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February 24, 2009

39th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2009-Feb-24 (PDF)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L'ONTARIO

Tuesday 24 February 2009 Mardi 24 février 2009

ORDERS OF THE DAY

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS

AMENDMENT ACT

(TEMPORARY HELP AGENCIES), 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LES NORMES D'EMPLOI

(AGENCES DE PLACEMENT TEMPORAIRE)

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

ENERGY RATES

ENERGY RATES

CHILD PROTECTION

GREEN POWER GENERATION

RENEWABLE ENERGY

AND ENERGY CONSERVATION

EMPLOYMENT SUPPORTS

ENERGY CONSERVATION

RENEWABLE ENERGY

AND ENERGY CONSERVATION

CHILD PROTECTION

HEALTH CARE

ONTARIO ECONOMY

HEALTH CARE FUNDING

NORTHERN ONTARIO DEVELOPMENT

CHILD PROTECTION

HOSPITAL SECURITY

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

DIAGNOSTIC SERVICES

RIDING OF PETERBOROUGH

TOURISM

HILLSIDE FESTIVAL

SUDBURY JAIL

WASTE DISPOSAL

RENEWABLE ENERGY

AND ENERGY CONSERVATION

HAZEL MCCALLION

HUMBER VALLEY SHARKS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

ZERO TOLERANCE TO VIOLENCE

ON PUBLIC TRANSIT ACT, 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 SUR LA TOLÉRANCE ZÉRO

À L'ÉGARD DE LA VIOLENCE

DANS LES TRANSPORTS EN COMMUN

MOTIONS

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

SELECT COMMITTEE ON MENTAL HEALTH AND ADDICTIONS

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

PETITIONS

MULTIPLE MYELOMA

WORKPLACE INSURANCE

MULTIPLE MYELOMA

PUBLIC TRANSIT

CHILD CUSTODY

BATHURST HEIGHTS

ADULT LEARNING CENTRE

ORDERS OF THE DAY

GREEN ENERGY AND GREEN

ECONOMY ACT, 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 SUR L'ÉNERGIE VERTE

ET L'ÉCONOMIE VERTE

The House met at 0900.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Good morning. Please remain standing for the Lord's Prayer, followed by the nondenominational prayer.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS

AMENDMENT ACT

(TEMPORARY HELP AGENCIES), 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LES NORMES D'EMPLOI

(AGENCES DE PLACEMENT TEMPORAIRE)

Resuming the debate adjourned on February 18, 2009, on the motion for second reading of Bill 139,

An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act, 2000 in relation to temporary help agencies and certain other matters / Projet de loi 139, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2000 sur les normes d'emploi en ce qui concerne les agences de placement temporaire et certaines autres questions.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Further debate?

Mr. Robert Bailey: I'm pleased to join the debate on Bill 139, the Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2008, that was introduced on December 9 of last year.

Since this bill was introduced, we have done some consultations on it and found that not everyone is happy with the direction that the government is going with this bill. The minister's rhetoric doesn't seem consistent with what this bill will actually do or not do.

My party will be looking forward to this bill going to committee so that it can be studied and we can hear from some in the industry who would like to see positive changes that will still allow temporary hiring agencies to operate in Ontario.

While I appreciate the rhetoric that the government members have used when it comes to this bill, I find it hard to believe that with the economy in the situation that it is, with all of the issues facing this government, they would choose at this time to bring forward a bill like this.

I have been an MPP and a member of this House for approximately a year and a half, and I haven't had one single call or conversation with a constituent who is concerned with this issue. Certainly this isn't a huge crisis in the world of labour that should take up valuable legislative time when there are far more pressing matters that we could be dealing with. I don't get the sense that Ontarians are seized with cracking down on temporary agencies. I think they would much prefer if we were debating a budget or some kind of effort so that the citizens of Ontario think that we care and wish to act on their issues.

However, more to the point of this particular bill, one of the concerns we have had with this bill is that we believe that the government has taken the position that all temporary agencies are bad and that they all need to be improved. What we believe is that you shouldn't treat the good agencies the same as the bad agencies; you cannot paint the industry with a broad brush. If this bill is not amended, it will cause considerable problems, not just with temporary agencies but with companies that use them. Right now, with the economy going as badly as it is, government actions that are going to put more people out of work and make it harder for others to find work need to be stopped.

The government may have the right intention on this bill, but we don't believe they did the homework necessary to completely understand its implications. To give you some examples of why we need changes, many in our caucus have heard from the Association of Canadian Search, Employment and Staffing Services, or ACSESS, who represent many temporary agencies. They presented us with three technical changes to the bill that need to be made in order for their industry to remain viable and thrive.

Now, remember, when their industry is viable, people go to work, so I believe we need to listen to them and act on some of their suggestions. One of the stats that I did learn in some of the background is that approximately 11% of employment in Ontario is through temporary agencies.

One of their biggest concerns is around termination and severance. What the government is proposing is that after 35 weeks of not being sent on an assignment, an employee is terminated and severance needs to be paid. ACSESS pointed out to us that this clause will cause significant harm to term employees in Ontario. Short-term workers who are unemployed or underemployed are the ones who are most in need of work. Staffing companies will be forced to make a decision as to whether they can place that person consistently, and if not, they won't hire them for term work or will terminate them prior to the three months.

The severance issue alone will erect new barriers to job creation. On our side of the House, we want to make sure that barriers are taken down. We also think that this clause can be fixed in committee, and I hope that the government will give consideration to our and the third party's amendments that we will be bringing forward.

One of the other issues we have heard a lot about is the idea that the government is going to crack down and restrict the fees that staffing services charge when a placement gets hired full-time. Generally speaking, many in the industry will charge a fee in the first six months but not after that. I'm not sure how big an issue this actually is; a company in my riding said that they support a number of these changes because they think it will help drive out the unscrupulous operators.

First, the client of a staffing service is a company. The person who is placed is not the client. ACSESS raised some serious concerns with using the Employment Standards Act as a tool to regulate how two businesses deal with each other. The Employment Standards Act governs how employees and employers relate to each other, not how two businesses relate to each other. Temporary agencies incur significant costs when it comes to advertising, recruiting, screening and so forth. There's something to be said for allowing them to function without the arbitrary limitations and regulations put on them by government.

This particular clause does not benefit a worker in any way at all. What it does do is put up another barrier to job creation; our party believes in taking down barriers to job growth.

The current government of Mr. McGuinty is doing its best to stifle entrepreneurship and ingenuity. With bills like this–this is the best they can do? I would be surprised if any of your constituency offices have had any calls complaining about temporary agencies, yet here we are, dealing with it. What we should be dealing with today is a budget. The government had to have pre-budget hearings completed so that we could have an early budget. Now they tell us that the budget will be as late in the fiscal year as it could possibly be. Mr.

McGuinty and his government should be showing the people of Ontario what their plan is to get people back to work, to keep the economy moving and to get jobs created in this province. They won't do that. I believe it's because they have no idea how to deal with this crisis. But why would we expect them to act any differently? It was on this government's watch that we went from a have to a have-not province. The government barely blinked its eyes at that.

Governments around the world have been moving quickly to do what they can to deal with the worldwide recession. The United States government has moved quickly. The Canadian government has moved. Quebec and BC have started moving as well. Dealing with this economic crisis is what governments do, except here in this province. The McGuinty government is frozen like a deer in the headlights. They know there's a problem—he said so just a few weeks ago—but seem afraid to do anything. We don't think that is acceptable. That's why we have presented our economic plan and we have stuck with it. We thought—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): You're supposed to stick to speaking to the bill too.

Mr. Robert Bailey: Yes. I'm going to get right back to that. I think that it's time for this government to come to the table with a meaningful package of reforms that will show that they understand the people are concerned about jobs. That's why we think the debate on Bill 139 should move ahead and go to committee as soon as possible. Don't waste this Legislature's valuable time on issues that Ontarians don't care about.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Questions and comments?

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: It will be my pleasure and privilege to speak about the dignity of work and how this bill falls into that in a few minutes at great length, but suffice it to say, I couldn't disagree more than with the previous speaker from Sarnia—Lambton.

In fact, what we need is this bill and a whole lot more. We need a complete revamp of the Employment Standards Act, we need a living wage of at least $10.25 an hour, we need equal pay for equal work, we need limits on the time that people spend in temp work before they become full-time, we need card-check certification, we need anti-scab legislation, we need sectoral bargaining, and finally, we need enforcement of the employment standards we already have, which we don't have.

So I'll certainly be privileged to speak at length about all of those topics and about how this bill is really kind of like the icing without the cake. We in Ontario, particularly at a time of recession, need a lot more than just this kind of photo-op bill. We need something with substance; we need something that's going to address the fact that we now have in Ontario 37% of the workforce working in precarious employment—most of those, women; most of those, people of colour; most of those, people who are immigrants to this province and deserve better. Their rights have not been considered in the past, and their dignity of work has not been considered.

I'm in a unique position to speak to this bill, in fact, because unlike anyone one else in this House, I owned an agency, and I'm also the employment standards critic. I worked through an agency, owned an agency, am standing here as an employment standards critic and the small business critic. So I look forward to speaking to all aspects of this bill as it relates to agency work, as it relates to the employees that they employ and as it relates, as I said, to the bigger, fuller picture of employment standards in Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The member from Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Yasir Naqvi: Thank you very much, Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to respond to my colleague from Sarnia—Lambton, to talk about Bill 139,

An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act, 2000 in relation to temporary help agencies and certain other matters.

This piece of legislation is extremely important because it really brings the temporary jobs, those individuals who are employed through temporary agencies, into the scope of the Employment Standards Act. We know that the act exists to protect the rights of employees when they are working in employment situations. Thus far, this legislation has precluded people who work on a temporary basis, who are employed through temporary agencies.

It's an important step; it's a step in the right direction. Most importantly, it's a step to ensure that as this government moves forward with its poverty reduction strategy, we put safeguards in place that will ensure that the rights of those individuals, those working families within our communities who are working very hard through temporary agencies, are protected in their employment, that they are not taken advantage of, that they are able to take as much of their pay as they make home so they can spend that money on themselves and on their families within our economy.

This legislation I also see going hand in hand with the payday loan legislation which the McGuinty government just passed here, another very important piece of legislation to ensure that we provide the safeguards necessary for our working families, not to mention the minimum wage increases which this government has put in place, which will be seeing the minimum wage rise to $10.25 by next year. All these steps go hand in hand in ensuring that our working families have the tools necessary to succeed in the community.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ted Arnott): Questions and comments?

Mr. Randy Hillier: I want to congratulate my colleague from Sarnia—Lambton for putting together a good presentation on Bill 139.

I think we ought to look a little bit deeper into this bill as well, and really look at what are going to be the consequences and the effects. I know it's well-intended and offering up more protection, but is it going to reduce temporary employment? Is it going to restrict employers from hiring temporary workers? The people in that industry suggest that it will.

We also have to look at this Liberal government, what they're saying about removing barriers and restrictions and having too much red tape in this province. Then another red tape bill comes in.

We know that they're going to hire another 100 employment standards officers into the bureaucracy at the Ministry of Labour. Right now, over 50% of the employees in that ministry are enforcement and compliance officers, and now we're going to add another 100 and add another $10 million to the cost.

I'd like to comment on the member from the opposite side who mentioned that the Liberals want people to take home as much money as possible from their paycheques. Well, they can't take a lot of money home if you keep taxing and spending and hiring more and more bureaucracy. That should be evident; that doesn't need anybody else to go to a committee. We can't keep increasing the costs of doing business and then suggest at the same time that you want to have people taking more money home.

Let's reduce some of these barriers and expenses.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ted Arnott): Questions and comments?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Well, my, my, my. They're still calling for more deregulation in the face of everything we're seeing in the world economy today. The market went down by how much yesterday—300 points? And we've still got Conservatives who are standing there with the old mantra that you need more deregulation, you've got to get government out of the way of business? These guys just don't learn. At least George Bush started to get it at the end. He had a policy with which he wanted to nationalize banks. He was more progressive than the Conservative Party of Ontario. I just say, my, my, my. Sometimes a lesson is hard-learned.

I want to say to the member from Sarnia—Lambton that I was interested to see that he said nobody's interested in this issue and hardly anybody is getting any phone calls. Nothing could be further from the truth. Listen, I've been travelling around this province along with my fellow colleagues who are running for the leadership of the Ontario New Democratic Party. At almost every public event we go to, this issue is raised, and it is because it is an issue out in Ontario.

People are seeing that more and more jobs that used to be full-time jobs, that were directly created by the employers themselves, are now being farmed out through temporary agencies. Why? Because you can get around many of the provisions of the Employment Standards Act, everything from holidays to the amount of pay that you get and the number of benefits that you may get as a result of working for the employer directly. So people get it. The average worker out there understands that temporary work placement agencies are not necessarily a good thing for the province of Ontario.

I would say this as well: There's something to be said about allowing temporary agencies to function in the first place. I was talking to an individual about three, four months ago who had himself set up a temporary work agency. He used to work for one of the Ontario government ministries when the Tories were in power. He was on a particular project, and when that project was going to be ramped up, he went out and started his own temporary work agency. He was making oodles of money sitting at home and sending people there because he was keeping 30% back for himself. Is that fair to workers?

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ted Arnott): That concludes the time for questions and comments. I will return to the member for Sarnia—Lambton.

Mr. Robert Bailey: I'd like to thank the members from Parkdale—High Park, Ottawa Centre, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, and Timmins—James Bay. I thank the different people who tried to paint me as a rabid capitalist just for wanting to see free enterprise and people prosper in some jobs in this province.

I don't have a problem with the overall intent of the bill. I just tried to point out that at this time there are other, just as important items that we should be debating in this House.

I've spoken with people at a number of these temporary agencies, and they don't have a problem with the overall thrust of the bill. They said it will force out the unscrupulous people anyway. What we would like to do, on our side of the House, is see it go to committee; make those improvements that people point out to us when we have committee. We can have the labour community come in. Also, the temporary agencies, like ACSESS and others, can come in and present their side of the story to all the members of the committee.

At that time I'm sure everyone would agree that there's no legislation that's perfect when it's first drafted and that we would like to work with all three parties: the opposition—I mean the government party—the third party and ourselves—

Interjection.

Mr. Robert Bailey: I'm getting there ahead of ourselves, eh, Mike? Anyway, we'd like to work together to try to make this bill better for the workers of Ontario and for the province.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ted Arnott): Further debate?

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: As I said before, it is a pleasure and a privilege to rise and to speak about what I hope is the dignity of work in the province of Ontario, which is certainly not the state we find ourselves in now.

Right now, about 37% of our workforce, as I said earlier, mainly women, people of colour and new immigrants, are working in precarious jobs. That is to say they don't know when their job will end. Many of them don't have anything but the most basic mandated benefits. They don't have any pension plan and, quite frankly, they don't have much recourse to the halls of power either. What we're talking about is a very large group of people. In the United States, just to the south of us, you're looking at the largest employer being Manpower, a temporary agency. The largest employer in the United States is a temporary agency. The question to my mind is, how ethical is that?

We're a society that deals with lots of stuff, and the stuff is made by people. It's produced by people from offices to factories. We often think, or perhaps we should think more, about the labour that goes into the pens, the glasses, the paper that we use.

We know that in this province we've lost almost 300,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs. The government across the aisle professes to have created more jobs than they've lost, but what kind of jobs are those? These are low-paying jobs, many of them precarious jobs, temporary jobs, jobs without anything but the most basic of benefits, with no security and with no pensions, of course. That's what we're replacing good work with. We're replacing good work with poor work. We're doing that not just in Ontario but around the world.

I mean, when we think about how much is produced in China and under what conditions, we should be ashamed as consumers, never mind as producers. When we think about huge towns that have been given over to sweatshops in the global economy, is that what we want as our future in this province? I'd say no, absolutely not.

When it comes to Bill 139, what are we dealing with here? Are we dealing with something that will substantially change what labour looks like in this province? I would say, and the New Democratic Party would say with me, absolutely not. Is it, again, a step in the right direction? As I've said, it's kind of like the icing with no cake. It's tinkering around the edges of the problem.

The problem is the difference in the way we see the dignity of work. That's the larger ethical problem. We, for some reason, as a community in Ontario no longer see it as a problem that someone works 40 hours a week and can't pay the rent or feed their children. I have many people in south Parkdale, in my riding, who work 40 hours a week at minimum wage and have to use a food bank. Now somehow collectively, we've said that's okay.

I would submit to this group and to you, Mr. Speaker, that that's not okay, that that's absolutely unfair. I grew up in an Ontario, quite frankly, where that wasn't considered fair, where it wasn't considered de rigueur to see people lining up at community soup kitchens, sleeping on the grates at night and working hard all week with no expectation of ever getting ahead, of ever getting their children ahead, of even paying for the basics out of their pocketbook.

In fact, we know, because we've been told by over 60 economists across the country, that the real minimum wage has significantly gone down since the 1970s, that if we were to pay the minimum wage today based on the consumer price index that we were paying in the 1970s, we'd be paying about $10 an hour right now. What is that really? Even if we were paying $10.25 right now, we'd only be paying just over the poverty line.

So the ethical question, which to me is always the major question in these debates: Is it ethically and morally right to pay someone below the poverty line in a city like Toronto, in a province like Ontario, for their work? Is that dignity of work? I would submit that it is not.

What we in the New Democratic Party see is a real need for a complete overhaul of the Employment Standards Act to reflect the new reality in which we find ourselves. Quite frankly, there is some global imperative to this as well and there are some global responses. We don't need to reinvent the wheel here in terms of employment standards or Bill 139, we just need to look to other jurisdictions.

Other countries—New Zealand, Finland—have expanded the scope of their employment standards to address exactly what we are facing here: atypical or non-standard work. Germany has expanded its definition of "employee" to reduce the opportunity to disguise the employment relationship: in other words, an employee working for a client company of a temporary agency, but seen as an employee of the agency. The International Labour Organization has developed conventions on home work, part-time work and employment agencies. The economic union in Europe has established directives on part-time and fixed-term contracts to bring equity between atypical or non-standard work and permanent employees.

The European Union, in fact, has brought in what we think should be brought in immediately, and what OPSEU happens to agree with, and that is equal pay for equal work. What is the concept that the European Union has brought in that would really suffice to address most of our problems with precarious labour right here? That concept is a simple one, a very ethical one. It simply says: equal pay for equal work. That would be dignity of work.

What does that mean? That means if you are the full-time employee doing bookkeeping in an office or you are a part-time temporary agency employee doing bookkeeping in the same office, the same job in the same office should get the same pay. That is not the case in Ontario. In Ontario, the agency employee will get substantially less for doing the same work as the full-time employee. That's our reality. I would submit that reality is absolutely unfair and unethical.

So instead of really attacking temporary agencies, the icing, we should be attacking the cake, the problem. The problem is we do not have equality of pay for work. We don't have it in Ontario; we simply don't have it. I would also submit that if temporary agencies marked up their third, or whatever they do, over that basic salary, that it would become real money to a company instead of cheaper to go through an agency. It wouldn't affect their profit margin at all and it certainly would be better for the employees. Of course, all the other things included in Bill 139 should be part and parcel of an overarching employment standards response to the issue of undignified, precarious work.

Also, just to go on to other jurisdictions, the UK government has finally recognized the need for regulating temp agency work and providing for equal treatment. This is notable, since the UK has one of the largest temp industries in the EU. Here is a country that has a large temporary industry and that is addressing this problem in a real way. The UK government agreed to a deal on May 20, 2008, between unions and employers that will see agency workers in the UK receive equal treatment. Again, it's equal pay for equal work.

It's interesting that also in the UK—looking back not too long ago when this House was brought back to look at the CUPE 3903 strike at York University, where you have this huge pool of contract labourers, belying the fact that temporary and precarious work is the domain only of the disenfranchised, only of those without enough education, only of those in the poor or marginalized aspects of our community. No. Temporary, contract, precarious work is also the domain of those with PhDs, contract faculty.

Our universities are built on the backs of temporary, precarious workers—educated workers—which quite frankly also sort of puts the finger in the face of Richard Florida and those who would say we should become a creative class of Ontarians. Well, here we have not only educated but many of them very educated people who've done all the right things, according to Richard Florida and his ilk. They have their PhDs, many of them, in areas that he cited in his report, and yet what are they doing?

As NOW Magazine once said in its famous headline, "Did You Know that Your Professor Makes Less than You Do?" They're working for less, many of them, than what we would consider a living wage. There's a pool of 900 workers at York University, out of which very few have any remote hope of being hired on full time or for tenure-track situations.

In the UK, what have they done with that? They have addressed that, not by tinkering around the surface of it but by addressing the problem of post-secondary institutions exploiting contract labour. They have said that you can teach for four years on a contract basis, but after that you must be hired full-time.

I remember one CUPE 3903 worker who said to me that she had been teaching on a contract basis at York University for 16 years. Every year she has to reapply for her job. Every year she may or may not get that job. She has a PhD, but every year no job security, minimum benefits, working for half, probably, of what the tenure-track professor was making. This is unconscionable. This is unethical. This is not dignity of work in the province of Ontario.

So we know that other jurisdictions do it better. My husband and I had the great good fortune—and I know many of you have heard about our trip to Sweden, but, hey, it's eye-opening for a social democrat to see social democracy in action. There you have a country where 85% of the workforce is unionized. Let's contrast it with ours in the low 30-something. To really have dignity of work, you need to be unionized. We know this because of the sweep of history, and we so quickly forget history. We forget that there was, at one point, child labour.

We forget that there was, at one point in my lifetime, "Help Wanted: Male" and "Female." We forget that every advance, from the 40-hour week to overtime to statutory holidays, to the end of child labour, to equal rights for women in the labour force, all of these rights have been fought for by the union movement and won. Certainly what we need is more organized labour.

What does it mean in Sweden to have the difference, 85% unionized labour? To be fair, some of those unions are "company" unions, so-described, but still, it's a certain advance over what we've got here. It means that when you go into a McDonald's in Stockholm you are served by somebody who is a unionized employee—in McDonald's, of all places. Guess what that means to that unionized employee? It means that they've got bargaining rights and better benefits, that they earn about $12 an hour in comparison to our employees here.

The equivalent of an MPP we sat down and had lunch with over there, who, by the way, was a Liberal, said that if they weren't unionized, nobody would eat there. That's the consciousness of a community that sees dignity of work and that believes in the ethicality of the dignity of work and believes that you need that to have a just society.

Sweden is no bigger than Ontario. It's nine million people; we're 13 million, more or less, here. It's smaller than we are. It's as multicultural as we are, too. I've heard that rather racist argument, "Well, they're a monoculture." No they're not. They're one of the most multicultural communities in Europe. This is a community that also has free post-secondary education. Imagine that revolutionary concept. It also has a dental care program and medicare. And yet, guess what?

It still has Sony Ericsson, H&M, Ikea, Volvo; capitalism is alive and well in Sweden and yet somehow they manage to extend dignity to their workforce, even those at the lower echelon, in the service sector jobs, like McDonald's. They manage to extend some dignity to them. That's what we're speaking about in the New Democratic Party. We're just speaking about dignity.

I was on the radio yesterday talking about the pushback over the government's increase in the minimum wage. Well, not only do I disagree with the person who was against me on that radio debate that the minimum rate should go up—of course it should—I think it should go up more. It should go up to at least above the poverty line and then be indexed to inflation. We all remember that wonderful campaign, the $10 minimum wage campaign, where, really, town halls were full across this province and this government was swamped with at least 10,000 e-mails demanding a living wage, but we don't have a living wage by that definition yet.

Again, this is a global movement: In Mexico they're having demonstrations for a dignified living wage. It's everywhere, this demand, and the demand at its basis is about ethics. At its basis it's about dignity to labour. It's about knowing that you're valued, and—let's face it—we value people in proportion to what we pay them. We know we do. We pretend we don't. But if we don't, then why is it so necessary that our CEOs in Canada make more than they ever have in history? The average CEO right now makes between $9 million and $10 million a year, yet nobody is objecting to their pay raises. No, people object to the pay raises at the lower echelon.

Well, I ask you: If we pay people their value, if we recognize people's labour with what we pay them, if this is a reflection of the dignity we accord their labour, then is a CEO worth a thousand times more than a woman working in a factory at minimum wage? How on earth is this possible? How on earth do we tell that person working at minimum wage that their life and their labour—because let's face it, our labour is a lot of our lives. Most of what we spend our day doing is working, whoever we are, if we're in the workforce.

Do we tell those people that they don't deserve the dignity of living above the poverty line, but the CEO, yes, they're worth a thousand times more even, quite frankly, if they run their company into the ground?

On my Facebook page, I challenged some of my friends to come up with some innovative, witty responses to changing or assisting our economy. One of the wittier of them was a young man who wrote in and said: "Why don't we all start car companies and just run them into the ground?" I thought that was good. Is that what it takes to get the government's attention, to get assistance? Is that what it takes to get help from the government, that we are the CEOs of large corporations, run them into the ground and then expect the government to bail us out?

Why do we not afford dignity to those at the lower echelon of the earning spectrum, to bail them out when the recession hits? Where's the bailout for them? Where are the millions for them? Certainly, the very least we could do—and Bill 139 is, trust me, the least we could do when it comes to temporary agencies and their clients—is to raise the minimum wage above the poverty limit.

The other thing that we need to do, as I said, is equal pay for equal work. This is a much more elegant solution than what we see in Bill 139. In any employment standards rewrite, we need to enshrine that.

Now, I want to talk from the small business side of my portfolio for a minute and also my experience as an agency owner. I started working, when I was a young woman after university, for Drake Personnel. Now Drake owns Office Overload, a Canadian company privately owned. It was a really eye-opening experience to work for a corporation like that, which was multinational in those days.

Quite frankly, it was one of the few places that a woman—then, as probably now—with a B.A. and nothing much else under her belt could get a job that would pay a living wage. We were paid reasonably well for what we did, with bonuses to boot. It was an also an interesting insight into corporate structure, the corporate structure that, unfortunately, is still the case in most corporations, which is to say that at Drake and at Office Overload, you had a lot of women working the phones. As you got up the corporate ladder, there were fewer and fewer women, until you got to the executive suite, where it was all men.

Beyond the phones and the women working them were their temporary clients, who were mainly and mostly women too. So here you had a women-driven agency business dealing with women applicants mainly, servicing companies run by men. I can tell you, if you wanted to look at racism in that mix, that would hold too. You had mainly women, many of them of colour, working the phones and dealing with temporary applicants, many of them of colour, who were working in the offices for executive-suite-held companies made up of an incredible majority of white men. Quite frankly, unfortunately, that's still the case.

For some plucky women working the phones in a sales environment who decided, "Enough of this. If there's money to be made, I'd like to keep it in my own pocket, thank you very much"—which is, after all, the entrepreneurial instinct that we pride ourselves on in this country and in this province. You decide at some point that you're going to go out and do it yourself and for yourself, which is exactly what I did and many women like me did.

In fact, I think if you were to look at temporary agencies and permanent placement agencies across this province, you would see that the majority of them are still owned by women and still staffed by women. The difference for the smaller ones is that women own them, instead of the larger corporations owned by men.

So for those plucky women entrepreneurs who went forward, as I did, running a company—and it was a phenomenal success, I might say. I started that company with a $5,000 loan and billed half a million in my first year, and billed it not by exploiting those who came through our doors but by enriching them, in fact. We're talking about back in the early 1980s. That was a quarter of a century ago. We were mainly a permanent placement agency, I have to say, and I'll talk more about the difference between permanent and temporary in a minute. We paid our temporary employees $10 an hour. That was 25 years ago.

If you came through our agency and got a job filing, you got paid $10 an hour, and I didn't know, quite frankly, many agencies that paid less. We marked up over that.

I also paid the women who worked with me as if they worked with me and not for me. So all of us made six figures back in those days. We did well. We were an all-women company, and we placed women not only in secretarial positions, but, for a change, moving them up the ladder in communications and PR and advertising, which were the major clients that we serviced.

What I found as an agency owner—and certainly, it was interesting to meet with those representatives from ACSESS because of my background—was that if there was racism, if there was an attempt to beat down wages, if there was an attempt to pay employees less than they were worth, not equal pay for equal work, it came more from our client companies, the big corporations that really, quite frankly, are shielded. They're invisible, they're anonymous, behind the agencies that service them. When Bill 139 comes into effect, which I assume it will, it will not touch those companies that hide behind the agencies that service them, when it comes to exploiting employees.

So, first of all, hats off to all of those, mainly women, who see an opportunity in the market to actually make a decent living and start their own companies. Certainly, hats off to those who run scrupulous, ethical businesses that recognize the value of an employee—and I'm not talking about those many that don't and those many that this bill attacks. Should they be out of business? Absolutely. Nobody in the agency business would argue that they shouldn't.

It's interesting that back in the early 1980s when I was in the business, it was illegal to charge a fee to an applicant. Here we are, in 2009—great progress, indeed—bringing in another bill that says it should be illegal to charge a fee to an applicant. I guess that's what passes as progress in the province of Ontario. What happened in the interim? What happened in the interim were the Harris years, which undid that law. So now here we are, bringing back what should have been all along. I don't see that, really, as progress; that's simply a rescinding of something onerous. There should never be a fee charged to an applicant from an agency.

Interestingly enough, though, there are huge loopholes in Bill 139 when it comes to charging fees for applicants, and that's something the New Democratic Party will be addressing at committee, because the way that temporary agencies are defined in this bill leaves a lot of unscrupulous agencies and middlemen and women out there who will not be covered by this bill. What do I mean by that? I will go into the incredible and wonderful work done by Workers' Action in some detail on this bill.

Another group that Bill 139 doesn't touch at all because of its definition and because, in this case, they're actually excluded, is health care agency workers. Health care workers employed by agencies under contract with community care access centres can now get public holiday pay like other workers, but they are not considered covered until 2012. One might ask: Why is that? Why single out health care workers in

an act like this? Why not everybody? There's a simple answer to that. Guess who their employer is: the Ontario government. Guess who would be liable for the extra costs of health care workers: the Ontario government, the Ministry of Health. So that's why they're excluded until 2012. It's easy to pass legislation when it affects somebody else, but when it gets a little too close to home and affects your own wallet, it's more problematic. That's what we see here. That is absolutely unacceptable, and we, the New Democratic Party, will fight tooth and nail that change in this bill.

Information about work assignments and employment standards rights: This is good. Yes, people should have information, but quite frankly, a member here mentioned the Payday Loans Act—another bit of "icing" legislation that doesn't affect the cake; another piece of legislation that doesn't really affect the rates charged to people who go to a payday lending place for a payday loan, but in some ways very similar to Bill 139 because one of the things that that Payday Loans Act does is demand that payday lenders post information about the real interest rates, the cost of rollover loans etc.

Remember: We're dealing with basically a usurious industry here. They're loan sharks; let's call them what they are. They charge between 300% and 1,000% interest, and they still do—even after this bill will be passed. Imagine, if you're going to them—you're not going there because you have options; you're going there because you've run out of any other options. You go to a payday lender because the bank won't give you credit. You go to a payday lender because a bank or a credit union won't give you an advance on your paycheque.

That's why you'd go to them: because you're desperate, you're starving and you don't have any money, and they're the last place in town that will give you any money. Posting the rates for a person like that and all the downsides of going to them is not going to deter someone who is desperate; it's not going to. We have to protect them; payday lenders won't.

The same thing happens here: Information about work assignments, information on employment standards rights is all well and good. All the information will probably be pretty negative, but the person who's going to the temporary agency for work is the one who can't get a permanent job, who can't get any other work. That's why they're there. Telling them, "Guess what? Unfortunately, you won't get this and that if you work through us, and this is your legal right and this is not your legal right"—you know, it's like reading contracts. We've all signed contracts with all that fine print. Who reads them?

Nobody reads them. We trust. Maybe we're far too trusting as Ontarians; I think we are. But in this case, certainly people would trust and sign. It's not going to make any difference to the reality of their lives. It certainly isn't going to make any ethical, moral difference to the dignity in which they find themselves in the workplace.

The idea in Bill 139 that after six months the temporary agency cannot charge a fee, or can charge a fee up until that point—in other words, removing a barrier to permanent employment for the temporary employee working through that agency—is a step in the right direction. But—here is the big "but"—first of all, quite frankly, I think that there's something afoul of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in charging a fee for a temporary employee to go permanent.

I quite frankly think that if these poor individuals who find themselves in that situation had good lawyers and could band together as a group, they could have a charter challenge on their hands, because I don't think you can prevent somebody from hiring somebody and I don't think, legally, you really can get away with preventing somebody from being hired. I think that's a charter challenge waiting to happen, and I certainly would advise those who are employees to think about it if the issue comes up in their own lives. It's very much like non-competition clauses.

Many corporations ask you to sign a non-competition clause knowing full well that it really doesn't have a lot of legal weight behind it, that you can't prevent someone from earning a living. That's the reality. Much as this is a good thing, I wonder, in terms of the true reality of the lives of the individuals it affects, how effective it will be.

The other bizarre side effect of this little point, by the way—remember my background as somebody who owned a permanent agency. I think most of us in this chamber would agree that it's better to have a permanent job than to have a temporary one, and quite frankly, at no time soon are executive recruitment firms going to disappear from our landscape. They are part of our landscape and, they would argue, for good reason, because if you're a company and you don't have a huge personnel department, or even if you do, sometimes you need an executive recruitment and outplacement firm.

The government uses them; we all use them; everybody uses them. They're a fact of life in business, in capitalism. Unless we want to revamp capitalism—some of us might want to do that—they're always going to be here. That's essentially what I had when I was in the business.

What this funny little part of Bill 139 will do will be to encourage people to hire temporary employees rather than permanent ones. I just throw that out to the government because I wonder if they've considered the side effect of this aspect of the bill. In other words, if I can hire somebody through a temporary agency, be they an IT person, an engineer—remember, this is not just people doing bookkeeping and in the steno pool; these are agencies, many of them that place fairly high-paid individuals.

If I were to hire them for six months and then get them for no extra cost, why would I ever place an order with an executive recruitment firm for the same person and pay a percentage of their salary, which would be way in excess of that six-month fee?

I really suggest that the government simply look at that angle of it. We haven't heard very much from permanent agencies and executive recruitment firms yet, but we might, because once they read the fine print of this bill, they may have an issue with it. Suffice it to say, though, that I don't think that under the charter you can prevent someone from hiring somebody without paying any fee at all. I would really be surprised to see a temporary agency challenge that if somebody held that up as a right, either as an employee or as an employer.

Still, in all, it's good to remind people that we can't and should not restrain anybody from being hired by anybody at any time. So there is that. It could be strengthened; it might have problems.

Again, you see the kind of bill we're dealing with here, the kind of bill that plays at the periphery of the problem of precarious, undignified, unstable, unrewarded labour in the province by tinkering around the edges of one of the industries that services that problematic labour force instead of dealing with the problematic labour force and the problematic labour relations that it implies.

What else? If we are to have a dignified labour force and less precarious employment, we need something—and this is where the rewrite of the Employment Standards Act is so imperative. We need something that demands of a company—not the agencies that service the company, but the company that has full-time employees—that there be a limit to the number of hours worked on a temporary basis within the framework of that company, because we know that companies these days are using huge pools of temporary labour to replace dignified full-time jobs. We know that's what's going on; we can see it everywhere.

How do you attack that? You attack it by saying, "You know, there's a reason"—and there is a reason for temporary help—"for temporary agencies." If somebody leaves on maternity leave, you need somebody to take over. You know it's not going to be full-time; you know it's going to be maybe nine months to a year that you need somebody. If somebody's sick or on leave, you need somebody for that week or two.

The European Union, I think, and very rightly, has looked at the limit of time that somebody works on a temporary basis. Now, of course, this has to be well done, because nobody would want to produce a scenario where people are simply firing and hiring to get around the spirit of the law by the letter of the law. You have to make sure it's that person who's hired on full-time.

We should not have the situation, as I described earlier, that I witnessed—CUPE 3903; a woman working 16 years on a contract basis. That should not be allowable in the province of Ontario. If you're working on a temporary assignment, it should be a temporary assignment and have clear, clear parameters. I would suggest that the clear parameter be a time frame and that the time frame be about a year, because, quite frankly, I can't foresee—prove me wrong—a situation where you would need a temporary—remember, in the true sense of the word "temporary"—employee for more than a year.

So we need, in the Employment Standards Act, something that embeds the principle that temporary labour is exactly that—temporary—and that it doesn't go on forever. We need that.

So limits on temp work, minimum wage, equal pay for equal work, and then—this is so critical—we need to do everything in our power, in this government, to enable organized labour to organize. There's no other way of saying it than that. We need to do everything, from getting the votes counted at York University and others by OPSEU, to having card-check certification, not just for those in the construction trades but for everyone, so that that process can be democratic, so that it can't be marked by intimidation by employers; and, certainly, sectoral organizing, so that the same battle doesn't have to be fought over and over and over again.

This is something else that's very interesting that they do in Sweden—I call it the "Swedish way"—and, again, it's favourable to employers as well as employees, otherwise they wouldn't be doing so well—and that's sectoral organizing. That means that when a union comes up for renegotiation for their workforce, they do it together—all steelworkers, not company by company. They do this in Sweden; they do it with great good results both for companies and for the unions concerned. So that's what we need as well—sectoral organizing.

Finally, and this is a huge topic that I'll spend some time on, no matter what we do when we look at the Employment Standards Act and we revamp it—and remember, the ethical, moral imperative is the dignity of human labour, the dignity of work.

Essentially the philosophic and ethical undergirding of everything I've said is that whether you work on an assembly line or you work in the executive suite, your work should be dignified, you should be rewarded above the poverty line for what it's worth, you should be able to hold your head up high when you go to work, and you should have rights, including the right to strike. That is then a dignified workplace. We want to make that available, as much as we can, to everyone. That undergirds everything.

But even if we were to rewrite the Employment Standards Act, including everything I have described in the last 40 minutes, we would still not be there unless we enforced it. Here is another problem. It's a very large problem with Bill 139 and all the bills, quite frankly, that this government has brought forward around the issue of employment standards, and that is that there's no law if it's not enforced. Many times I've spoken in many communities, particularly around the $10 minimum wage campaign that we wage, and I've stood there and I've said, "We don't have employment standards in the province of Ontario." People say, "What do you mean, we don't have them? There's

an act, isn't there? I mean, there's inspection"—because we don't enforce the act we have.

Now, I know the government has hired more inspectors. That's a good thing, but it's not enough, not nearly enough. A motion that I have on the order paper demands, because it's been so long coming and so long ignored, that 25% of all workplaces be inspected by employment standards, by the Ministry of Labour—25%. Why such a high figure? Because it's about 1% now—1%. That means if you're an employer, you have about a 1 in 100 chance of anybody from employment standards ever walking through your door.

What does that mean in terms of the ethicality and the dignity of labour? This is what it means for my constituents, and I'm sure we've all heard the stories: I have heard stories of people who have worked without getting paid at all, pure and simple, not at all. They worked for a week, and then the person said, "I didn't like what you did. Sorry, I'm not paying you." Now, who are these people? A lot of them, of course, don't know their rights. They're recent immigrants, some of them illegal immigrants. They have no recourse. Where do they take them?

Are they going to fight through the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Labour to collect a couple of hundred dollars? No, they let it go and they move on. This happens all the time to immigrant communities, unfortunately. We know that the Ministry of Labour and employment standards has a huge, huge waiting list of cases, and it has a huge backlog of unpaid wages. We know that, because it's so difficult to collect, and really, the impetus to collect on your unpaid wages falls on the employee. Remember, we're not talking about CEOs with lawyers in their back pocket here.

We're talking about people who work in the lower echelons of the pay scale, on the margins of our communities, in the minimum-wage or less-than-minimum-wage jobs. That's who we're talking about. That's who desperately needs an inspection from employment standards, not the corporate suite, and they don't come. Anybody who's ever spoken to a group of new immigrants in their riding will have heard these stories. I've heard them. Certainly they're not often paid overtime when it's due. Holiday pay, which this bill enshrines for temporary workers—I know a lot of permanent workers don't get holiday pay.

They don't get the benefits they're due because they don't know they're due, and their workplace has never been inspected and, quite frankly, probably never will be, at the current rate of the rollout of labour inspections. That's the situation in which we live.

I remember when I was first married, my husband was eventually in advertising, but in the graphic arts business, and he was working for somebody else, and the hours were outrageously long. He was paid on a salary; he was not paid hourly. But when you figured out his hourly rate, it was actually less than minimum wage. The laws around overtime, which were in place at the time, would have helped him, but it would have required him, then as now, to file a grievance, to come forward to talk about what was going on in the design shop.

Now, unless you're in a huge company where you're one of 1,000 employees, your employer is going to know who filed a grievance, who complained about them. Do you think there aren't going to be reprisals for that? Even if you did it anonymously, do you think they won't figure out who filed a grievance anonymously?

Employment standards enforcement cannot fall upon the shoulders of employees, ever—ever—because there are too many checks and balances in the workplace to make it unlikely that they'll ever step forward, number one among which is that they'll lose their job, and they don't have the lawyers to fight in civil court to try to get the employer to pay them for what they lost. Only people with money, cultural capital, are able to do that. These folk won't. No, they'll just disappear into the crowd and go to work for another unscrupulous employer.

The Ministry of Labour and employment standards needs to inspect at least 25% of all workplaces now and do one sweep of them. I can tell you that you would already uncover huge, huge abuses of the Employment Standards Act without even adding to it. So when we add to it, like Bill 139—in this case dealing with agencies alone and not the big picture, the problem—who's going to enforce it? Who's going to enforce this?

Unless we hire more enforcement officers, unless we make it mandatory that a percentage of places of employment be inspected, this is just going to be another piece of legislation that only those who know it exists will enforce and find recourse to. Those who are working through temporary agencies are usually the least able to challenge this.

Interjection.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: My friend over here says, "It's a good Liberal bill." Exactly. That's what a Liberal bill looks like: icing, no cake. It's fascinating too that even the agency advocates who say they support this bill because it will drive those fringe agencies—this is the same way that the payday lending association said, "We like the payday lending bill"—that that should be a red flag in and of itself—"because it drives the fringe elements out of business." Well, come on. Do we exist, as legislators, to help one company fight against another? In a sense, this bill will do the same.

It will help to weed out some of the competition for some others that can afford to raise their rates, etc. But really, will it? Will it even do that? That's a question. The fly-by-night temporary agency people that my friend Gilles Bisson was talking about, who operate out of apartments and don't even have offices, who place their friends from immigrant communities for a mark-up, who basically break everything that Bill 139 is trying to address and every employment standards part of the Employment Standards Act is trying to address—will it really touch those people?

This is the quintessential Liberal bill, in that sense.

This is like the bill that our friend Mike Colle brought in which said that people driving with illegal guns in cars should be illegal. Yes, sure, they should be illegal. They're already illegal. Let's make them more illegal. Let's make them illegal and they'll lose their driver's licence. Do you really think that somebody driving in a car with a loaded gun cares about losing their driver's licence? Come on.

Do you really think that a person operating out of their apartment, placing friends and neighbours or friends of friends completely under the radar of the law, breaking every employment standard regulation, going against Bill 139, is going to stop their activities because we passed this bill? I wish they would. I wish it could effect that change. Quite frankly, it might even effect that change if there was enforcement, but there isn't. There simply isn't enforcement.

We don't have enforcement of what we've already got, and so Bill 139, like so much other paper that's produced by this place, will sit on a shelf somewhere, drive a couple of smaller business people out of business, leave most of the abusers beyond the reach of the law and still not—and this is really what we need here in this province—add to the dignity of labour, the dignity of someone working.

Now, I've spoken for almost 50 minutes without telling a story about someone who is actually affected by all this, so I will. There are a myriad of them. I've told in passing one such story about an immigrant who wasn't paid for the work she did. But what about the ones who are paid? I can think of cases in my own family. Certainly, if you go back in my family one generation, you're talking about first-generation immigrants. Some of them from England, some of them from Italy—cold, Mr. Speaker—some of them from Portugal. Sorry, flu is going around.

My mother-in-law from Portugal came over, worked in houses cleaning, like so many people, then worked as a health care worker—one of the ones excluded from this bill until 2012—needed to retire for health reasons just recently—thank you very much; honour among thieves—and retired without any pension or benefits even though she had worked her entire life in this industry. Essentially, the industry acted as a temporary agency, sending her out here and there to client companies. This is happening to our own, ladies and gentlemen.

For those who are watching at home, you know somebody who is being touched by this industry. When 37% of the labour force is working in precarious employment, you know it touches everyone. This bill will not help my mother-in-law. This bill will not help other workers like her until 2012. This is another classic government move, isn't it? "We'll do it after the next election." MPAC overhaul: "We'll do it after the next election; we'll freeze property taxes now." "We'll do it after the next election," closing the coal-fired plants. Here's another instance of that.

"We'll do it after the next election," cover health care workers, community care access workers under this bill.

I know a woman in my riding who worked many years, always on temporary assignments, made minimum wage at all of them. She would come home, feed her children, get them doing their homework, put them to bed and then go out and work for another temporary industry, and that is the cleaning company contractors. She would go out and work at night cleaning buildings as an independent contractor, so-called—of course she wasn't; she was a temporary applicant, not covered by Bill 139—to clean companies and then work through another temporary agency during the day.

At the end of all this outrageous labour, at the end of a week, she was also one of the ones who I handed a free turkey to at the food bank just before Christmas because she didn't have enough money, even with those two jobs, as a single parent to really make ends meet. She said to me, "You know, really, at the end of the day, after deductions, I would have more time with my children and they would have a better quality of life if I were on social assistance." Quite frankly, I couldn't argue with her. She was right.

She might clear a little less on social assistance, but then she wouldn't have to do back-breaking labour for 10, 12 hours a day, and she would have more time with her children and she wouldn't have to find neighbours to look after them, pay other people etc. and the cost associated with getting to work, transportation etc. I mean, she's not alone. Even middle-class women find themselves in this position because of the lack of dignity of work. Even middle-class women find themselves unable to really work with any sense of fair play because of the expenses associated with working.

I see that the hour is drawing nigh. I know I still have about five minutes left and I will save my five minutes for tomorrow to continue on speaking about this bill and to summarize exactly what I've been saying. Suffice it to say, we need to keep in mind, when dealing with Bill 139, what it doesn't do. It doesn't give equal pay for equal work. It doesn't give a living minimum wage. It doesn't extend the right to organize in labour for a vast majority of Ontarians. It doesn't put a limit on the length of time that people work temporarily before they must be hired full-time. It doesn't do that.

Most importantly, it doesn't affect the client companies that the temporary agencies deal with, that are the source of the problem. Thank you.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ted Arnott): Thank you. This House stands in recess until 10:30, later on this morning.

The House recessed from 1016 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Mr. Wayne Arthurs: I'd like to introduce some family and friends of page Patrick Mott. This morning in the gallery are his mother, Ruth Anne Mott; his father, Robert Mott; an aunt, Jeananne Ralph; an uncle, Dave Mott; a cousin, Roberta Jagoe; his great-aunt, Alice O'Neill; a cousin, Shelagh O'Neill; and a friend, Kathleen Maley. They're here this morning, and we'd like to welcome them.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ENERGY RATES

Mr. John Yakabuski: My question is for the Premier. The proposed Green Energy Act raises an alarming number of questions. During these times of economic downturn, when everyone is counting their pennies, Ontarians want to know how much more they're going to have to pay to heat their homes and keep the lights on under this new legislation. Can you tell us that, Premier?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I'm very pleased to take this question and I'm very much looking forward to having the opportunity to hear debates in this Legislature and to create opportunities for the public to speak to this as well.

We are very pleased and proud to be able to introduce the bill, as we did yesterday. It is going to enable us to create new, clean, green jobs, it's going to enable us to generate clean, green electricity and it's going to enable more of us to do our

part in the fight against climate change. So I really think it is the sweet spot of sweet spots.

The price of electricity from wind is higher than it is from dirty coal. The price of electricity from the sun, harnessing that power, is more expensive than dirty, fired coal. Those are true. But on the other side, there's also a very important aspect to our new legislation, which is going to ensure that we have more energy conservation to keep our bills down.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. John Yakabuski: I didn't get the answer there. Yesterday, the Minister of Energy indicated that there would essentially be no increase as a result of this bill. He said, "One per cent per year for the next three years." If the minister thinks he can fool Ontarians with this sleight of hand, he's dead wrong. Yesterday he said there would be an initial increased investment of $5 billion. When that amount is paid—and that's just for the transmission upgrades they're talking about—by 4.2 million electricity consumers, that calculates out to an extra $1,200 per customer. Spread out over three years, that's a 30% increase, Minister, not a 1% increase.

Premier, explain to this House how you can promise a 1% increase by your own figures when the increase to consumers will be at least 30%.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: My honourable colleague is engaging in all kinds of speculation. I'll tell you where he's on to something. My honourable colleague has said that he and his wife, along with their children, embarked on a program to conserve energy in their own home. They reduced the usage in their home by 40%. I want to commend him for that.

What we need to do and what we will continue to do is find more ways for more Ontarians, whether inside our schools, our hospitals, our industries or our homes, to use less electricity. At the end of the day, what is really important to Ontarians is their bill. We're going to do everything we can to create more opportunities for more Ontarians to keep that bill down and, ideally, like my honourable colleague, get it even lower.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Mr. John Yakabuski: I accept your unsolicited compliments. What I'd really like are some clear answers.

Ontarians were not fooled when Stéphane Dion tried to tell them that his Green Shift plan wasn't going to cost them a thing, and they're not going to be fooled by your plan. Yesterday, the minister held up Germany as a model. Well, the price of electricity in Germany is north of 22 cents a kilowatt hour. That's at least three times, three and a half times, the rate of electricity here, Mr. Premier. How can you stand there and tell Ontarians that their energy bills are not going to go up by more than a single percentage point per year? In fact, they're going through the roof. That's what's going to happen. It's time that you came clean.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I gather from this line of questioning—I hope this is not true, but notwithstanding the international praise that this bill has already garnered, and the fact that it's going to create some 50,000 jobs and is going to ensure that we can have energy conservation proceed in a very aggressive way, it would appear that the regressive Conservative Party is not standing ready to support this bill. That is unfortunate.

The point I want to make is that there's a difference between our electricity rates and our electricity bills. It's interesting that my honourable colleague talked about electricity rates in Germany, but he didn't talk about their home electricity bills. I think if he checks their home electricity bills and the way they practise energy conservation, then we'll have something that we can honestly compare between their bills and our bills.

ENERGY RATES

Mr. John Yakabuski: I don't think everybody's packing up and leaving for Germany, Mr. Premier.

Nobody is buying your argument about the balance and the costs. After Ontarians are done paying for skyrocketing energy costs they won't have the money to pay for anything else, especially that refrigerator you've been telling them to buy. Just like your federal Liberal colleague Stéphane Dion, you're not being straight with Ontarians who are worried about paying their mortgages and hanging on to their jobs. Will you have the decency to lay out the real facts and tell Ontarians that, when they can least afford it, this bill is going to mean significantly higher energy costs for homeowners and consumers in this province? Will you come straight, Mr. Premier?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure.

Hon. George Smitherman: I do want to thank the honourable member for his question and I do want to thank him as well for his comments in the Legislature yesterday, when he gave very strong evidence for the opportunity that individuals have in their own homes to impact the amount of energy that they use. I think that's what the Green Energy Act is all about: the opportunity for us to engage individually in activities that help to lessen our impact on the climate and to have the opportunity to create a green economy at the same time.

I think it is very important to note that when you make an investment, a necessary investment, as an example, in transmission capability—I spoke yesterday of a $5-billion incremental investment—this is about an investment in a piece of infrastructure that doesn't last for just one year or two years. It's about investing in our fundamental infrastructure, which of course is paid off over a period of time. This is why we predict that the incremental costs associated with the Green Energy Act—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. John Yakabuski: We're going to hear that talking around the issue over and over and over again. But I'm going to make that point again, Mr. Premier: When people in this province are done paying for the things that they have no choice in paying—their mortgages, their food, their housing, their clothing and the electricity under this government—they're not going to have much left for anything else. They do need to know, going forward, what electricity is going to cost, not some vague thoughts about how we're going to do this or that.

They need to know what the cost of electricity is going to be in the province of Ontario for consumers, for families, seniors, low-income people; people like that who can hardly afford the electricity bills they're paying now. What is it going to mean to them going forward?

Hon. George Smitherman: Ontarians aren't going to get very much value from the conversation if the honourable member is not able to understand that investments in infrastructure, where the infrastructure lasts 40, 50, 60 or 70 years—if he tries to pretend that it's all about paying for those in the first and second year, if he doesn't understand the fundamental investment in infrastructure, then we're going to have a challenge.

The investments in Ontario's infrastructure, to build more renewable capacity by investing in transmission and distributed generation, are going to cost 1% a year incremental on Ontario's hydro bills, but what they will provide is the opportunity for 50,000 new jobs in the green economy, and it will provide for Ontarians to use less electricity as individuals. The honourable member has given strong testimony to that ability by saying that he and his family reduced their own energy use by 40%.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Mr. John Yakabuski: Minister, it appears that the government doesn't really want people to take a good look at this bill. They want to move it ahead. That's surprising. We're looking for a better opportunity for people in the province of Ontario. That's exactly what the former Minister of Energy, currently the Minister of Finance, did with Bill 100. He sent it to committee after first reading. This bill is more complicated, more complex and broader-reaching than Bill 100.

We're asking you to follow the precedent set by your own government. Allow this bill to go out to committee after first reading so that stakeholders, consumers and, indeed, ordinary citizens across this province have a chance to comment on this bill before it goes further.

Hon. George Smitherman: I do apologize to the honourable member if the matter at hand has caught him off guard and it's too complex for him to be able to participate in the legislative debate, but we do think that it sends an important signal to the people in the province of Ontario—

Interjections.

Hon. George Smitherman: Mr. Speaker—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The member for Niagara West will withdraw his comment.

Mr. Tim Hudak: Withdrawn.

Hon. George Smitherman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

We will be very happy this afternoon to see the opportunity for members of the Legislature to debate one of the most important matters of public policy and to debate a matter that promises 50,000 additional jobs. That will begin this afternoon. Of course, the bill will go to committee, and we look forward to all opportunities to improve upon the legislation as we've brought it forward today through the debating offers from the honourable members opposite.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): New question?

Mr. John Yakabuski: What you've promised in a bill and what you've delivered in the past for many of your promises—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): No, it's a new question.

Hon. John Gerretsen: How many questions do you have?

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Leader of the third party.

CHILD PROTECTION

Mr. Howard Hampton: My question is for the Premier. Just a few years ago, the Premier made the following appeal for children in care in Ontario. I want to quote the Premier: "I'm asking you today on behalf of those 23,000 children—they're our kids. Their parents have either abandoned them or they're disabled or they're troubled. They might be hard to handle, but they're ours nonetheless. I'm asking you to stand up for those kids. Your minister is not doing that."

Premier, there are now almost 26,000 children in care in Ontario, and the child and youth advocate tells us that a startling 90 of these children are dying each year under the McGuinty government's watch.

My question is this: In view of the Premier's eloquence just a few years ago, how does the Premier justify his government's record when it comes to looking after some of Ontario's most vulnerable children, when 90 of them are dying each year?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I want to thank the leader of the NDP for the question, and I want to say—first of all, I want to thank the child advocate for the report. I'm glad that we created the office, and we welcome the report. Of course, we do not welcome its findings because they are troubling.

We have made some progress. There have been considerable new investments. Some 1,300 new children's aid society staff have been hired. We have put in place a new crown ward strategy, for example. But this number is troubling. We have been at about that level now since 1991. So obviously there is more to be done, and I have every confidence that our minister is on the job and will be doing everything she possibly can to help address this.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Howard Hampton: The Premier says the government is doing everything it can. I want to quote from the child and youth advocate. This is what he had to say just a few months ago:

"In September of this year"—2008—"I met with two assistant deputy ministers and requested, among other things, a list of all the licensed group homes in the province. I still have not received that list, nor have I been able to obtain child fatality death reports or investigation reports or serious occurrence reports."

The child and youth advocate then goes on to point out that basic information he needs to do his job—your government seems to do everything it can to avoid allowing him to have access to that information. He's simply trying to protect the most vulnerable children in this province. Why is the McGuinty government stonewalling him?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, I think the honourable member and the child advocate make a pretty good point here. My understanding is that we have, subsequent to the release of this report, landed on a good information exchange arrangement. If that is still not satisfactory to the child advocate, I would like to learn of that. But I gather there was some to and fro as the child advocate, in a newly created office, began to assert himself, and there are some obligations on the part of government with respect to the release of information. I think we have an arrangement which satisfies the child advocate. Again, if we're not there, then I would ask the child advocate to speak to that.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Mr. Howard Hampton: That's not all that the child advocate had to say because the reports that I've just listed are not issues of confidentiality; they're not issues of letting out all kinds of details about an individual. Knowing where the group homes are, knowing what the licensed group homes are, having access to investigation reports are not privacy issues, yet your government repeatedly tries to stonewall.

I want to quote something else the child advocate said: "I would say to the minister, because I know the minister and the ministry are afraid to let bad things out, that unless you let bad things out, you can't allow the good things in." That is his assessment of the McGuinty government. You would try to prevent information getting out there to the public because you're afraid it's bad information, but the child advocate says we can't improve our measures to protect these children unless this information gets out.

I ask again, why has the McGuinty government engaged in a concerted effort to stonewall the child and youth advocate?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Just so we have the full picture here, the reason that we have an independent child advocate in Ontario is because we created that office. Previous governments refused to do that. We thought that was an important thing to do, so we have done it. We have encountered, I think it's fair to say, a few bumps along the way in terms of ensuring that we are working in concert with the child advocate. We have now in place a new information-providing arrangement.

If the child advocate believes we are coming up short in that regard, and if we in government are going to err, I'd rather err on the side of providing the child advocate with more information rather than less information because I'm counting on the child advocate to bring these kinds of issues to light so that governments of all political stripes on a go-forward basis can properly respond to them.

GREEN POWER GENERATION

Mr. Howard Hampton: I would say to the Premier, once again, your government says one thing and then does something completely different in the backroom.

My question concerns energy. New Democrats know that a strong buy-Ontario component is absolutely necessary if we are to see green energy manufacturing jobs created here in Ontario rather than in Europe or the United States, but when we look at the government's bill that was presented yesterday, we don't see a strong buy-Ontario component. In contrast, Quebec, for some time, has required 60% domestic content in all of its renewable energy projects, and it's resulted in Quebec having the only large-scale wind turbine manufacturing facility in Canada.

Can the Premier explain why the government's bill doesn't require 60% Ontario content—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Premier?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure.

Hon. George Smitherman: I want to thank the honourable member for taking the opportunity to ask such an important question about the bill, and to further raise the issue of domestic content.

As I had the opportunity to say yesterday in response to his colleague, indeed, the piece of legislation does carve out the capacity to establish domestic content rules and we have every intention of doing so. As I had the opportunity to say yesterday, as we see more wind turbines coming to life in the province of Ontario, moving toward 50,000 new jobs over the next three years, it's our full and complete expectation that the steel milled by the good people of Sault Ste.

Marie and Hamilton, Ontario, will be what is holding aloft the opportunity to take advantage of what Mother Nature has to offer in forms of moving toward a cleaner, greener supply of electricity in the province of Ontario. I do look forward very much to working with the honourable member further on making sure that our domestic rules produce more opportunities for jobs in the province of Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Howard Hampton: I think, in all that wordage, what really we heard is that there is no domestic content requirement in the legislation, that the McGuinty government promises there might be some in regulation.

I remember just a few years ago when the then Minister of Northern Development was promising there was going to be a wind turbine facility manufactured in Sault Ste. Marie. He got up in this Legislature every second day and said, "Oh, it's only a matter of time." Go to Sault Ste. Marie and see if there's a wind turbine manufacturing facility there.

I ask again: If you're really serious about establishing the full fledge of renewable energy manufacturing in Ontario, where is the 60% domestic content rule that we see in Quebec and that we see working in Quebec?

Hon. George Smitherman: If only the honourable member was using the same policy advisers that the United Steelworkers are, we'd be able to have a more effective conversation in this Legislature.

Here's a quote from Ken Neumann, the national director of the United Steelworkers union. This is from yesterday: "The Steelworkers have been vocal in our call for domestic procurement policies. So including domestic content guidelines in the Green Energy Act is a decision in the right direction."

The United Steelworkers understand that the piece of legislation introduced yesterday provides the opportunity for us to establish domestic content rules. These will be forthcoming, and they will be established on a case-by-case basis to take advantage of more opportunities for an Ontario supply chain to emerge so that, as we transform our economy towards the green economy with new jobs—50,000 over the next three years—more opportunities for Ontario workers will be found.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Mr. Howard Hampton: I want to advise the minister that it was Ken Neumann who asked me to ask this question, because he said he looked for the 60% content rule in the legislation. It's very clear in the Quebec legislation, but it's not in the McGuinty government's legislation.

But on the other side of the coin, the McGuinty government has no problem setting a very clear target for, say, its nuclear megascheme. The McGuinty government says, "Oh, 50% of electricity will come from nuclear sources, even if it costs $50 billion to build it." Why is it so easy for the McGuinty government to say 50% will be nuclear, but you can't even find the gumption to put a clause in the legislation requiring 60% Ontario manufacturing?

Hon. George Smitherman: First off, I do want to say that we look forward to the opportunity for the honourable member to stand in his place and to put on the record whether his party will be supporting a piece of legislation that substantially addresses things that they have been calling for for a long period of time. We have the opportunity, in the context of the debate here in the Legislature which begins today, to talk about these matters, and we appreciate very much that they're bringing this issue forward.

In the province of Ontario, the Green Energy Act represents an opportunity to create 50,000 new jobs over the next three years, in substantial measure because of domestic procurement opportunities, to transform the Ontario economy, and to see a more robust supply chain so that the steelworkers of Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie have the opportunity to celebrate renewable energy by making sure that the steel that holds aloft those wind turbines has been milled in those very communities.

RENEWABLE ENERGY

AND ENERGY CONSERVATION

Mr. John Yakabuski: To the Minister of Energy: Minister, this bill is not only unclear about what it's going to do, but you've been unclear in your explanation of it.

When the former Minister of Energy introduced Bill 100, he recognized its complexity and the broad reach with which it covered the province of Ontario and all stakeholders and consumers. I'm asking you again: Will you give the most important people in the province, the people who are going to be affected by this bill—not the members of this Legislature, but the people of this province and the manufacturers and the stakeholders in this province—the opportunity to speak to this bill before second reading, like your predecessor did with Bill 100?

Hon. George Smitherman: Now, the honourable member, because the bill is big and the bill is complex, throws up his hands and he says, "I, from Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, a representative of the people am not ready to participate in a debate about an important matter at hand." We have brought this forward for this debate in the Legislature of Ontario, where the peoples' representatives reside, and as part of that process, of course, the bill will go to committee. But this afternoon, here, representing an important piece of legislation, we'll come forward for discussion, and we see—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Ten seconds.

Hon. George Smitherman: We see the official opposition unable to muster a coherent policy, throwing up their hands and saying, "We don't want to participate in the debate."

The debate begins this afternoon.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Perhaps the minister needed to take a breath.

Minister, you said yourself yesterday that generation isn't going to roll out of this bill for some time. We have some time to get it right. Your predecessor did his best to get it right by giving the people of this province the opportunity to speak to the legislation. Before it gets rammed through the House on second reading within the next few days—as you've said yourself, this is the most important piece of energy legislation, perhaps, in this province's history. Does that not imply that the people who are most affected by it should have a good opportunity, a fulsome opportunity, to bring their views to bear to committee on this bill?

Hon. George Smitherman: In the election of October 2007, I stood before the people of Toronto Centre and said, "Elect me as your representative for the important debates that take place in the Legislature of Ontario." I was lucky enough that they did, and I joined other colleagues.

Today, we fulfill our responsibilities with a piece of legislation, and the official opposition does not stand and say, "We have issues on this point of content or that"; they stand and say, "On matters of process, we throw up our hands, and we are not ready to participate in the debate."

The debate begins this afternoon with second reading. The bill will be improved through a legislative process that will include committee hearings. We look forward to hearing on this important subject from all members, and we especially look forward to a coherent position from the official opposition.

EMPLOYMENT SUPPORTS

Mr. Paul Miller: My question is to the Minister of Economic Development. It appears it's another grim day in Ontario. Today we heard about Russel Metals laying off 500 workers, 16% of its workforce. Now we've even hit the media: the Hamilton Spectator, 30; the Waterloo region Record and the Guelph Mercury, 33. AbitibiBowater announced another shutdown of its Fort Frances mill, affecting 650 workers and their families.

Why doesn't the government have an aggressive plan to sustain jobs in our province?

Hon. Michael Bryant: I am looking forward to speaking with the CEO for Russel Metals. I've put a couple of calls in to him to determine exactly the facts with respect to the impact of the announcement on Ontario. The media reports seem to suggest that there are not going to be significant job cuts in Ontario for that company at this time, which is good news, but obviously more details are needed.

I can tell you that the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities has already dispatched people to assist those workers.

I, obviously, say to the member we want to do everything we can. In representing the members of your community, I know that you'll want to work with our government to try to provide assistance where need be.

I know that that company was hit with layoffs previously in the year, and I understand as well that as a result of the contraction within that particular sector, it is a very tough time. The news out of Russel Metals, though, is—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary.

Mr. Paul Miller: Unfortunately, that's a bit of a sad response. Ontarians are worried about their jobs, and with all due respect, I don't believe the minister has a clue or a plan.

We've been putting ideas forward aggressively to pre-empt job losses, which have gone unheard: a manufacturing investment tax credit, an industrial hydro rate, a jobs protection commissioner to step in before layoffs are announced.

Why doesn't the minister have a bold plan to stop jobs from leaving our province?

Hon. Michael Bryant: I appreciate the member's frustration here, but the government of Ontario has, over the past few years, been making literally hundreds of millions of dollars in investments, including investments in that member's community with respect to the investment to Dofasco, which leveraged very, very significant jobs in that area.

Along the way, as those investments have been made—literally over $2 billion worth of investments that have leveraged significantly larger amounts—at every step of the way, at every point where this government brought forward the funds that in fact would create more growth in the communities such as the member's, the member voted against it. We bring forward the plans, we bring forward the subsidies and the loans, the purpose of which is to generate more economic growth, the purpose of which is to create more jobs, and the member votes against them.

Then he stands up and asks, "Where's the plan?" It's the plan you voted against. It's the plan that makes investments in your—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

ENERGY CONSERVATION

Mr. Charles Sousa: My question is for the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure. Minister, energy conservation is a priority for this government. As we move the province away from dirty, coal-fired generation, Ontario's plan depends heavily on conservation and renewable energy to fill the gap. This is especially important in my community of Mississauga South where, as you know, we celebrated the demolition of the Lakeview coal plant. But our community is growing, which means demand for power will grow. In order to mitigate the need for peak power generation, it is vitally important that every Ontarian do their part to conserve energy.

Yesterday, in response to your ministerial statement, the MPP from Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke mentioned that his family was able to reduce their electricity use by 40% over a span of two years. My family has worked to reduce our energy consumption by using efficient light bulbs, cold water for laundry, and installing glass screens in our windows and doors. Minister, how would you encourage our members of this House to embrace a culture of conservation?

Hon. George Smitherman: I do think that each of us as members of the Legislature has a powerful opportunity in the speeches that we make to help to create the culture of conservation, which would be advantageous, of course, to our pocketbooks and very advantageous to the productivity overall of our society, not to mention the positive impacts on the climate. We look at jurisdictions like California, which for 30 or 40 years have shown no per capita growth in electricity use,

whereas most other jurisdictions have seen more growth.

I want to encourage members to take the opportunity, in speaking to school groups, as an example, to talk about the reductions in energy use that are possible, and I think that it's been great to see champions in this Legislature: the member from Ottawa—Orléans, and yesterday the member from Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke indicating that a 40% reduction through behavioural change in the family is a strong, strong proponent for conservation. We need to promote it by talking about it more.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Charles Sousa: Ontarians will be looking to our government for help in making the transition to use less energy. Yesterday you introduced the Green Energy Act, which if passed would foster a culture of conservation by assisting homeowners, governments, schools, individuals and employers in using less energy and using it more efficiently. It's clear that members from both sides of the House understand the importance of conserving energy. During the debate on MPP Phil McNeely's bill on home energy audits, both sides spoke about the importance of conservation. We know it's the right thing to do.

Aside from lowering energy costs, conservation will also reduce Ontario's carbon footprint. In my riding, Jocelyn and Neil Lovell have gone above and beyond when it comes to conservation. They installed a number of energy conservation devices in their home, including solar panels on their roof. They are now off the grid. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate them again.

Minister, how would the Green Energy Act encourage Ontarians to conserve electricity?

Hon. George Smitherman: I think it's important that everybody have their own piece. We saw One Million Acts of Green, which the CBC promoted, demonstrating that most people are in on the action. On the issue of the home energy audits that was mentioned, I think it's noteworthy that the Conservative election platform from 2007 said that they would call for requiring home energy audits before the sale of every house. That built on the work our colleague from Ottawa—Orléans was involved in and reflected unanimity in the Legislature of Ontario.

For my own part as Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, about 95% or 96% of the times that I've gone to the fourth-floor office, I've taken the stairs. That's reduced the use of electricity and has been helpful to my health. Tomorrow I take the message on the road over to Church Street public school, where I'm going to be talking more about the opportunities to promote energy reductions and conservation amongst grade one to six students. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to invite my colleague so he can tell his personal—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

RENEWABLE ENERGY

AND ENERGY CONSERVATION

Mrs. Elizabeth Witmer: My question is for the Premier. Premier, you've just heard the exchange between your Minister of Energy and Infrastructure and our critic for energy and infrastructure. I think you also know that you in government have had months and months to prepare for the introduction of this bill yesterday,

whereas we in opposition only saw the bill for the first time yesterday. We haven't even had an opportunity to caucus it.

I would say to you: The question that was asked by my colleague is based on a precedent that was set by your own government, where a bill went to committee after first reading. We are asking for an opportunity for MPPs and the public to familiarize themselves with the bill. I ask you, Premier, do you think the response of your minister of the crown was—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Premier?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I'll tell you why I can't agree with my honourable colleagues opposite. I think we've done about as much as we can possibly do to ensure that people had a good heads-up in terms of where we're going to go on this. The bill is being posted to the Environmental Bill of Rights website for public comment. There will be committee hearings. We will fully respect the process. There will be ample opportunity for debate here and for debate during the course of committee, and we would welcome input from Ontarians.

I would be surprised—and I've already chatted with the minister about this—if there weren't one or more amendments we need to make in order to further improve the quality of the bill itself.

I must also say, time is of the essence. This economy is struggling. We want to create 50,000 new, clean, green jobs. We want to get our hands on clean electricity. We want to do more to fight climate change. So we're moving ahead, but we'll respect the process.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mrs. Elizabeth Witmer: Premier, what we're saying to you is, we recognize too that this is a very important bill for the public. We want to make sure that the public and the stakeholders, who obviously have a keen interest in this legislation, have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the bill, an opportunity that you and your members have had for months and months and months.

If we are to have a substantive debate on second reading, we are asking you to allow time to send it out and get the feedback from the public in order to ensure that this bill, when it is finally passed, will indeed address the concerns and be the best it possibly can be. Will you agree to send it out after first reading?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I want to say again that we intend to respect the process. There will be debate in this House. There will be committee hearings. We're going beyond that; we're posting this on the website of the Environmental Bill of Rights.

I want to remind my colleagues that many of the important elements found in our new Green Energy Act were found in their own platform in the 2007 campaign.

This is a very important piece of public policy; we agree on that. We think that time is of the essence. We need to get going with this. We need to do more to get clean electricity. We need to do more in the fight against climate change. We need to do more to create jobs for Ontario families.

We will respect the process and we'll move forward at the same time.

CHILD PROTECTION

M me France Gélinas: My question is for the Premier. Premier, almost a quarter of the 90 deaths of children who died in care were in northern Ontario, although northern Ontario only represents about 7% of the population.

Commissioner Goudge reports that families who have lost children in First Nations communities never heard from the coroners about the cause of the children's deaths or the location of their children's remains, an issue that the Coroner's Act is trying to address.

Will your government commit to further changes to the legislation to ensure that the advocate for children and youth has access to the information he needs on the deaths of children in northern Ontario and in First Nations communities?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: The Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services.

Hon. Rick Bartolucci: A very, very important question was asked. I want to assure everyone in this House and I want to assure the people of Ontario that there is very, very good dialogue taking place between the Office of the Chief Coroner and the child advocate. They have met and they are certainly establishing that protocol that is very important to establish. Both have very important tasks to perform. I have assurances that there will be that constant dialogue necessary with regard to the Goudge report and the Goudge legislation. I look forward to that process taking place and I look forward to suggestions from the office of the child advocate with regard to recommendations he may have.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

M me France Gélinas: In northern Ontario there are 15 child welfare agencies and about a dozen youth justice facilities, some working in First Nations, where there is a significant shortage of children's services. The advocate for children and youth office has only had the capacity to hire one staff person to deal with all the calls for a region as vast as northern Ontario. Will the Premier commit today to additional funding so that the Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth can adequately fulfill its mandate to northern communities?

Hon. Rick Bartolucci: With regard to the question as it pertains to my ministry, let me reassure the people of the province of Ontario that that dialogue between the office of the child advocate and the Office of the Chief Coroner is a healthy dialogue. It is a respectful dialogue. It will be an ongoing dialogue. We will ensure that the necessary protocols are in place so that, respecting the limitations we all have with regard to privacy regulations, that exchange of information will take place.

I want to assure the people of Ontario, with regard to the Office of the Chief Coroner and the office of the child advocate, that there has been and there will continue to be excellent dialogue between the two.

HEALTH CARE

Ms. Sophia Aggelonitis: My question is for the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. Nearly two years ago, the Toronto Star reported that this government was unable to provide Ontarians with an adequate number of bariatric surgeries, also known as gastric bypass surgeries. The paper reported that the lack of services was forcing many patients to go to the United States to receive the needed procedure. At the time the

article was written, the Minister of Health's predecessor acknowledged that Ontarians had limited access to bariatric surgeries. He said, "That's not ideal and that's why we're ramping programs up."

I ask the new Minister of Health to tell this House what is being done to increase access to bariatric surgeries in Ontario. Has this government made good on its pledge to add more capacity to current bariatric programs?

Hon. David Caplan: I want to thank the member for Hamilton Mountain for the question. I'm very pleased to inform the House that over the next three years our government will be increasing bariatric surgery capacity in the province of Ontario by 500%. We're making it possible with a $75-million investment that will help us to increase the number of bariatric surgeries at four centres of excellence across the province. Combined, these centres currently provide 244 surgeries per year. By 2011-12 they should be performing 1,470 surgeries annually. Both St.

Joseph's Healthcare and Hamilton Health Sciences in my honourable colleague's riding will form the hub of these centres of excellence. By increasing access to bariatric surgery, we're ensuring that more Ontarians can get this needed procedure without having to cross the border to the United States of America.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Sophia Aggelonitis: This is good news for my constituents and all Ontarians. There is a significant demand for bariatric surgery across the province, so I am so glad to hear that more Ontarians have access, especially at St. Joe's in Hamilton.

Though bariatric surgery will no doubt help some Ontarians avoid the prolonged effects of some diseases, it is probably not the most appropriate medical treatment for all. I ask the Minister of Health, other than increasing access to bariatric surgery, what initiatives has this government put in place to help Ontarians fight and prevent chronic illnesses?

Hon. David Caplan: A very insightful question from the member opposite. As health minister, preventing and managing the spread of chronic diseases is one of the top priorities that I've identified. That's why, back in July, I launched the diabetes strategy for the province of Ontario. Our effort to expand access to bariatric surgery is just one part of a $741-million strategy which is comprehensive in nature. The strategy includes public education—that's really key—expanded services, a registry, expansion of the insulin pump program and the expansion of chronic kidney disease services.

Every year, for example, we're giving over 1,300 adults with type 1 diabetes free insulin pumps and supplies under the new Ontario program. We're paying 100% of the price of that pump—that's $6,300—and providing an annual grant of $2,400 to help Ontarians with diabetes pay for supplies. We've nearly tripled diabetes funding since—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: My question is for the Premier. In November 2008, Ontario slipped into have-not status. Since then, we have lost a further 135,000 jobs. As it stands, Ontario has the lowest private sector job creation in all of Canada, but we have created more public sector jobs than all other provinces combined. This is clearly an unsustainable relationship.

Premier, you set us up for economic trouble. Do you now realize how you've squandered the good times?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: We're getting a little glimmer of the position that has secretly, and perhaps of late not so secretly, been adopted by the Conservative Party when it comes to how best to address the recession. We know they don't support our massive investments in infrastructure: our new schools, new hospitals, new roads and new bridges, public transit and the thousands and thousands of jobs. We know they don't support the massive investments we've made in education and all those young people getting more opportunities to pursue higher skills and education. We know they don't support those things.

What they really support is cuts. That's what they support. They want fewer nurses. They want fewer teachers. They want fewer water inspectors. They want fewer protections for the people of Ontario. They want fewer reliable public services for Ontario families. I'm glad to see they're now taking it out from under the table and putting it on top of the table. Their response to the recession: cut services to families.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: Same old same old. In 2003, you inherited a strong, vibrant economy, like a baseball pitcher coming into a baseball game with a big lead, but you've blown the lead with stifling taxes and burdensome red tape. In the five years of a booming economy, your government has created as many private sector jobs as our PC government did in one year. The PC government created more than one million new jobs. We averaged 135,000 new private sector jobs per year, the same number that you've lost in the last three months. On top of all that, we in Ontario have to bear the blame of being a have-not province.

Premier, how can you boast about your accomplishments when all the figures point to failure?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, just so we're clear, they don't support our investments in infrastructure and the thousands of jobs that creates. They don't support our investments in skills and education and the new opportunities that creates for our young people. They don't support our $1 billion invested so far into over 1,000 research and commercialization projects to create the jobs of the future. I'm surprised that they don't support our cuts to business taxes, growing to $3 billion, and they don't support our partnerships with businesses, which have landed over $8 billion in investments and 9,000 jobs.

With respect to our public servants, we have the fewest civil servants per capita in the country. Notwithstanding that, their answer—once again, for Ontarians to hear loudly and clearly—to the recession: cut public services; cut public services. We're not going to go there. If you want to talk about a one-trick pony, you'll see it; it's that side of the House.

HEALTH CARE FUNDING

Mr. Paul Miller: My question is to the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. Last night at a rally in Hamilton, more than 700 health care workers and their supporters raised serious concerns about the state of the health care cuts. Underfunding by this government has caused health care cuts in Hamilton, resulting in the loss of 400 nursing and hospital jobs, speech and language services, the Baby's Best Start program, rehab beds and $21 million from Hamilton Health Sciences.

In Hamilton yesterday, the minister was quoted as saying that the government has increased hospital funding by 32% since 2003. If that's the case, why are these cuts happening? And why are Hamilton hospitals carrying million-dollar deficits? You're sending mixed messages, Minister.

Hon. David Caplan: The only mixed message is coming from the member opposite. Hospital funding has increased 32% over the course of five years. That's in stark contrast from what we've seen under both previous governments. In fact, we've seen under the NDP government 3,000 nurses fired in the province of Ontario, and over 6,000 fired by Conservatives. Over 10,000 nurses have been hired by the province of Ontario since 2003, and I'm very proud of that fact.

We've seen other wonderful advances: the innovation of family health teams, nurse-practitioner-led clinics. We've seen a $1.1-billion aging-at-home strategy. I think this member needs to get his facts correct. Health care spending has increased and that's only going to continue in the province. I know that health care now accounts for 46 cents out of every program dollar spent in Ontario, and that is only going to increase.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mr. Paul Miller: That's an amazing comment. We've already lost our emergency room. In addition to that loss and these devastating cuts, funding for 70 transitional beds is running out. Housekeeping and food services are threatened with contracting out. Our fertility clinic is being privatized, and we all know that privatization of any health care costs means more money. When will this minister and the government wake up to the health care funding crisis and properly fund Hamilton hospitals and the health care system in this province and stop quoting numbers that don't apply to areas?

Hon. David Caplan: A little truth in advertising: It was the NDP government that delisted fertility services in the province of Ontario. So if you have any problems, I say to the member opposite, talk to Hampton, Kormos and Marchese, who were all a part of that government which did so.

But based upon data from Statistics Canada's labour force survey, employment in Ontario's hospitals increased from 177,300 people in 2003, to 208,400 in 2008, producing a gain of 31,100 jobs. That represents an increase of approximately 7%.

I would encourage the member to get in touch with the reality as opposed to his ideological rhetoric and look at the true facts and the true state of health care in the province of Ontario. Unfortunately, my friend opposite is oblivious and out of touch with—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

NORTHERN ONTARIO DEVELOPMENT

Mr. David Orazietti: My question is for the Minister of Northern Development and Mines regarding the growth plan for northern Ontario. As a representative from northern Ontario, I understand the importance of creating a long-term strategic plan that will strengthen and enhance our government's commitment to improving the northern economy. While our government continues to make unprecedented investments in green energy projects and the traditional resource sector, as well as in health care, education and infrastructure renewal, we recognize there's more to be done. That's why we're working on a plan to be developed by northerners for northerners.

Last spring, residents from the region were invited to provide input on the discussion paper released by your ministry. In May, I had the privilege of hosting the consultation session focused on the discussion paper in Sault Ste. Marie, which included community leaders and representatives from business, industry, research and the academic sectors. Minister, could you please elaborate on the consultation process for the northern Ontario growth plan that is taking place across the province?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: I'm very grateful for the question from the hard-working member from Sault Ste. Marie. Certainly, the growth plan process has been going very well, and I'm pleased to tell members of the Legislature more about it. From November 2008 until even this month, February, my ministry and the Ontario Growth Secretariat held 13 technical sessions all across the north. The focus of these sessions has included health, transportation, alternative energy, mining, education and training, value-added forestry, bioeconomy, agriculture, tourism, aboriginal economic development and business.

In addition, from some of the feedback we've received, we've added two sessions on the rural economy, very important ones, one plan for the northeast and one for the northwest. The fact is, these one-day facilitated workshops have been a very positive experience. They've provided an opportunity for participants to discuss the key policy directives with growth planning. And I want to talk about the Think North Summit, but I will perhaps talk about that in my supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. David Orazietti: I think all northerners would agree a growth plan for this region is very important. Northern Ontario faces many unique opportunities and challenges during both favourable and difficult economic times, and it's good to see that during this current period of uncertainty, our government is working with northerners to create a more prosperous future for the region.

Minister, the technical sessions will provide the government with valuable ideas for the growth plan, while the Think North Summit is also proving to be a valuable tool for the region in drafting this plan. I understand from those who attended, including Sault Ste. Marie's mayor, John Rowswell, that feedback was very positive, but could you provide further information for the House on this important conference?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Thank you again to the member from Sault Ste. Marie. Indeed, the Think North Summit, which was held in Thunder Bay earlier in the month, was an extremely positive experience and very much a real success. In fact, people were describing it as inspiring, and I found it that way myself.

The purpose of Think North was to broaden our thinking and to inspire the way that we approach issues by bringing together participants with national and international leaders, who were remarkable, along with myself and my co-chair of the northern growth plan, Minister Smitherman. We also had Minister Cansfield and Minister Duguid, who were there attending the summit, so it was wonderful to have that support.

As well, there were over 400 northerners participating, which included large urban mayors, rural mayors, First Nations leadership, industry and business representatives, representation from all major educational institutions, research networks and NGOs. We believe the summit will build on input received through these regional sessions and the technical tables to shape the draft growth plan. We look forward to—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

CHILD PROTECTION

Mrs. Julia Munro: My question is for the Minister of Children and Youth Services. Yesterday, you told this House that the number of deaths of children in care has remained constant since 1991. Minister, you also told us that you have increased the number of children's aid staff by 20% since you took office. Will you tell us how it is that the number of staff can increase, yet the number of deaths does not decline at all?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I welcome the opportunity to actually clarify some of the misinformation that is out there surrounding the number of 90. I think it's important that the members of this Legislature take their leadership roles seriously and actually refer to the facts. The fact of the matter is that only 14 of the 90 children—and I stress that every death is a tragedy—were actually in the care of children's aid societies at the time of their deaths.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mrs. Julia Munro: Minister, that was the information you gave us yesterday that I've used in my question to you, and I think that the important thing here is the fact that there should be no more important goal for you and your ministry than the lives and the health of our children. Clearly, regardless of the comment that you make today about the description of the category of these deaths, you are not meeting this goal. So I'm asking you today to commit to studying why the number of children dying in care is what it is, and report back to this House with your findings.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I can assure the member opposite that there is nothing more important than the protection of children in this province, especially the children who are under the protection of the children's aid societies. Those are our children and it is our responsibility to keep them safe. That is why we review the reports from the coroner every time there is a death. We follow up with recommendations every time. Again, I would refer you to the coroner's report to see the details of what we have done. The coroner himself does acknowledge the work that we have done to reduce the number of deaths.

I think it's important to take this opportunity to talk about the deaths due to unsafe sleeping arrangements of infants. It is a big problem, not just among kids who are—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

HOSPITAL SECURITY

M me France Gélinas: My question is for the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. CBC broke a story about an assault occurring at St. Michael's Hospital in Toro