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November 30, 1992

35th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

vol. A

Hansard Transcripts

vol. B

The House met at 1332.

Prayers.

ESTIMATES

Hon Floyd Laughren (Treasurer and Minister of Economics): I have a message from the Administrator of the government. The Administrator of the government transmits estimates of certain sums required for the services of the province for the year ending 31 March 1993 and recommends them to the Legislative Assembly.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

REPORT ON RACE RELATIONS

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): The report of the Race Relations and Policing Task Force was released five weeks late.

The task force members made it clear that the training initiatives of this government over the last two years have been practically non-existent. They were just a few words short of saying that the Solicitor General is totally incompetent.

They further state that some members of the ministry have yet to come to grips with the reality of proper policing. This also applies to certain ranks within the police.

This report was delayed for five weeks, as I said before, and I am convinced that it was intercepted, hence the delay in presenting the findings and recommendations of the task force.

It is my belief that Piper, the spin doctor, was at work here. To instruct an independent task force to delay publishing its findings is consistent with the government's manipulative behaviour with respect to other independent groups and agencies. An example, Mr Speaker, as you know, is the Ontario Municipal Board.

Furthermore, it is apparent that it was a deliberate ploy to delay the report, given the current climate that the government has created with respect to the police.

I commend the task force for advancing the cause of employment equity, emphasizing that it will not await the government's Employment Equity Act. As you know, Mr Speaker, they have delayed employment equity for another year, therefore 1997 before the first phase could be brought before the tribunal.

It is apparent that they have repeated many of the findings indicated in the Stephen Lewis report. Unless the government is committed to implementing these recommendations without delay, it will become another relic on the shelf. As you know, Mr Speaker, that's how they react to reports in this House.

DEVELOPMENT CHARGES

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): My statement concerns the excessive service fees charged under the Environmental Protection Act and the Conservation Authorities Act that will virtually slow down or put an end to development in the province of Ontario.

Under the Environmental Protection Act, boards of health are collecting $75 per lot for new lots created by severance, plan of subdivision or condominium.

Under the Conservation Authorities Act, developers are charged $50 per lot per subdivision, to a maximum of $5,000 for reviewing subdivisions; $25 per unit per condominium for review of condominiums; $250 per development for review of industrial, commercial and institutional developments; $100 per application for fill, construction and alterations to waterways regulations; $30 for solicitors' inquiries and inquiries from real estate companies, consulting firms and development companies; and if a site inspection is required, an additional fee of $70 will be charged.

This government continues to find new sources to tax the people of Ontario, and these excessive service charges are sad examples of this ongoing policy. Charging excessive service fees will seriously undermine the recovery and the maintenance of a sound economic environment by putting an end to development in the province of Ontario.

I didn't realize all these service charges were in place until John Copeland of Elmvale came to my office and indicated what this government is doing to his business.

ANNIVERSARIES

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): On the past weekend I had the opportunity of participating in two 50th anniversaries. The first 50th anniversary was dealing with an organization in the town of Wallaceburg, that is, United Auto Workers 251. The trade union was established on December 7, 1942. It currently has 22 units which represent 2,000 members in that local union and it covers a wide variety of sectors of workers and the workplaces around there. One of the very important things to see is the foundation that the trade union has created in the town of Wallaceburg and its support through United Way and others.

The other 50th anniversary that I participated in was Mr and Mrs Chandler's 50th wedding anniversary in Chatham township in the town of Wallaceburg. Seeing the 50th anniversary was a signal to the community of what can be accomplished in 50 years of marriage. As we witness today the divorce rates and the abuse that's out there in our communities, to see two fine people stand and renew their vows in holy matrimony for one more time after 50 years was a dedication for myself and my wife to be there to witness this.

It made me reflect on how important it is for unity: unity of a labour movement, unity of a family, caring about the communities they live in. I think what it will do is send an important message to the rest of society: We must stop and think. No legislation will ever produce love.

TRANSFER PAYMENTS

Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): School boards and hospitals in the Kenora riding expressed disbelief and shock over the Treasurer's announcement on what they see as a freeze on transfer payments.

Over the past months they have been preparing their 1993-94 operating budgets on the basis of the commitment made by this government in January. They avoided the slash-and-burn approach to budget management the NDP government is now employing. Boards of education throughout the north have stated that they are extremely concerned that this government's funding freeze will jeopardize the high standards of education they now offer.

Mr Treasurer, in an area where the costs of hydro will be increasing by 9%, where the cost of shipping materials in can be as high as 30% of the price, where bus lines are asked to pay as much as 11 cents more for a litre of gasoline, northern boards are predicting that along with equalization of assessment, unorganized territories throughout the north may be looking at as much as 14% to 15% increase in their education taxes next year.

Hospital boards have said that the freeze will affect their plans to upgrade equipment and force it to re-evaluate their levels of service.

Take, for example, what this has done to the Lake of the Woods District Hospital. For them the so-called one-time funding will amount to about half of 1%. This translates into about $75,000 on a $23-million budget. This won't even cover the costs of the increase in the employer's contribution to the OHA pension plan or the increase in WCB costs.

Mr Treasurer, these boards have understood the recession and undertook responsible budget management. Why can't you?

MARK NIMZ

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): I rise to commemorate and extol the heroism of Mark Nimz of Burlington.

On Thursday, November 26, a man dressed in army fatigues entered a Burlington roadhouse restaurant and forced six of the people present into a rear office area and began robbing the premises. As the man held a gun to the head of the owner, Mark Nimz, a father of two, bravely confronted him. The bandit quickly turned and fatally shot Mark point-blank in the chest and continued to rob the bar while Mark lay bleeding to death on the floor. Police arrived moments later but the murderer had fled on foot and he remains at large.

As Mark's mother, Lisa, said, "Mark was the type of person who would come to anyone's aid." In the words of Mark's friends who left him at the bar 10 minutes before the shooting, "He stood up for something he believed in and paid the ultimate price." My brothers, who went to school with Mark, also knew him as the courageous and warm-hearted individual that he was.

At this time of sadness and sorrow, I should like to extend, on behalf of all members of the House, our sincere condolences to Mark's family and his close friends. May it compel us who are legislators to ensure the best possible protection against crime for the communities we represent and serve.

Today we celebrate the life of Mark Nimz, inspired as it was by the text for the funeral service of heroes: "Another commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. No man has greater love than this, that he give his life for his friends."

WORLD AIDS DAY

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): I rise today to draw attention to the fact that tomorrow is World AIDS Day.

Since 1988, December 1 has been set aside each year to increase public awareness about HIV and AIDS and to strengthen our commitment to combating this epidemic. In just over a decade more than 10 million people, 3.5 million of them women, have been infected with HIV worldwide. At least half a million have developed AIDS. By the year 2000, 30 to 40 million people worldwide are likely to be infected with HIV. That amounts to a staggering 5,000 new cases of HIV infection every day. Anyone can contract this deadly disease.

This year the World Health Organization has chosen "A Community Commitment" as the theme for World AIDS Day, stressing the need for community action in response to HIV infection and AIDS.

Today many members in this House are wearing red ribbons in support of a local campaign organized by the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research and the Fife House Foundation. Since Friday, hundreds of volunteers have been selling these ribbons to raise funds for AIDS research and for supportive housing for persons living with AIDS.

I took some time last Friday to sell ribbons in my riding of Fort York and I was heartened by the positive response of the public. Local community-based initiatives such as this campaign are at the forefront of the struggle against HIV and AIDS. By becoming involved at the local level, we are all partners in the global action against this devastating disease.

WOMEN'S ISSUES

Mrs Yvonne O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau): I bring to the floor of the House today three questions that the women of this province are asking of this government.

When will you reassign at least 10,000 of the spaces targeted for the Jobs Ontario program that we all know is stagnating to the broader child care community, and thus serve real needs of real women and real children in this province?

Another question is the pay equity announcement of last Thursday: another broken promise to women of this province, in this case vulnerable women, women who have been among those consistently underpaid for decades. The announcement means, in their estimation, that their real needs are being put on hold, indeed tossed into the future. The new date of 1998 is being thrown out as a crumb, a sliver of hope. How can these women really believe this government?

Child care reform, another NDP priority, by all weights and standards, is being postponed into the new year. Will it ever really happen?

In each of these three issues, issues that used to be considered NDP priorities, we are hearing more and more about nickel-and-diming on the backs of the vulnerable. Conditional dollars; announced dollars; targeted dollars. These words ring hollow. They are leaving many, many women in this province disillusioned, angry and feeling used.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The member's time has expired.

ENTERTAINMENT TAX

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): Grey Cup fans from across the country travelled to Toronto over the weekend to watch the Calgary Stampeders and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers square off at the SkyDome. As a football fan and as a frustrated Toronto Argonauts fan, I was there with about 45,000 people to watch Doug Flutie and the Calgary Stampeders win the Grey Cup.

According to Grey Cup organizers, the Grey Cup contributed about $40 million to the Metro Toronto economy. More than 20,000 people visited Toronto, staying in its hotels, eating in its restaurants, visiting its stores and enjoying its taverns. The Grey Cup is a vital economic boost to tourism in Metro.

The bad news is that this government, through its taxation policies, is unnecessarily burdening the CFL teams in Ontario. According to Al Strachan, a columnist with the Globe and Mail, Ontario is the only province that gouges its three CFL teams by imposing entertainment taxes.

The economic spinoffs that Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa receive from their CFL teams should not be discounted by this government. Instead of creating an environment in which these teams might thrive, the government imposes burdensome taxes.

The CFL, as most sports fans know, is struggling for its very survival. As a Canadian football fan, I fear losing a brand of football unique to this country.

It is about time that the NDP government recognizes the positive economic benefits that the CFL teams and other professional sports franchises bring to this province and trash this tax.

COAT DISTRIBUTION PROGRAM

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Oxford County Board of Education, Loeb Club Plus, area service clubs and the ministerial association for sponsoring and supporting the annual Coats for Kids program.

Established in 1989 in Oxford county, the campaign originally supplied coats for 500 children. This year that figure is expected to more than double, thanks to the public's generosity and the efforts of countless volunteers.

In these tough economic times, more and more people cannot afford to buy their children new winter clothes. This program means that children will not have to suffer through the winter months in spring jackets and running shoes.

The groups involved in this effort have collected new and used coats, gloves, mittens, boots and hats. The clothes range in size from infant to adult. Many of the items appear to be new, purchased by caring individuals to donate to the Coats for Kids campaign.

Local business people further contribute their time and effort to this worthy cause as well. Local dry cleaners ensured that all the coats were cleaned, charging only a nominal fee. Volunteers then distribute the coats to various distribution centres.

I want to make special mention of the Coats for Kids campaign in the town of Ingersoll. Most distribution centres in Oxford county wrap up their efforts at the end of November, but the Ingersoll drive has been extended to mid-December to ensure that every child has the chance to be prepared for the winter months.

With the holiday season fast approaching, most of us are thinking about sharing our good fortune and good times with family and friends, but I'm especially pleased to see that the spirit of caring and sharing exists in Oxford all year round.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): With my first question today, I want to focus on this government's absolutely breathtaking inability to manage either Ontario's economy or its finances.

On Friday, Dofasco announced that it's laying off 2,000 workers. Today, Falconbridge said it is reducing its Sudbury workforce by 200. These workers will add to the 550,000 Ontarians already on the unemployment lines, and many others work day to day, uncertain whether or not their plant will be the next to close.

The Premier has blamed the global recession, or he blames Ottawa, or he even blames Ontario's business people for not being sufficiently competitive. He absolutely refuses to understand what his government is doing to make it impossible for Ontario business to compete. I would ask the Premier, why do you keep blaming the federal government when the real problem here is your absolute refusal to understand what your government is doing to make things work and what it could do to make things better?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): The member has raised two issues, two industries in particular, two examples, to ask me the question. Let me say to her with respect to Falconbridge that it just so happens that I met with the president of Falconbridge when I was in Tokyo. I want to tell the honourable member directly what he told me. The fact of the matter is, she asked questions with respect to a particular industry. Here is an industry whose products are traded on the world market. Here is an industry where prices are affected directly by the supply.

Here is an industry where supply is directly affected by political events in Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union, where in fact there's evidence that substantial amounts of minerals are now being dumped on the world market.

I say to the honourable member, I think she's really got to get with it. Understand for a moment the extent to which --

Interjection: These are global problems?

Hon Mr Rae: Yes, these are global problems. Also, I would say to her that it's not a matter of blaming the federal government, pure and simple. It's a matter of recognizing that at a time of unprecedented industrial change, the leadership that's been shown by the federal government has been sadly lacking. I would have thought the honourable member would be the first to agree with that, since the evidence of that is simply overwhelming. Those are the facts, and that's what's led us to take the decisions that we have.

Mrs McLeod: Perhaps in the supplementary response the Premier might explain to us why he had to go to Tokyo to meet with the president of Falconbridge.

I would suggest to the Premier that the failure of Ontario's economy -- and it is a failure of Ontario's economy -- is very directly related to the problems that the Treasurer is having with his budget. Premier, the Treasurer says that the people of this province are going to face more tax hikes in order to keep the government's deficit target. We can already point out, and have pointed out in the past, tax policies that have taken $1 billion out of the economy and directly cost 25,000 jobs.

In October, just a month ago, the Treasurer said the tax revenues were $500 million less than planned, and now, just one month later, we discover that Ontario's revenues are $4.5 billion less than planned. Meanwhile, the government is trying to spend millions of dollars buying out private day care operators and the Workers' Compensation Board is wasting money on a new downtown office tower.

Premier, I would ask, before you even breathe the words "tax hike," don't you think you should get your own fiscal house in order?

Hon Mr Rae: Let me say to the honourable member, this from a member of a Liberal cabinet and a Liberal government that raised taxes 41 times while they were in office, 41 times.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Hon Mr Rae: I don't recall the honourable member resigning from cabinet on a matter of principle, saying that this was so terrible, that she objected so strongly to what the Treasurer was doing, that they weren't going to deal with it.

The Liberal opposition is carrying on in a way which has got to be exposed for what it is. It's the way in which she says, "Don't raise taxes, don't cut expenditures and bring your deficit down." To describe it as voodoo economics would be to pay it a tribute it does not deserve.

The Liberal Party is incapable of understanding, because it does not want to recognize that we are now reaping the whirlwind it sowed when it was in office for those five years. We are having to make, as a government, very difficult decisions dealing with situations which the Liberal Party and the Liberal government were never capable of resolving, never wanted to address and never had the courage to deal with. We're dealing with them, and that's exactly what we're going to do.

Mrs McLeod: I really wish that the Premier, rather than simply coming back to his descriptions of voodoo economics, would get out there and talk to the Ontario businessmen he was so critical of when he was speaking to the Hong Kong chamber of commerce. I wish he would talk to those Ontario businessmen about voodoo economics. They will tell him that when the Treasurer talks about tax hikes, that makes the possibility of investment in this province an even more remote possibility. They will tell him that any new taxes now are going to cost even more lost investment and more lost jobs.

New taxes are likely to put more people out of business and more people out of work. That's the message Ontario business would want to send to this Premier. That's the way they would dismiss his description of voodoo economics.

I would also suggest to the Premier that since his government's numbers change daily, and with every change in numbers there is the threat of yet another new tax hike, that does nothing to restore confidence in business people looking to invest in the province of Ontario.

If you can't figure out how to get the economy going, could you at least tell the people of this province the truth about the budget figures? Would you please come clean with the people of Ontario about the state of this economy and about the kind of tax hikes you may be planning for them?

Hon Mr Rae: The Treasurer gave a very full report to the House on Thursday indicating very clearly exactly where we are and indicating why certain decisions with respect to transfers and other things had to be made. I think that evidence is very clear.

I want to say to the honourable member that I meet regularly, frequently and constantly with the business community, and one of the things they constantly say to me is: "Premier, we realize that this is not all of your fault. We realize that what you are having to deal with are several problems which have been left to you by other governments."

In their moments even when they're critical of some of the things we have done, I can assure the honourable member, and I want to tell her this now, if she thinks the chamber of commerce and others are saying, "Please, just do what Bob Nixon did, just do what David Peterson did, and everything will be okay," I haven't met a soul out there telling me that. I think the Liberal leader ought to recognize that.

JOHN PIPER

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): My question is to the Premier, and it's about the Piper incident. I'd like to get a firm commitment from the Premier of what is going to take place after the police investigation.

We in the opposition, Premier, don't feel that this was an isolated incident by Mr Piper, nor do we feel that he acted on his own. Ultimately, Premier, you're responsible. You knew exactly whom you were recruiting when you brought Mr Piper in as your deputy minister. Mr Piper is known as a tough, hard-nosed, aggressive political fighter. He's known as someone who fixes political problems. That's why you went out and recruited this person you've known, I think, for 20 years, knowing exactly what you were recruiting. That's why we are suspicious, Premier, that this was not an isolated instance.

We want a commitment from you, Premier, that once the police investigation is over you will permit a full hearing of this, an all-party legislative committee so that we can get to the bottom of all the activities that were going on in your office around what we would call dirty tricks.

Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): I would say to the honourable member that I would urge him not to prejudge anything or anyone with respect to what has taken place. I would suggest strongly to the honourable member that we would all be well advised to wait for the outcome of the police investigation.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mr Phillips: Premier, you didn't listen to my question. I said once the police investigation is over, we want a commitment from you about an all-party legislative committee.

I will say to you, Premier, that you had early warning of exactly the kinds of problems you would face. It was only a few days after the election that you personally called Mr Piper. You asked Mr Piper to be your personal consultant on the Olympic bid. You sent him to Tokyo on taxpayers' expense. Then when Mr Piper got to Tokyo, he systematically proceeded, I understand -- and you can correct me if I'm wrong here -- to attempt to undermine our Olympic bid.

He was your consultant, recruited by you, paid for by you, I assume reported back to you, and if the things I understand he did in Tokyo he didn't, I will stand corrected; but I understand, Premier, that it was he who insisted that the Bread Not Circuses people be allowed to demonstrate in front of the IOC. He did a lot to undermine our committee's bid.

My question to you is this, Premier: If you knew that was the sort of activity Mr Piper would engage in, why did you personally go out and recruit him to be your deputy minister in your office, with all of the clout that that entails?

Hon Mr Rae: I was just chatting with the Treasurer and listening to the Treasurer's advice to me. I would remind you that I asked the former Premier to go on behalf of the province and he refused; he declined to go. He said he wouldn't go. I then asked the member for Nickel Belt to go and I am advised by the member for Nickel Belt that Mr Piper was in fact very helpful in Tokyo. I want to say to the honourable member that he can engage in this kind of activity if he wants; I'm not going to dignify it with a further response.

Mr Phillips: It was you, Premier, who recruited this individual whom you've known for 20 years; a well known, very tough, very aggressive individual. You brought him in. You made him your deputy. You gave him all the clout that this entailed. I will tell you that my understanding of his activities in Tokyo is that he did much to undermine our bid.

You can understand, Premier, why we are frankly very distrustful of what has gone on in your office, and Mr Piper only added to that. After he was caught at this, he said, "Frankly, I've done nothing wrong." This is your deputy. This is the person whom you've known for 20 years. He said, "I've done nothing wrong, other than embarrass you." I hope you can understand now why we on the opposition want to get to the bottom of this.

We understand the police investigation. If nothing can take place till that's done, so be it. But we want your commitment, Premier, based on what we now know about Mr Piper, that once that police investigation is complete, we on the opposition side will have a full chance to find out how many other things were going on, undetected, unknown to the opposition, that will only come out if we have a full, all-party legislative committee able to look fully at this matter.

Hon Mr Rae: I will stand by my answer that I've already given to the honourable member and stand by it very directly, and I will just say that I'm very disappointed in the kind of attitude that's being taken by the honourable member.

The Speaker: New question, the leader of the third party.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. The leader of the third party has the floor.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): My question is to the Premier. Over two years ago, you, David Peterson and I were travelling around this province fighting an election. You and I both knew at that time that the province was going headlong into a recession. In fact, that's the reason why the election was called early; I think everybody would acknowledge that now. David Peterson didn't seem to know that we were going into a recession or he didn't want to talk about it but, Premier, you and I did because we had talked about that in the session before the election was called that spring.

But, Premier, even though you knew that, you chose to ignore that in the campaign. You laughed when I travelled this province and wouldn't make any new promises, when I said, "In fact, we can't even afford the spending that we have," that had been run up by five years of irresponsible Liberal government. But you laughed, Premier, and you said, "No, we can, and we can afford a billion dollars more in the Agenda for People." That's what you told them.

Then you and your Treasurer, Premier, brought in your first budget. You hiked spending close to 13% at a time when the rest of the country was going into the dumper, including Ontario. At a time when other treasurers and other premiers were practising restraint, at a time when wage restraint was being brought in in the public sector, you decided to carry on the same way of David Peterson.

Premier, my question to you today is, why do you and your Treasurer point the finger to other governments, to Ottawa, to former governments, to this recession that you didn't know was coming, to the world? Why would you not acknowledge you were wrong, apologize to my candidates who campaigned in the last election for misleading statements you made during the campaign? But, more importantly, why wouldn't you apologize to the people of this province and say, "We're sorry; we were wrong, we massively overspent, and now we all have to pay the price, but it is my fault, Bob Rae's fault, my fault"?

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the leader complete his question, please.

Mr Harris: Why would you not acknowledge that today?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): I must confess, when I listen to the honourable member, that I say to him very directly that the issue of the recession is difficult enough as it is without turning it into the kind of rhetorical circus which he has done.

In response to the recession as it was unfolding, yes, we did put $700 million in capital spending into the budget in the first year. We did take that action precisely because we recognized how serious the situation has been, and we've continued to take it. So we're now investing more; we've got $4.5 billion in capital spending and in training money that's in the economy now, this year, the highest amount ever by the province, and we're proud of that. We have no hesitation in saying that.

At the same time, we've demonstrated consistently the need for restraint in terms of transfers, yes, and a restraint in terms of wage settlements, and we've got the wage settlements down without having to engage in the kind of confrontation, the kind of poor feeling that exists in other jurisdictions. We've now got a very responsible policy which is understood and embraced by all concerned. That's the direction that we're going in and that's the direction that we're taking.

I want to say to the honourable member that, given the circumstances, given the very tough situation that we face, and yes, given the neglect, the systematic neglect of this province by the federal government with respect to its overall economic responsibilities, I think we can say to the people of the province that we are trying as best we can to respond to a difficult and tough situation --

The Speaker: Could the Premier conclude his response, please.

Hon Mr Rae: -- and that's exactly what we're going to do.

Mr Harris: Premier, you can blame the feds. You can blame others. You can blame your predecessors, and there is some validity in blaming some of your predecessors; I understand that. But the fact of the matter is and the bottom line is that you made the wrong choices 18 months ago when you came into office and you brought in your first budget. You made the wrong choices, and you have nobody to blame but yourself for those choices.

I think you will recall one of the things that I had said at that time. I said when you brought in the first budget: "This budget will have implications for many years to come. It will be remembered as the beginning of the province's slide into a devastating spiral of increasing taxes and decreasing economic activity." That was April 29 I said that here in this very place in 1991. But you laughed at me. Your Treasurer laughed at me. You said: "No, we are going to spend our way out of this recession.

We know something no other politician in Canada or in North America and the world knows": that these massive increases, a wage package to the public service up 16% year over year in total wages --

The Speaker: Will the leader place his supplementary, please.

Mr Harris: I would ask you again: Would you not now acknowledge that you, in your first budget when you went on this $53-billion spending spree, are a significant part of the problem that you and your Treasurer and your government face today?

Hon Mr Rae: I want to say very directly to the honourable member that if you look at the record of the Treasurer in terms of trying to respond to a very, very difficult situation -- and it's so ironic, because the member now talks about his policies and what he said. You know, there isn't an instance we can point to, an instance in question period in the last couple of months, when the questions haven't been coming from all the members of his back bench, saying: "Spend more money. Spend more money. Spend more money." That'll be one day. Then the next day it'll be "No taxes," and the next day it'll be "What's wrong with your deficit?"

So I want to say very directly to members of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, who no doubt will carry on with this chatter for some time, that the people of the province of Ontario deserve straight goods from everybody. They're getting straight goods from the New Democratic Party government, they're getting straight goods from the Treasurer of Ontario, and they're getting a pile of baloney from the official opposition and from the third party. Those are the facts.

Mr Harris: Mr Premier, you lost the fight against the recession. That was the fight you picked. You told us you were going to fight the recession and you lost it. You've lost the fight against the deficit. That was the one you tried to run away from but you lost it too. Now, with 500 job losses a day, you've lost the fight for jobs. Enough is enough.

You limited the transfer partners for last year and into this year to 2%: hospitals, schools, colleges, universities, municipalities. I supported that restraint. You will recall I said I wished you'd done it a year ago when I called for it. I supported that. But I also called on you to live within the same restraints. In the same budget last year you hiked your own spending two and a half to three times that -- 4.6%, I believe -- including the transfer payments, which means your own spending was up probably three times that amount: three and a half times the rate of inflation.

You've limited your transfer partners to 2%, and in fact they're going to have to spend less than that because the following year it's minus 2%. I would ask you today, will you commit today to limiting your own spending to 2% and minus 2%, as you've said hospitals can do, as you've said school boards can do, as you've said municipalities can do? Will you, today, limit your own spending and commit that next year and the following year it will be 2% and minus 2% so you could show the same kind of restraint you're telling others they should do?

Hon Mr Rae: When you look at the facts, when you take out public debt interest which we're running up on behalf of all the transfer agencies which don't have a debt, when you take out social assistance costs which are a statutory entitlement, a legal entitlement that people have, our funding has gone up 0.3% in terms of expenditures, the lowest level of increase. So I don't need to take any lectures from a Tory about how to exercise restraint with respect to public expenditure.

The critical question, though, is to do it in a way that continues to demonstrate our commitment to jobs and to job creation, which is what we're doing.

EDUCATION REFORM

Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): My question is to the Minister of Education. Mr Minister, we're going to be talking about straight goods right now. Everybody wants the straight goods. We heard you on the CBC about a week ago talking about The Transition Years pilot projects. You stated that these pilot projects have been available since last summer, which really confused me.

You intrigued the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation at the same time, because at its conference over a week ago it talked about using the freedom of information act to get information on these pilot projects. So we called your office, Mr Minister, and there are over 64 of them. We were told that there is a bound copy. However, we were also told there has been no in-depth analysis of these projects. Will you give us the straight goods right now and tell us whether in fact we do have an analysis of these pilot projects and when they'll be available for everybody in this House?

Hon Tony Silipo (Minister of Education): I was referring, I think, in the comment the member referred to, to some information which I understand has been available in 12 school boards for some time -- I think back to last spring -- and which I'm told is there, which is a description of some of the findings of the pilot projects of the first year's experience. I know I've had on my desk for some time a document which I believe is a public document, which outlines in a descriptive format some of these pilot projects. I think that information is available to anyone who wants it.

Mrs Cunningham: I'll just tell the minister what his office told us. I can't get a copy of the analysis of these pilot projects. You have a bound copy, which is simply that each board that had a pilot project made a report. It's all put in a bound copy. I mean, anybody can do that. We want to know what's working and what is not working in Ontario. Now, at the same time, Mr Minister, a week ago Friday evening the OSSTF got a copy of The Transition Years. The appropriate document I think was sent to the OSSTF at its conference.

At the same time, the Ontario Teachers' Federation didn't receive one. The Ontario Public School Trustees' Association, the school boards, didn't receive one. They got theirs on Monday. What is your process for communicating? You think you've got the document, your staff tell us it's not available and then you send something else out on The Transition Years to a conference. The rest of us wait until Monday. What is your process for communicating?

Hon Mr Silipo: I know the member would very much like to make an issue out of this process question, but let me just tell her very clearly that the information that was sent out to the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation was indeed the exact same information that was sent out to everyone, including the OTF, on Monday, and the reason it was sent to the OSSTF on Friday was because it was ready then and because they were in the middle of the discussions, so we felt it was pertinent, therefore, for them to have this information right away.

That's really the long and the short of it. The information normally goes out to everyone, as it did in this case. As I say, it was simply because OSSTF was having a discussion and a conference around this issue that we thought it was useful to send that information to them at that time.

Mrs Cunningham: If information is ready on Friday, I think I should have it. I think every member of this House should have it. I think school boards and teachers' federations should have it on Friday, not on Monday.

My supplementary question to the minister has to do with the transfer payments last week, with the frozen base and the lump sum, which is approximately 2%. In the announcement there is some confusion. It says that boards will have to negotiate for the 2%, and it mentions three criteria. It mentions cost of restructuring:

"The government's overall priorities for restructuring are (1) to reduce the cost of public services" -- obviously that's going to happen -- "(2) to maintain public services" -- how you reduce the costs and maintain them will be wonderful, but perhaps some boards can do that -- "(3) to preserve jobs to the greatest extent possible."

These are criteria for getting 2%. I would say after my other question around transition years and restructuring the curriculum, surely we're going to be looking at curriculum changes, but it wasn't mentioned. My question to the minister is this: Is it a fact that these are the criteria and that all school boards will not get 2% next year? Is that the fact? If it is, I hope you make it very clear to the school boards, because that's what they are expecting, 2%.

Hon Mr Silipo: When I met on Thursday afternoon, before the Treasurer's announcement, with the representatives from the various school boards, teachers' federations and other groups to go over with them the nature of the announcement the Treasurer was making, I also indicated to them that I was very interested in pursuing discussions directly with them about the way in which they best felt we should allocate the 2%, one-time-only funding. I've committed myself to discussing that with them.

I'm going to be inviting people to come back together before Christmas to hear their suggestions, and I've said to them that before we make decisions about how to finally determine the best use of the 2%, which is about $99 million in our case, I will want to hear from them on that. I've also committed myself to getting the main components of the general legislative grant out towards the end of January, along with the decision around the use of the 2%, so that school boards would have that information available to them as they structure their budgets.

TRANSFER PAYMENTS

Mrs Barbara Sullivan (Halton Centre): Last Thursday, we heard information from the Treasurer which was tantamount to the big lie. He said there would be a 2% transfer to hospitals on a one-time-only basis, not added to the base.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Just a minute. Before people get all excited, I realize it isn't the most helpful way to phrase something, but there was not an accusation of anyone lying. Could the member direct her question, and to which minister?

Mrs Sullivan: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Treasurer. The truth is that the operating transfers to hospitals are frozen until 1995 and that special funding arrangements that he's included are in fact designed so there will be no cash flow in the next year. The truth is that thousands of dollars which were spent in preparing full operating plans, which were to be on the desk of the Minister of Health today, have been wasted.

There are three implications to that announcement: service cuts, job cuts or deficits. In many areas of this province, people will be put at risk directly as a result of that announcement. I'm asking the Treasurer, will he fund the deficits of hospitals when communities are placed at risk because hospitals cannot provide the health services that they are by law required to provide?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Treasurer and Minister of Economics): I won't reply in kind to the member and imply that she's a liar, or any such thing.

The member should know, if she doesn't, that the transfer to hospitals this year, the year we're in now, included a transitional fund which was to help the hospital sector restructure and deliver its services in a more efficient way with a minimum loss of jobs.

That has been accomplished to a remarkable degree, and an enormous amount of credit must go to the Minister of Health and the health care sector workers, because I can tell you that after a decade of double-digit increases, this government was able to sit down with our transfer partners in the health care sector, including the hospitals, and work out a deal in which we put a stop to that. The increase in the cost of funding hospitals has now been brought under control.

For 1993-94, what we have done is to allow a 2% fund again, another 2%, and the Minister of Health, in her inimitable fashion, will be working with the hospitals to determine to what extent any given hospital will receive a part of the equivalent of 2%. So I think for the member to imply that we haven't worked extremely hard to minimize job losses is simply not to understand what we've been doing at all.

Mrs Sullivan: The Treasurer doth protest too much. He has not provided a 2% operating transfer. He has not come even close to providing a 2% operating transfer. He has frozen operating transfers.

Three quarters of hospital costs are staff-based. Within days, arbitrated settlements for CUPE and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union are expected. An arbitrated settlement will be coming forward in March for members of the Ontario Nurses' Association. The Service Employees International Union settlement, which has just been made within the past couple of weeks, adds a $12-million additional cost to the hospital sector.

We know that each 1% increase in unsettled collective agreements above a 2% CPI assumption will increase hospital costs by $53 million. Treasurer, what advice will you give to hospitals that have to work with settlements over which they have no control and which affect the costs associated with over 70% of their staff?

Hon Mr Laughren: My advice to the hospitals would be the same as it was this year: to sit down with the Minister of Health and to work out an arrangement in which job losses can be minimized, essential services will be maintained and costs can be reduced, in view of the new reality out there of how much money we've got to transfer to all our transfer partners.

I would remind you, Mr Speaker, to you directly, that this past year there were people who threw up their hands and predicted that there'd be 14,000 job losses in the hospital sector as a result of a 2% increase in transfer funding. As a matter of fact, when all of the dust settles, I believe there will be between 600 and 700 job losses. To me, that was a major accomplishment, and once again I pay tribute to the Minister of Health and to the hospital sector for accomplishing that. I believe it was truly remarkable.

MINISTERIAL CONDUCT

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): My question is to the Premier. Premier, last December your Minister of Northern Development attempted to smear a doctor, an outspoken critic of the government. She admitted she had lied and took a polygraph test to prove it. Mr Premier, could you tell me who in your government, in your cabinet, made the decision to allow Miss Martel to remain in cabinet following that incident?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): I think that issue was debated over a year ago, and I think the member knows full well that full discussion took place in this House and a very full discussion took place following the adjournment of the House in committee. I think the member knows that full well. That was over a year ago.

Mr Harris: You're right. It was a year ago, Premier, and you're right: I certainly did suspect it was you who made that decision.

In the last few days I've been in Sault Ste Marie, I've been in Sudbury, I've been in Timmins, I've been in North Bay and I've been in Toronto. Everybody who is talking about the John Piper affair -- and they all are -- is saying: "What's happening down there? What's going on? We can't believe it."

When they talk about the John Piper affair, virtually everyone I talk to all across this province, in small towns and big cities, is telling me the same thing: that had you as Premier fired Shelley Martel, if you had clearly said, through that firing, that smearing the reputation of a political opponent is not acceptable, then John Piper would not have thought it okay to smear Judi Harris's reputation.

Mr Premier, they are all saying that, and I would ask you this: Do you not realize that your inaction on Miss Martel is in fact what places you personally to blame, you personally responsible for the actions of Mr Piper, because you set the example with Miss Martel a year ago today? I would ask you this, Premier: Will you today rectify this problem?

Will you rectify this duplicity of standards? I think we would acknowledge Mr Piper is not a stupid person. Your cabinet and your parliamentary assistants, your Treasurer tells me, are not stupid people, but they do not understand, because of the duplicity of standards, where the line should be drawn. I would ask you if you would correct that today by asking Miss Martel to step down today and resign her position -- that that conduct is unacceptable -- just as you asked Mr Piper to resign and step down?

Hon Mr Rae: I guess the long and short of the question is that the one thing I can tell the honourable member that I know -- I think everyone in the House knows -- is that regardless of what happens anywhere, any time, anyplace, the member is going to say it's my fault. I think that's the one thing we do know.

ONTARIO STUDENT ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Mr Donald Abel (Wentworth North): My question is for the Minister of Colleges and Universities. Many constituents in the riding of Wentworth North, and I'm sure there's many others in the province of Ontario, have been reading reports in the press about recent changes to OSAP. These reports have led people to believe these changes include total elimination of grants. Can you, Mr Minister, tell the people of this province whether these changes do or do not totally eliminate student grants?

Hon Richard Allen (Minister of Colleges and Universities): I appreciate the question because there has been a lot of misunderstanding around the first news that came out about the OSAP changes. The important thing that has to be said is that grants have not been eliminated. There remain important parts of this program in which there is direct money paid to students in order to support them.

In the first instance, it's important to remember that this is not a loans-only program, that it is a loans-first program, and that students' indebtedness is capped at current levels and beyond that level of indebtedness students cannot go. Their loans above that will be forgiven. There are, in addition, other parts of the program which are straight bursary payments to students under certain circumstances.

Mr Abel: Even with the limit on student debt loads, how does this plan help or hinder students with extraordinary costs, such as sole-support parents needing child care or disabled students who need special learning materials?

Hon Mr Allen: We've doubled the amount of money that's available for students with special needs. We've doubled the amount of money that's available directly for students who need work study programs. There are child care bursaries that are direct grants that will help sole-support parents. There is a new one-stop shopping approach through OSAP directly for persons on social assistance, and in particular sole-support parents who will benefit quite considerably under this new package in ways they couldn't in the past.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION BOARD

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): I have a question to the Treasurer. Mr Treasurer, you will remember that two weeks ago the member for Renfrew North asked of you the propriety of building a new headquarters for the WCB at a cost of approximately $200 million. You knew the proposal calls for the construction of a new building of approximately 525,000 square feet at a cost, as I indicated, of about $200 million, or about $380 per square foot.

In addition, it is proposed that only 70% of this building would be used for the WCB, thereby of course adding 30% of commercial glut to the already 27 million square feet of excess commercial space that now exists in Toronto.

Treasurer, two weeks ago you indicated you were concerned about this proposal, yet last Friday you allowed this project to go ahead through the opening of tenders and bids on this matter. Can you explain to this House how you can allow this type of expenditure to go through this year in this manner?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Treasurer and Minister of Economics): I recall the member for Renfrew North, I believe it was, raised the matter in this House and I undertook at that time to have a look at the whole issue.

It was my understanding that before the present chair of the board took his job at the board, an agreement had been reached, and I think unanimously, by the directors of the Workers' Compensation Board, including all of the employer representatives on the board, that such an arrangement should be struck and that they should proceed with the construction of a new building. That is my understanding, and I've asked for more information on that. I wasn't aware that the tenders had been opened on Friday.

Mr Offer: You weren't aware of the tenders being opened last Friday? You are allowing this $200-million expenditure to go through when the unfunded liability of the WCB is now over $11 billion and growing. Not only are you embarking on this ridiculous venture but, Treasurer, you permitted only three contractors to tender.

Treasurer, only three contractors were invited to tender this project. All other contractors were specifically excluded. Why did you purposely exclude all other contractors from tendering their bids on this project?

Hon Mr Laughren: First of all, I didn't exclude anyone. I think you should separate my responsibilities from those of the board of directors of the Workers' Compensation Board.

I did ask for a legal

interpretation as to what extent what had already been done was legally binding on the board of directors. I didn't make any commitment to approve or disapprove of the project, because I'm sure the member opposite would not want us to become engaged in an expensive lawsuit if that was to be the final outcome. I've simply asked for a legal

interpretation to determine just what the status is of the obligations already undertaken by the board of directors of the WCB, not by me.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): My question is for the Minister of Financial Institutions. Mr Minister, the Treasurer has recently announced that it's not his policies but the recession that has forced the government to cut back on the whole issue of transfer payments to the municipalities, the hospitals, the school boards, cuts on social services etc. There are a mass of cutbacks on almost everything in your government.

My question to the minister, Mr Speaker, is whether he can tell this House what the implementation costs are of Bill 164, the no-fault auto insurance bill.

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Minister of Financial Institutions): I can't give the member precise figures this afternoon in terms of the implementation costs. The member will be aware, though, that when Bill 68 passed in June 1990 and the Liberals set up the Ontario Insurance Commission to handle the implementation of Bill 68, the process for the implementation of Bill 164 in fact was already set in motion.

The mediation and arbitration processes at the OIC in terms of auto insurance claims under the current legislation have been developing over the last two years. The process has become quite effective in turning around claims and, although we expect there will be some minimal increase in the inability of the OIC to handle all of the claims under Bill 164 with its present staff, we haven't quite determined the precise number yet. That will be very much as it's been in the last two years, a bit of working through experience.

Mr Tilson: Let me help the minister. Mr Don Scott of the Ontario Insurance Commission has told my staff that he will require 100 additional staff to implement the benefits package of Bill 164 and $5 million more a year just to implement this so-called legislation. That is shocking.

Interjection: The minister doesn't even know it?

Mr Tilson: No, he doesn't really know it, because he obviously hasn't been speaking to Mr Scott or anyone from the Ontario Insurance Commission. Yet he reluctantly is about to have hearings on this subject come January.

My question to the minister is, how can you justify the information that Mr Scott has revealed to us, with all that additional bureaucracy and all that additional cost to the taxpayers of this province, when hundreds of other agencies, whether it be the municipalities, whether it be the social services, whether it be the school boards, whether it be all of those other agencies, must do with less when you're willy-nilly spending all these funds on a policy that no one wants?

Hon Mr Charlton: The member should tell his staff when they're talking to Mr Scott that it might be useful if they got all of the facts and all of the information. First of all, the numbers to which the member refers include numbers which I've just referred to. I don't know the exact breakdowns, but as Bill 68, the current plan, has been evolving, there has been a requirement at the OIC for additional staff.

The Ministry of Financial Institutions, and specifically the minister, who is in dialogue with Mr Scott on a regular basis, will make the determinations at the end of the day about what the staff requirements are for Bill 164.

EDUCATION REFORM

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): My question is to the Minister of Education. Many parents in my riding are very concerned about the destreaming and also eliminating grade 13. On top of that, the members I met with from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation raised several questions with me, and I think they warrant being answered.

Some of the questions were: Would the government consider delaying destreaming grade 10 until a thorough study of the effects on grade 9 students has been completed? What happens to the grade 9 student this year who fails a subject and has to repeat it next year? How can you get rid of the OACs when universities are full? These are just a few of the questions.

Minister, are these steps being taken just to save money in the Ministry of Education, or are we looking at putting the education of our children first in this province? I think that's the real question.

Hon Tony Silipo (Minister of Education): I'd love to answer in detail each of the subparts of the question that the member asked, because I think he raised some very valid points. But I think I can try to answer the basic question that he has put in terms of whether we are going about looking at the changes in education as a way to save money or as a way to improve the quality of education.

Let me just say to him very clearly that, while I know that from the Conservative Party particularly we've heard that the abolishion of grade 13 or that fifth year of high school will save millions of dollars, any changes we are contemplating would be done in the context of improving the quality of what we teach in our elementary and secondary schools and in ensuring that we can set out for the public and for our students a set of expectations from our school system that will clearly say what in fact our students should be able to achieve at various points in their school careers, all of those going together to heighten the quality of education in our schools.

Mr Hayes: One of the other questions is that some of the people, especially the teachers, are quite concerned about having the proper textbooks and having the curriculum changed in time. They are really concerned also about what happens if a student fails in grade 12, for example. Does this really --

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mr Hayes: I know that some of the members across the hall here don't care about some of these questions, but the people in my riding do. One of the things they want to know is how this is going to affect the universities, especially when there are dropouts from post-secondary education. Is this going to allow more to go into the university, or are we going to see a drop in the enrolment?

Hon Mr Silipo: I think that again the member raises a point that I can tell him we are addressing, which is the question of whatever changes we bring about with respect to the secondary school years we need to do obviously in the context of the impact that has on colleges and universities and the movement between high school and post-secondary education for young people, as well as obviously the direct link between high school and the world of work for those students who opt to go in that direction.

I can tell the member that again these are very much part of the considerations that are going through our minds as we are looking at some of the changes. I can assure him that we are taking these very much into account as we come to some decisions around these directions.

INVESTMENT IN ONTARIO

Mr Monte Kwinter (Wilson Heights): My question is to the Premier. The Premier recently returned from a 16-day visit to east Asia. In his report to this House, the Premier reported that he met with more than 50 CEOs and senior executives, including those at Toyota.

The Premier, I'm sure, will know that Toyota is considering a major expansion in its existing North American production capacity, which will cost at least $500 million. Under consideration is a new plant in either Mexico or Georgetown, Kentucky, or Ontario.

Could the Premier share with us the results of his deliberations with Toyota, and what are the prospects of that investment coming to Ontario?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): First of all, I would like to say that in terms of our dealings with Toyota, we are building on a good relationship which goes back many years. The honourable member will know that. He will know the extent to which, if I may so, patience, persistence and every solid effort are required.

What I would say to the honourable member is, the basic approach that we're taking is to emphasize the commitment of this government to research and development and to training. That's the approach that we've taken with respect to Chrysler, the approach that we've taken with respect to Ford, the approach that we've taken with every major manufacturer in the province with respect to the areas in which the province can be of the greatest direct assistance.

Above and beyond that, all I can say is that we're discussing plans --

Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): What have you got to offer them, Bob? High taxes, tough labour laws.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Hon Mr Rae: -- potential with respect to every major manufacturer, not simply Toyota. But as soon as I have any news to announce, I can assure the honourable member that I will be glad to do so.

Mr Kwinter: We don't know the outcome of the Toyota deliberations. But we do know about, and my leader has already alluded to, the 2,000 jobs that are going to be lost at Dofasco. Not only that, but in addition to these jobs, Dofasco has announced that it's deciding on a US location for a new mini-mill.

Mr John Mayberry, the executive vice-president of Dofasco, has publicly stated why they are establishing this new mini-mill in the US. His list of American advantages range through "lower electricity costs, lower land costs, cheaper labour costs, lower taxes and the absence of an NDP-type government." Okay?

I should point out in another instance that Mr Gerhard Pfeiffer, who's the general manager for Richardson Greenshields Securities of Canada, GMBH, in Frankfurt, has discounted the concerns of German investors as a result of the referendum vote. But he did indicate that there were real concerns over Ontario's fiscal policies.

Now we have a situation where this government has created an environment where local indigenous industries are looking elsewhere to establish their expansion. Other investors from around the world are looking at Ontario and saying, "Why would we possibly invest there?"

The Speaker: Would the member place his question, please.

Mr Kwinter: Although I certainly don't want to be the bearer of bad news, I would be very surprised if that Toyota expansion happened here. What I want to ask the Premier is, what are you doing to change this negative image of this jurisdiction so that we can create the kinds of jobs that all of us in this House are desirous of doing?

Hon Mr Rae: Let me say to the honourable member very directly this: For example, he raises he issue of Hydro costs. Let's talk about Hydro costs. Let's talk about why they're as high as they are. Let's talk about what's happened.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Hon Mr Rae: Perhaps the honourable member could stand up and say how he would deal with the $31-billion debt which Hydro now has.

I want to say to the honourable member, we recognize our obligation to be competitive, and I think it's also our obligation -- it's a shared obligation on the part of everyone in this House -- to talk up the province and not to talk it down, and to do everything we can to keep our cost structures competitive. That's exactly what we're intending to do and that's exactly what we're doing.

ONTARIO HYDRO

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): My question is for the Minister of Energy. Ontario Hydro is currently developing plans for a new right of way from Sudbury to Toronto. There's been a great deal of concern on the part of local residents and community groups who will be affected by this project.

These groups are voicing two major concerns. First, why does Hydro need another major transmission route from Sudbury to Toronto? The second concern relates to the reason Ontario Hydro would be looking at 250 acres of prime agricultural land for a new transformer station. Please explain the rationale for proceeding with these massive capital projects, taking into consideration your plans for the utility in Ontario.

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Minister of Energy): Obviously, the member didn't listen the other day when one of my colleagues asked me almost precisely the same question, or he would have been aware of the answer before he even got up today.

Hydro's proposals for the Sudbury-to-Toronto line were proposals that were developed as part of its 25-year plan, a plan that was tabled, as the member is well aware, at the Environmental Assessment Board hearing in 1989. Part of that proposal has already been deferred. The EA hearings around the proposed options will proceed simply so that we can satisfy the question which the member has raised, the question of need.

The environmental assessment process, as the member should well know, demands that Hydro, in its environmental assessment proposal, substantiate the need for the line in the first place. Part of the proposal has already been deferred by Hydro board's decision last month.

Mr Jordan: The purpose of the environmental assessment hearing was to assess the 25-year demand-supply plan. You scrapped that plan; there is no 25-year demand-supply plan. Why are you continuing with these environmental hearings for projects that are not relative to your plans for Hydro in the province of Ontario? You're spending $500,000 a week on these environmental assessment hearings on a plan that has been scrapped. Would you please direct them to terminate those hearings until there is a plan that you can put forward that requires such environmental hearings?

Hon Mr Charlton: Very briefly, obviously the member is somewhat confused. There are two environmental assessment processes going on here. One is the 25-year-plan hearing; the other is the environmental assessments that have to go on around the individual proposals which Hydro makes. That process will continue.

The member knows, for example, that the Manitoba purchase still has not been cancelled. It may be deferred, but those lines will be required if that purchase proceeds, and Hydro intends to proceed with the environmental assessment hearings.

JOHN PIPER

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The Attorney General has a response to a question asked earlier.

Hon Howard Hampton (Attorney General): Last Thursday, I was asked a couple of questions by the member for Renfrew North. I gave an undertaking that I would attempt to provide the information to him by today and I wish now to respond to the questions asked of me by him last week relating to advice given by the Ministry of the Attorney General to the Premier's principal secretary. The questions asked in the House by the member were supplemented by other questions contained in a letter written to me on November 26.

As the House was advised last week, Ms Melody Morrison phoned the Deputy Attorney General at his home on Sunday, November 22, at about 10 am, seeking advice on whether Mr John Piper could re-enter his office to remove his personal property and, if so, how it should be done. The Deputy Attorney General advised her that he would provide her with advice after consulting with senior ministry counsel. He then consulted by telephone the director of criminal prosecutions, after which he phoned Ms Morrison back at about 11:30 am.

The legal advice he gave her was that Mr Piper did have the right to enter and remove only his personal property, but that he could not remove any government or work-related property. Further, he advised that she should go into the office with him, observe him as he gathered the items up --

Interjection.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Hampton: -- and then inspect the property to ensure only strictly personal property was taken.

As mentioned in the House last week, I am advised that Ms Morrison did follow the advice that she was given.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Hampton: Mr Piper was supervised throughout and all of the property was examined before it was removed. The Ontario Provincial Police had been contacted by the Ministry of the Attorney General on Friday, November 20, and asked to undertake an investigation into allegations regarding Mr Piper. That investigation is ongoing.

While the OPP were not aware in advance that Mr Piper was removing two boxes of his personal property, I am advised that Ms Morrison has met with them and has provided them with a list of property that was removed. The Deputy Attorney General did not consult with any individuals other than the director of criminal prosecutions. I was advised on Monday, November 23, that this legal advice had been requested and given.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): My question to the Attorney General is simply this, in light of what he said: How is it possible that in a matter so sensitive as the one the police are now investigating, the dirty trickster, Mr Piper, was allowed to go back to his office, accompanied only by someone from the same office --

Interjection.

The Speaker: Order.

Mr Conway: -- and no one seemed to bother to call the OPP to tell them that this visit was going to occur and nobody, including the Deputy Attorney General, seemed to think that it was worth his while to suggest to the OPP that they be present at the point of that very crucial visit? How did that all happen?

Hon Mr Hampton: First of all, Mr Spiker -- Mr Speaker. Perhaps the former is more appropriate, Mr Speaker.

First of all, as a matter of law, Mr Piper is entitled to his personal property. That was the question that was asked and that question was answered.

Second of all, the advice was asked for, as advice is routinely asked of the Ministry of the Attorney General by all ministries within the government as to what are the legal responsibilities, what are the legal obligations and so on. That advice was given in that vein.

Secondly, the Ontario Provincial Police have been advised that Mr Piper did remove two boxes of his personal property. I understand they have been told exactly what property was removed by Mr Piper and they have had an opportunity to further follow up on that.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Hampton: The member may wish to second-guess and third-guess. That is his freedom to do so. If the Ontario Provincial Police believe that there is anything significant here, I am sure they will look into it.

The Speaker: The time for oral questions has expired. Motions? Petitions.

PETITIONS

GAMBLING

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I have a petition and it reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the NDP government is considering legalizing casinos and video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario; and

"Whereas there is great public concern about the negative impact that will result from the abovementioned implementations,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government stop looking to casinos and video lottery terminals as a 'quick-fix' solution to its fiscal problems and concentrate instead on eliminating wasteful government spending."

I support this petition. I've signed it.

Mr Dennis Drainville (Victoria-Haliburton): It is my great privilege again to read into the record a petition sent by the good burghers of Ontario, from Owen Sound and Lindsay and from other parts around the province.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has traditionally had a commitment to family life and quality of life for all the citizens of Ontario; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has had a historical concern for the poor in society, who are particularly at risk each time the practice of gambling is expanded; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the citizens of Ontario have not been consulted regarding the introduction of legalized gambling casinos despite the fact that such a decision is a significant change of government policy and was never part of the mandate given to the government by the people of Ontario;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos by regulation and that appropriate legislation be introduced into the assembly, along with a process which includes significant opportunities for public consultation and full public hearings as a means of allowing the citizens of Ontario to express themselves on this new and questionable initiative."

I am glad to affix my signature, Mr Speaker, and to have these join the thousands of others who have petitioned this very same thing.

PORNOGRAPHY

Mr Hugh P. O'Neil (Quinte): I have a petition from the Quinte area which I'd like to present. The signatures were gathered by Mr Dave Switzer of Frankford. It reads:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

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

"Whereas pornography is exploitive of women, viewing them as mere objects of possession used as a man sees fit;

"Whereas police experience and academic research indicates that this mentality directly contributes to the escalating problem of rape and battered women;

"Whereas pornography degrades and dehumanizes women in our society;

"Whereas the 1991 federal Criminal Code,

section 163, is clear and concise in its definition of 'obscenity';

"We, the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the Honourable Howard Hampton, Attorney General of Ontario, to insist that the Ontario Film Review Board live up to its mandate when reviewing films and implement the letter of the law."

I present this petition, Mr Speaker.

POLICE USE OF FIREARMS

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): I have a petition to the Parliament of Ontario.

"Whereas the proposed NDP use-of-force legislation requiring police officers to write a report whenever they should unholster their pistols in anticipation of a situation of danger poses a potentially serious threat to their safety and security;

"Whereas this proposed legislation also poses a grave threat to the safety and security of the citizens and their communities the police officers are sworn to serve and protect;

"Whereas the police officers themselves are not being consulted in a meaningful way by the Rae administration concerning this proposed legislation that so seriously affects their safety on the front line of service to the public; and

"Whereas we, in union with the spouses of Ontario police officers, support the health and safety concerns of members of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association and other police officers across the province,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"That Premier Bob Rae undertake to invite immediately representatives of front-line police officers to a meeting to discuss their legitimate concerns without setting any preconditions for such a meeting, and

"That this NDP administration which in the past made health and safety one of its primary concerns, determine to exhibit the same concern about the lives of the men and women who police our communities as it does about people who work in factories, offices and elsewhere."

I'm very happy to sign my name to this petition.

MUNICIPAL BOUNDARIES

Mrs Irene Mathyssen (Middlesex): I have a petition signed by 32 residents of the county of Middlesex and London area, who petition this Legislature as follows:

"To set aside the report by arbitrator John Brant because it does not reflect the expressed wishes of the majority who participated in arbitration hearings, it is not in the best interests of the London and Middlesex area because other and alternative solutions exist, it awards far too extensive an area of annexation to the city of London, and will jeopardize agricultural land, the viability of the county of Middlesex and our rural way of life."

I have signed my name to this petition.

GAMBLING

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): My petition is from the Church of the Resurrection, which is located in Thorold. It reads as follows. It is a petition to members of the provincial Parliament of Ontario re the proposal to license a permanent gambling establishment in the Niagara Peninsula:

"I, the undersigned, hereby register my opposition in the strongest of terms to the proposal to establish and license a permanent gambling enterprise in the Niagara Peninsula. I believe in the need of keeping this area as a place where family and holiday time will be enriched with quality of life. Such gaming establishments will be detrimental to the fabric of the society in Ontario and in the Niagara region in particular. I believe that licensed gambling will cause increased hardship on many families and will be an invitation for more criminal activity.

"By my signature here attached I ask you not to license gambling anywhere in the Niagara Peninsula."

It's signed by a large number of residents and I affix my signature to this as I am in agreement with the petition.

EDUCATION FINANCING

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It reads:

"Whereas the British North America Act of 1867 recognizes the right of Catholic students to a Catholic education; and

"Whereas the Metropolitan Separate School Board educates more than 104,000 students across Metropolitan Toronto; and

"Whereas the Metropolitan Separate School Board is able to spend $1,678 less on each of its elementary school students and $2,502 less on each of its secondary school students than our public school counterpart,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to act now and restructure the way in which municipal and provincial tax dollars are apportioned so that Ontario's two principal education systems are funded not only fully but with equity and equality."

I've put my name on that petition.

GAMBLING

Mr Ron Hansen (Lincoln): I have a petition here. It's from the First Baptist Church in Beamsville and Concordia Lutheran in Fonthill.

"Petition to the members of the provincial Parliament of Ontario:

"Proposal to license a permanent gambling establishment in the Niagara Peninsula:

"I, the undersigned, hereby register my opposition in the strongest terms to the proposal to establish and license a permanent gambling enterprise in the Niagara Peninsula. I believe in the need of keeping this area as a place where family and holiday time will be enriched with quality of life. Such gambling establishments will be detrimental to the fabric of the society in Ontario and in the Niagara region in particular. I believe that licensed gambling will cause increased hardship on many families and will be an invitation for more criminal activity.

"By my signature here attached, I ask you not to license gambling anywhere in the Niagara Peninsula."

I affix my signature to this petition.

PSYCHOGERIATRIC CARE

Mr Robert Chiarelli (Ottawa West): I have a petition signed by a number of people from Ottawa-Carleton.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the residents of Ottawa-Carleton are presently required to transfer to Brockville Psychiatric Hospital for medium- and long-term psychogeriatric treatment; and

"Whereas there is physical space available in existing facilities in the Ottawa-Carleton region; and

"Whereas the geographic distance constitutes an unreasonable hardship for families who want to provide ongoing support and to alleviate the emotional turmoil suffered by families now compelled to place their loved ones outside their geographic area,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"To provide funding for long-term psychogeriatric care including hospital beds in Ottawa-Carleton, and we urge this funding to take place as quickly as possible."

I agree with the petition and have affixed my name.

GAMBLING

Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey): I would also like to add many names to the list that my friend from Victoria-Haliburton introduced into the House, and I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has traditionally had a commitment to the family life and quality of life for all the citizens of Ontario; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has had a historical concern for the poor in society, who are particularly at risk each time the practice of gambling is expanded; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the citizens of Ontario have not been consulted regarding the introduction of legalized gambling casinos, despite the fact that such a decision is a significant change of government policy and was never part of the mandate given to the government by the people of Ontario,

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government immediately cease all moneys to establish gambling casinos by regulation and that appropriate legislation be introduced into the assembly, along with a process which includes significant opportunities for public consultation and full public hearings as a means of allowing the citizens of Ontario to express themselves on this new and questionable initiative."

I have signed this.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I have a petition here from some 18 or 20 people from the community of Timmins, addressed to the members of provincial Parliament.

"I, the undersigned, hereby register my opposition in the strongest of terms to Bill 38, which will eliminate Sunday from the definition of 'legal holiday' in the Retail Business Holidays Act.

"I believe in the need for keeping Sunday as a holiday for family time, quality of life and religious freedom. The elimination of such a day will be detrimental to the fabric of society in Ontario and will cause increased hardship on many families.

"The amendments included in Bill 38, dated June 3, 1992, to delete all Sundays except Easter from the definition of 'legal holiday' and reclassify them as working days should be defeated."

I affix my signature.

LABOUR LEGISLATION

Mr John Sola (Mississauga East): I have a petition which reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas independent and non-partisan economic studies have concluded that the proposed changes to Ontario labour legislation will increase job losses; and

"Whereas they will cause a decline in investment in Ontario; and

"Whereas they will seriously undermine the recovery and the maintenance of a sound economic environment in the province;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the Ontario government declare a moratorium on any proposed changes to the labour legislation in the best interests of the people of Ontario."

It is signed by 54 people throughout the province.

INVESTMENT FUND

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas we, the undersigned members of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, do not want our pension funds invested in the Ontario investment fund; and

"Whereas we cannot jeopardize our retirement incomes by allowing the government to use our pension funds to further the NDP's political agenda; and

"Whereas the provincial government has no business gambling with the retirement income of private citizens,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to guarantee the independence of private pension funds by withdrawing the proposed Ontario investment fund."

I have affixed my name to this petition.

GAMBLING

Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): I am presenting a petition signed by 48 residents of the Niagara Peninsula. Their church is located in my riding of St Catharines-Brock, and the petition reads as follows:

"We, the Church of the Resurrection, wish to express our concern and opposition to the proposed gambling casino in Niagara Falls. Our church is a regional church, with most of our congregation from St Catharines and some from Thorold, Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Welland, Lowbanks, Fonthill, Fenwick, St Anns, Jordan and Beamsville."

As has been echoed by a number of members in this House already, they are concerned about a licence being granted in the Niagara Peninsula and they are concerned about criminal activity etc. I do agree with the comments made by the constituents, so I will be affixing my name to this petition.

POLICE USE OF FIREARMS

Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the proposed NDP use-of-force legislation requiring police officers to write a report whenever they should unholster their pistols in anticipation of a situation of danger poses a potentially serious threat to their safety and security;

"Whereas the proposed legislation also poses a grave threat to the safety and security of the citizens and the communities police officers are sworn to serve and protect;

"Whereas the police officers themselves are not being consulted in a meaningful way by the Rae administration concerning this proposed legislation that so seriously affects their safety on the front line of service to the public; and

"Whereas we, in union with the spouses of Ontario police officers, support the health and safety concerns of members of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association and other police officers across the province,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"That Premier Bob Rae undertake to invite immediately representatives of front-line police officers to a meeting to discuss their legitimate concerns without setting any preconditions for such a meeting, and

"That this NDP administration, which in the past made health and safety one of its primary concerns, determine to exhibit the same concern about the lives of the men and women who police our communities as it does about people who work in factories, offices and elsewhere."

I affix my name and my signature to this petition.

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Mr Hansen from the standing committee on finance and economic affairs presented the committee's report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bill as amended:

Bill 75,

An Act respecting Annexations to the City of London and to certain municipalities in the County of Middlesex / Loi concernant les annexions faites à la cité de London et à certaines municipalités du comté de Middlesex.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Shall the report be received and adopted? Agreed.

Shall Bill 75 be ordered for third reading? Agreed.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

EXTENDED HOURS OF MEETING

Ms Coppen, on behalf of Mr Cooke, moved government notice of motion number 21, pursuant to standing order 6(b):

That, notwithstanding standing order 9, the House shall continue to meet from 6 pm to 12 midnight on November 30, December 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1992, at which time the Speaker shall adjourn the House without motion, until the next sessional day.

Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): It has been my understanding that there's been agreement that the time be divided between the two opposition parties.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I'm pleased this afternoon to have an opportunity to discuss some of the public's business under this particular motion standing in the name of the government House leader and put by his colleague the chief government whip.

It is, as is obvious from the wording of the motion, an effort by the government, as the government is quite properly allowed under the new standing orders, to extend the sittings in the last two weeks of the session. I, myself, don't have any particular problems with that provision since I had something to do with arguing its case just a couple of years ago, but I do want to use the opportunity this afternoon to talk about a couple of things relating to House business that this motion, I think, provides me with an opportunity to do.

The first has to do with a very, very bad habit we're getting into in this place. I have not had official confirmation from the Minister of Agriculture and Food because he could not be here, but I heard the other day -- in fact, I heard on the weekend -- that it's the plan of the government, having introduced the so-called stable funding legislation on farm organizations last Thursday, to in fact have that bill completed before we rise on the due date of Thursday, December 10. I can't believe it.

I can't believe that there is anyone in this Legislature who honestly thinks that we can now use these new rules to preclude not only a good legislative debate but, in this case and more importantly, a debate that will allow farmers in this particular initiative to come to a legislative committee and speak their minds.

I understand that at the recent New Democratic Party council meeting at the University of Toronto over the past weekend there was some pressure brought to bear on the government party from farmers in this connection. I just simply have to believe that there is no one here, including the Minister of Agriculture and Food, who honestly thinks we can now do business in this place by introducing significant legislation that the House, and in fact, I gather, many outside the House, have not seen prior to its introduction on Thursday, November 27, if that's the right date.

None the less, we are expected to pass the bill without any hearings in two weeks and three days. That, I think, is a wrongheadedness that surely must be imaginary.

I know that my friend the member for Oxford, a reasonable fellow, and his colleague the member for Lambton, representing large farm communities in southwestern Ontario, wouldn't for a moment countenance any legislative proposition that would have a bill of that kind introduced one week and passed without hearings 10 days later.

If there's anyone around here who's thinking that's the way this railroad is going to be run, I am telling whomever cares to listen, that without being particularly difficult, I will do everything I can. I want to say to my friends opposite to think about it. Surely, that's not the way we're going to run this place. If it is, I'm going to tell you that this government or any government will do so at its peril.

It concerns me that while we all want to see the place made more efficient -- unlike some over here I'm quite prepared to accept many of the sanctions in the new standing orders. I find obnoxious the way they have been interpreted and applied in some cases. "Obnoxious" understates my protest, but as I have said here on earlier occasions, the bad angels in me will want to keep all of those precedents and apply them ruthlessly against some of their architects some years from now. I just hope that when that day comes, my good angels will override my bad angels. I have to say --

Interjections.

Mr Conway: Is there any point? There seems to be --

The Speaker: To the member for Renfrew North, indeed there are a number of private conversations. It would be appreciated if perhaps members could find a different place to hold their private conversations, and the member for Renfrew North can continue.

Mr Conway: Let me just summarize that first concern. If anyone here on either side -- I don't mean this just as a criticism of the government side. If people now think the way this place is going to be run is that a minister or anyone else can come in here and drop a legislative proposition like stable funding on November 27 or 28 and the bill is going to be completed in two weeks with no opportunity for anyone out there to even come and voice a concern at a committee hearing, then I think we all better think again.

I know the member for Chatham-Kent has a view on stable funding. We probably, uncharacteristically, agree on that subject, but whether we agree or not is immaterial. The notion that this railroad is going to be run so expeditiously that people are not going to get any kind of an opportunity to come in and speak their piece on a major bill -- I can imagine administrative matters, housekeeping deals that do not need a great deal of time, but I want to say to my friends opposite --

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): No, no. It was the Liberals and the Tories who want to push this through.

Mr Conway: Pardon me?

Mr Hope: Don't want to change it.

Mr Conway: I don't know what the member is -- I'd like to be engaged in the debate, but there's no point, it seems to me, being made with that.

Mr Hope: Well, what's your party's position on the bill?

Mr Conway: I am telling you that I certainly don't favour the proposition that has been developed and I intend to speak and vote against it. I understand others will have a contrary view. That's what Parliament's all about. But what I am very concerned about is that the public is going to have virtually no opportunity to get a say.

The Lanark-Renfrew New Democratic riding association has clearly indicated a protest over this particular initiative, and it is now increasingly concerned not just about the substance of the bill but about a legislative timetable that's going to railroad the thing through, lickety-split, without anybody getting a chance to really think about it or talk to it. That is not what was intended when we imagined changing the rules to provide for things like late sittings as we get to the end of the fall and spring sessions.

I have no intention of denying my friend from Orono or anyone else a reasonable Christmas vacation. But having said that, it is not acceptable, nor should it be thought acceptable by anyone, that we can use these new rules to railroad major pieces of legislation through this House so that members can't have an opportunity, and as I said earlier, people out in the community who in this case won't even know what's in the bill.

I can imagine farmers, for example, getting their farm journals next week telling them that a bill has been introduced, and by the time they get a chance to write or call their local member, they may very well be told the matter's done. But not if I have my way. I don't think that's an unreasonable position for me or anyone else to take.

I want to take the other part of my time this afternoon to deal with the so-called ethics problem the government is having, particularly in the Premier's office. There has been a lot of discussion in this chamber in the last two weeks.

I fear that perhaps, in my enthusiasm, I've not been able to explain to some of my colleagues on both sides why it is I feel as strongly as I do, particularly about the matter involving Mr John Piper, and why I think, before we adjourn this fall sitting, we are obligated as a self-respecting Legislature to resolve that this matter will be referred to a committee -- it probably should be to the old elections and privileges committee, in my view -- to look at the way in which the public trust has been superintended in the highest office in the province, namely, the Premier's office.

I understand my friend from St Catharines was making the point earlier today that those of us in the opposition are not paid to be scrupulously objective. There is a subjectivity to our job, just as there is to the job of the members on the treasury bench. But I just simply want to remind honourable members what we have in this case. If some of us are a bit overwrought by the Piper case, it's because we've been around a while and we've had a great deal of respect and regard for that part of the New Democratic tradition which has, perhaps better than any of the other political parties, reached out to assist the most disadvantaged people in our community.

I think it is very important that all of us reflect upon what we know happened, what has been admitted to by the Premier's former communications adviser, Mr Piper, in this particular respect. Mr Piper has admitted to taking information that none of us outside of the department of justice ought ever to have, namely, a complete criminal history of an Ontario citizen and resident. Somehow Mr Piper came into possession of that information. He therefore, having that information, decided to use the information in a way that was intended to be transparently detrimental to the person involved, namely, Ms Judi Harris.

There was a clear wilfulness of intent on the part of the Premier's principal communications adviser.

I would go one step further and say that on the basis of the evidence such as I have before me, it seems clear that what Mr Piper was endeavouring to do was to take this highly sensitive information, which he ought never to have had and ought never to have used, and he was prepared to take and use that information in a way that was going to injure a party, a citizen of the province, Ms Harris, who had taken up an argument with the former Minister of Energy, Mr Ferguson, the member for Kitchener.

It is that conduct that is so absolutely discreditable. I would say to my friend the member for Riverdale, among others, that it is particularly discreditable for anyone working in a Premier's office, most especially working in the office of a New Democratic Premier, though, let me add, it is inexcusable on any count. But that it could happen in Bob Rae's office is almost unbelievable, because these people in that new democracy have opined with great vigour and greater regularity that they are the moral high ground. They have lectured those of us in lesser ranks for many a decade about their moral purity.

Now we've got someone Bob Rae selected, someone Bob Rae appointed to the innermost part of his government, the heart of his office, the director of communications: We've now got Mr Piper admitting to that kind of wrongdoing. It seems quite clear that what in fact was happening here was that Mr Piper was very anxious to use this information in a way that was going to affect a civil proceeding as between Mr Ferguson and Ms Harris, another reprehensible aspect of his strategy in this connection.

It has been observed by my leader and by others, including the leader of the third party, that the so-called Piper affair is another example of a very serious problem in this government, where when the government of Bob Rae is attacked, it is willing, in this case and in the Martel case, to use information that governments have in their confidential possession to have at their enemies in the public domain. That is a mindset that is very troubling.

We know, and I can confess better than most people, that all governments have had their problems, but one of the reasons I became so upset the other day when I read Mr Rae's comments in the Windsor Star and the Ottawa Citizen -- "Yes, it was unfortunate and it shouldn't have happened; I don't condone it, but you know, all governments have their problems" -- was that Mr Rae was trying to put out the line that this was really just like so many of the other issues that this government and other governments have had.

I beg to differ. I cannot think of another case, and I'm prepared to stand corrected, where officials as high in a government as Ms Martel last year and Mr Piper this year were apparently so willing to take information, highly sensitive and confidential information, and use that with the full force of government at their backs to publicly attack individuals who had begged to differ with the NDP government of Ontario. That is a qualitative difference that makes the Piper and Martel cases very worrisome.

Now we're told that all is well because the Premier has launched, through the department of justice, an inquiry, a police inquiry. The police inquiry, as the member from Leeds has properly pointed out, is a narrow inquiry that's going to look at whether there was any criminal wrongdoing on the part of Mr Piper when he called Ms Dawson to his office and offered her that information. That is quite properly a matter for the police to inquire into. But there is obviously a lot more in this than the narrow band of that police inquiry.

There is the fundamental question of what kind of ethical environment were people like John Piper working in when they thought they could actually do this kind of deed and it would somehow be all right. That's not going to be a matter for the police inquiry.

That's why, before we leave this place in two or three weeks' time, it is, I believe, incumbent on this Legislature to resolve that this matter be referred to a legislative committee so that it can be looked at from the point of view of the other issues -- ministerial conduct, and that is the ministerial conduct of the Premier because John Piper was one of his top aides, and the conduct of senior advisers -- and not just in a narrow sense of the police inquiry.

I say to my friends opposite, and let me be even more direct, to the women in the NDP caucus, who have, I think, been a very heroic group as they have struck out -- the minister responsible for women's issues has been prepared to lecture some of the old boys, myself included. While I haven't liked it, I've had to listen to it and I understand something of her perspective. But I say to my friends in the women's caucus across the way, how much longer can you stand some of this?

I mean, yes, the terrible Tories and the terrible Grits did some bad things, but I don't believe that John Robarts or Bill Davis or David Peterson ever presided over something quite as serious as what John Piper was prepared to do to Judi Harris. For those of us who are asked to wear ribbons, who are asked to wear buttons, who are asked to join in these lengthy statements of support, I say to those women across the way, what are you prepared to do to assist those of us in this Legislature who believe that there is more to this Piper affair than just the police inquiry?

The Attorney General gave an answer this afternoon to my question of last Thursday.

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would suggest that if it's so important to extend the sitting hours of this House, it may also be important to have a quorum.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Could the clerk check to see if we do have a quorum, please.

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees (Mrs Deborah Deller): Mr Speaker, a quorum is present.

The Acting Speaker: A quorum is present. The honourable member for Renfrew North.

Mr Conway: I appreciated the response --

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. The member is not in his seat and he knows interjections are out of order. Please.

Mr Conway: Mr Speaker, I understand and I appreciated the response this afternoon from the Attorney General about who did what and when 10 days ago, but I ask my friends opposite, and I don't say this facetiously, to think about what the Attorney General has had to say.

We have now been told -- and by the way, I know Melody Morrison and I have a high regard for her. It's because I have a high regard for her and because I know how long she's been around, and I know George Thomson, a very distinguished public servant, that I just find this response this afternoon absolutely mind-numbing. Unlike the member for London South, I'm not a lawyer, but I say to myself, "What were we told this afternoon?"

Mr David Winninger (London South): You are very good at hyperbole.

Mr Conway: Well, I may be. I want to say to my friends opposite that maybe, yes, but if there is some hyperbole, it's because I can't believe it. I can't believe I'm in this place after all of these years -- people smile, and I know you think I just do go on, but if I did what John Piper did, I'm telling you, I just can't believe it. To viciously attack the most helpless in this community in the name of Bob Rae is so disgusting. I'm sorry. If I'm a bit hyperbolic, then I apologize to the tender sensibilities of friends opposite.

What are we told now? We are told that the Premier's chief of staff accompanied this dirty trickster, this scoundrel -- my friend Phillips knows this character in a way that I don't, but essentially what Phillips tells me is that if you know John Piper, this is exactly what one ought to have expected. I'll say one thing further. To this day --

Mr Winninger: That's hearsay.

Mr Conway: Pardon me?

Mr Winninger: Hearsay evidence. Is that the best you can do?

Mr Conway: Well, my friend Phillips has been around Toronto school boards for a long time, and so has Mr Piper. I don't know Mr Piper, but I'm going to tell you, I gather from listening to Gerry Phillips that the line is, "What's bred in the bone must out in the flesh." He did precisely what he could have been predicted to have done. I don't know the man, I repeat, but I know what he did, and what he did is absolutely disgusting.

When the Premier came off the plane in Vancouver, his reaction, I thought, was perfectly solid and commendable. I would have reacted in the same fashion. When he said, "I'm not talking to him now or ever again," I could understand his anger.

What then do we find? His chief of staff, two days later, is accompanying the honourable dirty trickster -- what a phrase: the dishonourable dirty trickster -- back to the scene of the crime without anyone calling the cops to tell them, these people who are undertaking the police inquiry, that they're making this late-night visit to remove materials.

If this had been an issue of drunk driving or a sexual peccadillo, I mightn't have been as concerned about the removal of papers and things, but remember what this character, Piper, was doing in that office. He was mounting a dirty tricks campaign against one of the victims of Grandview, Judi Harris. Now, if he was prepared to do that with Judi Harris, what else do you suppose he might have been prepared to do?

Now we're told that he was allowed to go in to decide for himself basically what were his personal effects and to take out two boxes of things. I wonder how much computer erasure there was. I wonder how many discs were in those boxes. I don't know, but I can't imagine ever being so implicated and anyone allowing me to go back with my pal Bradley, or Bob Richardson from Lyn McLeod's office, to say, "Oh, Conway, yes, well, you do what we tell you to do." It would be just unthinkable. Talk about a conflict of interest. As I say, I don't know Piper but I know Morrison, and I can't believe that Melody put herself in a position of such difficulty.

How are we ever going to know? It's that office which is going to be under investigation. There may be nothing to my charges, but who's to know?

Interjection: Probably not.

Mr Conway: The member from wherever says, "Probably not." All I know is that the man who brought this latest disgrace, and this ultimate disgrace, on this government was up to a rotten, miserable, nasty dirty-tricks campaign against a defenceless citizen in this province who has been victimized, apparently, quite enough by a number of people.

Now I'm being asked, unbelievably, to accept the idea that somebody else from the office under investigation was allowed to go back and supervise Mr Piper as he took things out of there, and nobody, not the Deputy Attorney General, not the chief of staff to the Premier, not the Attorney General, no one, bothered to phone the police.

All we've heard from the government in the last 10 days is about the first-order importance of the police inquiry. There's a hell of a lot of credibility to a police investigation when the scoundrel and one of his coworkers, not a scoundrel in my view, Ms Morrison, were none the less allowed to go back to the scene of the crime and remove what I believe could very well be some of the evidence.

I'll take my seat by making the point again. I don't know what happened here. You know what may have happened? It may have been a complete oversight by Ms Morrison and other people. But I ask reasonable people across the way to imagine what this looks like to anyone on this side of the House or outside. Imagine the idea that you could be allowed to go back unsupervised by the police, accompanied only by somebody who is also going to be under investigation by the very nature of the offence and who is not at arm's length from the villain in this piece, Mr Piper, and being allowed to, on your own, walk out of the building with whatever you consider to be your personal effects.

Today -- and I haven't seen the Hansard -- the Attorney General is now suggesting that there was some kind of a record kept. That's going to be interesting.

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): I hope some day somebody goes after you on a personal level.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. The member for Downsview is not in his seat. He continues to interject, and we will not accept this.

Mr Conway: I just want to say that what happened here is deeply offensive to political ethics inside this Legislature and outside, and I have to believe that everybody understands that. I have to believe, because the offence in this case is so unprecedented and so serious, that we will all want to do the right thing, and that is get to the bottom of the environment in Mr Piper's office that allowed him to imagine that he could do something as outrageous and as unthinkable as he was prepared to do to Judi Harris. That's why I believe there is a reasonable and good case for a legislative inquiry into the whole surrounding of the Piper affair.

I will say again that in the Martel matter we had a legislative inquiry running alongside of a police inquiry, and I can tell you that all members of all parties behaved, I think, quite admirably in keeping confidential that information which they were told to keep to themselves. In my memory, that was done. It's not unusual to have a police investigation running alongside of a legislative inquiry.

But I can't believe there is anyone -- and I can't believe the women's caucus in the New Democratic Party is going to allow this issue to simply rest with a police inquiry, because the issues at stake go much beyond the narrow question of criminal misconduct. There are fundamental issues of ethics and judgement and operations that we have an obligation to get to the bottom of.

If anybody over there, including my friend the Premier, thinks that he's going to rag the puck with this police investigation for another nine days and that'll be the end of this, I'll just say to him and to his colleagues that it will be a frosty Friday in July before I ever feel the urge to join my friends in the new democracy, particularly as they invite us all to do certain things in the area of victims' rights and women's issues, because we have a female victim here who was absolutely assaulted by the highest office in the land, and she and all of the people she stands for deserve more in terms of accountability than the narrow police inquiry is ever going to be able to provide.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate on Mr Cooke's motion?

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I rise today on this motion to continue the proceedings past 6 o'clock to midnight for the next two weeks. When I tell people in my riding, when they ask me what I'm going to be doing for the next little while, "I'm going to be sitting till midnight to debate bills that this House has put forward," they find it rather strange, particularly when the government, the NDP, has just recently passed a set of rules for this place which shorten the proceedings by two weeks. Here we are sitting for the next two weeks, perhaps at least the next two weeks, past midnight to discuss a number of bills.

We start listening to what this government has yet to do. They have introduced a number of bills. We've had second reading on a number of bills. We have to proceed with third reading on a number of bills. Second reading that is required -- and I'm going to list a number of these bills to show how it is absolutely impossible for this government to complete the agenda that has been put forward. It has no idea how to govern this place. It puts forward these bills -- I don't know what's going to happen to them; I suspect they'll die, but here they are:

In the next two weeks, we are going to be having second reading on the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board; Bill 90, which is apartments and houses; the political activity rights issue; pay equity in the public service; the OLRA construction issue; the long-term care issue, which was just recently put forward.

Third reading is required on Toronto Islands, where of course they're building non-profit housing and co-op housing; they're expanding the housing on our parklands in Toronto Islands --

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Is that on the flood plain?

Mr Tilson: Well, they're building it on flood plains, they're building it on parklands and, more importantly, parklands which -- I have yet to understand why they're going on that policy, on a policy they can't afford.

As well, they're proceeding with the road safety agency, where third reading is required -- that's Bill 39; the education act, Bill 88; market value assessment -- that's Bill 94; the three advocacy bills. Members of the public contact my office and they ask where we are on that and, of course, the bills have been so substantially changed from when we first proceeded with these bills, no one really knows where we're going. Yet somehow I suspect this government is going to try and ram this through in the next two weeks, sitting till midnight.

The subject of teachers' pensions; the greater London issue, Bill 75; Sunday shopping, Bill 38, remember that? Remember how that issue, Bill 38 -- I don't know whether we're going to debate on that or not. There are many people in the government and many on this side who -- Sunday shopping is now proceeding in this province and yet there's no law. It's complete anarchy as far as the whole subject of Sunday shopping is concerned. That bill was put forward and the existing law is not being obeyed.

The income tax act, Bill 31; retail sales tax, Bill 32; tobacco act and liquor control act, Bill 85; the vehicle transfer bill, that's Bill 34, which all of us have had many inquiries on. Those are some of the bills -- oh, and of course, there's the AgriCorp package, which is 63, 64 and 65. I believe second and third reading is required for those bills. The game and fish act, which many of us -- particularly in the rural ridings there's been much controversy on that bill. That bill has yet to be proceeded with, Bill 162. Special education, Bill 37; livestock, poultry, bees damage, Bill 78; Ontario Arts Council, Bill 72.

That's just up until last week. This government intends to proceed with that legislation prior to Christmas; at least it hopes to. How they will, I have no idea. Again it's the issue of how is this province governing itself? How are we governing? I guess the image out there, at least, is that we're in a state of chaos. We have all these bills and we've now waited till the last two weeks to proceed with that.

Last Thursday, which is the last day the legislation could be introduced and still receive second reading, a number of bills were introduced: the Long Term Care Statute Law Amendment Act, 1992, which is Bill 101; the Pay Equity Amendment Act, which is Bill 102; the Firefighters Protection Act, which is Bill 103; the Farm Organizations Funding Act, which is Bill 105.

Also introduced last week were the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board Act -- that was introduced last Monday and that's Bill 96; the Limitations Act, which was introduced by the Attorney General last Wednesday -- that's Bill 99; the Regulated Health Professions Amendment Act, Bill 100, and that was introduced last Wednesday.

Isn't it mind-boggling when we hear all these pieces of legislation? Some have had second reading, some have had first reading, some have yet to have third reading. How are we going to do it? You've shortened the rules of this place, you've changed the whole structure of this place. They don't want to sit, and now, to ram it through before Christmas, we're going to debate all these bills, and that will be on time allocation, I might add. So it's become quite a process we have in the Ontario Legislature, quite a strange process to proceed with.

The previous speaker has just spoken on the John Piper affair, and I think that's an issue that I must also address. When we get into that subject, it is very strange, particularly the revelations that were raised today by the Attorney General: how one political individual, Mr Piper, can go to his office, clean out his office with his political associate, under her guidance. We don't know what was in those boxes. We don't know what went on in that office. We have no idea what went on in that office for that period of time that they were allegedly picking up his personal items. The shredder could have been going, for all we know. We don't know. There was absolutely --

Mr Bradley: Could have been?

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): Going non-stop.

Mr Tilson: Well, I hate to make that allegation. That's the why the request for an all-party committee is most reasonable, because we forget what this is all about: This is all about the Premier's office, the top level, and these sorts of activities are going on in the Premier's office, these dirty tricks that have been mentioned in this House, as to how it's been described.

We don't know. Justice must be