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April 1, 2004

38th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2004-Apr-01 (PDF)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L'ONTARIO

Thursday 1 April 2004 Jeudi 1 er avril 2004

PRIVATE MEMBERS'

PUBLIC BUSINESS

EMERGENCY SERVICE PROVIDER'S

INSURANCE PROTECTION ACT

(INSURANCE AMENDMENT), 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 SUR LA PROTECTION

DES FOURNISSEURS DE SERVICES

D'URGENCE (MODIFICATION DE LA LOI

SUR LES ASSURANCES)

KEEP YOUR PROMISES ACT, 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 SUR L'OBLIGATION DE

TENIR LES PROMESSES ÉLECTORALES

EMERGENCY SERVICE PROVIDER'S

INSURANCE PROTECTION ACT

(INSURANCE AMENDMENT), 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 SUR LA PROTECTION

DES FOURNISSEURS DE SERVICES

D'URGENCE (MODIFICATION DE LA LOI

SUR LES ASSURANCES)

KEEP YOUR PROMISES ACT, 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 SUR L'OBLIGATION DE

TENIR LES PROMESSES ÉLECTORALES

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

SAFE DRINKING WATER REGULATIONS

INVESTOR EDUCATION MONTH

PROPERTY TAXATION

KITCHENER-WATERLOO

MAYOR'S DINNER

BEACHES CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

CENTRAL MANITOULIN

PUBLIC SCHOOL FALL FAIR

ONTARIO DRUG BENEFIT PROGRAM

TRANSIT SERVICES

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT ACT

(MAPLE SYRUP), 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR L'ÉVALUATION FONCIÈRE

(SIROP D'ÉRABLE)

SAFEGUARD OUR SENIORS ACT, 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 SUR LA PROTECTION

DES PERSONNES ÂGÉES

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

ENERGY CONSERVATION

ORAL QUESTIONS

DEMOCRATIC RENEWAL

HYDRO RATES

ENERGY CONSERVATION

BEEF PRODUCERS

HIGHWAY TOLLS

OFFICE OF THE REGISTRAR GENERAL

HIGHWAY 404

SCARBOROUGH HOSPITAL

SAFE DRINKING WATER REGULATIONS

PRE-BUDGET TOWN HALL MEETINGS

TRANSIT SERVICES

VISITOR

PETITIONS

TOBACCO TAX

ONTARIO DRUG BENEFIT PROGRAM

FOREST MANAGEMENT

LANDFILL

TOBACCO TAX

LCBO OUTLET

LANDFILL

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY

LANDFILL

LCBO OUTLET

LIABILITY INSURANCE

LANDFILL

ORDERS OF THE DAY

COMMITMENT TO THE FUTURE

OF MEDICARE ACT, 2003 /

LOI DE 2003 SUR L'ENGAGEMENT

D'ASSURER L'AVENIR

DE L'ASSURANCE-SANTÉ

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

COMMITMENT TO THE FUTURE

OF MEDICARE ACT, 2003

(CONTINUED) /

LOI DE 2003 SUR L'ENGAGEMENT

D'ASSURER L'AVENIR

DE L'ASSURANCE-SANTÉ

(SUITE)

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS'

PUBLIC BUSINESS

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bruce Crozier): I want to advise the members today, particularly those who have bills to present, that you will be

expected to speak for an hour and then there will be debate for the rest of the day.

Oh, excuse me; it's April 1. I'm sorry. Orders of the day.

EMERGENCY SERVICE PROVIDER'S

INSURANCE PROTECTION ACT

(INSURANCE AMENDMENT), 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 SUR LA PROTECTION

DES FOURNISSEURS DE SERVICES

D'URGENCE (MODIFICATION DE LA LOI

SUR LES ASSURANCES)

Mr Wilkinson moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 40,

An Act to amend the Insurance Act to protect emergency service providers from rate increases to their personal contracts of automobile insurance /

Projet de loi 40, Loi modifiant la

Loi sur les assurances visant à protéger les fournisseurs de services d'urgence contre l'augmentation des taux dans leurs contrats

d'assurance-automobile personnels.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bruce Crozier): Mr Wilkinson has moved ballot item number 7, second reading of Bill 40. Mr Wilkinson.

Mr John Wilkinson (Perth-Middlesex): Of course, Mr Speaker, you know me. I'm always good for an hour.

I wish to begin by recounting a true story, colleagues. It was a beautiful late summer day last year and I was spending an enjoyable afternoon with my two sons,

Liam, age 10, and Breen, age 8. We were in the playground at Upper Queen's Park near the Stratford Festival. We had walked the 10 or so blocks from our family home. I was on the swings with my boy

Breen, and Liam was about 20 yards away swinging on a set of undulating monkey bars about six feet high. I didn't see what happened to Liam; instead, I heard him cry out. It wasn't the normal call

of a playful son to his father; rather, it was a cry of fear. I'll never forget that cry, "Daddy!" I instantly knew from the tone of his voice that something was wrong, for a parent instinctively

knows his own. My head snapped around and I saw my son lying underneath those monkey bars. He actually cried out my name twice more, each time with less strength, and then, silence.

Of course, I rushed to his side. He was lying face up, pain across his face and fear in his eyes as he gasped for breath. I assumed he had fallen and knocked the

wind out of himself. I knelt beside him and reassured him that he would be all right and waited for his wind to come back, but it did not. Rather, he breathed in an eerie way, short little gasps.

His face still contorted in pain, I asked where it hurt. I leaned my ear to his lips and heard something that chilled me. He said, "My back. My back. It hurts." Then I saw something that shook me

to the core. As I leaned back and looked down at my son, I saw his lips, and they had a bluish tinge to them.

Mr Speaker, I'm not proud of what happened next, but I want to share with you my reaction. Frankly, sir, I froze. I'm sure it was only seconds, but those next

few seconds became like an eternity. The world slowed down and I felt a fear well up inside of me that was terrible. I remember looking around at the other parents and children playing nearby.

Since I was with my son and he was not crying, the other parents assumed I had the situation well in hand. I wanted to yell out, "Help!" but I could not. I was frozen by the fear that my son was

dying right before me, his blue lips etched in my mind. I was frozen simply because I was a man who was unaccustomed to being helpless.

I looked at my other son, he too visibly upset that his brother was hurt. I did not want to reveal to him that our orderly little world was now completely upside

down.

The good Lord was looking down on my sons and me that day. A young lady, a nursing student from Conestoga College, a good Samaritan, came over and asked if

everything was all right. She agreed to stay with Liam and Breen while I called 911. I ran another 20 yards over to a nearby pay phone. I remember frantically searching for a quarter to call 911.

Of course, you do not need a quarter to call 911, but I was that rattled. I dialled 911 and they picked up almost instantly: "Fire, ambulance, police?" I said, "Ambulance." I then described the

situation. I said that my son's lips had turned blue, and I pleaded with them to come quickly. I described where I was, and they said I was to stay on the line while an ambulance was

dispatched.

I tell this story for one simple reason. I knew that help was on the way, but I also knew that one thought, and only one thought, possessed my mind. It was my

prayer that the ambulance would come quickly. I begged God that absolutely nothing would impede that ambulance, that cars would get out of the way, that nothing bad like an accident would befall

that ambulance.

Stratford is not a big city. Within seconds, I could hear the distant wail of sirens. In our community, when a call is received that someone is having trouble

breathing, not only is an ambulance dispatched, but a fire truck as well. Within minutes, the fire truck wended its way among the winding roads of Upper Queen's Park, followed shortly thereafter by

the ambulance.

Fortunately for my family, this true tale has a happy ending. The firefighters and paramedics quickly administered oxygen to my still-gasping son and his colour

almost instantly improved. They immobilized Liam, still clearly in pain, by strapping him down to a backboard, and lifted him into the ambulance. A quick trip to the wonderful emergency department

at Stratford General Hospital revealed that while severely bruised, he did not suffer any permanent damage.

When a citizen calls 911 because a person is injured or their house is on fire or they are being victimized by a criminal, they all want the same thing I did.

They want those most brave of public servants, the firefighters, paramedics and police officers, to come right away, without delay. They want nothing to slow them down, just as I prayed that late

summer day for my son.

Bill 40,

An Act to amend the Insurance Act to protect emergency service providers from rate increases to their personal contracts of automobile insurance, is the

result of a meeting I had here at Queen's Park last December with Stratford firefighters Jim Byatt and Randy Petrie. They shared with me that some of their members across the province, while on

duty and responding to an emergency with their lights flashing and their sirens wailing, had unfortunately been in automobile accidents. Incredibly, when these professionals had renewed their

private automobile insurance, they had seen their personal premiums increase as a result of accidents they had while on duty. Later that week, I heard a similar story from the Ontario Paramedic

Association. I offered to look into this disturbing matter.

As a member of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, I had an opportunity to meet with Bryan Davies, the superintendent of the Financial

Services Commission of Ontario. I recounted to him the problem I had heard of. His initial reaction was that this did not happen, and he quickly added that if it did happen, it should not be

happening. Mr Davies was kind enough to provide me with a brief confirming that it is not in the public interest for emergency service providers to have their public duties result in an increase in

their private insurance. He advised that if I brought such cases to his attention, he would intervene.

Though I was pleased with the response from our provincial regulator, nonetheless, we here are legislators. To me, it is completely unacceptable that

firefighters, paramedics and police officers should have to know that they need to contact their MPP, who in turn is supposed to know that he or she should contact the superintendent of the

Financial Services Commission of Ontario and that this will lead to an eventual reduction and repayment of premiums charged that should never have been charged in the first place.

We here in this place have the ability to ensure that this practice does not happen. That is the intent of my bill.

I'm pleased to acknowledge that in the gallery we have supportive representatives from the beneficiaries of this proposed bill: from the Police Association of

Ontario, Bruce Miller; from the Ontario Paramedic Association, Rick Trombley; and from the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association, Ed Kennedy and Hugh Doherty. They are joined by Wally

Thomasik, from the Ontario Police Association. I can assure this House that they are in support of the bill.

Moreover, I believe that this bill has the support of members from all three parties. It is a testament to the overwhelming support that firefighters, police

officers and paramedics have from members of this Legislature that we join this morning in common cause to debate this bill.

It is my hope that at noon, the second reading of this bill will receive the unanimous support of this assembly and be referred to the standing committee on

finance and economic affairs. At that stage, it is my hope that the bill will be subjected to public hearings so that those affected can share with us any amendments that they feel could strengthen

the bill. Moreover, I pledge today, as the sponsor of the bill, that I will work with all three parties to ensure that any amendments also receive their complete support.

I trust that my colleagues and I can rise above partisanship in regard to this important issue. Why? Because when any of us, God forbid, calls 911, we all want

but one thing: that our bravest of public servants come just as quickly and safely as possible. That can be our common legacy today.

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford): On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: The bells ring before we enter the session for private

members, at the beginning of the day and for the evening session. My office is in room 434. I cannot hear the bells. The bells are not working down the corridor where all our offices are because of

the construction going on there. I think they may have disconnected whatever linkage there is with respect to the bell. I would appreciate it if you could look into that, so that we on the fourth

floor have the same service that every other member in the House has.

The Deputy Speaker: We'll certainly have the Sergeant look at that.

Debate?

Mr Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North): It's a pleasure to rise this morning. A few of our caucus members here would like to make a few comments on

this particular bill. To begin with, right up front, I'll tell Mr Wilkinson that we'll be very supportive of this bill. These are the types of things when we do deserve to have a free vote in the

House and people can support the whole process of democratic renewal, but we can also support things that are --

Hon David Caplan (Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal): All our votes are free.

Mr Dunlop: Yes, I understand you have free votes. We saw that yesterday in general government.

Quite frankly, this is a good piece of legislation. It helps our emergency service workers. I'm pleased as well to see so many of the folks here today from the

different organizations that I know support this as well. I had a chance to talk to Bruce Miller and to Wally the other night at the reception downstairs and they indicated they would be here today

supporting this. I think it's important, and we thank them for being here.

It's amazing in this 911 scenario, the emergency program we have here in the province of Ontario -- in fact it's right across the continent -- how it's evolved

to that. I think back to when I was a kid and what it used to be to get an ambulance or a fire truck and how we as a society have progressed in that area. All our local municipalities now have

fantastic fire equipment. The response time is very quick. My office in Orillia is near the fire hall, and I cannot believe how many times a day that truck is dispatched to the different areas

within the city. You can sit there throughout the day and probably, in a city the size of Orillia, with 30,000 people, you can count on those trucks going out 35 or 40 times a day, and that's just

during the working part of the day, the 8-to-5 times.

It's important that people recognize not only how important the bill is but the fact of how many of our emergency service workers are dispatched on a continual

basis. People would think there are not a lot of fires or accidents, but the fact is that every time someone dials 911, a number of individuals are dispatched to the site. In many cases, there are

happy endings, as was the case with Mr Wilkinson's son. That was a nice story to hear.

As the critic for corrections, I have a lot of concerns with some of the things Dalton McGuinty is doing, some of his election promises. We won't deal with that

today. But certainly on this bill, I hope all three parties will support it. I'm sure the NDP will support it and I hope your own caucus members will, and you can count on our government -- we

still think we're the government. We are the opposition. The Conservative Party of Ontario will support it as well.

Mrs Liz Sandals (Guelph-Wellington): I'm very pleased to speak to this bill this morning. We need to recognize that our firefighters, our

paramedics and our police are the people responsible for community safety. They're the people who keep our families safe, who keep our businesses safe, who keep our homes safe, and it's very

important that they be allowed to do their work without any other extraneous concerns.

Certainly if my parents had a health problem, I would want the paramedics there quickly. If I had a fire at my house, I would want the firefighters there

quickly. If there is a problem at my constituency office with somebody who is mentally unstable and threatening my staff, I want the police there quickly. In all these cases, we have people who, to

keep our community safe, have to respond quickly.

Now, if they should, unfortunately, while responding quickly, get into an accident, of course the insurance costs of that accident are covered by the employer:

by the police force, by the ambulance service, by the fire department. So this isn't an issue about, are the insurance costs covered? The issue is, what happens to those people who keep our

communities safe? What happens to their individual insurance? Unfortunately, we have found that the practice among a number of insurance companies has become that if one of those emergency response

workers gets into an accident in the course of responding to an emergency, when they report this to their personal insurance company, their personal insurance rates are being driven up. I want to

assure you that this is not simply a hypothetical problem. This is a real problem.

As we talk to firefighters, we find that in a number of cases where firefighters have been involved in an accident on the way to an emergency their personal

insurance has gone up. When we talk to paramedics who were responding to a health emergency, we find that what has happened is that their personal insurance has been driven up. Again, when we talk

to police services about what happens when their members get into an accident, unfortunately in a number of instances their personal insurance has been driven up. In fact, we talked to one police

service where the problem has gotten so serious in terms of their members' individual personal auto insurance going up that the police union has actually started to go out and get personal auto

insurance for their members in an effort to strike a deal with one company that agrees it's not going to carry out this practice. But this seems to have become a more and more widespread

practice.

It doesn't appear that it's the intent of the regulator that this should be happening, but it doesn't seem to be specifically forbidden. This is what this

legislation addresses. This legislation addresses the very specific instance in which an emergency worker, while responding to an emergency call in the line of duty, protecting us and protecting

our families and protecting our communities, unfortunately gets into an accident. What happens is that they're being charged on their personal insurance. We don't believe that should happen. This

bill will specifically address that situation.

I'm very pleased to rise in the House today to support this bill, because I believe that we rely on these people to protect us and it is very important that we

show our emergency workers our support and protect them from having it come out of their personal pocketbook when they get into an accident when they are simply serving their community. People who

are protecting their communities should not have to pay for the privilege of doing that with increased insurance rates.

I am very pleased that my colleague from Perth-Middlesex has put this forward. Certainly, as the parliamentary assistant in the Ministry of Community Safety and

Correctional Services -- the folks we will be helping here are the good folks we deal with in our ministry who contribute to our community safety -- I'm very pleased to support this bill today.

Mr Jeff Leal (Peterborough): It is indeed a pleasure today to join my colleagues the members for Perth-Middlesex, for Guelph-Wellington and for

Simcoe to support this private member's legislation, Bill 40.

One of the interesting books written as a result of 9/11 was by the former mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, called Leadership. In several of the

chapters in that book he talked in detail about the heroic efforts of the police officers, the firefighters and the paramedics in the city of New York surrounding the tragic circumstances of 9/11.

The pictures of firefighters, police officers and paramedics clawing the ground looking for signs of life after that very tragic situation will be forever etched in our memories. Indeed,

firefighters, police officers and paramedics internationally shared that common bond, and that's what they do every day of their working lives.

I recall that two years ago, in June 2002, we had a hundred-year storm in the city of Peterborough. It resulted in extensive flooding of our streets. Sewers were

backing up. Some seniors in very fragile health were stuck in their homes. The emergency command centre in the city of Peterborough was pressed into action. Every off-duty police officer,

firefighter and paramedic was pressed into action. These groups rushed to their respective centres, ready for action.

During the critical 48 hours when the flood waters were still spilling all over the place, firefighters, police and paramedics, by their actions, reassured the

nervous public and prevented many situations; they were there to reassure many members of the public who were going through a serious flood, as I said, the first time in a hundred years.

I recall that just last week in the city of Peterborough, a life ring was found floating in the Otonabee River. A neighbour along the Otonabee River immediately

called the Peterborough fire department, who deployed the search-and-rescue unit to scour that river for hours and hours and hours, because potentially that could have been a very tragic situation.

Fortunately, after several hours of searching the river, the Peterborough fire department found out that the life ring was simply a piece of debris that had floated into the river last fall. But it

was their quick action, with off-duty people coming in to respond to the need.

Also in the city of Peterborough, through a suggestion made by the Peterborough professional firefighters, our fire trucks in the city of Peterborough are

equipped with defibrillators. Now, in conjunction with the paramedics, if an individual has a cardiac arrest or other serious medical problems, we have a two-tiered response: The fire department

arrives on the scene, followed up by the paramedics and ambulance service to bring quick care immediately to a person who may indeed be suffering a stroke or cardiac arrest.

Day in and day out, these individuals put their lives on the line to provide wonderful service to the citizens certainly in my community and all communities

right across Ontario.

Last Tuesday evening I had the opportunity to chat with Bob Campbell, the president of the Peterborough Police Association, and David McFadden, the

vice-president of the association. I indicated to those two gentlemen that my colleague from Perth-Middlesex was bringing this private member's bill forward on Thursday and that it would receive my

full support.

It's an important thing to do. Often, we take for granted in our communities the great service provided by firefighters, police and paramedics. The challenges

that those three groups face today are evolving; they are continuous and ever-changing. So if this bill moves forward -- and I believe it should, with all-party support -- it will be a real

opportunity to correct a situation that I believe needs to be corrected. I'm surprised that it hasn't been corrected before now, because it's something we can do to show our great support for these

people in our communities day in and day out.

I appreciate having the opportunity to reflect on this, and I press all members of this House to support this bill and move it forward in the next little

while.

Mr Tascona: I'm pleased to join the debate with respect to the private member's bill brought forth by the member for Perth-Middlesex. It is a

bill brought not only from personal experience in his family, which we've heard here today -- and thank God it was a favourable outcome -- but it's also brought in good faith, trying to protect a

public service and making sure it is not unduly restricted by the costs that go along with providing public protection by an emergency service.

Our party supports this particular bill in principle. We understand that the idea is to not overcharge or surcharge or raise rates for emergency service

personnel. For example, a volunteer firefighter's personal insurance could be higher because of the risk with respect to driving a vehicle, a fire truck, to a scene where there's an emergency. This

discourages people from volunteering. It discourages people from doing their job, let alone people who do volunteer work. That's a very important service, certainly for communities that do not have

the resources to have full-time firefighters and the services they provide.

Certainly the bill, in its principle, is understandable. The member has put an amendment in here, "Risk classification systems, emergency vehicles." Under

subsection (2) of 417.0.1, we have "Operation of emergency vehicle during an emergency." He goes on to state, "An emergency vehicle is being operated during an emergency if the vehicle is,..." I

would only suggest that that's fairly exact language, and I think he'll understand when he has been here a little bit longer that he may want the flexibility to have a situation such as that

covered in more circumstances.

I think what I would offer in terms of amending language would be that that particular piece of language, "An emergency vehicle is being operated during an

emergency," include "but is not restricted to," where the vehicle is. What you want is language in there that is going to include those four situations, but there may be situations other than those

set out in (a), (b), (

c) and (

d) of this particular piece of legislation, so you do not want to restrict it to four situations which may not cover the entire area at a future time.

I offer that as a constructive amendment, because I think the member's intent is to ensure that there are no loopholes. If he doesn't want any loopholes, then he

will take that constructive amendment seriously. The fact of the matter is that when you're dealing with this, he has brought it forth as an amendment in statute, and there may be regulatory power

to add to that, but I think it's probably best to deal with the issue right now.

The bill is entitled

An Act to amend the Insurance Act to protect emergency service providers from rate increases to their personal contracts of automobile

insurance. Certainly no one disagrees with what this bill is trying to accomplish. We want to make sure also on our side that insurance companies respect and don't take advantage of not only the

provider. I think it may also have to be looked at from the point of view -- he wants to protect the individual, and that's why, I think, he has drafted this bill in a way that may be a little

confusing. It reads, "No insurer shall use a risk classification system in classifying risks for a coverage or category of automobile insurance that permits an insurer to consider for purposes of a

contract of automobile insurance, other than a contract covering the emergency vehicle...."

That may be something that you have to look at also. If they say, "OK, we're not going to deal with the cost for that particular individual in our risk

classification; we'll just add it on to the vehicle," that puts pressure obviously on the budget, whether it's a fire department, a paramedical department or a police department, where the

insurance company is going to make sure they get their pound of flesh out of the vehicle, as opposed to going after the individual. That also impacts public safety.

The way the law is set up with respect to emergency vehicles, and we had a situation like that last week in my riding, when you have an emergency vehicle out

there, certainly the law is pretty clear in terms of how an operator has to respect red lights and respect and give notice to the public. Just because they use a vehicle, I don't know why that

vehicle, whether it's a fire truck or a police car or another type of vehicle, brings it up to a risk factor. It's still a vehicle being driven.

As for the fact that it's going to an emergency, you don't see these individuals going into an area that puts the vehicle or themselves at risk. It's an

emergency for the individual who is impacted. They use specific vehicles because those vehicles have the equipment necessary to deal with that emergency. They have individuals who drive that

vehicle because they are experienced and have the expertise to deal with the situation.

I would suggest to the member that we focus not only on the individual who is driving the vehicle, but if we're really in favour of public safety, I don't know

why or how an insurance company can justify a vehicle as a risk classification just because that vehicle is targeted to go to an emergency scene. To me, there's going to have to be an awful lot of

evidence. I don't think they would have a shred of evidence to prove that because a fire truck has to go to a fire, that vehicle is put at risk. The bottom line is that it's a specific vehicle to

go to a fire. It's not put in the fire in terms of that particular situation. It's the same thing with a police car in terms of what work they're doing.

Obviously you get into situations where you have to look at how the driver has used the vehicle, but that's a matter that has always been dealt with in a civil

court in terms of whether someone feels they've have been put at risk by the driver and the vehicle in question when they were crossing the street or whatever. We've had police car chases where

innocent individuals have been injured. Certainly the officers are using their best judgment in terms of how to deal with that. The only thing they're trying to do is enforce the law and put public

safety first. They're going after the perpetrator who has broken the law and has decided to flee the police. There's a judgment there that has to be dealt with. How insurers deal with emergency

vehicles to me is just an arbitrary exercise in terms of trying to extract extra insurance fees in this situation.

I would suggest to the member that he not only focus on the individual but on the vehicle in question. I don't know how an insurance company can justify having

increased insurance rates for an emergency vehicle just because it's targeted to be used in a specific situation. That might be something he may want to consider because that obviously impacts the

budget situation for police, fire and paramedics. It should say in the legislation that you're not going to transfer the costs of the risk that you can't extract from the individual on to the

police budget because they're driving the vehicle, so you basically top up and make sure you've got the fees you feel are necessary to protect the bottom line, because that's what it comes down to.

I think that's something the member has to look at.

Other than that, I'm going to be sharing my time with other members. Those are the comments I have. The member for Perth-Middlesex has a bill that is worthy of

further discussion.

Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): I want to make it clear at the onset that New Democrats are going to be supporting this legislation.

Let's put this in perspective, please. First of all, we're talking about a private, for-profit auto insurance industry. Everybody's been skirting around the

issue but the fact is they're greedy, porcine, incorrigible, beyond regulation. They just demonstrated $2.6 billion in profits, a 600%-plus increase in profits after crying poverty to the former

government and then to this one. And in the course of crying poverty, they persuaded two successive governments, first the Conservatives and then the Liberals, to reduce benefits and increase

premiums, yet another illustration of overt gouging by a greedy, overweight, bullying industry, an industry that, quite frankly, is nothing but the ragged cousin of the legitimate financial

industry in this country, in North America. I'm going to speak about that a little more in a few minutes.

Let's understand what the intent of the legislation is. It's clear that we do not want to reinforce any disincentives for emergency personnel in the course of

their response or in the course of taking an injured person to medical treatment. We do not want to reinforce or encourage any disincentives to their performing their duties in as effective a way

as they believe they can.

The issue then becomes much broader than this. I, for instance, was here and I supported the legislation that permitted volunteer firefighters to use green

lights in their vehicles. In fact, a whole lot of Ontario is served by volunteer firefighters who use their own vehicles en route to an emergency. Some municipalities still aren't letting their

volunteers use the green emergency lights. That's nuts. It's irresponsible and it's not fair to those women and men who are volunteer firefighters. Again, I'm not going to get into the minutiae to

any great extent, because that's why we're going to go to committee. That's why I want the bill to pass on second reading so it can go to committee where I can rail against the private, for-profit,

greedy, highway-robbing auto insurance industry at length. I will then deal with some of the minutiae in the bill, for instance, about the need for it to include volunteer firefighters who, out of

necessity, are inevitably going to be using their own vehicles.

I'm concerned about the fact that it appears only to prohibit the consideration of an accident for the purpose of increasing rates -- Mr. Wilkinson, please --

rather than necessarily the consideration of a conviction. As everybody knows, and as police officers and firefighters and paramedics know, there are no exemptions in the Highway Traffic Act or the

Criminal Code for police officers. There's all sorts of mythology about it, but there are no exemptions from the Highway Traffic Act or the Criminal Code. At the end of the day, when it's your kid

or your spouse or your family member in that ambulance, you want that ambulance to go through as many red lights as it possibly can. It is the incredible dilemma that firefighters and cops and

paramedics are inevitably put in. They're told, "Here is the law," and they know the law to the final person, yet they are similarly under incredible pressure to circumvent the law as much as they

possibly can or else they become subjects of criticism then: "You didn't get there fast enough."

We also have to talk about creating some clear standards about the utilization of, for instance, lights and sirens, and some public education. I also supported

the recent legislation that was passed here that required motorists effectively to yield to police vehicles, to fire vehicles, to vehicles displaying red lights, when they are pulled over on the

shoulder of the road, because we've lost as many police officers on the side of the road doing investigations and issuing tickets, it seems to me, as we have in other circumstances. It's an

incredibly dangerous thing for a cop to pull somebody over, especially on a busy highway, and even more so at night, when you've got two or three lanes of traffic zooming by that police officer and

the car being investigated that has been stopped.

I supported that legislation. I wished also that it had included a complete range of vehicles displaying warning lights when pulled over to the side of the

road. Quite frankly, I think snowplow operators who have occasion to pull over to the side of the road on a 400 series highway, for instance, with their blue lights flashing, to get out to do some

mechanical adjustments or unclog a piece of equipment deserve the same protection. Unfortunately, the rest of the chamber didn't agree with me in sufficient numbers.

I think we have to establish some pretty clear standards about the need to use emergency signals, and then public education. I am just amazed -- amazed; it

rots my socks -- to drive on urban streets and on highways and see the incredible disdain the general public seems to have for emergency vehicles. Police cruisers, fire vehicles, are fighting with

dough-heads who are either oblivious to the flashing red lights and the sirens or seem simply not to give a damn. I find it incredible. I put to you that we need an intensive program of public

education, and if we have to implement legislative tools -- there are some modest ones. But you see, the problem is enforcement, because having said all of this, as long as our police forces,

firefighting services and paramedic services are understaffed and underresourced in community after community after community, the dangers for those firefighters, police officers and paramedics are

increased and compounded.

So I say to you, as the author of this piece of legislation, that in the course of discussing this, we also have to talk about -- because we're talking about

making it as safe as possible for emergency personnel to respond as quickly as possible without necessarily abiding by the absolute liability required, at the very least under the Highway Traffic

Act, so as to perform their duties and save lives. Well, then we also have to talk about the adequacy of staffing for firefighters, cops and paramedics, and enforceability.

I've got no qualms about putting the blocks to the insurance industry. They've put the blocks and put the boots to drivers and innocent victims in this

province long enough. You know that I'm going to say to you that this is so piecemeal as to cause one some concern to the point of skepticism about its ability to address the issue. Because that

private sector insurance industry is sleazy, they're snaky, they're slimy. They will weave and bob their way around this bill, as they have so many others in efforts to control premiums. Make no

mistake about it.

So at the end of the day, the problem isn't cops who do their best, the problem isn't firefighters who do their best, the problem isn't paramedics who do their

best; the problem is an insurance industry that is greedy, that is voracious, that has this insatiable appetite for profits and will continue to earn them on the backs not just of premium payers

but of innocent victims. At the end of the day, I invite the author of this bill to join with me in my decade-and-a-half-long campaign to build a public auto insurance system here in the province

of Ontario like the folks in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and British Columbia have enjoyed for so many years, so we have real accountability, real fairness for innocent victims and fairness and

affordability for premium payers, and that we have a rate-setting system that is based on true risk and not on arbitrary and capricious choice by the insurance industry.

Mr Dave Levac (Brant): I appreciate the opportunity to talk about Bill 40, the Emergency Service Provider's Insurance Protection Act, and it

also amends the Insurance Act, just so people are aware that what we're talking about here is a very simple issue: insurance costs for our emergency workers that are being applied to their own

personal insurance if they're in an accident doing their job.

I just want to stop for a minute and ask a simple question. If I were a construction worker and got hurt on the job, do I then not get house insurance for my

own personal house? I mean, this is just ridiculous. It's silly to think we have to talk about this today. I commend the member for Perth-Middlesex for bringing this forward. It's a problem that

has been identified and now we're going to correct it. It's very simple. We've got support from all sides. They're talking about collectively saying, "You know what? We've found a problem. Let's

fix it. Let's get on with it."

I want to compliment and thank the members in the gallery who have come to join us, to hear the concerns being raised and to bring them forward. They've

offered some ideas and some suggestions, and I suggest to you that when we get this bill to committee, we're going to iron those out. When this problem gets dealt with in an appropriate manner,

we're going to be sending a signal that we care and that we're going to take care of our emergency response personnel. They already put their lives on the line, and now, to add insult to injury or

to take that wound and throw salt in it, if they end up in an accident they're going to be attacked personally. "We're going to go after you personally and say that because you were doing your job

in a very special, professional and trained way, and in most cases if not all, if through no fault of your own you get into an accident, we're going to punish you again for doing your job."

Think about my analogy regarding a construction worker who gets hurt on the site, and then an insurance company comes along and says, "You know what? You got

hurt on the site building a house, so we're going to jack up the house insurance on your own home." It doesn't make sense at all. We've identified a problem and we're going to fix that problem.

I want to talk to you about other things we've done. We've done special things. The member for Niagara Centre made the comment about a bill that was brought

forward to protect our emergency response workers on the road. I would echo his remarks, and I think he remembers that I brought that to the House's attention as well and I supported him. We both

mentioned that green lights, blue lights, red lights, yellow lights, white lights -- we had charts, and I shared my chart with him about the United States. Various states have varying degrees of

protection for those people on the highways. Those are the types of things we look at.

When we see a problem as legislators, it is our responsibility -- private members' hour is particularly the time, as it is very heart-wrenching to know, when

if something has been brought to our attention by somebody, we can bring it to this place and everybody's got to pay attention to it. It's not the party's decision. It's an individual member's

decision to bring it forward and say, "We want to solve this problem. I'm putting it before you. Will you help me?" That's what we're doing today.

I'd like to remind us that that's the important part about this place at this time. That is, when we bring private member's business forward, it deserves our

attention. The good thing about it is that we can bring it to committee. Then we analyze it one more time and bring in the experts who can say, "We need to tweak this a little bit, because you

forgot about something." I'll bring one of those points up, and that is defining "emergency."

I happen to know that when a fire truck is going from point A to point B, it might not be going to a certain type of call. There are levels of emergencies.

It's the same thing with police officers. They now have, basically, an office on wheels. They're performing their tasks and duties in that office and they're moving from place to place. An accident

doesn't necessarily mean they're going to a bank robbery. It could mean they're just going from point A to point B to continue doing their job. That might be another thing that needs to be reviewed

and analyzed, the definition of an emergency.

I'm very proud to say that there were various times during my time in the opposition, as critic for public safety and security and the solicitor general and

corrections and all the different names it was named over the last few years -- Mr Hardeman's there telling me that he understands and agrees. Now it's community safety and corrections. I

introduced a bill called

An Act to amend the Private Investigators and Security Guards Act to require a minimum level of training for licensees and to require that uniforms and vehicles of security

guards be readily distinguishable from those of the police.

There are some issues that we need to make sure people understand, that we hold higher, in terms of esteem and understanding and respect, our paramedics, our

firefighters and our police officers. There's a special job they have that we've identified, and it is important for us to do whatever we can to let them do their jobs. It's hard enough to respond

to an emergency, period, without having to be burdened and saddled with the other things we are talking about today. I'm proud to say that we've got our associations here supporting and

representing and suggesting things that can happen to improve the legislation -- not to scrap it, but to improve it to make it even better and speak to the real issue.

Today, we're speaking about this specific problem, of our emergency response people being tagged with insurance personally because of the job they do. It's not

right, it's simply not right. I'm glad to say that it's not universally applied and that some insurance companies have not been doing that, but unfortunately, some have. Do they need a wake-up

call? The commissioner didn't think it was happening -- the superintendent. "You mean they're doing that? They're really doing that?" He didn't know. Now he knows and now the industry knows, and

now we're going to legislate and are going to make sure that this problem doesn't haunt our emergency workers.

I want to make it quite clear that we need to work toward these types of solutions in this House the way we're doing it today. It is much more enjoyable, I can

tell you, that when we bring private members' business forward, it can be discussed in a very logical, sequential way. There are going to be private members' hours where we don't agree. I hope we

understand that in circumstances like this, we are the example of what we can accomplish when we all work together.

Thank you very much, and thank you to the member for bringing it forward.

Ms Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): I'm pleased to rise today to speak to the private member's bill brought by my colleague from

Perth-Middlesex, the Emergency Service Provider's Insurance Protection Act. I was not aware of this problem before, so I thank you for doing that. We certainly do need to protect our emergency

service workers.

My riding is predominantly rural. Being a nurse, I've had many an ambulance ride with paramedics in quite life-threatening situations, so I appreciate their

devotion and the need to protect all of our emergency workers.

Personally, I recently had a fire at my house. I live in a community that has many municipal boundaries, and I want to commend the fire departments that border

the boundaries. They all work together to have the first and the fastest response to emergencies. It was the middle of the night. I want to thank the Galway-Cavendish-Harvey fire department for

their quick response in that situation, for their professional manner and their follow-up at the scene for prevention and education, which, as another member has mentioned, we need to encourage

more.

Being on rural roads, especially in the summertime when we have lots of extra tourists and people in our riding, we have many roads that are difficult to

access. We are long distances from hospitals. I want to say that it's a challenge a lot of times. I want to appreciate the people in the area who do respond to emergency vehicles on the road and

pull over. They're certainly working as communities together. We have emergency workers, firemen, the police associations, the firefighters' association and the volunteer fire departments all

working together for a good common cause, and we should support this. We need to protect our volunteers and our emergency workers.

I want to thank the members of the association for their support for the member from Perth-Middlesex on the private member's bill and for coming here today. I

want to let you know you have my full support of this bill. It's much needed.

I will be sharing my time with my other colleagues.

Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): I rise in support of this bill from the member from Perth-Middlesex and congratulate him on bringing it forward.

Having spent 25 years driving one of those fire trucks, it's good to see the challenge now coming out.

It's not so much to do with the drivers of these trucks, but I see it as a way for insurance companies to get premiums they're not entitled to. They're

suggesting all premiums are based on risk, and they're suggesting that the more these emergency drivers drive emergency vehicles, the more riskily they will be driving their own cars, which in my

mind doesn't make sense. It would seem to me that driving under emergency conditions would make you a better driver and less apt to get into an accident with your own vehicle. But in fact, they're

suggesting that they can increase premiums in order to get paid for something that happened on the job. I think that's totally wrong, and that's why it's very important that the bill is brought

forward.

But I would like to go one step further and recommend to the honourable member that we also have a problem with our volunteers as they drive their vehicles to

the scene of a fire or to the fire hall to get the fire truck because they're not on duty all the time. We have insurance companies that are raising premiums on cars because, in theory, there is a

greater risk because on an emergency call, they may be driving differently than they would if they were going to a family function on a Sunday afternoon, so the insurance companies are raising

rates to do that. They have absolutely no information that would suggest there are more accidents happening while these firefighters are doing that, but they've found an opportunity to increase

premiums and to increase their revenues as this is happening.

I would ask the member, as the bill goes to committee, to consider including that part of the insurance regulation to eliminate the possibility that insurers

cannot increase premiums to people based solely on the fact that they are a member of a volunteer fire brigade and may be driving their personal car to a fire. Obviously, they have insurance to

cover accidents. A lot of people in our community are going to that fire, and they're not firefighters and they are likely as great a risk on the insurance company's road as our firefighters. I

think I would ask him to consider that in his legislation.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Perth-Middlesex has two minutes to reply.

Mr Wilkinson: I want to start by thanking the member for Simcoe North and the member for Guelph-Wellington, who is the parliamentary assistant

to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, as well as my colleagues the member for Peterborough, the member for Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford, the member for Niagara Centre, the member

for Brant, the member for Haliburton-Victoria-Brock and the member for Oxford.

As I said in my initial speech, I believe there are public policy issues that will be raised if this bill sees the light of day and goes to committee. I want

to say that I appreciate the suggestions by Mr Tascona that we may be able to make an amendment to broaden the scope of the bill and make it clear.

I also hear the suggestion made by the member from Niagara Centre. We had an opportunity in this province to have public auto insurance and a previous

administration on that never happened. My bill does not wish to reopen that debate. My bill is focused on the police officers, the paramedics and the firefighters who are doing such a remarkable

job. As the member from Peterborough said, "They are the people who go to the emergency," when all of us are running away from the accident; when we can't look; when they're like me, a father who

freezes in an emergency situation. Who are the people that we count on to rise above that, above that human urge to run away and actually go to the emergency? It is, as I said, our most brave of

public servants, and we need to support them at every opportunity.

We need to send a clear signal to the insurance industry that this practice, though it is rare, is completely unacceptable. That's why I want to again pledge

that I look forward to having an all or non-partisan debate about this and to look at amendments in committee. Again, I'd like to thank all those who spoke to the bill. I ask for your support when

we vote on second reading later this morning.

KEEP YOUR PROMISES ACT, 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 SUR L'OBLIGATION DE

TENIR LES PROMESSES ÉLECTORALES

Mr Wilson moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 41,

An Act to amend the Election Finances Act and the Members' Integrity Act, 1994 with respect to the election platforms of registered political

parties / Projet de loi 41, Loi modifiant la

Loi sur le financement des élections et la Loi de 1994 sur l'intégrité des députés à l'égard des programmes

électoraux des partis politiques inscrits.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bruce Crozier): Mr Wilson has 10 minutes.

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe-Grey): The idea for this piece of legislation that I put before the House today came to me during the all-candidates

meetings; we had seven in the riding of Simcoe-Grey. I frankly felt sorry for some of my opponents who were espousing promises that were contained in their parties' election platform booklets,

promises that I was pretty sure the Liberal government couldn't keep if they got elected into office.

In fact, the Liberal government, during the election period, set a new record by making some 231 promises that we have kept track of to date. They've broken 19

of those promises in the first seven months of coming to office. This bill is an attempt to make it illegal for campaigns, for parties, to break the promises they make during election

campaigns.

The lawyers wouldn't let me go as far as I wanted to go. I wanted to do the same thing that we did in the Taxpayer Protection Act and the balanced budget

legislation passed under the Harris government. That is, if we ever ran a deficit, including this year, we would have to take a 25% cut in pay in the first year of running a deficit; cabinet

ministers would have to take a 50% cut in pay the second year of running a deficit; and in the third year, we'd actually have to call an election should we have run a deficit. So there was a real

penalty for breaking your promise to balance the books of the province of Ontario and to not to add to the debt of the province.

I think the

summary of what this bill does was ably presented in a newspaper

article in the Collingwood Enterprise-Bulletin dated March 30 of this year. It

says, "Wilson ready to make Liberals keep their promises," and it's by Brad Holden. It says in part:

"The bill Wilson is proposing would require the leader of a recognized party to file a written statement with the Chief Election Officer prior to a general

election, outlining what the party intends to do upon forming government.

"It would also require the provincial Integrity Commissioner to include in his annual report a tally of which promises contained in that leader's statement the

government has actually introduced."

So it would require every party to give their election platforms to, first, the Chief Election Officer, and later, the party forming the government after the

election would be required to give a written statement of the promises, the bills and legislation that they intend to bring forward during their time as government. Basically, the Integrity

Commissioner would have their platform, and in his annual report he then would include a

section on his opinion on which promises have been kept to date and which promises hadn't been kept. It's a

way to try to hold the government of the day accountable for their election promises.

In the short time I have, I want to read a wonderful letter from Mr Ron Harding of Collingwood that appeared in the March 10 editions of the Stayner Sun and

the Wasaga Sun this year. Two promises that the Liberals made during the campaign were as follows: "We will build a seniors strategy that guarantees our seniors are treated with respect and

dignity." That was promise 129. Promise 142: "Our senior strategy will focus on keeping seniors active and well." As Mr Harding points out in his letter, the government is poised to raise prices or

raise the cost of prescription drugs under the Ontario drug benefit program for all Ontario seniors. It says:

"Dear Editor:

"Seniors beware the Liberal claw. Dalton McGuinty's Ontario Liberal government is getting set to claw back one of our major seniors' benefits -- trying to

force seniors to start paying half the cost of our prescription drugs.

"This is part of the Liberals' pathetic effort to fight the deficit. The problem is that Dalton conveniently neglected to tell us about it before the

election.

"It was referred to as `tentative changes affecting Ontario drug benefit program' outlined in a booklet they recently released at Queen's Park."

He goes on to say that we should try and stop this trial balloon by the government. "If the suggestion doesn't get much media attention and there is minimal

flak from the province's seniors, this travesty will be jammed through and set in concrete in the wink of an eye.

"We can do something about this."

He goes on to encourage people to sign the petition that's available in my offices in Alliston and Collingwood and by calling my toll-free number. So they

broke two promises there -- broken promises to seniors.

Other promises they broke come to mind, just as a short list I made this morning:

I can remember Sandra Pupatello in this House very adamantly trying to ensure that the Harris-Eves governments provided IBI treatment to autistic children over

the age of six. They promised to do that and they've broken that promise. Just last week they indicated more money for autism, but they're actually in court with a number of parents who are trying

to get fair treatment for their children over the age of six.

Reduce the use of private consultants. Cap hydro rates at 4.3 cents per kilowatt hour until 2006. Stop 6,600 homes on the Oak Ridges moraine. The Liberals also

promised to cancel P3 hospitals in Brampton and Ottawa, which are private-public partnerships. They promised to hold a public inquiry into meat inspection.

McGuinty and the Liberals also promised not to raise your taxes, and one of the first bills they introduced here was to cancel the education property tax

rebate of some $475 per senior citizen household in this province that we had passed and that would have taken effect of January 1 of this year. One of the first bills they brought in was to cancel

that promise, therefore costing all seniors more money with respect to their education property taxes.

They were going to provide two cents of the provincial gas tax for municipal transit. Well, we saw in the papers today and all last week that the Liberals are

probably going to give that just to Toronto, and perhaps nothing for all of our small towns and villages that we represent in rural and small-town Ontario. And they promised to govern with honesty

and integrity, something they're clearly not doing with respect to the Sorbara affair.

I want to elaborate on the autistic children promise. I think that's about the lowest thing I've heard in this place in a long time. For months and months the

Liberal Party, while in opposition, hounded us. We knew the program to extend IBI services to autistic children over the age of six might cost up to $1 billion. So as tempting as it might have been

during the campaign, I certainly didn't promise that we could do that and my party didn't promise we could do that, because we knew it would be a very difficult commitment to keep. So, to provide

autistic treatment beyond age six, Dalton McGuinty said, "The Ontario Liberals support extending autism treatment beyond the age of six.... In government, my team and I will work with clinical

directors, parents, teachers and school boards to devise a feasible way in which autistic children in our province can get the support and the treatment they need. That includes children over the

age of six." He actually said that in a letter to the parent of an autistic child on September 27, 2003.

What is happening, according to Christina Blizzard of the Toronto Sun on January 21, is that "The government is appealing an injunction granting some parents

of autistic children a temporary 90-day extension of IBI treatment" for children over age six. "Government lawyers are fighting the Human Rights Commission ruling -- and now the Liberals are even

seeking intervenor status at the Supreme Court of Canada in a similar court case involving parents of autistic children in British Columbia." It's a shame that they broke that promise.

Electricity rates: Today is April 1. I was the energy minister for some four years under the Harris government. We capped electricity rates. Now you are going

to see electricity rates go up as high as 27% for some households, as high as 27% for businesses in the province. Farmers particularly are going to be hit extremely hard. They need another kick

like a hole in the head at this point, because they are already going bankrupt with respect to mad cow disease and the government's lack of proper response to or support for our farmers. It's just

going to absolutely devastate all of our farms; I think of dairy farms in particular, and chicken, poultry and beef, where the lights are on in many barns, and have to be, 24 hours a day. There are

also greenhouses, as one of my colleagues mentions.

We all know hydro rates are going to go up and you've only seen the beginning of this, I say to the residents of Ontario.

They were going to stop 6,600 houses on the Oak Ridges moraine, and that affects my riding; the south end of my riding touches on the Oak Ridges moraine. What

did they end up doing? Well, the Liberals promised that they would cancel those houses. It seemed to be a very clear promise made by the Premier. And what do we have? We see in the Toronto Star on

October 17 that the minister, Mr Gerretsen, "was forced to announce that 5,700 houses will be built, and pleaded that the Liberals were perhaps naive for making that promise." At least there is a

little bit of honesty there.

The fact of the matter is that there are 19 broken promises to date. My colleagues will elaborate on those. We need a mechanism in this province. Since you

can't trust some politicians, we need an independent third party to review those promises and hold the government accountable.

In my election campaigns since 1990, I have made one promise. I have followed the advice of my predecessor, the Honourable George McCague, who sat in this

House for some 15 years. He said, "Jim, all you can ever really do is to promise to do a good job." That is all I ever promise in my election campaigns. I promise to do a good job and I promise to

do it with honesty and integrity. I hope the Liberal government will begin to implement some of their promises. The track record to date is disgraceful, and this is a way to try to make them

accountable.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Mario G. Racco (Thornhill): I stand to speak against Bill 41.

Interjections.

Mr Racco: I thought we were sent here by the people to provide leadership and to do what is good for the people. Surely, intervening when

someone is speaking is highly unacceptable. I hope the members will allow me to express my opinion, and I will do the same for them. That is why the people sent us here. One of the reasons this

House has not received the respect it should be receiving is because of this type of behaviour in the House. I take pleasure in reminding us all that maybe by acting a little more responsibly in

this House, we will be able to do exactly what our constituents expect of us, that is, to deliver what is best for the people of Ontario. Now, Mr Speaker --

The Deputy Speaker: Excuse me just one second. Not only are some members intervening when they shouldn't, they're not even sitting in their

seats. I'd ask for order. Continue.

Mr Racco: Let me tell you what my constituents of Thornhill and Concord are expecting me to do in this House. It is to do what we indicated

during the election we were going to do. They don't need bylaws or directions in writing that try to force them to do things that tomorrow don't make sense. The people are looking for leadership,

that we do the right thing. Certainly my constituents were very disappointed when the Tories decided to sell the 407, the biggest issue in Thornhill. Those individuals sold the 407 so they could

balance the books. They sold it for $3.1 billion when the 407 at that time was worth $12.5 billion. Let me remind all of you that that is a difference of $9.4 billion. If you took all this money,

$9.4 billion, and invested a portion of it in building all the subways we are talking about, whether that be the Spadina extension to York University and to the corporate centre of Vaughan or the

one to Scarborough or the one to the airport or any other transportation system that we have been speaking about for years, we would still have money left over, if the Tories had not sold out the

people of Ontario.

That is what the people of Thornhill want to make sure doesn't happen. They want to make sure that when we sell something, we sell it at market value, not at a

discount. The $9.4 billion is a disgrace that I will repeat over and over again while I have breath in my body. That was the biggest robbery anywhere in this world, and nobody has gone to jail yet

on this matter.

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The standing orders are pretty specific in terms of speaking

on the matter in question. He's not even speaking on the matter. We've got a bill in front of us. Can he speak to the bill?

The Deputy Speaker: Well, we'll leave that to my

interpretation.

Mr Racco: I certainly intend to speak on the bill. I felt that we were talking about politicians making promises. That's part of the bill, and

that's what I intend to do.

The Liberal Party, in the last election, made it very clear that we were going to put money into the public education system, and we certainly did it. We don't

have to have somebody forcing us to do that. We were committed and we delivered, and we will deliver even more in the future.

Also, the past government, under Mike Harris's leadership, closed 45 hospitals in this province. My area was significantly affected. The North York General

Hospital and the other hospitals associated with that were affected. The Branson hospital, which a number of my constituents used, certainly was significantly reduced and forced to amalgamate, even

though they were not in favour of it.

We all know what the Tories have done to the environment. They certainly reduced their contribution and we have a significant problem in our province. That is

what the constituency of Thornhill doesn't want to see happen. They don't need anyone to say what must been done in writing. Statements are made during an election, of course. They want to have

leadership that will respond properly, that will use our knowledge and know-how to implement what we indicated during the election.

The Tories, who say they do what they promise, promised a balanced budget in the last election. We all know there is a $5.6-billion deficit, but we have also

been learning lately about more than $2 billion in unfunded liability. We also should know -- nobody speaks about that, but I certainly do -- that normally in business, we put money aside for a

rainy day so we can buy the assets or equipment or whatever we need in the future. We normally put money aside, and that is not accounted.

That is what the people of Thornhill are looking for, to deliver on what we said in the election and not be forced in writing.

Mr Tim Hudak (Erie-Lincoln): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I'd like to introduce to the assembly the students from Smithville District

Christian High School who have joined us here today.

The Deputy Speaker: That's not a point of order, but we welcome them this morning.

Further debate?

Mr Norm Miller (Parry Sound-Muskoka): I'm very pleased to join in the debate today on Bill 41,

An Act to amend the Election Finances Act and

the Members' Integrity Act, 1994 with respect to the election platforms of registered political parties.

This bill is about accountability. It's about making political parties accountable for their election promises. It's about trust in politicians. It's about

having politicians who say one thing in an election campaign and actually deliver on what they say. This is certainly not the case with what happened in the past election.

I'd like to read from today's paper. This is obviously a very current topic. A headline in today's Toronto Sun says: "McFlip, McFlop.

"Enough with the lies, Premier McFly? But here we go again -- with yet another broken promise by the Fiberals, as today (April Fool's Day) Dalton McGuinty

lifts the caps on electricity prices in a province whose manufacturing-based economy relies on safe, reliable and affordable hydro."

Now, whether you agree or disagree that the price of electricity should go up, the fact is that Dalton promised to maintain the cap on electricity prices

during the election campaign, and he is very, very clearly breaking that promise today.

He made a very clear promise during the election campaign to do with small business, and I'd like to read further from this article. It says: "Small

businesses, who are the province's largest job creators, are getting hit with a double whammy as McFly breaks another promise and lifts the Tory's commercial property tax cap. Businesses have also

been hit with McFly's rollback of corporate tax relief, plus a new blue box tax."

If I remember correctly, many times we saw Dalton in the news during the election campaign saying something along the lines of --

The Deputy Speaker: Excuse me, member for Parry Sound-Muskoka. Just take your place for a minute. I think we should attempt, when referring to

another member, to either use their position or, at the very least, their last name. Thank you.

Mr Miller: Yes, Mr Speaker. I'll respect that. The Premier, during the election campaign, said, "I won't raise your taxes, but I won't lower

them either." That was a very clear statement that I certainly saw several times. I'm personally very concerned about the disregard for business in the province of Ontario that we're seeing, and

I'm concerned about the fact that this is a broken promise.

We saw as of January 1 this year, for medium-sized businesses in the province of Ontario, an effective 27% increase in taxes. The tax rate would have been 11%

for medium-sized businesses as of January 1 of this year. It is now 14%. That is a 27% increase and a very clearly broken promise. I worry about the effect that will have on the economy of this

province.

That 27% seems to be a popular number. Today's increase in electricity prices above 750 kilowatt hours is also a 27% increase in the price you pay for

electricity. The removal of the cap on property tax for businesses is also effectively another tax increase. When you add them all together, they are definitely going to adversely affect

businesses.

During the election campaign, the Premier talked about the possibility of tolls on highways to pay for highway construction. What he said at that time was that

he would consider tolls where there's an alternative route. Yet just recently in Sudbury, he talked about the possibility of tolling on Highway 69. What I have asked in the Legislature and would

like to know is, what is the alternative route to Highway 69? Does he consider driving to North Bay via Highway 11 the alternative route to 69? I don't think that's a reasonable alternative route.

So I consider this another broken election promise, and I certainly hope they don't follow through on this. That is certainly the opinion of most people in the north.

There's a current poll going on in Sault Ste Marie where 80% of the people say this would be a bad idea. I quote from the Sault Star from Friday, March 26:

"No Toll for Highway 69.

"Sault Ste Marie city council should urge the Ontario government to unequivocally and immediately declare Highway 69 south of Sudbury to be a toll-free

road.

"A similar demand ought to be sent to Queen's Park by every municipality in northeastern Ontario. This is a regional concern rather than a problem for Sudbury

alone....

"Until even the possibility of a toll road is taken off the table, economic development for the entire northeast will be compromised. What entrepreneur in his

right mind is going to invest in the region without knowing the transportation costs?...

"Queen's Park should clarify immediately that it will not put a toll on Highway 69 or any other northern Ontario route that has no alternatives. Every day it

dithers is another day the north suffers."

As the critic for the north, I certainly will keep pushing that issue.

Another broken promise that has been in the Legislature recently, certainly that we've been pressing every day, is promise number 16, "Govern with honesty and

integrity." This is from the throne speech: "Your new government has made a commitment to bring an open and honest and transparent approach to government." That was November 20. Yet Finance

Minister Greg Sorbara refuses to step aside while the Ontario Securities Commission, Revenue Canada and the RCMP investigate the company of which he was a director for 10 years and a member of the

audit committee. Sorbara also knew about the investigations and retained responsibility for the OSC for 66 days before the company finally made them public. He didn't bother to tell the Premier in

those 66 days, which is a little shocking. We've been pressing that issue every day in question period. Yesterday, the general government committee, with a Liberal majority, did away with the

possibility, the request from Marilyn Churley, to look into this affair further. That's democratic renewal in action.

I could go on with many more broken promises, but I know there are others who would like to speak as well.

But last night while watching the National, there was a segment about increasing voter participation in elections. There was a panel of students and a

political science professor who said the thing that needs to happen to get more voter participation in the process is that the general public needs to be able to trust politicians. Why would the

general public trust Ontario provincial politicians when the current government is so blatantly breaking so many promises? I quote from the Toronto Star Web site: "I am on the verge of never voting

again because every member of every party makes campaign promises that they always break, although the speed that McGuinty is breaking his is truly astonishing and unprecedented." Another quote:

"The attitude of this government is typical of the disappointing governments in the developing world -- promise anything to win the elections and, once elected, blame everything on the previous

government." So I think we need to establish some trust. It really is a sad day when we need a private member's bill to ensure that political parties keep their promises. I think it can be said

that in the time that we were in government, a promise made was a promise kept. It was something that we stuck to.

I commend the member from Simcoe-Grey and support his Bill 41,

An Act to amend the Election Finances Act and the Members' Integrity Act, 1994 with respect to

election platforms of registered political parties. I'll be voting for it.

Mr Jim Brownell (Stormont-Dundas-Charlottenburgh): I am pleased to rise today to speak on Bill 41. My comments are being made knowing full

well that today is April Fool's Day. Back in my riding of Stormont-Dundas-Charlottenburgh, I know the constituents can draw comparisons between this bill and its debate on this date. I would be

foolish to support it, and in the minutes allotted to me I wish to outline the reasons why.

I would like to put this scenario before the members of the official opposition: Let's say they were elected to a government where the Liberals had left them

with a $5.6-billion deficit on a new government. First of all, I say this wouldn't happen, but just imagine for a moment that it did. Would they continue to forge ahead with election ideas and

ideals -- what they call promises -- or would they rejig those ideas and ideals and work with them over the next four years in a clear, precise and thoughtful way? That's what we're going to do;

that is what we are doing. The Tories left us with this deficit, and they left us with a public safety deficit, which is listed in the auditor's report, and also with an energy deficit, as outlined

in the Epp report.

If Bill 41 were to pass, how would a government possibly deal with such a predicament? We do not need a bill to require the leader of a party to give the Chief

Election Officer a statement declaring the measures and bills the party intends to pursue if they form government. No, what we need is a clear program of ideas and ideals and a government that is

determined to see to fruition those ideals which we promised.

As I campaigned door to door in the last election, as Mr Wilson did, I made one promise, and he did too: to represent my constituents to the best of my

ability. No promises, just a platform of ideas and ideals. Yes, I was proud to run on Growing Strong Communities and on Growing Strong Rural Communities, on The Health Care We Need, on Excellence

for All. With the ideas and ideals expressed in our platform, the McGuinty government is changing the direction of government and dealing with the messes we have inherited from the Tories. As we

are doing in health care with Bill 8 -- and I'm proud to say that I've done a lot of work on Bill 8 -- we are delivering real, positive change that will make Ontario strong, healthy and

prosperous.

We don't need Bill 41 to tell Ontarians that -- listen to this -- we declared that health care dollars will be invested wisely -- Bill 8; we've increased the

minimum wage; we've announced an intention to freeze college and university tuition; we've hired 50 more prosecutors as we work to build safe communities; we've introduced a bill to impose a

one-year moratorium on further urban development on rural and agricultural lands; we are moving to create a permanent greenbelt in the Golden Horseshoe; we are making Ontario's emission standards

the toughest in North America; we've removed the supervisors -- yes, we did -- from the Hamilton, Ottawa and Toronto school boards, giving the trustees and the parents and those people who have the

voice a voice in their local democracy; and, yes, we passed legislation promoting excellence in learning for all Ontario students by repealing private school tax breaks. We've done a lot, and we

hold our six-month record before Ontarians -- saying, though, that we will have great mountains to climb as we tackle the $5.6-billion deficit. Time and again we hear the member for Nepean-Carleton

crying, "Shame" on our government. Well, I am not ashamed of our accomplishments to date, nor am I ashamed of the steps we will take in the future as we work to overcome the problems of the

past.

The member for Simcoe-Grey talked about promises and the breaking of them by our government. I wish I could walk across this House and hand him and his party

the bill for the inherited mess we have received.

Talk about breaking promises; from the Tory campaign promises of 2003 that they could not keep, nor could they deliver a plan to keep, listen to this: "We will

not run a deficit." We are looking at a $5.6-billion deficit, $2.2 billion in unfunded liabilities, and $5.2 billion in tax cut promises committed to. Imagine that added on to $5.6 billion if they

were in the government now. I can't understand.

This was another promise -- and 94% of promises were not accounted for in the Tory platform costing backgrounder; a backgrounder presented 94% of the promises

not costed -- a promise to upload 1,000 rural bridges a year for 12 years at a cost of $4 billion, or $333 million per year, yet only $41 million per year was budgeted in the platform.

These are promises -- I call them ideas and ideals, but they refer to them as promises -- that could not be kept if they were in government, and to think that

they would be added on to $5.6 billion which we did not know about. We have great hurdles, and there's no way with that record that I could ever support Bill 41.

Mr Tascona: I'm certainly pleased to join in the debate with respect to the private member's bill brought forth by my colleague from

Simcoe-Grey, a bill entitled the Keep Your Promises Act.

In this particular situation, the member is our critic for the Management Board of Cabinet. He's introduced this piece of legislation, which I think has merit.

He's been a member here since 1990, and I think he knows what he's doing in this particular area.

The bill he is putting forth, the Keep Your Promises Act, amends the Election Finances Act to require the leader of a recognized party to file with the Chief

Election Officer during a general election a written statement of what their party intends to implement on forming the government. The bill also amends the Members' Integrity Act, 1994, to require

the Integrity Commissioner to include in his annual report a statement of which promises contained in the leader's statement the government has implemented and introduced. The bill will allow for

more accountable and transparent government. It will hold the governing party's feet to the fire and will force the government to be guided by their commitments to the people of Ontario.

The McGuinty Liberals are batting about 1,000 in the field of broken dreams. It's quite devious for the Liberal Party to promise in every all-candidates'

debate and in every advertisement that they won't raise your taxes, and then to form the government and introduce the largest tax increase in Ontario's history. That's just a fact.

What we're dealing with here --

Interjections.

Mr Tascona: Perhaps I can speak. I'm being heckled from behind by the members from Guelph and North Bay, but I'd like to speak.

Ms Monique M. Smith (Nipissing): It isn't me speaking, but I can, if you like, and I'm the member for Nipissing.

Mr Tascona: The hydro rate increases --

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr Tascona: Mr Speaker, can I speak?

The Deputy Speaker: I just called order.

Mr Tascona: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Maybe they can respect the Speaker in that respect.

We have obviously dealt with other issues. The hydro rate increase, which came into effect today, is no April Fool's joke, I can tell you that. I got a call

today from a constituent who has five children. Three are special-needs. They're in a situation where they're going to exceed the cap without doubt. Their usage will be in the 2,200 range because

they have to have it on for medical reasons. She's asking me, "What is going to happen with respect to my hydro rate? What is the government going to do to protect me?" She told me she tried to

contact the Ministry of Energy and, in fact, when she did, they hung up the phone on her.

I can say very assuredly that we're not going to drop this issue with respect to what people are going to do who have a legitimate health care reason for

exceeding this cap. We have a twofold cap now. They're going to go into the area where there is the higher rate, and they need some help. I put it to you that when we were in the campaign, the

Leader of the Opposition, as he was at the time, was very clear that there was going to be a cap, that the cap was going to be kept in place, and then within days after the election, he said, "The

cap's coming off."

As I said, these increases will start to kick in today when the cap on the first 750 kilowatt hours jumps from 4.3 cents per kilowatt hour to 4.7 cents, and to

5.5 cents per kilowatt hour on power consumed above the threshold. That's the situation facing my constituents, and they're probably going to use double or triple the amount. That's what they'd

normally use because they have children with special needs and they need to know what we're going to do to help them.

I put that to the Liberal government, that they're hopefully going to have a plan to help individuals who are not going to be in a position to pay those hydro

rates. It's not going to be just one individual; it's going to be many.

I commend the member from Simcoe-Grey because when you get into election campaigns and promises are made, you owe it to the public to tell them what you're

going to do. That's transparency. It's also accountability in telling them, "OK, here's what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it." That's what elections should be about, rather

than flip-flopping after the election and hurting people, because a lot of people are going to be hurt after this day with respect to hydro rate increases. They relied on the promises that were

made during the election and now they're finding out they're not going to happen.

The Keep Your Promises Act brought forth by my colleague from Simcoe-Grey has a lot of merit, and I think it should be taken seriously.

Mr Michael Prue (Beaches-East York): I must admit this is a bill that at first blush, when I read it, I considered purely political; I must

admit I did. It's called Keep Your Promises Act. The member from Simcoe-Grey has put down his thoughts on what this bill might do to make all of us better politicians.

Upon reviewing the bill and reading it, I noticed that in many ways it is actually superior to the bill the Tories brought in called the Taxpayer Protection

Act. That piece of onerous legislation, which was supported, I think, by far too many members of the previous House or previous Houses, did a number of things. It had a very direct bias against tax

increases. If you wanted to increase taxes, you had to do referendums, you had to do all kinds of things. It had a very direct bias, on the contrary, for program cuts. So you had no choice. You

couldn't raise taxes, so therefore you had to cut programs.

This bill is much better, because there are no referendums or fines contained within the bill. It is purely a political act that he is requesting. It is better

than his own Tory Taxpayer Protection Act and is his attempt to make it just a little bit better. I started to read some more into this and tried to discover whether or not this bill should be

supported.

There are some very real problems with the bill. One of them, I would suggest, is that the Integrity Commissioner, who since the inception of that position

within this House has always stood above the fray. He is a person of some renown. I think he himself, and perhaps all of his predecessors, are people of some renown who have come to the service of

the Legislature from judicial positions or other important positions in the community and are able to stand above the fray.

In fact, this will put him into the fray. It will put him into the fray of this Legislature in much the same way as the auditor is called upon yearly to

comment on government programs, government waste, government ineptitude, and in much the same way we ask the Environmental Commissioner to report yearly, or from time to time, on places and times

and occasions when the government has not acted in the best interests of the environment.

What this bill is going to do is ask that a third mandarin, a third bureaucrat, a third impartial person, be brought in and become very political. That may be

awkward, but I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to the member from Simcoe-Grey and say there is a possibility this may be of benefit to this House.

For it to succeed -- the bill is rather silent on this and maybe it requires regulations or further studies if it passes this reading -- it would require, in

my view, a great many more staff to go into the Integrity Commissioner's office. Those staff who are there at present would not be able to look through, for example, the 231 promises or more that

were made by the Liberals in the run-up to the election. They would not be able to look at all the promises the Conservatives made or indeed all the promises New Democrats made leading up to the

election.

They would have to become very political in their own right. They would have to work hand in hand with the auditor to try to find out and look at whether the

costs were realistic, whether they were appropriate, whether they had been vetted properly. It would become a very political act. Now, we already have people who do that for us. They're called the

press. They do that kind of work literally every day. They have done a pretty good job of keeping this government and the previous governments of this province in line in terms of whether or not

promises were broken. I listened at some great length to the member from Perry Sound where he was quoting an example from today's press. Today's press is outlining some of the problems.

Having put the whole thing in balance, I don't think the bill is necessarily a bad bill. It is one that requires more study. It is one that requires a great

deal of fine-tuning. It is one that will cost the taxpayers additional money in the form of additional civil servants and resources that would need to be made to the Integrity Commissioner's

office. But there is always merit in looking at what politicians promise and what they say before elections and what they deliver after.

As the members opposite in the government said, it's absolutely remarkable to me that members of the former government can stand here and say that they were

going to be able to keep the promises they made. It's absolutely remarkable to me that they are able to say they would not have run a deficit. I don't know how they could not have run a deficit

unless they were to have sold literally billions of dollars in public assets to finance their last year in office when everything seemed to go wrong, everything from Hydro -- literally everything.

Would they have sold the liquor control board? I don't know. Would they have sold off a chunk of Algonquin Park? I don't know. Would they have sold off TVO? I don't know. So it works two ways. I

would be very curious to see if the Integrity Commissioner, looking at all those things, would have thought or said whether they had kept their promise.

Having said that again, you run into the conundrum. The press has already reported on all of that and the people of Ontario have already decided, on all that,

that they had had enough.

Again back to, what would the Integrity Commissioner look at? Right away I think the Integrity Commissioner would have his or her hands quite full looking at

this present government. In the two minutes or so that I have left, I'd like to go through just a couple of the things that were promised that now appear to have bitten the dust:

The promise that we would set high ethical standards and then allow the finance minister to stay on as finance minister;

The promise to keep hydro in public hands, but then hire your Liberal friend John Manley to push for OPG sell-offs;

The promise to stop hiring consultants and then give a fat contract to Peter Donolo;

The promise to protect the Oak Ridges moraine and then allow developers to pave it over;

The promise to stop P3 hospitals, but then renegotiate the deal;

The promise to protect and promote public health, but then go to court and claim the government has no responsibility for public health;

The promise to ensure independence of legislative committees, and we all saw the independence of the legislative committee yesterday;

The promise to cap hydro rates for 2006 -- today is April 1, and we see that that promise was broken pretty fast.

The promise to lower auto insurance rates with an industry that is making profits 600% more than last year, and the auto rates do not in any way seem to be

declining;

The promise for autistic children -- now that's a real beauty, because this government is taking them and their families to court to ensure that they do not

get the services they need once they turn six years old.

The promise to the people of Kawartha Lakes, which is, to me, one of the most serious -- the promise to honour their referendum if they no longer wanted to

stay in an amalgamated city that clearly does not work for them. The promise was made, and even after those people, in a democratic and minister-sanctioned referendum, voted to get out of

amalgamation, this government is willing to break that, and I would think for no apparent reason.

For those reasons, on balance, I will be supporting the bill.

Ms Caroline Di Cocco (Sarnia-Lambton): It's a pleasure to rise and speak to this bill. I have to agree with the member for

Stormont-Dundas-Charlottenburgh; it appeared to me this must be an April 1 joke to some degree. I say that because this bill, in my view, shows definitely a lack of understanding of our

parliamentary democracy. The other

part it shows -- and I don't want to use the word "hypocritical," because you can't use it. But it's definitely a tremendously cynical way of doing politics in

this Legislature. I'm actually surprised at the member for Simcoe-Grey having the audacity to bring this forward with a straight face, considering his government's track record. According to many

objective observers and experts, this shows again that there is a continuation of this negative, divisive, contradictory rhetoric and it's without substance.

There are ways that we want to restore and enhance the integrity of our democratic process. We, the current Ontario government, led by Premier Dalton McGuinty,

are doing just that. We talk about transparency and accountability and we've done something about it. For instance, when we take a look at OPG and Hydro One, we have removed the cloak of secrecy

that was put on these entities by the former government. We have removed that. We now have an ability to access information, because that is what good government is about.

I heard the member speak about the Taxpayer Protection Act. You may have forgotten, but you actually broke that Taxpayer Protection Act by bringing in

legislation, I believe two years ago. You did that. But there's this rhetoric, the nonsense I'm hearing from the opposition, that this type of legislation somehow is about good government. It isn't

about good government. It's just a cynical, political stunt on April 1 in the Ontario Legislature. That's what it is.

When you talk about good government, one of the things that certainly got my ire up when we were in opposition was the partisan advertising, tax dollars

continually spent on advertising promoting a partisan agenda. That means the government of the day did not understand the tradition of this place, of the parliamentary system, of our ministerial

responsibilities in the ministries, that you don't use taxpayer dollars to promote yourself as a partisan entity. Yet they did that.

Mr Jeff Leal (Peterborough): It filled up my blue box.

Ms Di Cocco: It filled up many blue boxes across this province. We've banned that. We've actually banned partisan advertising. We have a bill

that is going to ban it.

Do you remember the outrage in this House -- you were part of the executive, I believe -- when under your government $10 million was approved by a few members

of your executive council for professional sports teams? That's the kind of government we had here.

Mr Leal: That no one could account for. They all said, "I wasn't part of it."

Ms Di Cocco: Exactly. Nobody knew anything about it, but $10 million of the people's money was going to be given to professional sports

teams.

This is from someone who has been in a government that chronically and habitually said one thing and did another, set one set of rules for themselves and one

set of rules for others. He can stand in his place today with a bill such as this talking about promises kept?

Do you remember that you weren't going to close any hospitals? You closed 45 hospitals during your term. Do you remember when you said that the tolls on

Highway 407 were only going to rise 2%? What happened? Do you know by how much they've risen? By 203%. Remember when you said that a smaller Legislature was going to cost less, that you downsized

this place because you said it would cost less? It actually cost $600,000 more after you came in with a smaller Legislature.

All I say is this: A choice was made on October 2, and we have a government in place that is going to be responsible and thoughtful. It's about good

government.

Ms Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): I want to thank the member from Simcoe-Grey for introducing the Keep Your Promises Act.

It is difficult when you're in politics and you go to the schools and to the communities and they'll say, "The Liberals promised that they would do this when

they got in, but now they're not living up to their word." That reflects on all of us as politicians. We're out in the community. I was a nurse before and held in high regard, and now, when I'm on

the streets in my village, people say, "But you politicians don't keep your promises." It gives us all a bad name.

I want to mention a few things. There's a high proportion of seniors in my riding, the third-highest in Ontario. You've increased their taxes. You took the

seniors' tax credit away. Their hydro rates are going up. You never said that their hydro rates were going to go up. You did not say they would increase. Now you're looking at the Ontario drug

benefit plan? I have thousands of letters in my office. How are you treating seniors? Seniors are offended.

Farms, small businesses: I can hear the barn doors closing, the stores closing, because they can't afford the taxes, they can't afford the hydro rates. What

are we doing for small business? In my area, small business is the backbone of all our jobs, our employment, our economy. We are not supporting them. We're losing business and we're losing

jobs.

I speak to municipalities all the time, and they're certainly looking forward to promise number 46, where we will invest in public transit by allowing two

cents of the existing provincial gas tax to go to municipalities. Is that going to be rural or is that just going to be urban? What are we doing to support the rural municipalities for their

infrastructure?

It says here also that you're going to guarantee long-term funding for our rural communities -- number 225. Well, I can tell you, they're looking for some

long-term funding. We were giving them a break by taking back municipal bridges. They need more infrastructure money. These are promises that are in here.

Promise 222: "We will make water in rural communities safe." The number of small community centres, the number of municipalities, churches -- how are they

going to operate? How are they going to do their fundraisers in the summertime with their beef barbecues? How are they going to continue?

In the city of Kawartha Lakes, there's a huge water project is going on. They need to have more provincial help for their new water system. You guaranteed, and

I'm hoping you're keeping this promise, clean water across Ontario. This needs to be kept for health care.

For health care, in promise 201, "We will give rural communities a voice and provide them with stable funding so they can chart their own course. We will

protect health care and education and tailor these essential services to the specific needs of rural Ontario." Then the other day, they cancelled the program for free tuition for nurses to work in

underserviced areas in northern Ontario. Nurses are the front line.

Doctor recruitment: a huge problem with a lack of doctors and front-line general practitioners and family doctors in our communities. Where are the benefits?

Are you going to be giving free tuition for doctors to work in underserviced areas? What are we doing with foreign-trained doctors? Are we going to increase their spaces?

So I rise today in support of my colleague from Simcoe-Grey and the Keep Your Promises Act. The public and all of us here on this side of the House are

watching to see that you're going to support our communities and all these different aspects with the Keep Your Promises Act. The public expects it. We as politicians have to set the bar

higher.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Simcoe-Grey has two minutes to reply.

Mr Wilson: I want to thank my colleagues who spoke in favour of the bill: the member for Parry Sound-Muskoka, the member for

Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford, the member for Beaches-East York, and the member for Haliburton-Victoria-Brock.

I just want to say that if you don't support this legislation, the Keep Your Promises Act -- and I hope all members will -- then you're going to see more and

more requests from the public for citizen-initiated referenda. You're going to see recall legislation introduced in this House by opposition members, I would think.

People are very, very frustrated. As Mrs Scott just eloquently said, you've got to keep your promises. As you break your promises, you make all politicians all

across the world look bad. The fact of the matter is, you shouldn't make promises in the first place that you can't keep. We need something, since you're incapable of keeping your promises, and

this bill is an attempt to make sure, as Mr Miller said, that politicians actually do what they said they were going to do during the election campaign. Clearly you're not doing that.

I want to touch on one thing that really discredited the members of the government who spoke against my bill this morning, and that is 45 hospital closures. I

was the Minister of Health for two and a half years who did the hospital restructuring. I can only name two hospitals that actually closed in the province. One's in Pembroke, and that was because

there were two hospitals very close to each other and they were amalgamated. The other one was the Wellesley Hospital, which was very old, needed tens of millions of dollars in upgrades just to fix

the boiler system. I remember, before she died, Anne Archibald in my riding calling it the worst, dirtiest hospital she had ever been in for dialysis treatment, and that hospital had to close. As a

result, St Mike's got expanded, Sunnybrook got expanded and eight new hospitals are being built today. It's the largest construction project in the history of health care in this province since

hospitals became incorporated. You're discrediting yourselves by using briefing notes that say 45 hospitals are closed. You don't know what you're talking about.

The Deputy Speaker: The time for private members' public business has expired.

EMERGENCY SERVICE PROVIDER'S

INSURANCE PROTECTION ACT

(INSURANCE AMENDMENT), 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 SUR LA PROTECTION

DES FOURNISSEURS DE SERVICES

D'URGENCE (MODIFICATION DE LA LOI

SUR LES ASSURANCES)

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bruce Crozier): We will deal first with ballot item number 7. That's second reading of Bill 40.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Pursuant to standing order 96, it will be referred --

Mr John Wilkinson (Perth-Middlesex): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I ask that the bill be sent to the standing committee on finance and

economic affairs, and I request the support of the House.

The Deputy Speaker: The member has moved that it be moved to the --

Hon David Caplan (Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal): Agreed.

The Deputy Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.

KEEP YOUR PROMISES ACT, 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 SUR L'OBLIGATION DE

TENIR LES PROMESSES ÉLECTORALES

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bruce Crozier): We will now deal with ballot item number 8, second reading of Bill 41.

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

All those in favour will say "aye."

All those opposed will say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Bring in the members. This will be a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1202 to 1207.

The Deputy Speaker: All those in favour, stand and remain standing until recognized by the table.

Ayes

Baird, John R.

Barrett, Toby

Bisson, Gilles

Brown, Michael A.

Colle, Mike

Dunlop, Garfield

Hardeman, Ernie

Hudak, Tim

Kormos, Peter

Miller, Norm

Munro, Julia

O'Toole, John

Prue, Michael

Runciman, Robert W.

Scott, Laurie

Tascona, Joseph N.

Wilson, Jim

Witmer, Elizabeth

Yakabuski, John

The Deputy Speaker: All those opposed will stand and remain standing until recognized by the table.

Nays

Berardinetti, Lorenzo

Broten, Laurel C.

Brownell, Jim

Caplan, David

Craitor, Kim

Di Cocco, Caroline

Duguid, Brad

Hoy, Pat

Leal, Jeff

Marsales, Judy

McNeely, Phil

Milloy, John

Mossop, Jennifer F.

Patten, Richard

Sandals, Liz

Smith, Monique

Van Bommel, Maria

Wilkinson, John

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 19; the nays are 18.

The Deputy Speaker: I declare the motion carried. This House is --

Hon Jim Watson (Minister of Consumer and Business Services): On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: Oh, I'm ahead of myself again. Mr Wilson, I'm sorry.

Mr Wilson: I would ask if it's appropriate to have the bill referred to the general government committee.

The Deputy Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.

This House stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock.

The House recessed from 1212 to 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

SAFE DRINKING WATER REGULATIONS

Mr John Yakabuski (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke): The environment minister recently announced that she will proceed with the implementation of

regulation 170/3 concerning non-treated water systems. This regulation is going to have a devastating effect on small business, campgrounds, community halls and churches throughout rural Ontario.

Many of them will simply have to close, as they cannot withstand the financial burdens being placed on them by this government through the implementation of this regulation.

The township of Bonnechere Valley in my riding of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke has announced that the Gratton Hall will no longer be available because of this

regulation, which requires that all community halls, small businesses and churches not on a treated system test for 72 parameters, even if there is no pre-existing water quality problem.

Some campground owners have already told me that they will close. Others, such as Angela Burgess of Renfrew, indicated that they will have to reconsider

whether or not they can continue to operate under these conditions.

Great valley events such as the Wilno chicken supper at St Mary's Catholic Church will be threatened by this regulation. St John's Lutheran, Augsburg, faces a

bill of $38,000. There is no way they can afford this.

What has the minister done? She has taken out expensive ads in the newspapers, but given no money or assistance to rural Ontario. Mark my words: This

regulation will close halls, bankrupt churches and cripple the tourism industry in rural Ontario. I say to the minister and the government, open your eyes before it's too late.

INVESTOR EDUCATION MONTH

Mr John Wilkinson (Perth-Middlesex): I rise today both as a member of this House and as a member of the financial community. Today marks the

beginning of the seventh annual Investor Education Month, a public awareness campaign designed to encourage the public to take an interest in their own financial affairs.

This year's theme is "Knowledge is your best investment." It will be marked by a variety of public seminars and events across the country, including our

province of Ontario, to raise financial awareness. This campaign will emphasize the fact that everyone can benefit from investor education.

Families and individuals who are trying to make their way through the myriad of financial products and services available are encouraged to engage the services

of a professional financial adviser. A professional adviser can help investors make sense of financial issues and help them maximize any opportunities that may present themselves in each individual

circumstance. By developing these relationships on a long-term basis, consumers can rely on a knowledgeable professional who can provide them with expert advice and help them to plan to achieve

their financial milestones. As a certified financial planner, I can personally attest that these knowledgeable consumers with a plan do much better than those without one.

I submit to you today that Investor Education Month is an ideal time for the people of Ontario to focus on attaining greater financial literacy, a lifelong

benefit for them, their families and our economy.

PROPERTY TAXATION

Mr Norman W. Sterling (Lanark-Carleton): I'm the proud representative of the maple syrup capital of Ontario, the county of Lanark. Right now

across my riding, the sap is running. That means that those who tap our local woods are busy turning this natural nectar into pure maple syrup.

However, I'm sorry to report that there's trouble brewing in the woods of Lanark-Carleton and across Ontario. You see, MPAC has changed the way it assesses

syrup operations in Ontario. This has cast a dark cloud over the industry. MPAC says that because maple syrup producers process sap into syrup on site, this part of their operation should be

classified as industrial instead of farm. Many producers have received assessment notices that will dramatically increase the cost of producing maple syrup.

That's why today I'm introducing legislation that will protect our maple syrup producers from these crushing property assessments that are threatening the

future of the industry. This bill would stop the change in the assessment classification from farm to industrial. I am pleased to report that this bill is supported by the municipalities across my

riding.

Quite frankly, the provincial response to this problem has been totally inadequate. I absolutely refuse to accept any stalling tactics by this government,

which has not offered any legislation or regulation to deal with this problem.

Maple syrup producers are a growing part of our economy. I urge all members to support this industry and to support my legislation.

KITCHENER-WATERLOO

MAYOR'S DINNER

Mr John Milloy (Kitchener Centre): This Saturday night is the 17th annual Kitchener-Waterloo mayor's dinner celebrating the contribution of

individuals who have demonstrated long-term and consistent commitment to our community. This year, two individuals involved in the creation of affordable housing will be honoured: Mary Bales and

Martin Buhr.

Mary Bales is a volunteer founder of Heartwood Place, a 33-unit complex in downtown Kitchener, and is currently working on developing a second one in

Cambridge. I had the pleasure of attending the opening of Heartwood and was greatly impressed by the caring community that Mary and her team have established.

Martin Buhr is the driving force behind Menno Homes, a non-profit housing complex established by the efforts of our local Mennonite community. Martin is also a

former executive director of the House of Friendship, an outstanding community organization that works with the homeless and less fortunate in our area.

Adequate housing is the cornerstone of any attempt to address the plight of the most vulnerable in our society. I congratulate Mary Bales and Martin Buhr.

BEACHES CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

Mr Michael Prue (Beaches-East York): It is my privilege today to inform this House of the elevation of the newest Beaches citizen of the year.

This institution is now in its third year in our community, and the recipient is chosen from among a list of nominees put forward by the community itself.

All of those nominated are of course excellent citizens. This year, in fact, among those who were nominated were former MPP and now head of the United Way,

Frances Lankin. But by unanimous choice of those who were in judgment this year, there was one person who stood out above all the rest, and that was Ted Randall.

Mr Randall is known in our community for a number of things. First of all, he has been a very successful entrepreneur within the community and has had a

long-time store in the Beaches community called Randall's Stationery. But that is not why he is famous. In fact, why he is famous even for those who have never been inside the store is that he has

done so much for our community: 40 years in the Beaches Lions; he has sponsored neighbourhood sports teams. The singular fact, though, is that no one can ever remember a time when he refused to

help or give service to our community when asked by any community person or group. He always delivered.

Our congratulations to Mr Ted Randall, citizen of the year, and our congratulations to the community that has chosen him.

CENTRAL MANITOULIN

PUBLIC SCHOOL FALL FAIR

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): I recently had the pleasure of visiting Central Manitoulin Public School as part of the MPP

back-to-school program.

On Friday last, I was honoured to attend an assembly at Central Manitoulin Public School in Mindemoya in the heart of Manitoulin Island, where Principal Lori

Zahnow presided over a very special gathering. The students and staff were joined by Doreen Witty, Carol Gilmore and Doreen Campbell from the Providence Bay fair and the local agricultural society;

by Richard Stephens, the reeve of Central Manitoulin township; and by Norm Blaseg, a superintendent with the Rainbow District School Board.

Mrs Pat Marcotte of the Association of Agricultural Societies was present to recognize the wonderful work the students do each year in hosting their own fall

fair. This school's fall fair is an important event for all those in the district of Manitoulin. Mrs Marcotte fondly recalled her own ice cream-making activities with the students at a previous

fair.

Principal Zahnow was presented with a plaque recognizing the Central Manitoulin fair as an honorary agricultural fair in the province of Ontario. Principal

Zahnow praised the efforts that the parents, the volunteers, the staff and teachers have put into this fair. She particularly acknowledged Mrs Marie Kirk and Mrs Doreen Duncanson for their help and

leadership.

All in all, the good people at Central Manitoulin have, through this fall fair, linked our agricultural roots, our agricultural traditions and our agricultural

heritage together as an integral part of a balanced education.

We all want to congratulate Central Manitoulin Public School on being recognized for their fall fair.

ONTARIO DRUG BENEFIT PROGRAM

Ms Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): I rise today on an issue of concern to the senior citizens in my constituency, as well as the

seniors across Ontario. We have read many newspaper articles and heard many news items which have quoted the Premier and the Minister of Health considering changing the Ontario drug benefit program

to charge some groups of seniors for prescription drugs.

I've received over 1,000 letters to my office from concerned seniors around my riding requesting in the strongest terms that government not implement this

proposal. My riding has the third largest number of seniors in Ontario, who would not be able to pay the costs for their prescription drugs. I do not have to remind the members opposite of the

tremendous contribution that seniors in our society have given to this province and our country: Raising families, starting businesses, farming the land and, of course, defending our freedom are

but a few of this generation's contributions.

The health care sector is large and complex, and all members would agree that changes to make the system more accessible and accountable are desired. However,

to make the changes on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens who, in their advancing years, need the system the most, is not the appropriate course of action. I hope the members opposite take

these issues into consideration as they struggle with the real challenges of governing, and I hope that other more workable solutions can be found.

TRANSIT SERVICES

Mr Mike Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence): I'm here to again talk about the great news that the citizens of Toronto heard yesterday from our Premier,

Dalton McGuinty. Yesterday, Premier McGuinty announced that our government will be providing the city of Toronto and the TTC with another $90 million to strengthen and stabilize the transit system

in Toronto. This new money includes a $25-million unconditional grant so we won't have a fare increase next year -- no fare increase. This is on top of Tuesday's historic $1 billion, along with the

federal and the municipal government put together. It's great to see all three levels governments working together for a change. The $90 million is also in addition to a $126-million investment the

province made earlier this year.

I'm proud to be part of a government that believes in public transit. These investments in the TTC will make the city of Toronto stronger, environmentally and

economically. What is good for the TTC is also good for the economy of the city and the air of the city. If you have a strong public transit system in the TTC, and you have a strong public transit

system in the GTA, you have a strong heart in Ontario. If you keep the heart of Ontario strong, you have a strong Ontario.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): This session of the Legislature has been characterized by one sorry Liberal excuse after another when

it comes to democratic reform. We've seen nothing but affronts to the very democracy that we supposedly come here every day to fight for.

In the two weeks we've been back in session, we've asked over 20 questions of the Premier, asking him to explain how it is he can continue to allow his

Minister of Finance to sit in cabinet with a cloud of controversy over his head. We've asked how it is remotely reasonable to have his finance minister appointing the very person who may sit in

judgment of him. To date, we have not received one solitary answer.

We've attempted to call witnesses before the standing committee on government agencies to review the appointment of the OSC vice-chair. Liberal committee

members were instructed to refuse, and they did. The culmination of the Liberal culture of cover-up came yesterday, as the general government committee met to decide whether to call Mr Sorbara

before committee to clear the air once and for all. The six loyal Liberal backbenchers marched in lockstep, admitting they were charged with delivering the government line: a firm no. Mr Leal, Mr

Rinaldi, Ms Wynne, Ms Van Bommel, Mr Parsons and Mr Dhillon, you should be hanging your heads in shame. You ran on the platform of democratic renewal. Yesterday, you didn't just break yet another

promise, you broke an entire Liberal platform. Shame on you.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT ACT

(MAPLE SYRUP), 2004 /

LOI DE 2004 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR L'ÉVALUATION FONCIÈRE

(SIROP D'ÉRABLE)

Mr Sterling moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 46,

An Act to amend the Assessment Act / Projet de loi 46, Loi modifiant la

Loi sur l'évaluation foncière.

The Speaker (Hon Alvin Curling): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Mr Norman W. Sterling (Lanark-Carleton): This bill am