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April 24, 2008

39th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2008-Apr-24 (PDF)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE

DE L’ONTARIO

Thursday 24 April 2008

Jeudi 24 avril 2008

PRIVATE

MEMBERS’

PUBLIC BUSINESS

CHILDREN’S

LAW REFORM

AMENDMENT ACT, 2008 /

LOI DE 2008 MODIFIANT

LA LOI PORTANT RÉFORME

DU DROIT DE L’ENFANCE

UNLAWFUL

FIREARMS

IN VEHICLES ACT, 2008 /

LOI DE 2008 SUR LES ARMES À FEU

ILLÉGALES DANS LES VÉHICULES

CHILDREN’S

LAW REFORM

AMENDMENT ACT, 2008 /

LOI DE 2008 MODIFIANT

LA LOI PORTANT RÉFORME

DU DROIT DE L’ENFANCE

UNLAWFUL

FIREARMS

IN VEHICLES ACT, 2008 /

LOI DE 2008 SUR LES ARMES À FEU

ILLÉGALES DANS LES VÉHICULES

MEMBERS’

STATEMENTS

HALTON

MENTORING PARTNERSHIP

WOMEN’S

LEGAL EDUCATION

AND ACTION FUND

HOCKEY

HOCKEY

FISHING

REGULATIONS

HERITAGE

CONSERVATION

MAZO

DE LA ROCHE

ABORIGINAL

AFFAIRS

PASSOVER

REPORTS

BY COMMITTEES

STANDING

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

MOTIONS

PRIVATE

MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

VISITORS

LEGISLATIVE

PAGES

ORAL

QUESTIONS

ONTARIO

ECONOMY

ADOPTION

DISCLOSURE

ONTARIO

ECONOMY

LEGISLATIVE

REFORM

NATIVE

LAND DISPUTES

SCHOOL

CLOSURES

SPORTS

FUNDING

ONTARIO

ECONOMY

POVERTY

CULTURAL

PROTECTION

APPRENTICESHIP

TRAINING

CANCER

TREATMENT

HOSPITAL

FUNDING

TRUCKING

SAFETY

SCHOOL

POOLS

PETITIONS

LORD’S

PRAYER

COMMUNITY

COLLEGES

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

FIREARMS

CONTROL

LORD’S

PRAYER

COMMUNITY

COLLEGES

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

FIREARMS

CONTROL

POPE

JOHN PAUL II

COMMUNITY

COLLEGES

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

HOSPITAL

FUNDING

LORD’S

PRAYER

ANTI-SMOKING

LEGISLATION

LORD’S

PRAYER

FIREARMS

CONTROL

ANTI-SMOKING

LEGISLATION

FIREARMS

CONTROL

ORDERS

OF THE DAY

PAYDAY

LOANS ACT, 2008 /

LOI DE 2008 CONCERNANT

LES PRÊTS SUR SALAIRE

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS’

PUBLIC BUSINESS

CHILDREN’S LAW REFORM

AMENDMENT ACT, 2008 /

LOI DE 2008 MODIFIANT

LA LOI PORTANT RÉFORME

DU DROIT DE L’ENFANCE

Mr. Craitor moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 33,

An Act to amend the Children’s Law Reform Act /

Projet de loi 33, Loi modifiant la Loi portant réforme du droit de l’enfance.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Pursuant to standing order 96, Mr. Craitor, you have up to 10 minutes. The

floor is yours.

Mr. Kim Craitor: It’s with extreme

pleasure that I introduce Bill 33 for second reading. My bill is

An Act to

amend the Children’s Law Reform Act. It is commonly called the grandparents’

rights bill, but I prefer to call it the grandchild’s rights bill. It’s a bill

designed to ensure that children who have formed a positive and loving bond

with their grandparents will have the opportunity to continue to do so if their

parents get involved with a divorce or if for some other reason they are

separated from their parents. This is the third time I’ve introduced this bill,

and I am praying, along with the thousands or so of grandparents who are

watching this debate on the parliamentary channel today, that three times will

be lucky.

Let me talk for a moment about the technical side of what

I’m proposing. I propose in

section 24 of the Children’s Law Reform Act, when

the courts look at the merits of an application for custody or access to

children, to insert two clauses. First, I propose to add a clause to reinforce

to the courts the importance in a child’s life of maintaining positive

emotional ties with either set of grandparents. Secondly, I propose that the

courts consider the willingness of each person applying for custody of a child

to facilitate maintaining the child’s positive contact with each parent and

grandparent, as is consistent with the best interests of the child. It’s just

that simple.

Grandparents’ access and custodial rights is an issue

that was before us last session. It’s back again, and it’s not going to go

away. There are some very human faces of people watching us today who care

passionately for and love their grandchildren, but they have been denied

visitation access or are currently raising grandchildren after experiencing a

lot of difficulty establishing their rights before the law and spending a lot

of money in the courts.

Far too often, as many of you in this House may know,

after a messy divorce, for example, access to children of the marriage has

unfortunately been used as a lethal weapon. Spite, hatred, revenge and anger

can be an awful thing, but no child—no child—should be used as a weapon.

Let me outline to you how I came to realize that far too

often in this battleground, grandparents also lose access to their

grandchildren.

When I was first elected, one of the first groups that

came to see me in my community office were 12 grandparents. During the two and

a half hours of discussion that followed, I truly realized the significance of

problems that grandparents were having. Thanks to their help and help from

grandparents from across Ontario and now across Canada, we sat down and felt

that the best way to bring attention to this growing problem was to bring

forward this bill to the House.

In fact, I want to tell you that a modified form of my

proposed bill has already been considered in the Yukon and in six other

provinces: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova

Scotia. Nova Scotia, in fact, had its law reform commission look at the pros

and cons of my type of legislation. What it concluded, like the current Ontario

legislation we have now, was that there’s nothing in the legislation that

prevented access to and custody of children by grandparents. But they also said

there was a real, practical need to highlight the maintaining of positive

grandparental involvement in the disrupted lives of children, which is simply

what my bill is doing.

On its face, Bill 33 really is a modest bill. In fact, it

will cost the province nothing, not a cent. The bill is simply about

grandparental access and the nurturing and development of children. It’s

nothing more and it’s nothing less. They have a voice, and their voice needs to

be heard: grandparents’ and grandchildren’s voices. We often forget that we

must speak for the grandchildren, and that’s what my bill does.

When I first introduced this bill in 2004, I was really

blown away by the number of phone calls, e-mails, letters and people visiting

my office to describe the pain and suffering that caring grandparents suffered

as children’s relationships broke down in high-conflict matrimonial situations.

In fact, my office was flooded with well over 2,000 contacts. Many of them came

not only from Ontario, they came from other provinces across Canada, from the

United States, and even beyond that.

Nearly four years later, that number has doubled. My

office and I hear the pleas of grandparents daily who need the help of the

House to allow them to see their grandchildren. In many cases, these

grandchildren were first used as weapons in custody battles and then denied

access to one or both of their grandparents.

The relationship of a child to their grandparents is in

fact a beautiful and self-affirming association. Not all these situations are

caused by divorce. I was particularly taken by a situation in my riding of

Niagara-on-the-Lake. A grandparent wrote me a letter, and I want to share it

with the House. I still remember reading the letter four years ago. I think of

it every day and it has not left me, nor do I think it ever will.

It’s a very emotional situation. Their daughter passed

away far, far, far too young. For two years, in the painful time before her

passing, the grandparents took care of their granddaughter and formed a very

close mutual bond with her. The husband remarried shortly thereafter, and since

then, with no explanation, has denied them the right to their daughter’s child.

I agreed with them when they wrote to me that nobody should have the right to

deny children the love they deserve.

I would also like the House to hear a couple of other

e-mails because these are the realities of the bill that I’m proposing. They

are about personal situations that grandparents are going through. Here’s one

that I received from Maurene White on behalf of Cangrands, a national

organization that advocates on behalf of caring grandparents and their

grandchildren.

“Dear Kim,

“Please give passage of private member’s Bill 33 urgent

priority.

“As you know, Bill 33 is

An Act to amend the Children’s

Law Reform Act and has passed the first reading this session.

“It passed to the social concerns committee in the

previous session, which ended before it was passed into law.

“More than 75,000 Ontario grandparents now remain denied

of access to visiting with one or more beloved grandchildren.

“On fixed pensions, we do not have the financial

resources to lobby extensively for this reform that your bill is proposing.

“For us and approximately 112,500 grandchildren in

Ontario” to suffer the fact that they are being denied the benefits of

relationships between their grandchild and grandparents “is surely one of the

tragedies of contemporary society, and the result can only be damaging to

future generations.

“In Quebec,

article 611 of the civil code is a crucial

tool for settling disputes. Bill 33 is more elaborate and clearer than

article

611. Once passed into law, Bill 33 will surely afford more efficient, rapid

settlements.

“We have great hope you will see that Bill 33 quickly

passes the remaining readings and proceeds to the social concerns committee to

become law very soon.

“This could leave time for some grandparents and

grandchildren to be reunited this summer.

“We urgently plead that you make this a reality for us.

“Thank you very much for considering our petition,” and

our concerns.

I could go on; I have over 4,000 of these e-mails, of

these personal stories.

What am I asking for? What are the grandparents asking

for? Something very simple: that when the courts consider custody or access,

they look at grandparents. They are a very special type of individual. They

provide a very special relationship with their children. I’m truly convinced

that with a little prodding and encouragement, the courts and social agencies

can provide real leadership in providing access to grandchildren.

I’m standing here simply to say to the House, to all of

my colleagues, to the members: Please support second reading of Bill 33. In

doing so, this bill will continue to go on to public hearings and grandparents’

rights will be reinstated.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Further debate?

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: I want to thank the

member from Niagara Falls. I will say at the outset that we in the New

Democratic Party are going to support this bill. I personally am going to

support it. I think it’s an important piece of legislation.

What I find rather sad about the situation is that it’s

taken this member from Niagara Falls three times to bring it before this

House—three times. I know that other members, from this side of the floor, at

least, have debated ad infinitum bills that have less import. I’m thinking in

particular about some more objectionable bills, like Bill 35, the slush fund

bill that we spent so many hours in this House debating, when very hopefully we

could be passing something like this private member’s bill.

So one asks, why is it a private member’s bill and why is

it not a government bill? Why is the weight of the caucus on the other side of

the House not behind this? Why is the weight of the McGuinty government not

behind grandparents and grandparents’ rights in this province? I think that’s a

legitimate question to ask.

I certainly want to extend to the member from Niagara

Falls our hope from this side of the floor that this time he is successful, and

again, would that he were successful earlier and not have to go through this

again and again and again.

In terms of the legislation itself, as he said, it

follows on the heels of legislation that has been brought in in other

provinces. In particular—and it’s interesting that so often we look to Quebec

for the lead on these things—certainly Quebec’s civil code offers the strongest

language. In their

section 611, it states, “In no case may the father or

mother, without grave reason, interfere with personal relations between the

child and his”—or her—“grandparents.” That’s strong language. Perhaps if this

bill is given a chance, if it’s not just fluffed off again, we can strengthen

the language, if anything, in this bill where grandparents are concerned.

There is a caveat, however, and I do want to bring it to

his attention, so that if the bill is looked at in committee, some of the

language can be tightened up. The Ontario Women’s Justice Network has written

about such legislation. The women’s justice network, just to give them a bit of

a plug in this House—not that they need one—do amazing work and they do

particularly amazing work where families are concerned, where the woman is on

her own, where she is a single parent, where there has been an issue of abuse.

They point out:

“The situation can become somewhat more complex where the

parents have separated and have different agendas.

“For example, a mother leaving an abusive partner will

want to ensure that her children’s safety is protected. She may wish to limit

access by the paternal grandparents because of concerns that the grandparents will

not protect the children from their father or will bad-mouth her to the

children. The father may see access by his parents as a way to get his own

access, through a backdoor.

“In these cases”—again, I’m still reading from what

they’ve done on this issue—“sometimes both the grandparents and the

grandchildren are the pawns of the abuser—the grandparents may be genuinely

trying to maintain a relationship with their grandchildren—and sometimes the

grandparents are actively attempting to undermine the efforts of the mother to

assure the safety and well-being of her children. It can be difficult for the

court to sort out the motivation of the grandparents as well as the other

parties.”

So there is some sensitivity around this issue and there

are ways of manipulating codes that have been brought in in other provinces to

abet abusers and not prevent abuse. I just raise that as a bit of a red flag

that we need to look at when we’re looking at all the finer points of this

legislation, if and when it goes forward.

The most critical phrase in this bill—and I can’t stress

this enough; the most critical phrase in any family law—is “the best interests

of the child.” That really dictates to whoever is doing the adjudicating what

position to take. Every family is somewhat different in this regard. Every

family has different issues. Again, because of the work that the Ontario

Women’s Justice Network has done around women who have been abused dealing with

their abusers, trying to keep their children safe, seeing grandparents as a

possible backdoor, I simply hold that out.

I also want to hold out something else they’ve done. We

tend to be a litigious society—not quite so much as our neighbours to the

south, but we are—and we have to own that. It’s particularly egregious when families

have to go through the court route to find some answer to their issues. One of

the points that the women’s justice network makes—and they make it well, I

think—is, “The law is seldom the best way to resolve the complex and emotional

disputes that can arise among and between family members. The law is an

important last resort when all other strategies have failed or when safety is

an immediate issue, but it should not often be the first remedy sought.”

I really would recommend that anybody watching this—all

the grandparents are concerned, the parents are concerned, the children who are

watching this are also concerned—go to the Ontario Women’s Justice Network and

read this, because they go into great detail as to ways to avoid the court

alternative, ways of building good relationships, ways of keeping those

relationships fostered and alive between different generations in one family.

Again, that’s critically important. They say things like, “Build a good

relationship with both parents of the grandchildren, not just the one who is

your child; avoid criticizing the parent(

s) in front of the children; do not

play the children off against a parent or use the child as a messenger; support

the parents’ parenting values and strategies and discuss disagreements in a

constructive and supportive manner when the grandchild is not present.”

They go on also that when parents are separating, not to

take sides; to offer help and support with the children, and of course, again,

always to maintain contact with the children—it’s so important—where they can,

obviously. I know that the member of Niagara Falls is addressing situations

where that’s not possible, but one hopes that it doesn’t automatically get to

that situation, that there are steps that grandparents and parents can take

before it goes down that dark road.

I wanted to take just a few minutes, only because I have

my son in the House, to also give a little bit of a tribute to my own

grandmother and his grandmother, who he never actually met. My grandmother was

one of those custodial grandparents. She played a phenomenally important role

in my life and in the lives of my siblings as well. We grew up in a fractious

house with a lot of trauma. My grandmother was one of those incredible

grandparents—I’m sure there are many who are watching today—who actually

provided the stability that we needed, both financial and emotional.

She was there, not just for her family—and I know that

others are ringing with what I say—but really, in a sense, for the family of

humankind. We grew up in a house on Bedford Road, and Glenn Gould used to come

into our house to play the piano. Other musicians would come and go. People who

had no home would be housed in our big roomy house on Bedford Road. Everyone

was always welcome to dinner. We had at least 10 at dinner every night. My

grandmother always sat at the head of that table and presided over that table,

again, with compassion and love, particularly to the children and to those who

needed compassion and love. So she provided the example that allowed us to grow

and to grow with some strength, to overcome hardship and adversity. I wanted to

pay tribute to her, because she certainly made a huge difference in my life.

I want to also say, because I know we’ve also heard in my

office from grandparents who would love to have access to the children and

don’t, that the hearts of not only myself but the entire New Democratic Party

go out to you, and not only to grandparents but to all of those who play a

really important role in the lives of other people’s biological children. It’s

said these days that we’re more family bushes than we are family trees, that we

have extended relatives, that we have mentors, that we have people who come in

and go out of our lives who really play significant roles. A small number of

those are related to us biologically; a great number of those are related to us

in a more universal sense.

It’s so important to the lives of children that people

parent, in a sense, other’s children. You know, the old adage “It takes a village

to raise a child” is absolutely true. I know that in the egregious issues of

child abuse, this becomes life-saving or not—as the case may be—because we all

know, I hope we all know, and I hope those listening know, that it is

everyone’s responsibility if they know of abuse, if they know that a child is

going through a difficult situation, to take some role, to step up, to alert

the authorities and to do what they need to do. No one is exempt from that

role, whether related or not. This gives all of us in this House a chance to

reiterate, for everyone who comes in contact with a child, how important their

role is in the life of that child.

It’s particularly important here, of course. It’s

interesting because those at home might not know we have pages in the House. We

have children in the House as we speak about this bill and about grandparents

and the role of grandparents in children’s lives—I would describe their role as

other parents in children’s lives—all of those other parents: clergy; teachers;

even members here, who I know play roles in Big Brothers, Big Sisters and other

organizations that again can be, and often are, absolutely life-saving for

children.

Again, to get back to the bill at hand: This bill from

the member from Niagara Falls, coming back again, for the third time, is a

critical piece of legislation. It’s important. It needs to be passed. It needs

to be passed speedily. I believe the language could be strengthened. I believe

a couple of the red flags that I’ve raised about the back door—possibly for the

abuser coming through the grandparents—angle on this has to be looked at and

has to be tightened.

I believe that, again, “the best interests of the child”

is the critical phrase here and has to always supersede anyone’s consideration,

and that includes grandparents—it actually should include parents’

considerations as well, and I realize that too often, it does not. “The best

interests of the child” is that phrase that is essential in this bill.

It’s sad that it had to come to this House three times.

I don’t know the inner workings of the caucus across the

floor. I don’t know why this isn’t a government bill. I don’t know why it

doesn’t have the weight of the Premier behind it. I don’t know why it doesn’t

have the weight of the Minister of Children and Youth Services behind it. I

don’t know why the support isn’t there for grandparents, for those who are

concerned or should be concerned and intimately involved in the lives of their

children, if it’s good for the child, if it serves the best interests of the

child. I would wish that that were not so. I and, I know, the members of the

New Democratic Party would love to see this bill come back as a government

bill, and then we know it would be passed into law. We hesitate to see the day

that the member from Niagara Falls brings it back a fourth time or a fifth

time. Certainly, that’s not what we’re after here; we’re after speedy passage.

If there’s anything we can do to affect that, including calling for unanimous

consent for second or third reading, I’m absolutely happy to do that.

So, I leave that offer open for the member from Niagara

Falls. Certainly, I look forward to hearing my colleagues from the Progressive

Conservative Party speak to this, to see whether they would be amenable to

something like unanimous consent on this bill.

When it’s looked at in committee, I would support the

strengthening of the language, similar to that in Quebec legislation, and also,

of course, a little bit of a caveat, or perhaps just putting in bold “the best

interests of the child,” because we would hate to see this being used by anyone

for something less than the best interests of the child.

It’s been a delight to speak on this bill. It’s been a

great delight to do it in honour of my own grandmother, who played such a

seminal role in my life, and all the grandmothers and grandfathers who play

seminal roles in the lives of their children. We hope that we won’t have to

debate this bill again. We hope this is the last time we see it in this House.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Further debate?

Mrs. Linda Jeffrey: I’m pleased to speak

this morning in favour of Bill 33,

An Act to amend the Children’s Law Reform

Act, and I’m pleased to be here again in the House for the third time while my

colleague the MPP for Niagara Falls brings this forward.

We all know that children need stability, and we know

that children need feelings of self-worth and it’s vital that they form

meaningful, long-term relationships. Unfortunately, there are times, as the

member from Niagara Falls has mentioned, when families experience a traumatic

event, either through divorce or separation or sometimes the unexpected death

of an adult child. I believe that this bill will clarify the importance of

children’s relationships with their parents and their grandparents.

Family law issues, particularly as they relate to custody

of and access to children, can be really difficult. This is no less so when

dealing with the issue of access by grandparents to their grandchildren.

Fortunately, in most cases, arrangements relating to the custody of and access

to children, including access by grandparents and others, are settled without

recourse to the litigation and the courts. The cases that do come before the

courts, therefore, represent a very small percentage of the overall number of

potential family law cases.

Historically, grandparents have had no legal rights of

access to their grandchildren simply by virtue of their biological

relationship. Legislation in all Canadian jurisdictions now makes it possible

for grandparents to apply for custody of or access to their grandchildren.

There is no jurisdiction in Canada, however, which provides grandparents access

as a right, which is usually referred to as presumptive right of access.

There is no question that in most cases, the continuation

of an existing grandparent-grandchild relationship is in the best interests of

the child. Similarly, relations between a child and other family members, such

as aunts, uncles, siblings, step-parents, step-grandparents and step-siblings,

can be and often are tremendously beneficial to a child’s welfare, health and

development.

Grandparents are a family’s first reserve in times of

crisis. They act as playmates for their children, role models, family

historians and mentors, and they help lay a foundation for healthy self-esteem

and security in children. They are an important safety net.

Research suggests that grandparents play a significant

role in the lives of children. In fact, ignoring the existence of a grandparent

who has formed strong bonds with a child may not represent the best interests

of that child. Studies have indicated that a grandparent’s role is an integral

part of a child’s self-identity.

Only Quebec, British Columbia, New Brunswick, and the

Yukon have access legislation that presumes that contact with grandparents is

in the best interests of a child. This places the responsibility with the

parents to show serious cause why access would not be in the child’s best

interests. All but three states in the US have laws permitting grandparents to

petition for visitation upon death or divorce of an adult. This assures the

grandparent the right to be heard in court, but it still remains for the court

to decide if it is in the child’s best interests to visit with that

grandparent.

I’d like to use my remaining time here this morning to

speak in a personal way about my relationship with my grandparents. My parents

immigrated to Canada when I was three years old, leaving all of our extended

family both in Ireland and England. There were a couple of visits back and

forth over the years, but I didn’t have the luxury of a Sunday night dinner to

talk with my grandparents once a week. So for the most part, as a youngster, I

got to know my maternal grandparents only through audiotapes, handwritten

letters and parcels at Christmastime. Although I didn’t have their physical

presence in my life as a child, I did feel the unconditional love and attention

that all grandparents shower on a grandchild. They offered joy, love, fun,

energy and context to everything I did. As their only grandchild, I basked in

their approval and pride. I wish to recognize the special role and effort that

my grandparents Rose and Frank Gray played long distance not only in my

childhood, but later in helping me rear one of my own children.

I’m the parent of three boys. My second son is now 22

years old, but when he was very young, he had some significant challenges. He

had fine and gross motor delays, as well as severe language and hearing

difficulties. My grandmother saw in Kevin a child who just needed time to blossom.

She never accepted the fact that he was delayed, and spoke of the untapped

potential that no one else could see at the time. She was unfailingly positive

in championing his progress as he gradually mastered important milestones.

Despite the distance, both grandparents cheered and loved unconditionally. I

think that’s the most special thing about grandparents.

My grandparents are no longer with us, but I would like

to have it known that their influence was meaningful and their

instincts—despite not being based on medical evidence of the day—were

extraordinarily accurate in their predictions. My son is now following his

dream to be a sports announcer. He’s worked for the last two years in a small

Manitoba radio station, and I attribute his success in part to the strong

support in his early years by his great-grandparents. They were great in more

ways than one.

Grandparents are a valuable resource, an untapped

resource, and I support maintaining ties between children and their

grandparents. I’m really pleased to be here again supporting my colleague from

Niagara Falls in his attempt to amend the Children’s Law Reform Act.

Mrs. Joyce Savoline: As a mother and a

grandmother, I support initiatives that offer equal access to family members.

It is really a sad state of affairs when we have to legislate access to family

members, and I credit the member from Niagara Falls for bringing this issue

forward and addressing it in this way.

I firmly believe that children should not be used as

pawns, however, in any custody battle between adults, be it parents or

grandparents. I cannot imagine being refused access to Olivia, my

granddaughter, my own flesh and blood, and I hope that I never have to go

through that.

Grandparents bring so much to a child’s life.

Grandparents have the time to linger. They linger over a meal; they linger over

a discussion. They often are the best time for children to open up and share

their day and their secrets. Grandparents bring the perspective of a different

time, of a slower pace and, yes, a simpler life. They ground their

grandchildren with a connection to their family history, to their roots and to

their experiences in a different time and place. To remove or deny that

experience to our youth would be devastating to those children who have been

raised with grandparents in their lives. To know that your grandchild is within

reach, yet you are denied the right to hold that child or visit that child, is

too painful to imagine. My heart does go out to the grandparents who currently

are experiencing this injustice.

We here in the Legislature are charged with the duty of

creating a well-rounded legislation, and I take that responsibility very

seriously. I need to set aside my perspective for a moment as a grandparent and

ask the questions I’m duty bound to ask.

My first concern centres around the awarding of custody

to a parent who is best able to facilitate access to a grandparent. This

inclusion, if interpreted by the letter of the law, may, and I suggest would,

discriminate against a parent whose own parents are deceased. Our goal in

amending legislation should be to remove that opportunity for any

discrimination. Custody arrangements need to be determined in the child’s best

interest.

The role of grandparents should be considered in terms

of enhancing the quality of life for the children who are being considered.

They should not be lined up like little pawns on one side or the other. We

exist to round out the lives of our grandchildren as grandparents, not to

enhance the bargaining power in any custody negotiations.

No matter which parent is awarded custody, the

grandparents from each side of the dispute should have equal access to their

grandchildren. One grandparent should not be frozen out of the relationship

because the custody agreement is not weighted in their own child’s interest.

Custody negotiations, in the most amicable divorce

situations, can turn into a nightmare for all parties, and the kids are caught

like the meat in a sandwich. Children become pawns in a confusing situation of

ownership. What I do not want to see is grandparents and children becoming

pawns in a complex game of legal cat and mouse.

Grandparents have an even more important role to play in

an acrimonious divorce. They are the Switzerland, let’s call it, in the midst

of a war. They are a neutral body who can offer an atmosphere of stability in a

time of emotional upheaval for children. If we place grandparents on one side

or another, children will lose this safety net or divorce-free zone in which

they can relax and be themselves.

We all know that children hear and see much more than we

give them credit for. Children of divorce know exactly who was on mom’s side

and who was on dad’s side. That list should be kept for friends and neighbours,

not grandparents. They should never be forced to pick sides. They should never

end up on a list that negatively affects their relationship with their

grandchild at a time when the grandchildren need them most.

I also feel that this could be a slippery slope if the

impact or weight of the grandparents is not clearly defined. What I mean by

that is, will the lawyers now be digging in the history of the grandparents for

some skeleton to use to their client’s advantage? Will the relationship between

the parents and the grandparents be called into question or held to a certain

standard to qualify? There is already too much muck in divorce proceedings as

it is. We do not need to muddy the waters further with superfluous connections

and decades-old scandals that the families have already recovered from once, a

long time ago. Family Court needs to be able to operate in a swift manner,

while respecting the interests of all parties at hand, but especially the

children.

Children need stability and they need to know what is

happening to the family dynamic in order to feel safe and secure. I do have

concerns that this legislation may set up another layer of bureaucracy that

would delay judgments and interfere with the decision-making process. We have

enough legal hoops to jump through at the present time that are not always in

the bests interests of the children; I’m not eager to see us create more. I’m

interested to hear what our stakeholders in the Family Court system feel about

this legislation and I look forward to the opportunity to hear from them as

this legislation proceeds, I hope, through the public consultation process. My

information from the legal community is that judges and lawyers are already

using these principles on a daily basis. As legislators, it would help us

greatly to know if we are being asked to simply codify what exists in family

law practice today or if in fact we are reinventing the wheel.

I feel for my colleague across the floor. This

legislation seems to be, at first blush, a really good idea and I hope that his

private member’s bill has the opportunity to go through the entire process this

time around. I know that the member for Niagara Falls has introduced this

legislation several times before. It was entitled Bill 8 and it died the same

death as my Bill 42. I hope the member opposite will be able to impress upon

his colleagues the importance of allowing that public process and allowing the

stakeholders on this issue to participate in the process. The McGuinty

government appears to be afraid of public opinion. They are not ones to invite

or seek out participation at all. In fact, it appears to me that they go out of

their way to silence the public, as the recent changes to the standing orders

suggest.

While I did my due diligence and connected with

stakeholders that I’m familiar with, I would like the opportunity to hear from

the people who raised this issue with the member for Niagara Falls. These

individuals or groups were persistent enough in their efforts not to allow the

McGuinty government to silence their mission and I believe they have a right to

be heard. In support of my colleague across the floor, I look forward to the

full public hearing for this bill that my legislation never had the opportunity

to experience. And should, for some reason, his bill not make it through the

gauntlet of the Premier’s office, I will be there with a sympathetic shoulder.

I want to state for the record that the most important

issue here is that the onus be placed on all parties to prove to the court that

they are acting in the best interests of the child or children before them. My

caucus colleagues and I believe that the best interests of the child are

paramount—more important than anything else. That being said, the rights of the

parents must be respected and the grandparents included to the degree that best

meets the needs of the children.

I look forward to watching this legislation move through

the process and I thank you for the opportunity to speak, as a legislator, as a

mother and as a grandmother.

Mr. Khalil Ramal: I’m pleased this

morning to stand up and speak in support of Bill 33,

An Act to amend the

Children’s Law Reform Act.

I want to first commend the member for Niagara Falls for

bringing this issue to the House for the third time, which shows his

determination about passing this bill. I believe it’s a very important issue

we’re debating here this morning. We heard from many different speakers before

my talking about the importance of this connection.

As you know, grandparents often become the family’s

first reserves in times of crisis. Grandparents act as fun playmates for

children, role models, family historians, mentors, and help to establish

self-esteem and security for children. All these elements are important for

children, and we have no right, I think, from a human perspective, to

disconnect this relationship.

When I was a young boy, my grandparents used to live in

a different town. I used to look forward to every event, every vacation, to go

and visit them, especially in the summertime, when I used to get the chance to

spend the summer with them, on both sides—my father’s side and my mother’s

side. Most importantly, we have a tradition in our family where we name the

oldest boy or girl after their grandparent’s name. For instance, my name is

Khalil Jawad Ramal. My grandfather was named Khalil, and his grandfather was

Khalil, so we pass on the tradition to our children. My son is named Jawad

Khalil Ramal and my father is named Jawad Khalil Ramal. I was talking to my son

the other day and was hoping he’d call his son, if he got married, Khalil. He

said, “Don’t even think about it.”

For that reason, we established a good relationship with

my grandparents. My grandfather used to love me so much. I used to go visit and

he’d give me all the treats, whatever I wanted, because my name was like his

name, and he thinks, in his mind, this has to pass the tradition on to me, and

I would hope I’ve passed the traditional family to my kids and my kids’ kids.

Like many people said who spoke before me, due to a

divorce situation, the relationship between the wife and husband can get ugly.

Who pays the price? Often, the grandparents. As you know, when according to the

law the mother continues to be awarded sole custody of the children, the

maternal grandparents will enjoy a closer relationship with the grandchildren,

while the paternal grandparents will continue to be at risk, the connections

with the grandparents.

I think if this bill passes, it will establish a good

basis, a good continuation of the relationship between grandchildren and

grandparents. It’s very important, as I mentioned, that grandparents play a

pivotal roles in our lives.

Ten years ago I was married, and for some reason, we got

divorced. Out of this marriage we had a son, as I mentioned, named Jawad. I

don’t want my son not to have a good relationship with my ex-wife’s parents,

because I think it’s very important to have that relationship. In the same

fashion, my ex-wife encouraged my son to have a good relationship with my

parents. Both of us believe it’s very important to create that

relationship—very important. Whatever happened between me and her shouldn’t

reflect on the relationship between my son and his grandparents on both sides.

It’s important for all of us, for human reasons, to keep

that connection. The member for Niagara Falls, due to his determination, has

brought this bill again—for the third time—to this House with the hope that

this time it will get support from all the members and get the attention of the

whole government bureaucracy, whatever it takes in order to pass this bill. As

has been mentioned many different times, this bill already exists in many

different provinces, like Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta, so why not in

Ontario? Why not in Ontario?

I know there’s some reservation about certain issues

concerning this bill, but we can massage it, we can clean it up, in a fashion

that can serve the aim of this bill, which will continue the establishment of

the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. It’s very important.

Often, when you have some certain incident or

accident—as I was reading in preparation for this bill, I went to the Internet

and I downloaded different information. There was an incident of a mother who

had a car accident and left an 18-month-old baby to her parents, but for some

reason, when his ex-wife died, the father went and took the kid from the

grandparents. The grandparents suffered a great deal because they had

established a great relationship. They thought they were the natural parents

after their daughter died. They could see their daughter through her children.

In what fashion do we have the ability to disconnect that relationship?

I think it’s a very important bill. I hope this bill,

this time, can see the light and become law in Ontario. I want to thank the

member for Niagara Falls for bringing it forward again. I hope all of us will

support it. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Ms. Laurie Scott: I’m pleased to speak

this morning to the private member’s bill presented by the member for Niagara Falls,

Bill 33,

An Act to amend the Children’s Law Reform Act. As mentioned, this bill

has been brought forward three times to the Legislature. I hope that’s a lucky

sign that it may come forward in government legislation. I know I’ve supported

it as it has come forward through the process, and here we go yet again. I’m

sure the member is very sincere in bringing forward this bill today. My caucus

colleague from Burlington has thoughtfully addressed some of her feelings of

support and concern, both as a mother and a grandmother.

The explanatory note inside of the cover of the bill is

clear: “The bill amends the Children’s Law Reform Act to emphasize the

importance of children’s relationships with their parents and grandparents.”

Since I was elected an MPP in 2003, I have heard heartbreaking stories from

grandparents who have phoned in and not had access to their grandchildren in

very difficult situations. That always seems to be the first priority for

grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles: to look after their families, to

be caring and nurturing.

That comes a lot from extended families. We’ve heard

here today many family stories. Certainly my grandparents had a huge influence

in my life. Extended families were there when our parents were busy in this day

and age, and that is so important. As the member from Parkdale–High Park said,

it can make or break children, and I don’t think we should forget that. When

there are situations and turmoil in a family and that support is cut off, that

is a tragedy that some children will never recover from. They should never be

used as some sort of human bargaining chip for adults. It’s a very dangerous

situation to put children in.

We are focused, as legislators here, on doing our best

for the people of Ontario, what’s best for families, the environment, health

care, the economy, education, just to name a few. It’s also about providing

opportunities and protection for those who need that protection, whether they

need that protection as younger children or not so young.

Two days ago, we had a committee on social policy. We

brought forward amendments to the Access to Adoption Records Act, Bill 12. I

know today’s bill is 33, but it’s certainly a relative to Bill 12. The motion

put forward by the member from Mississippi Mills is to ensure that children who

are physically or sexually abused and removed from their families for their

safety would be protected from having their personal information disclosed to

the abuser without their consent.

Certainly the Access to Adoption Records Act “would have

allowed a disclosure veto to victims of child abuse who are removed from their

parents by the children’s aid society and later adopted. This means that

children who have been sexually or physically assaulted, even tortured, by

their parent can do nothing to prevent that parent from”—and this is a quote

from the children’s aid society—“‘To learn their names at age 19 and track them

down.’” I think many of you who have heard very sad stories in your ridings

realize that when you have a child who has been abused at a home and they turn

19 doesn’t mean that all of a sudden they are really emotionally an adult at

I think we all have to take that into account. This is a

private member’s bill; it’s not as partisan. But I challenge the present

government to really put down their partisanship and look at that seriously,

because we want to protect children. Even as they become young adults, they

still need protection, and we, as legislators, have that responsibility. It’s

not uncommon to have very nasty cases, and we need to protect those children.

As I said, Bill 33 is a relative of Bill 12, and we have

that duty. So I put that out to the government to, please, look at this

amendment and Bill 12 again, because it is not protecting children the way they

should be protected.

I know that several members of the previous Liberal

government who are now cabinet ministers supported this bill when it was

brought forward before by the member from Niagara Falls, and now they are at

the cabinet table. So I guess that brings us back to our political will, and

that is to make this legislation. So I encourage those members on the

government side who are supportive of this bill to take this to the cabinet

table and make a decision that if this is what they want to bring forward, they

should bring it forward. And it should go to committee, it should always go to

committee, to public consultations, for some improvements—stakeholders come

forward.

As we’ve said, this bill is to deal with grandparents,

to emphasize the importance that grandparents have in children’s lives and to

help them with access to their grandchildren where they need it. So thank you

very much for this opportunity this morning.

Mrs. Maria Van Bommel: I also want to

weigh in on this one as I’m certainly very much in support. As the grandmother

of 12 grandchildren, I absolutely support what is happening here. I didn’t know

my own grandparents. I’m the child of an immigrant family and I never met them.

I never had the opportunity to know my maternal grandparents. I met my paternal

grandparents once. When I look at my own mother and my in-laws in terms of the

impact they’ve had on my children, they are the bearers of the history of our

families. They tell our children where we came from and why we came to Canada.

One other thing that I found my children will do, and I

know my grandchildren do now, is come to their grandparents. The grandparents

are an island of safety and a haven, where if you are in a bit of a dispute,

especially as a teenager, and you’re fighting with mom and dad because they

won’t let you do anything you think you should be able to do, you can go to

grandma and grandpa—Opa and Oma—and talk to them, and they listen calmly.

People say all the time that we should have our

grandchildren first. Every grandparent says that, and we all think that’s so

funny, because when people hear me talking and they don’t have grandchildren,

they don’t understand why I can be so excited about 12. Every one of them is

special and every one is unique. It’s one of those things, and it’s a proper

way and a natural way. Grandparents are at a stage in their lives where they

can enjoy them. They have the wisdom to deal with the children. They realize

that the things that happen with kids at that age are just a small part of

their lives. They will grow through those things; they just need to be

supported through that. So grandparents play an important role.

I recognize the concern, as expressed by another member,

in terms of this being a back door to allow potential abusers to have access to

children. I can assure you, as a grandparent, I think most grandparents

understand the difference between the adult and the vulnerable child. If I have

to look at my own child and say, “You’re the adult. You need to take responsibility.

I’m here to protect the grandchildren because they are the vulnerable ones and

they need my support,” I don’t think there are many grandparents in this

province or in this country who would disagree with that.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Further debate? There being none, Mr. Craitor, you have two minutes to respond.

Mr. Kim Craitor: I want to thank the

members from Brampton–Springdale, London–Fanshawe, Parkdale–High Park,

Burlington, Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock and Lambton–Kent–Middlesex for

speaking.

It has been so interesting to listen to the personal

stories that have been shared by many of the members supporting the bill, and

some great suggestions by some of the members as to what we should be looking

at. And I do believe that it should continue on through public and committee

hearings—I certainly believe that.

One personal story—and I think I should share mine. You

know, politics is a funny world. People sometimes think we do everything

because it’s politically what we do. I never knew my parents. I was raised

through the children’s aid society. Somehow, while I was going through that

system, these two elderly people, for whatever reason, took me in, kept me and

raised me. They were very elderly. To me, they’re my parents, but in fact if

you look at their age, they were really grandparents. I often wonder where I

would have been in my life and what would have happened to me if those two kind

people hadn’t taken me in. When these grandparents came to see me and sat with

me, some of those personal experiences that you have in your life come forward

and you realize the significance of what grandparents mean and the roles they

play in their grandchildren’s lives. So that is also one of the motivating

factors that convinced me that this was the right thing to do.

I’m so pleased to hear some of the members speak.

Private members’ time, I tell you, is one of the best experiences as a

provincial member of Parliament, which I thoroughly enjoy, because around this

room and during this time we really speak from our hearts, which is really nice

to hear. Sometimes partisanship leaves this room for a short time, and that’s

an exciting thing to see.

Thank you for your support. I’m looking forward to this

bill continuing on.

UNLAWFUL FIREARMS

IN VEHICLES ACT, 2008 /

LOI DE 2008 SUR LES ARMES À FEU

ILLÉGALES DANS LES VÉHICULES

Mr. Colle moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 56,

An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act and the

Civil Remedies Act, 2001 to promote public safety and suppress conditions

leading to crime by prohibiting driving on the highway in a motor vehicle in

which there is an unlawfully possessed firearm / Projet de loi 56, Loi

modifiant le Code de la route et la Loi de 2001 sur les recours civils afin de

promouvoir la sécurité publique et d’éliminer les conditions engendrant le

crime en interdisant la conduite sur la voie publique d’un véhicule automobile

dans lequel se trouve une arme à feu dont la possession est illégale.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Pursuant to standing order 96, Mr. Colle, you have up to 10 minutes. The floor

is yours.

Mr. Mike Colle: Thank you for this

opportunity to speak to Bill 56, which I introduced on April 9. My private

member’s bill, if passed, would give police officers the authority to impound a

vehicle and suspend the licence of a driver who unlawfully possesses an illegal

firearm or a crime gun in their vehicle. The suspension and impoundment would

occur immediately and last for seven days. In addition to charges laid and

proven in court, there will be possible further fines of up to $10,000, or

imprisonment of up to six months. For further offences, there could be

suspensions of up to five years, even a lifetime ban on driving in this

province.

As you know, this plague of violence and gun violence

affects many communities. There have been many attempts by our police forces

and legislators—federally, provincially, and municipally—to do something about

it. I am trying with my bill to give the police another tool to combat this

scourge of gun violence, especially as it relates to illegal, unlawful guns.

This act has, in essence, the potential to act as a deterrent so that these

individuals will know that there will be an immediate consequence if they drive

around on our streets with unlawful guns.

I would have to say that the bill I put forward has

resulted from a number of tragic and recent incidents in my own riding. On

March 14 of this year, six young men—innocent young men—who were just coming

back from McDonald’s were standing in front of their home and were gunned down

in cold blood. Six young men—for no reason. In fact, the family of one of the

young men that was killed was going to be here today, but they’re in court for

the bail hearing. This is the third or fourth time they’ve been in court for

the bail hearing of the accused. So this bill is dedicated to the victims. In this

case, it was Abdikarim Ahmed Abdikarim, an 18-year-old student at George Harvey

Collegiate Institute.

Also, I’ve gotten a lot of support from Louise Russo, a

mother of children who was, just like any other citizen, out on an evening

going to the local deli, getting something to eat for her family. Somebody in

an automobile decided to start shooting into the delicatessen. She is now

confined to a wheelchair because of this horrible, horrible act. She is an

amazingly strong person who continues to speak out against this type of gun

violence. Louise fully supports my bill and any attempt to try and take these

guns off of our streets.

I would also like to thank the men and women of the

Toronto Police Services who have been very helpful in giving input in this bill.

In one of my local divisions, 13 division, I would like to thank PC Mike

Jander and PC Paul Coculuzzi, who have been great in supporting this bill, and

Unit Commander David McLeod of 13 division, who has been very supportive.

The bill has received support in principle from the

Toronto Police Services Board. Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair is supportive of

the bill, and he thinks that this would be most helpful.

I’ll just read you a quote from Police Chief William

Blair of Toronto: “A private member’s bill that would let police seize cars in

which illegal handguns are found would provide significant help to Toronto

police in getting guns off the street.”

I also have the support of the president and general

manager of the Ontario Safety League, Brian Patterson, who thinks that the

Ontario Safety League would be helped by this because Bill 56 would help ensure

that the deadly mix of unlawful guns and motor vehicles is removed from our

highways for the protection of our police and all of Ontarians.

This bill is, in essence, an attempt to look within the

provincial jurisdiction. As you know, there’s an attempt at a nationwide

handgun ban, but provincially we have jurisdiction over motor vehicle

licensing. Some of the ideas for my Bill 56 really came from the MPP from

Willowdale, David Zimmer. In his bill, he in essence tried to do something

about people who were drinking and boating. Under that legislation, which was

eventually passed, people can have their licence suspended and cars impounded,

if convicted of that.

Also, we passed a very effective piece of legislation

which has similar provisions in it, and that’s the anti-street racing

legislation of Minister Donna Cansfield, whereby if you’re speeding over 50

kilometres an hour on our streets, the police can impound the vehicle and can

also suspend your licence. That’s being done under provincial jurisdiction.

We can ask the federal government to undertake many

measures, and some of them they have. I’m very glad that the federal government

has now supported our call for a reverse onus on proving bail in a gun crime.

That’s going to really help the police.

This is also important in that it might help deter the

smuggling of guns into this country and into this province. I am told by Police

Chief Blair that most of—more than half—the guns that they seize in Toronto are

smuggled, illegal guns. This bill would empower the police also to suspend the

licence of another province’s driver or a vehicle that’s licensed in the United

States, for instance. There are a number of incidents where guns are being

smuggled in trucks, being smuggled in cars into Ontario, and are then sold and

end up on our streets.

Look at the growing number of cases. I’ve done a recent

media survey over the last while of drive-by shootings and people with road

rage shooting at each other: In Brampton this year, a passenger in a silver

four-door car was hit by a bullet that had been fired from a second blue

vehicle driving on Goreway Drive; in Thornhill, three suspects held up a

jewellery store at gunpoint at Promenade Mall, and the suspects fled the scene

in a vehicle; in Scarborough, a black Ford SUV carrying two men—this was at

Markham Road in Scarborough; in Toronto; in North York. This has just been in

recent months where there have been instances of guns being carried in

vehicles, shootings that occur, people cutting off people on the Gardiner

Expressway. This is unacceptable behaviour.

It is too easy to have a gun. It is too easy to

basically think that that gun empowers people. An unlawful firearm, that is, a

stolen crime gun—the ones with the serials marked off, the ones that are,

essentially, carried by these potential criminals. As I say, if they’re

carrying an unlawful gun in a vehicle, they’re on the road to murder. We need

to take them off the streets.

Provincially, we don’t have all the powers over firearm

control, but we do have powers over motor vehicle licences. This bill, if

passed, would give us another tool in trying to make our roads and streets

safer. It is not going to completely eliminate the gun violence, but at least

it’s a tool. The police on the street that I’ve talked to, the OPP officers

I’ve talked to and the rank-and-file police officers in our divisions in

Toronto think that this would give them an effective tool.

It’s too easy to say, “That gun in my car—I didn’t know

it was in my car”; “I borrowed the car”; “I rented the car”; “The gun was

there”; “I had no knowledge of it being there”; “I didn’t realize that my trunk

had three guns in it”; “I just leased the car.” They’re getting away with it.

There are so many excuses that they use to basically get off too easily when

they have an illegal gun.

Why are they going in their vehicle down Keele Street

with an unlawful gun in their car? Where are they going with that unlawful gun?

This is not against people who have the legal right to carry guns, whether they

be hunters, target shooters or police officers; this is against thugs who

shouldn’t be carrying guns.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Further debate?

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: I’m pleased to

rise today to speak on Bill 56, Unlawful Firearms in Vehicles Act, 2008,

An Act

to amend the Highway Traffic Act and the Civil Remedies Act, 2001 to promote

public safety and suppress conditions leading to crime by prohibiting driving

on the highway in a motor vehicle in which there is an unlawfully possessed

firearm.

I have a few comments on this bill, and I know some of

my colleagues do as well. I wanted to start with a few things around

definitions and around just exactly what we’re covering here. If we’re covering

all roads in Ontario, and that includes the streets of Toronto, the Queen’s

highways, King’s highways, all county roads—all roads in the province of

Ontario—then it would be interesting to see some explanation on that. It may

have some impact on rural Ontario.

If we’ve got some thug driving around who’s got a stolen

gun or an illegal gun that he has purchased illegally, that isn’t registered in

any way whatsoever, I thought there were penalties to cover that. I still think

there are. If you have an illegal handgun and it’s not registered, and you’re

pulled over by the police, they can confiscate that handgun and there are some

severe penalties for that.

The person with that particular gun—say the car is owned

by a rental company like Hertz or whatever, or it’s owned by a relative, then I

have a little bit of a problem with taking someone else’s vehicle, impounding

it and having a severe penalty on that. It reminds me a lot of the photo radar,

which was brought in a few years ago and our government removed it. Quite

frankly, the photo radar did sort of the same kind of thing. It didn’t matter

who was driving the vehicle; the person who got penalized in the end was the

one who got the bill in the mail, which was the owner of the car. I have a

little bit of a problem with that—particularly if a car is rented from a

leasing agency—taking that car and having that person end up being responsible.

What I’m really concerned about, though, is rural

Ontario. There still are a number of shotguns and .22s, that sort of thing,

that are used for duck hunting and shooting a few groundhogs here and there.

That’s been part of the rural life forever. Some of them were not acquired

under an acquisition permit years ago; they might be fairly older guns.

I would hate to think that if someone who has a

collection of guns, and maybe one or two of them didn’t have the proper

certification under them, that person would have an opportunity to maybe have a

severe penalty when they’ve had no criminal record whatsoever at any time in

their past, and they’d suddenly lose their vehicle and have a very stiff fine.

In fact, I think this even calls for penalties. I haven’t any problem with any

particular piece of legislation that goes after people bringing in illegal

guns, that sort of thing, but I think we have to be very careful of our folks

in rural Ontario.

The other thing that we should talk about a little bit

in this legislation is the impact this will have on the policing community; for

example, with the enforcement

section of it. Obviously, every time you bring in

a piece of legislation, there are more laws to enforce, and that requires more

and more resources for the police services. I understand, from the member’s

statement, that he had the support of Chief Bill Blair. We haven’t really heard

an awful lot about that. I’m curious about what the Minister of Community

Safety and Correctional Services is saying about this, and I’m also curious

about what the Minister of Transportation is saying about this particular bill,

because it obviously affects both of those ministries as far as enforcement.

With enforcement, we’ve already been told by the

Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services that he needs more

police officers; he’s said that. The federal government has been good enough to

come forward in the 2008 federal budget with 2,500 new officers for Canada.

That would be a kick-start program of 1,000 new police officers for the

province of Ontario. I understand that the minister has signed on to that;

that’s $156 million coming to Ontario. So if we’re going to start passing these

kinds of private members’ bills and we’re getting the support for them, then at

the same time we have to have the resources in place by the police services to accommodate

that. I know that in the provincial budget there was no allocation of more

resources for police services, although the federal program calls for 1,000 new

police officers in Ontario over the next five years, and as I said earlier,

there’s $156 million that has been allocated towards that. So I’m hoping that

if the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services is in support of

this legislation, he’s also in support of providing more resources for our

police services in Ontario.

The model the Ontario Provincial Police are working

under: They’re asking for approximately another 500 officers over the next five

years. That’s something all of our parties are familiar with from the last

provincial election. If we were to implement that program, the federal money,

this year, we could actually have 1,000 additional officers in Ontario: 500 at

the OPP under the non-municipal contract policing programs, just strictly for

highway safety patrol etc.—the programs where the OPP need additional resources.

It also would be nice to see that, if the minister is in support of this

private member’s bill, he’d be in support of adding those new officers towards

which the federal government has provided at least 50% of the funds.

I look forward to hearing some of those comments as this

bill proceeds forward. I suspect that the member has the support of his caucus

to at least go to third reading. I don’t know whether it’ll die on the order

paper or whether it’ll be a bill that will be brought forward by the government.

Certainly we haven’t seen a lot of private members’ bills in this House in the

last Parliament, or in this Parliament, proceed, so it will be interesting to

see how this bill does. But I do hope that in the end there are no implications

for rural Ontario residents, particularly those who use firearms for hunting

and fishing and who might make a mistake by having a gun or firearms in their

control without an acquisition permit. That could easily happen. I don’t think

the intent of the bill is that, but certainly under the legislation there would

be an impact on it.

That’s really all I had to say today. I know some of my

other caucus colleagues have a few comments they’d like to make, and it will be

interesting to see how this bill proceeds through the House. I appreciate the

opportunity for saying a few words.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: Certainly, for the

member from Eglinton–Lawrence, who introduced this bill, I understand the

frustration that he feels, particularly with the deaths that occurred in his

own riding. The first thing we in the New Democratic Party want to say is that

our hearts and prayers go out to those who were affected.

Will this bill stop those deaths? There’s simple answer:

absolutely not. I think the people of Ontario want to see criminals impounded,

not their cars. When the police stop people in cars with guns, they want to put

the people with the guns in jail, not the cars. That’s what I think the people

of Ontario want to see first and foremost.

I was trying to look for other examples of this. We had

a shooting in Toronto just recently on the subway, so what are they going to

do: take away his Metro pass? Will that really stop him? I don’t think that’s

going to make much of a difference; I really don’t. I think that when criminals

decide they are going to do a drive-by shooting, they’re not hampered by the

thought that they might have their car impounded or their licence lost. Half

the time, the cars they are driving aren’t theirs anyway, and certainly,

whether their licences are suspended, or, for that matter, taken away

completely, really doesn’t come much into play when they are thinking about

drive-by shootings.

I know what the police work with, which is not much.

Many members of this House have gone on drive-arounds with their local police

forces; I certainly have, and I want to acknowledge the incredible work of 14

Division in my riding and also 11 Division. I had the privilege of driving

around with 14 Division one night and seeing the computer light up with all the

crimes in progress, and there’s nothing more terrifying than seeing that. You

see the lights, and I asked the sergeant I was driving with, “How many of these

will you get to?” He said, “Maybe half.” These are crimes in progress. That’s

terrifying.

There is something we can do to cut down on gun

violence. One of the very critical aspects of what we can do, which the

McGuinty government has promised and not delivered, is to have more community

police out there. Certainly, there are fewer police per capita under the

McGuinty Liberals than ever. Despite the promises to the contrary, despite the

promises of a thousand new police officers, we don’t see those police officers

on our streets. The population has gone up; the number of police has not gone

up in proportion. So when you call somebody at the police station, you might

not necessarily get a response, because there are not enough bodies there.

That’s what the police in my two divisions are asking for: more money for more

police officers and certainly more community policing, which everyone in both

of my divisions is asking for. That would help make a huge difference.

I notice that he says “firearms” too and not “handguns”

here, although I’m sure that the member includes handguns in his thoughts

there. I recognize his frustration, because we in the New Democratic Party

support a ban on handguns. We don’t think there is any reason for anyone other

than those who are licensed to carry handguns and should, like our police

officers, have handguns. We know that about two thirds of the handguns used in

crimes come over the border illegally, so we also recognize that a ban on

handguns isn’t the final answer to this, that perhaps we could also look at

security at our borders in terms of preventing that illegal traffic, because

that’s certainly where a lot of the death that comes to Ontario is imported

from. We don’t think there is any reason for a citizen to carry a handgun

unless they really need one and unless they are licensed to do so.

Finally, because I’m going to leave some time here for

my colleague to speak about this, we also have to look at the broader picture.

Why is there crime? I don’t want to be alarmist because, quite frankly—and I

don’t know if this is the same across the province, but certainly it’s true in

the GTA and in my riding—crime has gone down. There is a significant decrease

in crime. We remember the summer of the gun. There have been these pockets of

violence. Of course, one death is too many deaths. The aim here is zero

homicides, absolutely; there is no question. But when we look at the social

substructure of what produces crime, we’ve got to look at those big issues, and

this is something the McGuinty Liberals simply won’t do.

We in the NDP brought forward a bill that we were hoping

would get the support of this House, that $75 million of health promotion go

into community centres, saving our pools, rugby fields and recreation

facilities for kids, for young adults, so that there’s something for them to do

after school.

Of course, members know I’m vested in raising the

minimum wage so that young people can live on minimum-wage jobs so that they’re

not absolutely relegated to poverty just because they happen to work at an

entry-level job.

Certainly, we want to look at issues that affect family

life, like child care, which we don’t have; the larger issue of poverty, where

one in eight children in this province lives in poverty. We know that these are

all factors that add to a higher crime rate—we know this. We know that housing,

for example, adds to a higher crime rate—we know this. We know that when you

starve the education system of necessary dollars, in response, more money has

to be spent by the justice system. Yet we still see an education system that is

not fully funded and a formula that has not been fixed from the Harris-Eves

era. Again, why won’t the McGuinty Liberals look at the broader picture and put

money into prevention of crime?

The final comment I will make is, this is one of those

bills—and I’ll borrow from William Shakespeare on this—where sound and fury

that signifies not much—I changed the line there—and certainly not much in

terms of the caucus members and the cabinet. Why, if this government is vested

in this bill, does it not, like the bill we saw previously, which was a good

bill—and don’t get me wrong, we’re going to vote for it. But voting for it is

like voting for a statement that guns are bad. Obviously, one would not vote

against such a bill, but the question is, will it make any difference? I

certainly assert that it won’t, and if it did, and if the member felt it would,

then where is the Premier on this, where is the cabinet on this? Why is this

not a government bill?

Again, there’s nothing that we in the NDP want more than

a safer Ontario, but we don’t think this is the way to go about it.

Mr. David Zimmer: It’s my pleasure to

rise and speak in support of the member for Eglinton–Lawrence’s bill. I’m going

to share my time with some of my other colleagues.

I just want to speak to one aspect of this bill. I could

speak for a long time on the entire bill, but let me speak to one aspect of the

bill, and that’s the impounding the car feature of this bill. Most of these

shootings involve young people. Often, they’re teenagers—17, 18, 19, 20 years

old. They use these handguns and other weapons in the drive-by shootings. A

piece of the crime, in nine cases out of 10, is the use of an automobile. They

need a car to get to the scene. They need a car to get home. They use the car

in a drive-by shooting. They use the car in another aspect of the crime: The gun

is in the car.

By some strange quirk, my friends who are child

psychologists tell me that of all the things that young men—and it’s typically

young men who are involved in these shootings—really value, strangely enough,

it’s this ability to have a driver’s licence and own a car. That is a high

status symbol in their peer group. The psychologists tell me that one of the

things that these young men really fear, are really nervous about, strangely

enough, when they’re going around involved in these offences using guns is not

so much getting caught with the gun or getting caught for the crime—because

they get into the court system and they use the court system to their

advantage—but losing their car, this status symbol that they have.

So what this legislation does—and it’s only one aspect

of it, because there are many other strategies here in Ontario to deal with

guns and gun offences. We have the various guns-and-gangs strategies out of the

Attorney General’s office. There’s a host of initiatives in the police

departments and other investigative authorities. But if we can make these young

men think twice about transporting a gun in a car that they own or that they’re

driving, if they’ve got a driver’s licence, and put that status symbol, that

thing that they really value, under threat, and we say to them, “Look, if

you’re going to transport an illegal firearm, if you’re going to use a gun in

the commission of an offence along with a car and you’re caught, whatever else

happens to you—and you may go to jail for the gun offence and other terrible

things might happen to you—for sure, if you’ve got a car, we’re going to take

it away from you; if you’ve got a driver’s licence, we’re going to take it away

from you for a long, long time”—through this strange sort of juvenile

mentality, it seems that this makes them think twice. In this bizarre thought

process that they have, they just give passing thought to the idea of putting a

gun in their pocket or sticking it in the glove compartment of a car, but if

they think they’re at risk of losing this driver’s licence or losing the car,

they say, “My God, I don’t want to run that risk. I don’t want to lose my

driver’s licence. I don’t want to lose this fancy car that I’ve got fixed up.”

It’s a bizarre thinking process, but nevertheless that’s what my psychologist

and psychiatrist friends tell me.

So, if we can do anything, if we can make any

contribution to reducing gun offences and all the tragedies that flow from

them, it’s worth doing. This isn’t the only strategy. This is one aspect of

Ontario’s strategy to confront guns and crime offences. For that reason, I

support this member’s private member’s bill.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Further debate?

Mr. Frank Klees: The member for

Willowdale made reference to a bizarre thought process. I would suggest that

whatever brought us to this bill was in fact a bizarre thought process.

I respect the member’s intention. What I fail to

understand is his proposed legislation. It talks about repossessing or

impounding a car and suspending a driver’s licence for someone who is found to

have an illegal weapon in their car. Somehow this is to be a tool in the hands

of police officers to combat crimes that are committed with illegal weapons. I

don’t understand. We have laws in place that make it illegal and that give us

severe consequences for possessing illegal weapons. The police already have

that tool.

The member for Willowdale makes reference to something

that is of extreme value to young men who commit crimes with guns, and he says

that his psychologists and psychiatrists tell him that it is the possession of

a car and the possession of a driver’s licence that is of greatest value. I

would suggest that what is of far greater value to these young people is their

freedom and that the loss of the freedom is what will be the deterrent, not the

loss of a car or the loss of a licence.

That brings us to the heart of our problem in this

province, and that is that there are no consequences to one’s freedom for

committing crime, regardless of what that crime might be.

If the member were to have brought forward a bill that

says we, as a government, will ensure that our police officers have the

resources—namely, another 500 or 1,000 police officers on the front lines—to

help them deal with crime so that, as the member for Parkdale–High Park

mentioned, when all the crime locations pop up on the computer, they could deal

with all of them, not just half of them; and that when in fact an arrest is

made, then the courts could properly deal with those criminals, those accused,

and ensure that their crimes aren’t bargained away or not dealt with at all,

dismissed because there isn’t enough resource within our system—that I could

support, and I would wholeheartedly.

But public policy, when we create legislation here, is

to go to the heart of the issue that it’s intended to address. The second test

of legislation should be: Is it enforceable? I believe that this legislation

actually fails on both counts.

The intent is honourable, the objective is honourable,

but at the end of the day, I believe that this is empty. It does not do what

the intent is very clear about. So I will not vote for this legislation. I want

to be very clear that I agree with the honourable member who brought it

forward, in terms of his intent, but I will not vote for the legislation,

because I can’t stand by and allow people observing this Legislature to think

that something is being done here about crime and safety on our streets and all

we’re giving them is some smoke and mirrors under the guise of legislation.

Once again, the perception is that the government is protecting people when in

fact the government is withholding resources from the police and they’re

withholding resources from our court system, so that the work that is being

done by police is frustrated. Prosecutors are not able to prosecute, and we

have gridlock in our courts, so that all too often, cases are actually thrown

out rather than dealt with.

I go again to the heart of what the member from

Willowdale spoke to. He is saying we have to deal with crime, and we have to

send a signal to those who would commit crimes that something of value will be

lost if they commit a crime. My point to him and to my colleagues here is that

what is most valuable, and the real signal we should be sending, is that what

will be lost if you commit a crime with a gun is your freedom, that there will

be consequences, that there will be jail time. What you lose is not just your

licence or your car, but you lose the ability to continue to operate and to

function within our free society, which is a privilege.

I will not vote for this legislation for that reason.

This legislation misses the point. I believe it is really not much more than

smoke and mirrors.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: I first want to say,

as a member of the New Democratic caucus, I will vote in favour of this legislation.

I believe that, yes, this bill needs to get to committee because we need to

deal with some of the aspects of the bill that some would see as basically

needing strengthening, or a change about how this thing is applied. But the

concept of what he’s trying to do—I understand where the member is coming from.

I’ve known the member for some years. He’s honest and he’s—what’s the word I’m

looking for?—sincere in what he’s trying to bring forward. He’s trying to deal

with an issue in his community. We can’t take that away from the member. We

need to understand that he is responding to something that has happened in his

community. I think we need to give him the respect and the support to allow him

to do that. So I want to say upfront, as New Democrats, we will support it.

Will the bill, at the end of the day, prevent that type

of tragedy? I’m not convinced. It might. Who knows? I’m not going to say for

sure that it won’t, because who knows what people will do? It would be unfair

for me to say I can absolutely read into the future.

But let’s look at what the bill is intending to do under

Bill 56. I’m going to read the explanatory note very quickly for those who

haven’t had a chance. It says it makes it an offence to drive “on the highway

in a motor vehicle in which there is an unlawfully possessed firearm,” and then

it spells out the penalties.

The first thing is, it was mentioned by a number of

people that if a person’s going to have a firearm, lawfully or unlawfully, and

decides they want to go out and do something stupid, they’re either in a stolen

car for the most part, and if they’re not in a stolen car, they really don’t

care. They’re out there to do mayhem, and that’s what they’re up to. It’s

unfortunate, but people don’t follow laws in our society; by a majority, they

do. The vast majority of people, of course, are law-abiding. Unfortunately, you

have a small percentage of people in our society who decide not to follow the

law and do what I would term very hurtful and stupid things, such as committing

crime and, in cases such as were raised, eventually leading to murder.

The question becomes, how do you deter people from doing

those things? I was just having a discussion with one of your colleagues from

London. We were having a chat about whether it necessarily means we have

tougher laws as a way of deterring somebody from acting out a crime. I think

there’s a really good debate on both sides of that one. For example, the United

States of America has probably been a zealot when it comes to introducing

legislation that incarcerates people for all kinds of things that we, in

Canada, might incarcerate for a short period of time. They’ll put them in for

five, 10, 15 years for something that we may put somebody in for six months or

a year. But does the United States of America, with tougher penalties, have

less of a crime problem? I say no, it’s completely the opposite. Canada has

much less a crime problem as compared to the United States, and we have to ask

ourselves why. Is it because the United States has tougher laws that should act

as a deterrent? I think not. I think Madam DiNovo was right. The member from

Parkdale–High Park basically said we need to deal with the causes of crime. I

know my good friend Mr. Colle, the member for—and I forget—

Mr. Mike Colle: Eglinton–Lawrence.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Eglinton–Lawrence.

That’s why I used your name. Sorry about that. That’s why I’d never be the

Speaker. I can never remember all the ridings.

I think you agree with me, that the way we really have

an impact on making our society safe is by giving every child in our society

the opportunity to grow up in a household where they are feeling loved and

nurtured, where they’re getting the support they need; that when they go into

the school system, they get something of value and they build some values of

respect for one another within our society. You do that by imparting those

things, first, at the family level, then at the societal level through school

and others.

Unfortunately, our society isn’t perfect. There are families

that are dysfunctional. You know them; I know them. They’re not necessarily bad

people. They’re people who have had issues in their lives. It might be mental

health issues. It might be a question of addiction. It might be a question that

the person himself or herself had problems when they were younger and didn’t

have good parenting skills transmitted to them. What do you do with those

children? That’s really how you make a society have an effect on how much crime

is going to take place, by doing all that we can as legislators, citizens,

parents and members of our society to get at the root causes of crime.

I said at the beginning I will support this bill, as a

member of the New Democratic caucus, because I understand what the member’s

trying to do. It’s extremely frustrating, especially in a situation like yours,

where you live in the city and see the tragedy that happened to this family. To

stand back and do nothing and say, “Oh, well, there’s a bigger issue here. I

can do absolutely nothing,” I think would be a disservice to your constituents.

I recognize and respect that you’re bringing this

forward as a means of at least having the debate and trying to figure out how

we get at trying to eliminate the drive-by-type shootings that we’ve been

seeing in this city and other places across Canada and the United States. I’m

not convinced at the end of the day that the person jumping in the car with the

unlawful or unregistered firearm is really going to take any consequence, but

maybe there’s a way of coming at it. This is the beauty of the legislative

process. We send this thing to committee. We have people who are more learned

than us in these particular issues come before committee and tell us, “We

understand what the problem is, but we think you need to do X, Y and Z. You

need to amend whatever,” so that eventually we end up with a product that maybe

has an effect in the end. In that spirit, I fully support bringing this to

committee, but I want to say upfront that I certainly don’t think the way the

bill is written is going to get us exactly where we want to go.

The only other thing I would say, in closing, in the

last minute or so that I have left, is that the whole issue of firearms is one

that’s been difficult not only in Canada but also in the United States. There’s

a real sense that people have an ability—almost a right—to own a firearm for

hunting or whatever it might be. It comes from a time of this country being a

country that was much more a hunter-gatherer society, just to a certain extent,

and that sort of value is transmitted. We struggle today, in this day and age,

to find the balance between people’s right to go out and hunt and do the things

that they do with firearms, and the struggle of whether people should just have

firearms for the sake of protecting themselves. I think it’s a tough debate,

because there are some really strong feelings on both sides of that one. All I

know is this: We have a problem in our city, as we have across this nation and

as they have in the United States. We’re luckier than most in Canada; we have a

pretty low crime rate compared to others. But we need to do what we can in

order to try to deter these types of things from happening.

In the spirit of that, we’ll support the bill and allow

it to get to committee, and hopefully try to find ways of amending it to

strengthen it so that in the end it really achieves the goal that the member is

trying to reach.

Mrs. Laura Albanese: I would like to

start my comments by thanking the member from Eglinton–Lawrence for his initiative

on this issue. As you may know, Eglinton–Lawrence and York South–Weston share a

border and some of our communities share similar priorities and challenges.

The Unlawful Firearms in Vehicles Act, Bill 56, is, to

me, an important initiative. It is based on the proposition that illegal

handguns should not be out on the streets—and I’m sure that’s an idea we can

all get behind—and that there should be immediate consequences and actions that

can be taken when such an offence has been committed.

Under the Unlawful Firearms in Vehicles Act, when a

police officer finds a gun in a vehicle, the officer would suspend the person’s

driver’s licence and detain the vehicle. This does not take their freedom away

but certainly limits it, and if the car is not his or hers, the driver’s

licence would still be taken away. In Ontario, driving is a privilege, not a

right, so it would serve as a deterrent. As we have heard from my colleague,

the bill proposes amendments to the Highway Traffic Act and the Civil Remedies

Act, because these are the bills that deal with unlawful activity in motor

vehicles.

The work of the bill would begin at street level, while

the illegal guns are out on the streets, being carted around outside of the

public’s eye, and that is what is so compelling about this approach. I want to

say that just last Thursday I was at a community police liaison committee

meeting at 12 Division of the Toronto police force in my riding of York

South–Weston—and I want to take this opportunity to thank all of the officers at

12 Division for the great work they do in our community. I was pleased to meet

the new superintendent, Brody Smollet, and to get an update about some of the

more serious incidents of crimes that the division is dealing with, as well as

the crime prevention initiatives that are taking place in our community and

that are largely led by conscientious local citizens.

The new superintendent did raise this bill at the

meeting last week and spoke enthusiastically about it. The entire community

police liaison group—everyone who was present in the room—responded positively

to the action that my colleague from Eglinton–Lawrence is taking with this

initiative. At the meeting, I also had the opportunity to learn about some of

the youth-in-policing students that the division is going to welcome for the

summer months, which will happen through this government’s youth opportunities

strategy. I want to say that I find that very important.

Another reason why I am pleased to speak to Bill 56

relates to a tragedy that affected Eglinton–Lawrence, the riding of my

colleague, but also my riding of York South–Weston. This is the recent shooting

death of a young man who lived in my colleague’s riding but attended high

school in my riding. I’ve had the opportunity to speak to the principal of the

local school that the young victim attended, and he told me that the students

of the school are hard at work being regular young people. They don’t want to

be labelled. They are ambitious. They are studying hard. They’re looking

forward to a bright future. This is an inspiring attitude, and I applaud the

principal for providing leadership.

I believe that this private member’s bill, Bill 56, also

shows leadership. While it is true that the federal government has jurisdiction

over the ownership of firearms, we, as a provincial government, have

jurisdiction over transportation and motor vehicle licensing and should always

try to enhance public safety when we can. Although this bill may not be the

total answer, this can be a strong step toward preventing crime in our

communities, across the province, and showing leadership across the whole

country.

On behalf of the people of York South–Weston, I

reiterate my support for the proposed Bill 56 from my colleague from the riding

of Eglinton–Lawrence, a neighbouring riding to my riding. This is an important

step in the fight against gun crime. I thank him for his work in bringing this

issue forward.

Mr. Tony Ruprecht: I am delighted to

support this bill. A lot has been said about the ineffectiveness of it here

today, which I find kind of strange. I’m glad Mr. Klees is here today to listen

to the details, because it was he who actually said this is just all smoke and

mirrors and it’s really very ineffective.

Just remember this: When you read the details of the

bill, it’s clear that beyond the impoundment and beyond the licence suspension,

there’s another

section in here which is specific. It says there’s also a fine

of up to $10,000 and/or imprisonment up to six months.

Interjection.

Mr. Tony Ruprecht: That’s what it says.

That’s part of the bill.

Mr. Frank Klees: And/or.

Mr. Tony Ruprecht: And/or imprisonment

up to six months. That’s pretty effective. That takes away what the member was

talking about when he said the value is on freedom and the restriction on

freedom and not so much in terms of impoundment of the car. It’s right here in

the bill. The bill does say you will lose your freedom for up to six months.

The question should be simply this: In what way can we

be effective here? In what way can we take unlawful firearms off the street?

The member for Eglinton–Lawrence has a great idea with

Bill 56. It says specifically that if you’re caught with an unlawful firearm,

your car will be impounded and all the other items I was listing earlier.

“Toronto Deputy Police Chief Tony Warr says the

propensity for violence has reached down from major drug dealers to minor drug

traffickers who carry guns because they are afraid of getting ripped off or

shot by their competition.

“‘Where in the past it would have been a fist fight, now

it is a gunfight over the same minor issues. There seems to be an acceptance of

violence more generally by the community and it is reflected in the way kids

are acting in school, what we see on television and by these gangs where, if

they have a problem, they shoot a person.’”

I am very delighted to support and put my name to this

bill as well, because to me, it is clear there are other items that are

involved as well.

When we look at the Canadian Police Information Centre

records, it shows clearly that 85,000 firearms—about half of them restricted,

as in handguns—are missing or stolen in Canada. Imagine that. So it isn’t

simply a question of having a greater degree of support, a greater degree of

maintaining some security, to maintain your firearms and to lock them up. It’s

a question of having them stolen and being found in the cars. If it’s in the

car, the car, according to Mr. Colle, should be impounded.

I am happy to read a quote from Toronto Police Chief

Bill Blair. If Bill Blair is saying that this bill is good, then I would be

happy to support it as well. He says that a private member’s bill that would

let police seize cars in which illegal handguns are found, would provide

significant help to Toronto police in getting guns off the street—if the police

of Toronto say this, then I would be glad to support this bill.

In closing, let me simply say this: We heard from the

Conservatives and some of the members from the NDP. Some will support this

bill; others will not. Some will support it because it goes to committee, and

there they would hope that other areas of how to restrict unlawful guns should

be included. This, of course, is not totally sufficient. This is not what Mr.

Colle indicates when he says we should support this bill. No. Of course there

will be other items and there will be other adjustments made. There could be

recommendations made on the committee level. We, of course, would have our

chance to add our voice to it. It is clear that on our side, we see the

benefits of Bill 56. I would hope that all members will support it, in spite of

what their recommendations might be.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Mr. Colle, you have two minutes to respond.

Mr. Mike Colle: I do appreciate

everybody’s input. Just again, I’ll read into the record from David Wilson,

who’s the president of the Toronto Police Association, who represents over 8,000

men and women in Toronto. What David Wilson says is: “We support your efforts

to amend the Highway Traffic Act. We believe Bill 56 can be a valuable tool for

police to use to combat gun violence and make the community safer.”

This is from the leader of the men and women on the

streets who know that over and over again, they catch the same people with

guns. They get away with it. They’re out on bail; they’re in the streets. The

police are arresting the same people, because essentially you have no onus—the

federal laws are so weak that if you commit a crime with a gun, you’re

basically out on the street in 24 hours. The federal laws are too weak on gun

crimes, so that’s what we need.

This helps with the reality within our jurisdiction,

where at least they take the car off the street, their licence off the street,

a $10,000 fine and up to six months in jail. That’s what we can do from our

end. We’re trying our best to do that. Certainly if you ask all of us who deal

with this, what we have in place right now isn’t doing the job. This will at

least be a tool.

That’s why the rank and file police officers support

this bill, because they’re the ones who are sometimes afraid to go to the door

of a car. Who knows if that person is armed or not? It’s happening more and

more. Chief Blair says that almost every illegal gun they get on the streets of

Toronto is in a car. We have to stop this nonsense.

They make excuses: Well, he borrowed the car or he

leased the car. Some of the members opposite support it. Those are phony

excuses. You have the responsibility. If you’re driving a car and there’s an

illegal .38 in the trunk of your car, you shouldn’t be allowed to drive. You

should have no right to be on our streets in our comunities if you’re driving

with a .38.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

The time for private members’ public business has expired. We shall first deal

with ballot item number 15, standing in the name of Mr. Craitor.

CHILDREN’S LAW REFORM

AMENDMENT ACT, 2008 /

LOI DE 2008 MODIFIANT

LA LOI PORTANT RÉFORME

DU DROIT DE L’ENFANCE

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Mr. Craitor has moved second reading of Bill 33. Is it the pleasure of the

House that the motion carry? Carried.

Second reading agreed to.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Pursuant to standing order 96, Bill 33 will be referred to—

Mr. Kim Craitor: I’m asking that Bill

33 be referred to the Standing Committee on Social Policy.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Mr. Craitor has asked that Bill 33 be referred to the Standing Committee on

Social Policy. Agreed? Agreed.

We shall now deal with ballot item number 16, standing

in the name of Mr. Colle.

UNLAWFUL FIREARMS

IN VEHICLES ACT, 2008 /

LOI DE 2008 SUR LES ARMES À FEU

ILLÉGALES DANS LES VÉHICULES

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Mr. Colle has moved second reading of Bill 56. Is it the pleasure of the House

that the motion carry?

All those in favour, say “aye.”

All those opposed, say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

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

The division bells rang from 1200 to 1205.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

All those in favour, please stand and be recognized by the Clerk.

Ayes

Aggelonitis,

Sophia

Albanese,

Laura

Arnott,

Ted

Arthurs,

Wayne

Balkissoon,

Bas

Bisson,

Gilles

Broten,

Laurel C.

Brownell,

Jim

Colle,

Mike

Craitor,

Kim

Delaney,

Bob

Dickson,

Joe

Dombrowsky,

Leona

Flynn,

Kevin Daniel

Hoy,

Pat

Jaczek,

Helena

Jeffrey,

Linda

Kwinter,

Monte

Lalonde,

Jean-Marc

Leal,

Jeff

Levac,

Dave

Marchese,

Rosario

McNeely,

Phil

Orazietti,

David

Pendergast,

Leeanna

Ramal,

Khalil

Ramsay,

David

Rinaldi,

Lou

Ruprecht,

Tony

Sergio,

Mario

Smith,

Monique

Van

Bommel, Maria

Zimmer,

David

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

All those opposed, please stand until recognized by the Clerk.

Nays

Hardeman,

Ernie

Klees,

Frank

Miller,

Norm

Savoline,

Joyce

Scott,

Laurie

Yakabuski,

John

The Clerk of the Assembly (Ms. Deborah Deller):

The ayes are 33; the nays are 6.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

I declare the motion carried.

Second reading agreed to.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Pursuant to standing order 96, Mr. Colle—

Mr. Mike Colle: If I could have the

bill go to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier):

Mr. Colle has asked that the bill be referred to the Standing Committee on

Justice Policy. Agreed? Agreed.

All matters relating to private members’ public business

having been dealt with, I do now leave the chair, and the House will resume at

1:30 of the clock.

The House recessed from 1207 to 1330.

MEMBERS’

STATEMENTS

HALTON MENTORING

PARTNERSHIP

Mrs. Joyce Savoline: I rise in the

House today to recognize the progress and the incredible achievements of the

Halton Mentoring Partnership, which held their mentor recognition event this

past Tuesday evening. The mentoring partnership program brings skilled

immigrants and local professionals together in an occupation-specific mentoring

relationship.

When I was regional chairman of Halton in 2005, our

council recognized the need for a program of this nature. Through the dedicated

efforts of volunteer mentors from Halton region, the municipalities of

Oakville, Burlington, Halton Hills and Milton, and of course, our corporate and

community leaders, this initiative has been a rousing success.

As our population in Ontario ages, the integration of

foreign-skilled professionals into their chosen professions in their new

homeland is critical to the future of our economic growth here in Ontario. It

was an honour and a privilege to see professionals from diverse cultures and

experiences join together in a common purpose.

The volunteers and the program managers for this

important initiative deserve our gratitude for the significant contributions to

the program’s success. I would like to recognize the professionals who stepped

forward to offer their experience to new Ontarians. You are a credit to your

community.

WOMEN’S LEGAL

EDUCATION

AND ACTION FUND

Ms. Laurel C. Broten: As a long-time advocate

for women’s rights and gender equality, I rise today in recognition of a

national charitable non-profit organization, the Women’s Legal Education and

Action Fund, also known as LEAF. LEAF works to advance the equality of women

and girls in Canada through litigation, law reform and public education, using

the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

LEAF is an organization committed to advancing women’s

equality through public-interest interventions and legal education. Since its

inception in 1985, LEAF has intervened in over 150 cases, helping women win

landmark legal victories. LEAF is the only women’s organization in Canada that

focuses on legal action to challenge laws, policies and practices that continue

to discriminate against women.

Last Thursday was Equality Day, marking the coming into

force of the equality provisions in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

on April 17, 1985. Several women, including my colleague the Honourable Deb

Matthews and my former boss, the Honourable Claire L’Heureux-Dubé, retired

justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, joined forces with LEAF to honour the

work of a fellow advocate for equality, Justice Bertha Wilson.

In 1982, Justice Wilson became the first woman ever to

sit on the Supreme Court of Canada. Her tenure was best marked by her

pioneering

interpretations of the charter and devotion to securing equality

rights for women and disenfranchised and marginalized groups. They’ve started

the Justice Bertha Wilson fund.

I’m very proud to have taken

part in Equality Day last

week.

HOCKEY

Ms. Laurie Scott: It gives me great

pleasure to tell the Legislature that the young men of the under-18 Canadian

hockey team are returning home today from the International Ice Hockey

Federation Under-18 Championship with gold medals around their necks.

There are two very special members of that team who I am

proud to say have learned to play the fastest game on ice in none other than

Haliburton, Ontario. Centre Cody Hodgson was captain of the Canadian team and

top scorer of the tournament with two goals and 10 assists. Many of the members

of this House will know his father as the long-time local MPP and minister,

Chris Hodgson. Forward Matthew Duchene was also an essential part of the

Canadian team’s championship with five goals and three assists.

Hodgson is eligible for the NHL entry draft in 2008 and

is highly touted to be picked early in the first round. Duchene will be

eligible for the 2009 entry draft and is also considered to be a prime pick for

an NHL team.

Both of these talented athletes began their hockey

careers in Haliburton and are now teammates on the Brampton Battalion of the

Ontario Hockey League.

The success of these young men is rooted in the

dedication of the parents, coaches and players of the Haliburton arena. As the

member of provincial Parliament for Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock, I am

pleased to congratulate the pride of Haliburton’s hockey program: Cody Hodgson

and Matthew Duchene.

Thanks to the valuable contribution of these two

world-class players from Haliburton, Canadian hockey is right where it belongs:

the very best in the world.

Mr. Dave Levac: On a point of order,

Mr. Speaker: I seek unanimous consent to remove my jacket and show you the

Allan Cup jersey.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters):

Agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Dave Levac: That’s it. There you

go.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters):

Members’ statements.

HOCKEY

Mr. Dave Levac: Thanks to the House for

this privilege of wearing the jersey that won the Allan Cup. On behalf of the

constituents of my riding of Brant, I am proud to stand today to pay tribute to

the Brantford Blast of Canada’s senior AAA hockey league who, on Saturday night

in front of a packed house at the Brantford and District Civic Centre,

displayed incredible poise and skill, defeating the Bentley (Alberta) Generals

3-1 to win Canada’s historic Allan Cup.

First contested in 1908, the Allan Cup is North Amerca’s

oldest hockey tournament. As such, it’s fitting that the city that gave us the

Gretzkys, among other greats, hosted the 100th anniversary of this historic

competition, defeating the Dundas Real McCoys, the Shawinigan Xtrême from

Quebec and the Whitby Dunlops. The Brantford Blast thrilled more than 15,000

fans over a six-day period on their way to the championship.

Born and raised in Brant, I know that Brantford has a

proud tradition of hockey and the Allan Cup, winning the championship twice:

once in 1977 and again in 1987. We’ve done a three-peat.

I want to congratulate the team owner, president and

manager, Peter Ham, his wife, Judy, coach Larry Trader and his staff and all

the players for their hard work and determination this season and in the past

six.

I want to thank my colleague Peter Fonseca, the Minister

of Tourism, for the support from the Ontario government and, finally, I want to

extend a tremendous thank you to all the volunteers and residents of Brant who

worked so hard to make the 100th anniversary of the Allan Cup such a huge

success.

Way to go, Brantford. We’re very proud of you.

FISHING REGULATIONS

Mr. Randy Hillier: Once again the

McGuinty government has broken another promise. On April 12, the Minister of

Natural Resources met resort owners and learned of the crisis they are facing

due to overregulation in eastern Ontario.

New panfish regulations are bankrupting our resort

owners. On that day, she promised action within 48 hours, but we’re all still

waiting on the dock. Five days later, the minister added insult to injury when

she voted to defeat Bill 57, a bill that would have eliminated red tape for the

very folks she met with.

Ontario has over 5,500 fishing regulations—regulations

that are bankrupting the little guy. The little guy is losing thousands of

tourist dollars every day that the minister does not act. The minister’s fault

is not that she fails to get things right but that she’s not even trying.

The resort owners are being played for suckers and

they’re trapped in the MNR’s regulatory nets. The minister must honour her

commitments to the people of my riding. It’s time for the minister to fish or

cut bait.

HERITAGE CONSERVATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: In the heart of

downtown Hamilton, a mountain of rubble paints an apt picture of the McGuinty

government’s wilful neglect of heritage preservation.

The Balfour building, next door to the historic, yet

sadly ignored Lister Block, collapsed last week. In large measure, the weight

of the McGuinty government’s inertia can be blamed, for it is the McGuinty

government that had the power to expedite the Lister Block restoration and be a

real partner in restoring a key heritage landmark. Instead, the neighbouring

building is a scrap heap because of Liberal foot-dragging.

Hamilton and Ontario heritage activists are acutely

unhappy about the building’s façade being lost for all times because the

McGuinty government refused to request a stop to the demolition. The

government’s overall lack of commitment and follow-through can’t be masked.

It’s hard to believe that this is the very government claiming to want to

revitalize downtowns and support the city’s preservation of significant older

buildings like the Lister Block.

On January 10, I requested a copy of the Ontario

Heritage Trust report about the Lister Block under the Ontario

freedom-of-information law. I was denied access because disclosing it would

reveal the specific advice and recommendations to the minister. The McGuinty

Liberals should make the Listor Block report public and let Hamiltonians knows

what’s behind the secrecy.

I sincerely hope the Minister of Culture will agree to

meet quickly with Hamilton heritage preservationists. We need a minister with a

commitment to saving these historical buildings, not one who’s content at

leaving Hamilton with a missing tooth in the face of its historic downtown

streetscape.

MAZO DE LA ROCHE

Mr. Charles Sousa: I rise today to

recognize the 200th anniversary of Clarkson village, as well as to honour Mazo

de la Roche and speak about her remarkable contributions to Canadian culture.

Mazo de la Roche lived from 1879 to 1961 and was a prolific writer whose works

include novels, short stories, plays and an autobiography. While living in

Toronto, she spent her summers in what is now south Mississauga. She was

inspired by the wooded scenery of Clarkson village.

Her third novel, Jalna, was the first in a series of 16.

Back in 1927, the book won the top prize in Atlantic Monthly, a prestigious

American literary magazine, which earned her international fame. The series was

translated into many languages and adapted for stage, screen and television,

making Mazo de la Roche one of the most widely read and popular Canadian

authors of her time. Inspired in part by the woods of Clarkson and Benares, the

Jalna novels chronicle the lives of the Whiteoaks family and their estate.

Today, her influence is still very visible in Mississauga, from Mazo Crescent

to Roche Court to the Whiteoaks community.

Recently, I attended a ceremony at Clarkson’s Benares

museum commemorating the national historic significance of Mazo de la Roche,

where a monument in her honour was unveiled. This comes at an historic time for

Clarkson, as this year marks its 200th anniversary.

I wish to acknowledge the important contributions by

Mazo de la Roche, and I congratulate the Clarkson community on this historic

milestone.

ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS

Ms. Leeanna Pendergast: I rise in the

House today to speak about how the McGuinty government is strengthening partnerships

with First Nations people. Earlier this year, Michael Bryant, Minister of

Aboriginal Affairs, reached an historic agreement with our First Nations

partners across Ontario. The agreement will mean more than $3 billion over 25

years transferred to our First Nations partners; $201 million has already

flowed.

It means improved infrastructure, improved schools and

housing, more training leading to more jobs, and greater economic development.

The projects arising from this agreement will be selected according to

priorities set by the First Nations themselves.

The McGuinty government is committed to our new approach

to aboriginal affairs. This approach emphasizes a more co-operative and

respectful relationship with Ontario’s First Nations.

Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse said that this

agreement “begins to address educational shortfalls; it begins to address

economic opportunity, seeding joint ventures; it begins to address some of the

healing that First Nations people have identified.” I am proud to say that the

McGuinty government is making a real difference for our First Nations

communities both now and in the future.

PASSOVER

Mr. David Zimmer: I rise in the House

today to bring Passover greetings to my constituents in the riding of

Willowdale and, indeed, to all Ontarians. Today marks the fifth day of

Passover. This holiday, which lasts for eight days, is a time for celebration

and reflection. It marks the Israelite exodus from Egypt and celebrates their

liberation from slavery. More importantly, the Passover story carries a

universal message to stand up to discrimination and persecution wherever they

are found.

This year is unique. The celebration of Passover

coincides with the anniversary of the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw ghetto

during World War II and the 60th anniversary of the birth of the state of

Israel.

Recently, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post wrote that

Passover, the festival of freedom, represents “everything we are proud of:

survival against the odds; national identity; and a return to the Promised

Land.”

I say to my friends, colleagues and constituents, that

Passover is a very special holiday. It unites families through cherished

tradition. I send my best wishes to all.

REPORTS BY

COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON

FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Ms. Leeanna Pendergast: I beg leave to

present a report from the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs

and move its adoption.

The Clerk-at-the-Table (Ms. Tonia Grannum):

Your committee begs to report the following bill without amendments:

Bill 44,

An Act respecting Budget measures, interim

appropriations and other matters / Projet de loi 44, Loi concernant les

mesures budgétaires, l’affectation anticipée de crédits et d’autres questions.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Shall

the report be received and adopted? Agreed? Agreed.

Report adopted.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The

bill is therefore ordered for third reading.

MOTIONS

PRIVATE MEMBERS’

PUBLIC BUSINESS

Hon. Michael Bryant: I seek unanimous

consent to put forward a motion without notice regarding private members’

public business.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters):

Agreed? Agreed.

Hon. Michael Bryant: I move that

notwithstanding standing order 96(g), the requirement for notice be waived with

respect to ballot item 18.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Is it

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

Agreed to.

VISITORS

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I’d

just like to take this opportunity to welcome a few guests to the Legislature

today.

On behalf of the member from Nepean–Carleton, we’d like

to welcome Gerry Coyle, who is the son of Toronto Star columnist Jim Coyle. He

gets to observe from the press gallery today.

On behalf of the member from York Centre, we’d like to

welcome the students from St. Raphael Catholic School, who are located in the

west public gallery today.

On behalf of page Marcus Glennie, seated in the east

members’ gallery are Maria Iannuzziello, his mother, and Michael Smith, his

stepfather.

On behalf of page Victoria Jennings, in the west

members’ gallery: Liz Morrison, her mother, Richard Jennings, her father, and

Samantha Jennings, her sister.

On behalf of page Lucas Bongers, I would like to welcome

the relatives who were looking after him while he was here in Toronto: Maria,

Albert and Alistair Thorburn.

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I’d

like to take this opportunity and ask all members to join me, as this current

group of pages is completing its session. I’d like us all to show our

appreciation for the great work they have provided to both members and staff

for the past three weeks.

Applause.

ORAL

QUESTIONS

Mr. Norman W. Sterling: I had hoped the

Minister of Community and Social Services would have been here.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Can

you please stop the clock? Is the Minister of Community and Social Services on

her way?

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): She’s

on her way. If you’d like to stand down that question right now, please, we can

take your next lead. Could you reset the clock to the full hour, please?

I’ll recognize the member from Niagara West–Glanbrook.

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mr. Tim Hudak: A question to the Deputy

Premier: It appears that the Dalton McGuinty recession has now hit the province

of Ontario, and the region of Ottawa in particular. Sadly, we heard that

yesterday Dell announced that its Ottawa call centre will close, putting more

than 1,100 people out of work.

The University of Toronto’s Institute for Policy

Analysis has announced today that now Ontario is in a Dalton McGuinty

recession. The finance minister tried to deny this; the Premier has tried to

deny this.

Hon. George Smithe