The House adjourned at 6:04 p.m.

5 février 1987