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December 7, 1989

34th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

CUSTODY AND ACCESS

NATIVE HEALTH SERVICES

CUSTODY AND ACCESS

NATIVE HEALTH SERVICES

AFTERNOON SITTING

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

FUSILLADE À MONTRÉAL

BOUNTY ON WOLVES

PASSENGER RAIL SERVICES

FOOD INDUSTRY

NUCLEAR SAFETY

SIMCOE CHRISTMAS PANORAMA

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED

TRANSMISSION LINE

SHOOTING IN MONTREAL / FUSILLADE À MONTRÉAL

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

INTERPROVINCIAL ENERGY AGREEMENT

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY

FINES

RESPONSES

INTERPROVINCIAL ENERGY AGREEMENT

FINES

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY / JOURNÉE INTERNATIONALE DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE

INTERPROVINCIAL ENERGY AGREEMENT

FINES

ORAL QUESTIONS

RETAIL STORE HOURS

NATIVE SERVICES

RETAIL STORE HOURS

ELECTRICITY DEMAND AND SUPPLY

WASTE MANAGEMENT

CAPITAL FUNDING FOR SCHOOLS

BINGO LICENCES

RENOVATIONS TO APARTMENT BUILDINGS

ROUGE VALLEY

TECHNOLOGY STUDIES

RETAIL STORE HOURS

TORONTO AREA TRANSPORTATION

COURT FACILITIES

FOOD BANKS

MOTIONS

COMMITTEE SITTINGS

PETITIONS

FRENCH-LANGUAGE SERVICES

TEMAGAMI DISTRICT RESOURCES

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY AMENDMENT ACT, 1989

PROVINCIAL PENALTIES ADJUSTMENT ACT, 1989

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL AMENDMENT ACT, 1989

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT, 1989

TIMES CHANGE WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT SERVICE INC ACT. 1989

ORDERS OF THE DAY

OPPOSITION DAY

WASTE MANAGEMENT

REPORT BY COMMITTEE

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

CUSTODY AND ACCESS

Mr Henderson moved resolution 34:

That in the opinion of this House, recognizing that the best interests of the child can be fulfilled by ensuring the child’s access to love and emotional nurturance of each caring parent; and recognizing that a mother and a father are likelier to participate more fully in the growth and emotional development of their child through a nurturing parent-child relationship when child care and child nurturing responsibilities are shared with another caring adult; and recognizing that children benefit from a caring relationship with grandparents who bring a wealth of life experience to a nurturant relationship with a grandchild; and recognizing that society at large can benefit from the creative energies of mothers, fathers and children who are facilitated in their pursuit of vocational, academic, recreational and social opportunities and who are freed from the painful and demoralizing personal struggles that occur when matters of child custody and access are determined through adversarial process, every effort should be made to foster mediative rather than adversarial process to resolve disputes about custody and access, and every administrative effort should be made to bring together services designed to facilitate the co-operative mediation and resolution of custody and access disputes as a preferable alternative to adversarial court process, and efforts should be made, after family dissolution, to allow a child to have a frequent and continued nurturing and care-taking relationship with each parent unless the court determines that such a relationship with a particular parent will have a destructive influence on a particular child’s healthy development and sense of well-being.

Mr Henderson: My time is brief this morning, so I will move very quickly to the point.

I came to this matter of shared parenting arrangements through constituents, two fathers and one mother. All three had children who, unnecessarily it seemed to me, had been shut out of a meaningful relationship with a loving parent, because even when both parents are conscientious and caring, one or the other usually loses a custody dispute. But these children do not deserve to lose a parent. We can do much better than this in our approach to family breakup.

Members may presently hear a point of view that women need adversarial process in the courts rather than mediation to be fairly treated in custody awards. To me, that view is somewhat patronizing to women. Are family mediators, many if not indeed a majority of whom are women, biased against women? Do courts, criticized for decades by feminists and others as paternalistic and chauvinistic, really offer something better? In any case, can a parent who is dissatisfied with the results of mediation not turn later to the courts for a fairer outcome?

Ontario’s approach to these matters badly needs review. We ought to expect parents to continue caring for and nurturing their children following family breakup, unless there are reasons to have it otherwise. I believe that Australia’s statute says much that. Of course, neglect, abuse, mistreatment, disinterest or cruelty would constitute such reasons for having it otherwise. No bill or resolution that I sponsor will ever allow a child or wife batterer or abuser a share of custody or joint parenting, but we ought not to assume an adversarial struggle, with a winner and a loser in every case, because when we do, the children are the losers.

Everybody wins with good shared parenting provisions. Women win because they escape the burden of sole-parenting arrangements and enhance their opportunity to develop professional, career or social and recreational interests. Karen Decrow, a past president of the National Organization for Women in the United States says:

“I fully support joint custody after divorce, both as an attorney and as a feminist.... It is clear from the evidence that women will never have the opportunity for full participation in the professional and public spheres if they are designated as those solely responsible for the care of children.”

It seems to me that some feminists who may oppose this resolution are at risk of drifting into a reactionary position. What this resolution com-prises is a general statement of this Legislature that equality and sharing be the negotiated norm, not the exception in times of family breakup. The flexibility and specifics and feasibility are left to later. Surely that general statement is something this Legislature could support.

Fathers also win because they gain an opportunity to participate in the nurturance and development of the children they love. Grandparents win because grandparents do not deserve to be alienated from the future life of their cherished grandchildren. Society gains because we need the societal contribution of mothers and fathers whose energies and resources are not siphoned off by adversarial courtroom struggles.

But most of all, the children win because they deserve to have the benefit of two parents. I have practised family therapy in my other life. I have published papers on parenting. I know about the dynamics of family breakup and its effects on people, and I believe the mental health of future generations is at issue.

California, Illinois, Louisiana and several other US states have had shared parenting statutes now for some years. A recent attempt to change the law in California proposed 32 amendments which would have in effect returned California to a sole-custody presumption. All 32 were defeated. In one recent survey, 80 per cent of families coming through the California system were opting for some form of joint custody.

Dr Frank Williams, director of the Cedars-Sinai Program for Children and Families of Divorce in Los Angeles, goes even further. He refers to the myth in some mental health, legal and judicial thinking that joint custody can only be effectively undertaken by co-operative parents. To the contrary, he says: “…joint custody provides one of the best methods of stimulating a degree of significant and meaningful co-operation among warring parents who would otherwise continue years of battling to the detriment of their children.”

My first approach to shared parenting took the form of a preferential joint custody bill, Bill 95. Certain features of that bill were worrisome to important women’s groups, so I met with some of the leaders of those groups and invited them to work with me to redraft the bill, mentioning that my only objectives were to encourage some alternative to costly and upsetting adversarial courtroom process and to try to allow the children of family breakup the advantages of having both a mom and a dad, unless there is reason in a particular situation to do otherwise.

Those seem to me be reasonable objectives well worth pursuing, but I was not able to get agreement to work together to redraft the bill.

So I did it myself, attempting to meet their concerns. I deleted the so-called friendly parent provision because I was told that that clause would put women at a disadvantage. I deleted any reference to custody, using instead the words “shared parenting” to emphasize that I was interested in a child’s emotional nurturance, not some kind of legal control or entitlement. Most important, I changed the bill into a resolution so that it would not impose anything on anyone.

I then discussed the resolution with a number of knowledgeable women, including women who are members of this caucus, and made still more changes to remove or soften wording that might still be worrisome. My resolution gained the clear and thoughtful of several female caucus colleagues. It therefore surprised me this week to learn from caucus colleagues that this very benign resolution was evoking an opposition from women’s groups scarcely less vehement than had my original Bill 95.

I responded by offering once again to work with those caucus colleagues to rewrite the resolution to remove whatever still was worrisome. I agreed to accept any wording at all that would help encourage negotiation and mediation rather than adversarial process and that would try to offer children both a mom and a dad whenever that is workable.

That invitation was not accepted, this time for the stated reasons that I personally had become a bête noire for women’s groups and that, whatever the resolution were to say, there would be a perception or, if I may say so, a misperception that it was insensitive to the concerns of women, especially women who are disadvantaged or had been victims of assault. To a physician the difference between a perception and a misperception matters greatly, although I realize that in politics the distinction sometimes seems unimportant.

But I do not know what more I could have done nor could do to meet the concerns of women, except to abandon my objective for these kids, and that I have not been willing to do.

At any rate we have now run out of time. Naturally, I hope this resolution will pass because I think it is a progressive and worthwhile step. But if it is defeated, I repeat my willingness to work with anyone to draft a resolution or bill to better address the needs of children of family breakup. If I am in some way too much a bête noire in the matter of shared parenting, then work with some other legislator of your members’ choice.

There are times in this profession of politics when a politician who feels very strongly on some point has to stand alone. I do not enjoy that. It is not habit-forming. But if that is what occurs today it will not be the first time, nor perhaps the last, and I feel confident that the direction I am trying to move us today is the right one.

Ultimately, history will be the judge. I believe that a time will come, and maybe fairly soon, when we will look back in horror and shudder at the days when they gave the kids to one or other parent when families ended.

Mr Jackson: I listened very carefully to the statements by the mover of this resolution. I am not unfamiliar with his position on this subject. We have had many discussions about his concerns in this regard. I respect that he defines himself as an advocate for some sector in society on this issue. However, I cannot agree and will continue to disagree with some of the basic premises which are developed in this resolution.

At the heart of the member’s resolution is the notion that mediation is somehow a much better form of dealing with matters of family law than our advocacy system which is currently entrenched in law. The second principle he wishes to entrench in his resolution is that the best interests of a child are generally, if not always, served when joint custody is the preferred model. I happen to disagree with both of those premises.

Having listened to my constituents and having listened in particular to those people who have been victimized by marital breakdown, particularly children and women, who are quite frankly in the majority of cases the victims of separation and divorce in this province, having listened to them carefully, it is clear that they share a concern that the evolution of our family law reforms in this province has clearly brought us to a position now where a lot of fathers’ advocate groups have indicated that they wish to somehow turn these reforms around, because they feel threatened by the legitimate advances that have been made by women and children in our family law reform over the last decade and a half.

It is clear to show that property matters were only clarified in the last decade so that property matters on the dissolution of a marriage are more fairly and equitably shared between husband and wife. That was very late in coming in this province unfortunately, but in fact that was the first major gain for women in their right to be dealt with in a more balanced and appropriate way before the courts. But in no way was that the end of the necessary reform.

We also know that as a reaction to that, fathers’ rights groups have not been happy with the gains that women have been making in this area and it is they who have been calling for laws on joint custody, on forced mediation and, as we all know from Bill 124, access enforcement. Some politicians have been listening to this group. Obviously the member in his resolution has been strongly moved to listen to their message, but I have resisted that temptation on the basis of my understanding of the real issues.

I would like to clarify, first of all, that what we are voting on today is a resolution which, quite frankly, is a statement of intent which hopefully will guide the government in a policy fashion. This is not a bill that is before us. A bill would give specific legal language and direction for the government to lift from the table today and proceed to enact it as part of a law. So I am pleased that this is simply a resolution, because I am quite convinced it will be defeated today and I am quite convinced this Legislature will make a more clear statement to the citizens of this province of its views on joint custody and forced mediation.

So we understand what we are talking about here, I want to indicate what the definition of joint custody is. This is very much a legal concept, allowing both parents to share equally in the rights and responsibilities of their children upon separation. It is easily and can easily be used as a tool by men to continue their control over mothers and children without forcing them to take equal responsibility.

As far as forced mediation is concerned -- and I use the words “forced mediation” because it is abundantly clear that there is a growing trend in this province, the trend being that because the government is unable or unwilling to organize our court systems more fairly and more equitably and fund them adequately, because of that there are blockages in our court system.

I am very distressed when I see examples in all sectors of society of people being denied access to justice and the government is developing plans. For example, the auto insurance plan is clearly an example of removing people from our court system and access to our courts. There are mixed messages from the Solicitor General (Mr Offer) with respect to police providing appropriate assault charges in domestic violence. In fact, those are not occurring with the degree of frequency that they should be occurring, because there are mixed messages from the Attorney General (Mr Scott) that somehow our court system cannot cope with the major influx of assault cases involving domestic violence.

Now we have a case where the Family Law Reform Act and revisions upon court access for purposes of separation and determining custody -- now we have this attitude that somehow we should limit access to the courts in the best interests of the child by forcing people to mediation. That is why the concept of mediation cannot stand alone without us realizing that this is a form of forced mediation, because it is the preferred option of the courts, and that is the signal that the mover of this motion would have us give our court system.

It means it would force both parties to work out any or all of their issues of separation with a mediator, whether or not that mediator has been properly trained. Also, this dispute resolution mechanism does not recognize or compensate for the power imbalances that exist between men and women when they are forced into a mediation situation. Women, and there are studies to prove this, feel they are coerced, feel they are pressured into situations, because they feel if they did otherwise, they would appear to be unfriendly and unco-operative, and in some way that might jeopardize any of the final settlements that occur to them with respect to the child who is involved.

We visited the entire issue of forced mediation during the Bill 124 hearings and the message was loud and clear from absolutely every women’s group in this province and nationally, based on sound research, to show that programs such as the one proposed in this resolution are not working in many jurisdictions. In fact, in California, which was hailed as the major model, they are currently undertaking to dismantle it, because they realize that a child does not have its best interests served when the courts presume that they must share equally with parents who are in dispute.

Our current system is working well from the point of view that the judge has one simple, clear message, that a child’s rights and the best interests of a child are first, foremost and paramount. The child, in his best interests, should not be treated like property and divided equally among both parents. He should not deal with compulsory parenting, whether or not a child wishes it to happen. As I learned from California, this is not the experience that worked in that state and it certainly will not work in this province.

I wish to conclude my statements by simply reiterating that the following groups have indicated their lack of support, and I am proud to join them against this resolution: the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, the Ontario Women’s Action Coalition, the Federation of Women Teachers’ Associations of Ontario, the Family Service Association of Metropolitan Toronto, the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, the National Association of Women and the Law, the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres, the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic and the Family Law Reform Coalition. I as well, as the member for Burlington South, stand against this resolution.

The Deputy Speaker: We usually follow rotation but there seems to be an agreement between the parties that the next person will be the member for Markham, if that is agreeable.

Agreed to.

Mr Cousens: It is a subject of great importance. I am due in committee at the same time as I am here in the House and I very much wanted to be able to participate in this private member’s resolution from the member for Etobicoke-Humber (Mr Henderson).

Before I make any comment about the resolution, I would like to talk about the intent of the member for Etobicoke-Humber, who I believe has a sense of compassion and caring that comes through in this motion, which really touches upon one of the most serious problems of our society today, the importance of providing a loving, caring relationship for our children. The kind of leadership that is expressed by his actions and by his concern, not only as a parent but as a legislator in the service of his own community, is something I would like to subscribe to myself in my own life and as a politician.

If anyone reads the

preamble the member for Etobicoke-Humber has read into the record and understands the emphasis he is putting there on the best interests of the child, the need for love and emotional nurturing -- he goes on to look at the parents’ role, the continuing role. If one looks at our society today with the problems our young people and families are having through breakup, it has to be something that we as legislators should address.

It is tragic that we have only an hour to deal with a subject of such great importance, yet those are the rules so we have to really compress our thinking, our thoughts and words into a much shorter type of crystallized view.

May I say that we had a chance to review these issues in Bill 124 when it was brought before the House and at that time I was able to bring forward a number of amendments to the bill. Very little consideration, I felt, was given by the government. One of the things we were stressing -- I had the full concurrence of the Progressive Conservative caucus when I made these amendments on behalf of our caucus -- had to do with the role of the grandparent, with the importance of the grandparent maintaining emotional ties with the child.

Ladies and gentlemen of the House and of Ontario, we have to understand that a family has to be understood in a bigger context than the law sometimes presently allows it to be considered. We tried to bring in amendments that would have given it a position in law so that grandparents had a role. They do have a role, but they do not have much of a one if we look at the laws as now written.

We also pressed for a number of considerations in relation to mediation. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of mediation as a way of bringing families together, of having access. I outlined earlier in the House in the Bill 124 debate how we could begin to address the adversarial nature and the stress that go into the already stressful situation of a marital breakup by having mediation provided in a way where parties to a dispute could sit down together or separately with a trained person to resolve their differences.

In advocating mediation, not necessarily calling for mandatory mediation but rather mandatory entry into mediation as a viable dispute resolution mechanism, we felt there would be a way in which we could have a clearer framework in which mediation could work. We outlined how mediation could be improved on, in the legislation presented to the House by the Attorney General, as to who should act as a mediator, guidelines for the process and levying the fees for mediation. We expanded on these concerns at length.

I would have hoped that the direction the

preamble of the member for Etobicoke-Humber would have taken could have led into the mediation role. What I fear has happened is that the conclusion that is arrived at in this resolution we are considering takes us in a direction I am not able to support.

I agree in principle that a child should have a continuous, nurturing and caretaking relationship with each parent, and with grandparents for that matter, where it would be in the best interests of the child. I cannot endorse a process that would automatically assume that situation of joint custody. Each situation with which we are dealing in a marital dissolution has its own particular circumstances. Each situation should be judged accordingly in a way where the adversarial nature is removed. That would increase the role of a mediator.

What the member for Etobicoke-Humber has done is to bring forward to this House a number of considerations that should be part of our family law reform. I think he is taking it a little farther at this point than I am able to understand and accept. That has to do with the whole joint custody of children. I think it will work in some cases; it cannot work in them all. Somewhere he goes a little too far for me to be able to support him on this.

We are in a position in our society where we have to deal with this as one of the major issues society has to be concerned with. I thank him for bringing it to this House to give us a chance to debate it.

Ms Hošek: I want to speak against the motion in ballot item 31. The wording of the motion expresses a wish for the resolution of family conflict about divorce and about custody in a way that is not adversarial, and I think that is a wish we all wish we could support. The language gives the impression of sweetness and kindness and I understand why some people might be tempted to go along with it because of the way it sounds. We would all like to believe that conflicts can be settled in a reasonable way so that no one is hurt, and in particular so that children can continue to have relationships with all the significant people in their lives.

Unfortunately, the reality is much more grim than that. We live in a society in which one woman in eight is beaten by the man she lives with. The usual differential in power between men and women is even more palpable and destructive in those relationships in which the woman has been battered.

In California in 1980 mandatory mediation and automatic joint custody were initiated by the state, presumably because of the same wish for a peaceful resolution to family conflicts. By 1987 it was apparent this did not work. The Senate Task Force on Family Equity in California in 1987 said: “It is imperative that the impact of California’s joint custody and mediation reforms be ascertained as soon as possible. It is bordering on irresponsibility to continue the current system without beginning a systematic study of its impact on children.”

In fact, there is a recent study which found that contrary to our assumptions about what processes have what effect on children, “there is no difference for children as a result of the method by which their parents divorced,” so the wellness of children was not dependent on how their parents got divorced or organized that divorce.

The real differences for children had to do with whether the parents were able to co-operate with each other and whether there was violence in the family. Because of the grim story of battering in our society, there are going to be parents who simply will not be able to co-operate with each other, and my sense is they should not be forced to co-operate with each other.

I do not believe we can impose compulsory mediation or joint custody on the family law system because of the large number of families in which this is the case. It is unconscionable to require that women, who in many cases with very great pain and difficulty have managed to extricate themselves from a very difficult and violent relationship, then be forced to be hostage to that relationship because they have children. I think that by requiring a woman who is in that situation to do that we would be continuing the violence of which she has been a victim.

In a court of law, each person has a lawyer to represent him or her. In mediation they do not. What that means is that the imbalance in power between the two people involved, which is even more heightened in a situation in which there has been violence, has no buffer, no support for the weaker party. It puts that person in a much more vulnerable position when mediation is imposed on them.

I am very distressed by this motion because I believe that although it was expressed in goodwill, it is really quite a dangerous one. It is because of my sense, which I hope others share, that women in this society already face a disproportionate burden, and those women who have been victims of violence most so, that I would urge this House to defeat this resolution.

Mr Hampton: I am pleased to be able to take

part in this debate today because the issue we are dealing with -- I should say more properly the issues we are dealing with -- is fundamental to the social life of our province today. I want to state directly that I am opposed to mandatory joint custody and I am opposed to joint custody that moves in any way on a mandatory or an advisory mandatory basis.

I want to put clearly on the record why I am opposed to mandatory joint custody. In 90 per cent of the cases where parents separate or divorce, they are able to work out custody issues amicably without going to court, in many cases without the assistance of a lawyer. There is no doubt that in many of these cases where the separating or divorcing parents work out their custody and access issues, the situation results in joint custody. There is no doubt that happens where the separating parents separate on an amicable basis.

However, in 10 per cent of the cases an amicable separation does not result. That is really what we are talking about here. That is what we are talking about when we get into this sort of thing, those 10 per cent of situations where there will be ongoing strife, ongoing altercation between the spouses. To insist upon mandatory joint custody in those situations or to move in any degree towards a court-influenced joint custody in those situations in my view would be harmful to children and definitely not in the best interests of children.

If the parents cannot agree on the fundamentals of custody in these situations -- in many cases they will have other issues to fight about in addition to the custody issues -- and if there is going to be continued strife over the issue of custody in these situations, it cannot be in the best interests of the children to be stuck in the middle in a mandatory joint custody situation as if they were some kind of property. That is really what you get down to.

Let me repeat again that where parents are able to work out their custody questions on an amicable basis, joint custody may be a possibility, in which case the parents may come to a decision on their own as to how they can best suit the best interests of the child in terms of their custody agreement. But where there is a division or where there is altercation or where there is divisiveness between the separating parents, joint custody is not an answer.

I also want to address briefly the question of mandatory mediation. Several speakers have already referred to the trials with mandatory mediation in the state of California, and indeed it has been tried elsewhere in the United States. For a while it was the fad, the way to go in the United States.

Earlier, in this Legislature, some months ago when we were addressing Bill 124, the bill that it was hoped would deal with access, we had occasion to review the situation in California. I will repeat what has been repeated here already earlier today, that the situation in California has turned around radically in 10 years.

Whereas social policy experts and child welfare experts in that state at one time favoured mandatory mediation, that is no longer the case. It has been recognized that in many cases when parents separate there is not always an equal footing, that you do not always have both parents operating on an equal basis.

In many cases you have situations of abuse, a history of abuse. In other cases you may simply have a situation where one parent has all the financial assets or all the capacity to live in financial security and the other parent does not. Usually it is the woman who lacks financial security and in almost every case it is the woman who has been physically abused.

To then ask and expect that you can require both of those parents to be in a mediation situation and that there is going to be some sort of equality emerge, that there will be a capacity, one vis-à-vis the other, to stand up for one’s rights and not be forced into an agreement one does not support or believe in, I think ignores some of the fundamental issues of politics in our country and in our province today.

If you do not have equality in a bargaining situation or in a situation that is supposed to lead to an agreement, you will not get an agreement that is in the best interests of the party who is in an unequal situation, and I suggest you will not get an agreement that will be in the best interests of children either.

I want to go on and talk briefly about this private member’s bill in the context of some of the legislation the government has been bringing forward.

I appreciate why the member has brought this private member’s bill forward. I understand his motives. In the context of Bill 124 and the access issues, which were dealt with over the past two years in this House, I want to point out that if some parents have difficulty in terms of seeing their children, in terms of establishing a relationship with their children, there are other ways to deal with that issue.

One of the ways is to provide access centres in this province, access centres where if parents are in dispute, if parents who are former spouses are in dispute, a child can be left with an access agency that has all the required supervisory capacity and so on for the father to visit, or as the case may be for the mother to visit, on a supervised access basis. In fact, two of these projects did exist in this province not long ago. One was in Lakeshore, the Lakeshore Area Multi-Service Project, which operated Access for Parents and Children, and there was a pilot program in the city of Kitchener-Waterloo.

What these programs showed was that in many cases parents who had difficulty sorting out this custody issue, who had extreme differences over it, were able over a period of time, through the help of these access centres, to develop a more normalized relationship in terms of exercising access to their children. Over a period of years, starting out with supervised access, then moving to unsupervised access and then moving to a more trusting relationship, some of these even moved to a situation where there was joint custody negotiated on mutual consent.

I think there is great potential for dealing with this social issue. There is great potential in terms of funding more centres that provide supervised access for parents, and over time parents can work these situations out. Alas, however, the government will not provide funding for these agencies.

The Ministry of Community and Social Services withdrew funding for the pilot project in Kitchener-Waterloo and the very successful LAMP in Etobicoke never, ever was funded by this government. They always had to rely on voluntary funding from churches. So that whole prospect, that whole program has collapsed and one of the alternatives, one of the options in terms of dealing with this very important social issue has literally gone down the drain.

Do the ministers know what is happening today? People who formerly worked at Access for Parents and Children are being telephoned by family lawyers in this province and are being offered $70 an hour to supervise access. That is how shameful the situation is in the province today.

I understand the kinds of problems the honourable member has seen and I understand the motivation. I disagree with his project, but I also disagree fundamentally with this government’s lack of regard for the problem and this government’s lack of funding for potential solutions for this problem. It is absolutely disgraceful when a social worker is telephoned in this province and are being offered $70 an hour to supervise access for one hour because you cannot get supervised access anywhere else.

Grandparents also figure in this calculation. I want to say to the honourable member that I do not think this is the way to go for grandparents either. I think there is an option for grandparents. There is a way the existing law could be amended so that grandparents would receive some recognition. As it is, the Children’s Law Reform Act basically says that anyone is entitled to custody of a child and access to a child if it is in the best interests of a child.

All one needs to do, I think, is to put into the Children’s Law Reform Act a clause that creates a rebuttable presumption, a clause that could say it would be presumed to be in the best interests of the child that grandparents have access to their grandchildren, but it would be a rebuttable presumption. If you could introduce any kind of evidence at all that would show it is not in the best interests of a child, then grandparents in that particular case would not get that kind of consideration.

We all know of situations where parents have separated and where because the former spouses cannot get along, no matter what kind of decent caring relationship the grandparents had with the grandchildren they do not get to see them either, because again, the former spouses cannot get along.

There is a way, as I point out, to give grandparents the consideration they deserve and to give children the consideration they deserve in terms of establishing warm and decent and rewarding relationships with their grandparents.

As I say to the honourable member, I do not think this resolution measures up to the social policy issues that really have to be dealt with here, so l will oppose it and I expect that many of my colleagues who I have spoken to about it on numerous occasions will be opposing it as well.

In closing, I want to point out a statistic that was provided to me earlier this morning, just to show members what we are talking about. I will get back to the central issue here, mandatory joint custody. The London Family Court Clinic is essentially a clinic of social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists who help or try to help separating parents deal with the difficult issues of custody, again from the perspective of the best interests of the child.

At the Family Court Clinic in London, joint custody is recommended in only five per cent of the cases. Keep in mind that the cases they see at the London Family Court Clinic will be cases where there is a dispute. You see a dispute in only 10 per cent of the cases. Just to give you an idea of the magnitude, you have all of these cases where parents separate and you have children. In 90 per cent of those parents are able to work things out themselves in terms of the custody and access relationship. In 10 per cent, they cannot. Those 10 percent usually wind up going to court. In only five per cent of that 10 per cent figure does the Family Court Clinic recommend joint custody.

That is how seldom they think joint custody will work in terms of the best interests of the child. If you cannot negotiate it, if parents cannot negotiate it on an equal basis, amicably, then in very, very few cases will the Family Court Clinic recommend it.

I thank the House for the time to address this important bill.

Ms Oddie Munro: I am delighted to join in the debate on this resolution. I should say at the outset I am against the resolution and will so vote. I am totally opposed to any move which leads us towards mandatory or compulsory mediation and mandatory or compulsory joint custody.

Joint partnership custody is based on the premise that a partnership is possible and workable and meets the best interests of the child. A search of the psychological and social research involving the helping professions -- ie, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, legal workers and church workers -- reveals difficulties in defining “partnership” as it relates to mediation and joint custody, and recruiting significant numbers of subjects willing to participate in studies on partnerships or who would even fit within acceptable working

definitions of “partnership.” In fact, research reveals that mediation partnership custody only works with a restricted group who are willing and able to mediate and partner.

The reality of the majority of separation, custody and divorce proceedings is that there was a marriage breakdown of such significance that the couple must separate for reasons of irreconcilable differences occasioned by psychological or physical harassment, violence and accompanying social and economic concomitants, including financial events and breakdown of health occasioned by stress. The reality is that the environment in which the vast majority of couples and children find themselves is negative and destructive and at risk, especially for women and children, and that the probability of a positive partnership custody existing and surviving is therefore low.

Any directive which forces partnership custody will cause untold continuing damage to the family and the new or extended family. It will be particularly damaging on women and the children, who will simply be subjected to “more of the same.” It is in fact a step backward in family law reform.

Finally, I should remind the Legislature that it is currently possible in a voluntary way for couples whose marriage breakdown was not personally injurious to either partner or children to enter into partnership custodial and access arrangements and to avail themselves of mediation without legal representation. I therefore reiterate that I am against the resolution and will so vote.

Mr Fleet: I believe the opposition parties have used their time or their speakers are completed and I anticipate that our party will then speak in succession until our time is used.

The Deputy Speaker: That is correct.

Mr Fleet: As the member for High Park-Swansea, as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister without Portfolio responsible for women’s issues and as a lawyer who has practised in the area of family law, I rise to speak strongly against this resolution.

This resolution is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, because a careful examination of the final clause reveals a proposal for a presumption of joint custody which would apply except in very hard to prove circumstances. This resolution proposes a new legal test that deviates from the almost universally accepted test of the best interests of the child. This new proposal would force a parent opposing joint custody or frequent access to convince the court that such an arrangement would have a destructive influence on the child’s development and wellbeing.

This moves the legal decision from a positive emphasis on what is best for the child to a negative approach. Simply put, this new test would put more children at greater risk.

A decade ago California implemented a state policy encouraging divorced parents to share child-rearing responsibilities. Subsequent evaluation studies in California showed that when parents are involved in ongoing disputes children with more frequent access to both parents are more behaviourally disturbed and emotionally troubled. Such access was clearly not in the child’s best interests. California has now passed legislation declaring that there is “neither a preference nor a presumption” for joint custody.

Joint custody of children will work only when both parents co-operate, support each other’s parenting skills and do so with truly free consent to such an arrangement. Adoption of this resolution could lead to policies or practices which would increase the risk and danger for both children and women in our society. This is particularly so when there has been violence in the family. As our wife assault prevention public information program has highlighted, one in eight women is assaulted by her male partner. It is shocking, but true, that over half of these assaulted women continue to be assaulted after marital separation.

Joint custody or frequent access to children inevitably means more contact between the parents and therefore more opportunity for wife assault to continue. In cases involving child abuse, including sexual abuse, joint custody and frequent access by the abusive parent is very clearly not in the best interests of the child.

This resolution also presumes that mediation without having lawyers present is preferable to the current process of resolving custody and access disputes. However -- and I might add I also speak with some experience as a mediator in labour relations situations -- in order for mediation to work both partners must have a relatively equal bargaining and negotiating power. This is simply not the case for many women.

It is particularly not the case for women who are victims of wife assault, as violence and threats and other forms of intimidation are a completely unjustifiable means to exert control over another person. We should also bear in mind that over 90 per cent of all matrimonial matters are currently resolved without a trial and that in the vast majority of cases people are completely able to avoid resorting to the courts.

The current adversarial process offers safe-guards which are especially critical for children and for women, but these safeguards are not present in this resolution. Therefore, once again I urge all members to reject this proposal.

The Deputy Speaker: The member has that time left plus his habitual two minutes to wind up.

Mr Henderson: I want to thank all the speakers who have spoken. I hope some of them also read the resolution before they spoke. I do not want to embark on rebuttal really, but I do want to just mention some points of information and, shall I say, perhaps points of misunderstanding.

I think one speaker suggested I had been very influenced by fathers’ rights groups in this resolution. That is not so. I have not heard from them nor spoken with them for over a year, I think, and they are not a factor in this resolution at all.

The resolution says nothing about joint custody. It refers to shared parenting and parenting agreements. A shared parenting agreement does not require a warm, supportive relationship between separated spouses; it requires a businesslike relationship and good faith on the part of the spouses and their willingness to comply with a parenting agreement.

This resolution contains no move to force mediation on anybody, nor especially to limit access to the courts. In California -- I almost think there are two Californias. Depending on who you talk to, you get different information about what is going on there, but my information is that California recently beat back a 32-amendment attempt to water down its joint custody statute and that joint custody in California, shared parenting, is proceeding much as it had before, with something like 80 per cent of California decisions in the area of a shared arrangement.

Somebody said something about automatically assuming joint custody. This resolution does not. It does not even mention joint custody. It certainly does not contain anything that would impose anything on anybody, and one of the speakers even insisted on continuing to call this resolution a bill. It is not a bill, it is a resolution, and the implications are quite different.

I just want to emphasize a few points. I am very sceptical of the view that women need courts and an adversarial process rather than mediators to get fair treatment. Of course, the courts will always be there to turn to when anybody chooses to, but many mediators, a majority at meetings of their societies that I have attended or represented, are women. Feminists and others have criticized the courts for decades as paternalistic, chauvinistic and biased against women. I do not agree that women cannot hold their own in family mediation, and that view to me seems very patronizing to women.

I often hear it said that shared parenting is available right now under Canadian law, so that no change is needed. Yet 80 per cent or 90 per cent of custody awards in Canada are sole. So unless we assume that 80 per cent or 90 per cent of couples contain an incompetent or abusive mother or father -- and I do not assume that -- some kind of change or shift seems to me to be needed.

There is much, much more that could be said, but we are nearly out of time. As so often happens in social sciences, the research data are conflicting. They often reflect the bias of the researcher and I believe that helps us rather little as legislators, but here we have, in my view at least, a very progressive resolution.

I think custody reform is a little like Senate reform. Nobody seems to like what we have and it is easy to get a consensus about changes not to make, but constructive reform is very hard. We have had a useful airing and I repeat that I think we will some day look back in revulsion on the days when they gave the children to one or other parent when families ended.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Cureatz): If I may so indicate to the honourable member, you still have two more minutes, if you would like to conclude your remarks.

Mr Henderson: The clock was doing funny things there for a second.

I want to take a minute to highlight some of the California research and I will do so quickly, touching only on some key points. The Pojman study compared four groups of 20 boys and found the boys in shared-parenting arrangements about as well adapted as the boys in happy intact homes and the boys in sole custody about as badly adapted as the boys from unhappy intact homes.

The Ilfeld study found that relitigation was half as frequent following joint-custody awards as following sole-custody awards. Support payment compliance is much higher with joint versus sole custody; 85 per cent versus 34 per cent. The Ahrons study of divorced parents found that most were able to maintain a shared parenting relationship in ways that were satisfactory to them. The Abarbanel study found joint custody to be working well in several families subjected to an in-depth dynamic study. The Nehls study found that 11 of 12 children, following joint-custody awards, were satisfied with the custody arrangement -- that is the children -- and that all the parents were satisfied.

The Steinman study of 25 joint-custody families found that the children did not suffer loyalty conflicts. The Woolley study of relatives, judges, lawyers and psychologists concluded that shared custody is best for the emotional health of children and parents. The Ricci study followed cases for eight years and found that shared parenting worked under a wide range of circumstances including geographic separation and, believe me, there is much, much more research out of California, Louisiana and Illinois that I only wish we had time to debate.

NATIVE HEALTH SERVICES

Mr Pouliot moved resolution 33:

That, in the opinion of this House, recognizing that health care is totally inadequate for Ontario’s first nations people, and recognizing that aboriginal people’s requests for improvements are often not met because of jurisdictional disputes between the federal and provincial governments and further recognizing that Ontario’s indigenous peoples want some control over the provision and delivery of their health care, the government of Ontario should immediately take whatever measures necessary to ensure that:

the level of health care services to Ontario’s first nations is at the same level as other Ontarians;

the jurisdictional disputes between the federal and provincial levels of government are reduced and eventually eliminated; and

a process of giving control over the provision and delivery of health care services to the first nations is developed and implemented.

Mr Pouliot: Mr Speaker, as you are most aware and members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario are aware, we have some 120,000 aboriginal people in Ontario, although the Indian Act confers status to only 80,000. Many of those 80,000 people live in the northern part of our province, experiencing living conditions that are unthinkable in other parts of Ontario.

There is a desperate lack of services in those communities, and I am talking about things that we take for granted -- basic, essential services such as running water and electricity in some cases, or if they have electricity, more than 20-amp service so that they can have more than one little hot plate for essential services. We are aware of the despair that the people who were here first, our first Canadians, have to experience in this day in 1989.

Let me share with members some statistics about children, and I see some young people in the galleries who are paying us the compliment of a visit. Infant mortality is twice as high among natives as compared to other Canadians. Life expectancy is 10 years less, so men or women can chop 10 years off their lives. That is what it means; these are real statistics. We live in the same country, sometimes we live a few miles apart, but if one lives on a reserve in Ontario he will live, on the average, 10 years less -- 10 years of missed opportunities, if you wish.

The suicide rate is twice the national average, but for a young male between 15 and 24 years of age it escalates to six times. He is six times more likely to commit suicide if he is a male, lives on a reserve and is between the ages of 15 and 24.

Substance abuse -- we have been through that before collectively. Living conditions -- the list is almost endless. The list goes on.

Let me illustrate vividly some of the things that happen. We talk about a good lifestyle so we say, yes, it does require a good diet, but the people do not have too much money. They go to the Hudson’s Bay store in Kashechewan and a head of what is really rotting lettuce costs $2.24 and a litre of milk is $2.51. So what do they do? They buy sweetened condensed milk at $1.45 and feed their kids with it and then they get diabetes. It goes hand in hand. These are the living conditions they experience.

When they go to the nursing station, there is a nice poster, and I want to share this with members: it says one should brush one’s teeth after every meal, when we get up in the morning and before we go to bed at night. That is quite all right, but they do not have any running water. They have to go and get the water out of the creek. Members know how difficult it is to instil discipline in young people, but when they do not have the basics it becomes almost impossible to monitor compliance to do so.

There is another poster describing how to get rid of scabies. Most of us have never heard of scabies; it is of yesteryear. One must take three baths in two days and then have the special ointment that is applied, and the scabies will go away. There, again, we miss one very basic component in our nothing short of prophetic advice to people: we must give them running water. They cannot heat a little pot with two cups of water with a 20-amp service and expect to take a bath in it to get rid of the scabies. In the real world it does not quite work that way.

We are talking about a very different world. I had the opportunity to spend a week on the shores of James Bay, where James Bay and Hudson Bay meet. I then took another week -- we do this quite often -- and went to the shores of Hudson Bay, including Fort Severn, which is the northernmost community in Ontario. Our task force was there to listen to the grievances of people and to find positive measures to address their needs. Our task force took on what became a mission. Our task force eventually, at its conclusion, became a crusade.

Mr Speaker, you had to be there. It is one of those situations where you try to describe conditions in the Third World but you really have not been there. You know it is bad. You know it is wrong. Your heart tells you that. You know that something should be done. But in the end, it is too far, it is too remote, too distant, so it does not become something of immediate concern, but a concern indeed, yes, it is.

In times of -- and it is the Christmas season -- conspicuous consumption, where wealth is so apparent and so visible at this time of year, self-interest almost becomes a measure of life. I ask for understanding through this resolution because I think it does transcend political affiliation. One does not have to be a member of the Liberal Party, the Progressive Conservative Party or the New Democratic Party. We are talking about people. We are talking about how we treat and how we view each other; how we treat our neighbour; really, how we treat ourselves; how we complete ourselves as human beings; how we complete our lives.

This is what the resolution says. It does not score any political points. It talks about Ontarians. It talks about ideals. It talks about a credo for us and the opportunity to send a message to others who need our help.

I will take the remaining time and tack it on to the additional two minutes.

Mr Eves: It is a pleasure to rise in the Legislature this morning and participate in this debate, especially on what I think is a very worthwhile and deserving private member’s resolution. I would echo the comments of my colleague the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr Pouliot) that this is an issue that transcends political party stripes and boundaries, if you will. It is a very real issue about justice and equity for all in our health care system in Ontario.

I would like to begin my remarks this morning by quoting a few examples of what life, unfortunately, is like for some of our first people, native people, in Ontario. For a matter of several years, the Ministry of Health, through the auspices of James Bay General Hospital, was illegally charging native patients for chronic care. When they discovered the error, they retroactively passed regulations on 7 April 1989 to justify the payments that they had been taking without legal authority from native people receiving treatment at those two centres.

Mr D. R. Cooke: For what years?

Mr Eves: From December 1984 to 7 April 1989, in the case of one, and from December 1986 to 7 April 1989 in the other.

The council of chiefs and elders in the area was very concerned and disturbed by Ontario regulation 207/89. They said, and I quote from their document:

“We consider Ontario regulation 207/89 to be a clear and disturbing signal from Ontario. In July 1988 we wrote to our MPP, the Honourable René Fontaine, for his support of our self-government initiatives. In October 1988 we presented Ontario and Canada with a draft political accord. In December 1988 we wrote to the Minister of Natural Resources proposing to establish a new relationship. In January 1989, a written invitation was sent to the minister responsible for native affairs, the Honourable Ian Scott, to engage in direct self-government negotiations relating to education.

Most recently, on May 25, we wrote to inform the Premier of our opposition to Ontario Hydro’s plans to develop our rivers.

“In each case we have received no reply whatsoever. Is this how Ontario wishes to deal with its first nations? If so, we can only conclude that this government has lost the respect it once had for our citizens.”

That is but one of many examples, Mr Speaker. I would be pleased to give you some others.

In Fort Albany it is all but impossible to recruit and retain professional people. There should be 14 nurses on duty at all times in Fort Albany. Unfortunately, there rarely is. Those who sign on leave, on average, within a year. Many receive only visits by nursing staff, not permanent nursing staff. They for sure only receive visits by dentists. Other health care professionals are virtually nonexistent.

In Fort Severn a doctor visits once every three months, a dentist once every six months. There are no nurses and only a small health clinic with community health representatives. The equipment is often inadequate. Lack of a good X-ray machine is a common complaint. Ambulances are unheard of.

Presently in the north many communities have native community health representatives, and these workers provide the much-needed language skills and cultural identity with their patients, but they lack professional medical training. They are often called upon to provide care far beyond their qualifications. Even giving birth in northern Ontario to our native people becomes an ordeal, and women are routinely flown out of their communities, away from their families, two weeks prior to their due dates. I do not think that is a very acceptable standard of health care in our province.

To emphasize my point, instead of going through all these newspaper articles and what problems they document, I will take a few minutes of your time to read the headlines only:

“New Democrat Task Force on Health -- Here is a Litany of Concerns for North”; “Health Care in North Shocking”; “Author Says 80 per cent of Natives Experience Violent Death”; “Disabilities More Likely on Reserves”; “Disabilities Hit Indians on Reserves at Almost Twice the Rate in Non-Natives”; “Council Supports Treatment Program for Native Addicts”; “Northern Indians Should Control Health Care”; “Annie is Getting Too Old to Care for Herself”; “In Native Towns, Good Medicine means Plain Talk”; “Consultation with Bands on Health Care Urged”; “More Medical Training Needed”; “Health Aid for Natives Criticized before Panel”; “Cross-cultural Crime Up, Medical Doctor Warns”; “Health Care Hampered by Overworked MDs, Inquiry on North Told”; “Province Urged to Play Greater Role in Native Health Care”; “Inferior Health Care Frustration for Doctors”; “Quality of Medical Care could Crumble, Health Inquiry Told”; “Native Travel to Get Treatment Bumped by Airlines”; “Sioux Lookout MDs Arrogant, Probe Told”; “Indian Woman Delivered Child in Outdoor Toilet.”

Is that the standard of care we want for our native people in the province of Ontario? I would hardly think so.

I think that what is needed perhaps is best summed up in a document by the Ojibway Tribal Family Services, which operates out of Dryden, Ontario. In a brief, they provided what they think are the necessary steps for the provincial government to take, and the federal government too, required to give them the health care that they deserve.

Indian people need to be trained as professionals to provide health care in institutions. They should be found in the front lines of hospitals as nursing assistants or ambulance workers, but especially as interpreters. Non-native professionals need to be sensitized to the culture, language and traditions of the first nations like Ojibway or Cree.

Fundamental to all these needs is that the first nations be given the power to carry them out themselves. In the words of the Ojibway Tribal Family Services, they feel that they require the following. They appeal for assistance in their struggle to become a people of pride and confidence to do things for themselves.

“The moneys are there, but they are not getting to our people, but rather other groups are administering them on our behalf. The bands in our area can no longer tolerate this method of delivery of program to our bands. We are asking you to go and share these concerns with the provincial government so that our people can work to create a healthy place. Our people want to do things for themselves. They want to prevent the fear that our people have in coming to the present health care givers and administration. Our people only want to prevent deaths due to fear and lack of understanding.

Our people want develop their own workers to provide strong health care for their people. Our people want to provide tools for their people to provide their own and strong healthy institutions and organizations. Our people now want for you to join hands with us and make our circle strong again. One step along the way to power of self-government would be to ensure significant native participation in district health councils.”

I do not think that those are unreasonable requests. If we pride ourselves, as we often do, on having one of the best health care systems anywhere in the world, surely we can do something for the founding people of our country.

In another submission from a different group of native peoples representing communities along James Bay, they recommend the following and say that there are these eight gaps in services for people in those communities: no residential program for children and adolescents characterized by serious behavioural or emotional disorders, substance abuse or suicidal or self-injurious behaviour; no residential life skills program for young men and women who, without this training, would end up in jail or psychiatric hospitals and progress in a downward spiral of separation from their roots and daily unhappiness of an intense degree; need for detoxification centre for alcoholics; need for a program directed at family violence which would include community-based outreach counsellors; a program for men who are violent and support groups and temporary safe homes for women and children; no community-based follow-up for patients returning from psychiatric hospitals; need for culturally relevant community residential arrangements for the elderly that rely on traditions and not on a centralized nursing home; need for resident physicians in each community or, at the very least, longer visits, and the need for frequent audiological and optometric services in the community so that people, especially children, do not have to travel.

I do not think that any of these requests are unrealistic. I do not think that any of these requests should be denied.

I will finish my remarks with a few quotes that were given to the New Democratic Party task force at the conclusion of one of its hearings.

“The challenge is to ensure equitable access to the conditions leading to good health. Equitable access to good health can no longer be considered an afterthought or a marginal issue, no longer one of impulse or charity, but one of justice. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that the provincial government address a new policy framework that is more comprehensive and proactive and designed to the needs and aspirations of aboriginal peoples in the province.

“The solution lies in the provincial government reorganizing its priorities to address the specific health care needs of native people. Existing funds should be utilized to support innovative and culturally appropriate health promotion and preventive health to support initiative by native people. Provincial funds should be directed towards programs that will promote a holistic approach to wellness, self-responsibility for good health and alternative health care systems of healing. The provincial government should promote the development of native delivery systems that will address the critical service areas in urban and small communities.

“Until the provincial government seriously addresses the health care needs of aboriginal people, the spirits and hearts of aboriginal people will remain broken. The aboriginal nation will continue to be at the bottom of the social and health scale.”

What are they requesting? They are requesting our assistance to assist aboriginal people in utilizing their own power through the empowerment of communities and individuals so that they can achieve good health by the year 2000, which is the year they choose as a realistic goal. I think that is a realistic goal. With the goodwill and co-operation of all members of the Legislature, regardless of their political stripe, I think we can achieve those measures. I think it is the very least we can do to lead to a dignified, fair and well-serving health care system for our first people.

Mr Miclash: First of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague the member for Lake Nipigon on bringing this most important issue to the attention of the House in his resolution today. As the Speaker will know, we share two of the largest ridings in the province, his being the largest, of course, and mine being the second-largest, so we do have a good number of common concerns.

Today it is my privilege to bring to the House some of the recent developments that I, as a member, have seen in the delivery of health care to Ontario’s native people.

Let me begin by saying that we realize this is a very extreme, difficult area in terms of jurisdiction. We know we are dealing with both the federal and the provincial governments in the delivery of these health care services, and it does add a little bit of strife to the problem. We know that, historically, the native people have looked to the federal government to provide their health care and many of their other social services. Increasingly, however, the provincial government is now becoming much more involved in bringing these health services to the native people.

It is the two levels of government, along with the native leaders, that still have a way to go in resolving a good number of issues that have been brought forth to the House today.

I am very happy to bring to the House some very definite progress that I have seen in the recent years that I have been a member in the north, some progress that has come to us in the north, as well as throughout the province, knowing that we are culturally sensitive to the needs of our native people.

For more than a year now, the Ministry of Health has had a native health co-ordinator. The job of this person is to devote his energies entirely to formulating new programs and enhancing existing ones in the area of native health care.

Underlying all the recent changes in native health care has been the genuine desire of this government to put the people themselves, whether on or off the reserves, more and more in charge of the direction in which they want the delivery systems to go. I think that is a very important step in involving the people who are going to be involved in this health care in the decision-making at the community level. I have always said that the best decisions can be made at the community level and then brought to the provincial government.

Mr Speaker, I would like to bring an example to you from Kenora, the largest centre in my riding, where we have a native healer program which is in the works at the present time. I was able to get firsthand knowledge of this program, being a former member of the Lake of the Woods District Hospital board, and I must say that I do not think I have ever seen a program that has been so proactive to the native health needs. What it involved was the referral of native people to local healers. We would take our native patients and be able to refer them to these native healers, a program that was very successful.

As well, I was able to examine a treatment centre at Thunder Bay. It is a treatment centre on the Fort William reserve, which members may know is adjacent to my riding. We find the province of Ontario contributing a good deal financially -- $300,000 on an annual basis -- towards the operating of this centre. I must say that this is one example that we have seen of the way both the provincial government and the federal government have come together to work together on culturally appropriate centres to help the native people with their problems.

As well, we have often heard that it is a goal of this government to ensure the level of health services is available to native people as it is available to other people in Ontario; that is, all other Ontarians. Of course, one of the great difficulties in accomplishing this goal is the division that we have within our native groups. We have both status and nonstatus aboriginal people.

As we also know, more than a year ago the Attorney General and minister responsible for native affairs (Mr Scott) spoke at length in Ottawa regarding the possibility of eliminating this distinction between the two groups of native people. His far-reaching proposal, which would guarantee all native people in the province full citizenship in the province in which they live, our province of Ontario, is still being considered by both levels of government, the federal and the provincial, along with the native leaders themselves.

A new tone, one of seeing boundaries between peoples disappear, has been injected into the ongoing jurisdictional debates. I am happy to see that. I see results of that every day.

In another centre in my riding, the town of Sioux Lookout, we see a good number of attitudes changing. This is taking place at this very moment in Sioux Lookout, where we are looking at the amalgamation of both the federal and provincial hospitals under a local health authority. This is at the conceptual stage right now. I am happy to say that the mayor of Sioux Lookout is in the gallery today, one of the strong proponents of ensuring that this is going to continue on. As I say, it is in the conceptual stages today, but we are looking forward to growth in that area.

I guess the ultimate goal of everything I have been speaking about in my presentation here today is the greater empowerment of native people themselves. Such changes will, as we know, require many constitutional changes, and we all recognize that takes considerable time and discussion. I think we are moving in this province to provide many vehicles, as many vehicles as possible, for our native communities, as I said earlier, to develop their own programs.

Again, I would just like to thank the member for Lake Nipigon for bringing this to the attention of the House. I congratulate him in his resolution and would like to let him know that I am in full support of what he has said here today in the House.

Mr B. Rae: I am delighted to be able to participate in this debate. First of all, I want to congratulate the mover of the motion, my very dear friend the member for Lake Nipigon. Like all in this House who served with his predecessor, Jack Stokes, I certainly regard Jack Stokes as one of the real heroes of Ontario politics in the life at this Legislature. I would say that, together with Mr Stokes, the member for Lake Nipigon shares a special sense of his responsibilities and his relationship as a representative with the native people in his constituency, or as Jack Stokes would always say, the first citizens of Ontario.

It was at the beginning of my career here as leader of the party that Jack Stokes took me aside and said, “If you are going to understand Ontario you’ve got to get north of 50, you’ve got to spend time talking to native people, you’ve got to get out and visit the reserves and you’ve got to spend time doing that.” It was one summer when we combined a bit of recreational fishing with the then reeve of Manitouwadge, whom I had never met before, who is always a particularly welcoming and warm host to the community.

We visited several reserves north of 50 and had a chance to meet with many chiefs, with many elders and to see first hand the conditions in many, many of the communities north of Pickle Lake.

That experience stayed with me as I began talking and meeting with chiefs in other parts of the province, realizing that really we have in our Ontario family communities that are forced to live in conditions that are completely different from conditions faced by any other group of communities in Ontario and, indeed, in Canada.

This is not a particularly novel statement, Mr Speaker, but I would simply ask you to imagine, if you would, a community of 500 or 700 or 1,000 people in which the majority of people have no running water; in which there is no efficient or environmentally acceptable sewage disposal; in which over half the people are living on social assistance; in which there are, apart from the traditional hunting and fishing, which in many communities is becoming increasingly difficult as a source of sustenance and as a way of life, literally no jobs other than those provided by the mission or by the Hudson’s Bay Co or by various government services; communities in which birth rates are exploding, which is quite the opposite pattern in the rest of the province; kids who are drinking water that is untreated and full of bacteria, which means that many of the children, from the time of birth, are suffering from chronic diarrhoea and chronic food and appetite problems; in which there are only the most basic of health care services and only the most basic of services being provided.

This is not just one or two houses, this is not just a small area in a metropolitan area; this is the life of the whole community, with the exception of the mission, be it a Catholic mission or an Anglican mission, the Hudson’s Bay Co or the equivalent thereof, Northern Stores or whatever they may now call themselves, and the government offices. This is the life, this is the way it is.

Very few people in the rest of the province understand that. We do not see it. There are no television cameras that tell us that this is what life is like. The communities are completely isolated, except by communication by plane. Of course, we now have the miracle of television. Many of them have offices with computers, but we still do not have basic sewage treatment. We still do not have running water. We still do not have the basic elements, in terms of decent housing and housing which will last, which we would recognize as fundamental to our sense of what it takes to live a decent life.

People die earlier; suicide rates are much, much higher. The rates of alcoholism are high, drug abuse is a real problem, glue sniffing and gasoline sniffing among young kids is rampant. You have a whole population of young people who come back from school -- where they are sent off to residential schools -- they come back aged 14, 15 and 16 for an entire summer, and there is nothing for them to do.

In some communities sexually communicable disease is a problem, which is inevitable, given the fact that people are living so close together, frankly, and given the fact that there is so little in terms of other recreational activities for kids. What we see happening is the inevitable result of the social conditions which our society has allowed to not just exist, but to grow. Again, this is not unique to northern Ontario; this is the native condition in Canada today.

I want to say this about what we are suggesting: Health care is one example, one area where this province has a responsibility. I know full well that there is a very powerful argument that says quite simply, “No, it’s an area that must be left exclusively to the federal government.” I want to say to this government, if it takes that approach in terms of funding, then we are basically saying to the native people, “You’re on your own, because in terms of the federal government the stuff just is not happening.

What we are suggesting, and what I am suggesting, is that what we need to establish in Ontario is a sense of what are the basic conditions of life that should apply to every community in this province.

I think every community in this province is entitled to electricity. I think every community in this province is entitled to running water. I think every community in this province is entitled to sewage treatment. I think every community in this province is entitled to the basic minimal conditions in terms of housing and social standards which we would feel are acceptable for where we live. There is not a member here who would accept living in a community that did not have running water, that did not have sewage treatment and that did not have basic health care.

I think we are beginning to realize that the health care problems are so visible and so strong, as we experience when we travel in the north. I have been up to James Bay and stayed overnight in the communities on James Bay last winter. We were again up north of Pickle Lake this summer. The member and I went up to visit it together, the most northern community in the province, the community of Fort Severn, where we had a meeting at night and we were talking to the elders about conditions.

The reality is that unless the provincial government provides funding which the native people can then allocate and control themselves, funding which will get into the hands of the communities and be used by the communities, we are simply going to continue to see thousands of people in our province living in conditions of poverty, living in conditions of little hope and living in conditions which, as I say, none of us would accept under any circumstances as a tolerable or acceptable way of life for our fellow Canadians.

This is one of the central challenges of Canadian life and of Ontario life today. Either we deal with this problem, negotiate with the chiefs, negotiate with the native people and create an independent health care service for northern Ontario as it affects our native people, or we continue to ignore it. This is a challenge. We must not ignore it because the future of children, the future of our communities and the future of our sense of what we owe each other is at stake.

Mr Pollock: I believe I have got only about one minute left, but I just want to compliment the member for Lake Nipigon on his resolution. I have listened with interest to the concerns and some of the problems facing our native people here in Ontario, particularly in the north.

I represented a reserve in the old part of my riding. Then when the boundary was changed, I inherited and now represent a reserve in the new part. These people are only roughly about 15 kilometres from two major hospitals, and I am sure they are not that far from dental service or that sort of thing, so it is not a major problem in my area as it is in some of the remote areas of northern Ontario.

Nevertheless, I compliment the member for Lake Nipigon on his resolution and the fact that, as was mentioned here already, a dentist goes to, say, a place like Fort Severn only every six months. That is totally, as far as I am concerned, unacceptable. The doctor only visits, I believe it was stated, every three months. That is a long time to wait if you have got a problem. I just wanted to put that on the record.

Mr Brown: It is indeed a pleasure and an honour to be participating in this debate this morning. I certainly would like to thank the member for Lake Nipigon, the recent star of national radio and television, for bringing this important subject to the Legislature this morning. I would also indicate to the assembly that I will be supporting this resolution and I thank the member for framing the question in a way that all members of the Legislature can support it.

My colleague the member for Kenora (Mr Miclash) has raised some good and interesting points. He has mentioned that this government has been encouraging native people to develop their own health care programs. The government has been doing this in all of Ontario through the community health care model. Several of our native communities are participating through their district health councils.

I have the privilege and the honour of representing eight first nations in this assembly. The issue raised by the member for Lake Nipigon is most important to the wellbeing of my constituents. Health services to my constituents, to the natives in my riding, are very important. But I believe that health is not merely a matter of treating disease and illness. Rather, a holistic approach is needed which addresses the infrastructure and the socioeconomic problems we have on the reserves.

Before I go on to describe some of the ways health promotion activities are being fostered in the native communities, I would like to point out some of the details of how the current funding arrangements work. Many of the members are probably not aware that the provincial Ministry of Health pays the entire cost of health insurance for all status natives in this province and there is no recovery from the federal government. This is in a time when the funding from the federal government to the province of Ontario has dropped to 38 per cent from 51 per cent.

Public health program funding is done on the reserves the same as it is done with the municipalities: 75 per cent of the cost is borne by the province of Ontario, leaving the balance for the first nations to pick up. In my constituency I have had some difficulties with home care. Some of the arrangements on particular reserves have not been made with the health councils or the health unit. I have been working with people to try to resolve that jurisdictional problem, and the member, in his resolution, points to jurisdiction being one of the great difficulties that we have.

It is understandable, though, that most members assume that program activity is exclusively in the north, but in fact for more than a year there has been a native community health centre right here on Queen Street in Toronto. The ministry funds this CHC with $1.2 million a year to operate and provide primary health services. It is worth noting here, as in all programs I will be mentioning, that in Toronto it is the natives who manage the programming.

The Delaware nation in Thamesville is providing youth from nine to 12 with an alcohol and drug prevention program that includes a wilderness experience incorporating native cultural values. A health promotion grant has helped the Sault Ste Marie lndian Friendship Centre to organize a project which involves the traditional Ojibway medicine circle and focuses on a number of specific health problems in native communities, such as diabetes and heart disease.

There are many other examples throughout the province. Nutrition, particularly infant nutrition, is included in many of these programs. I should add here too that the outreach components either exist or are in the development stages for the majority of these programs.

We also have a provincial native health co-ordinator, and he is encouraging native communities to apply, through their district health councils, to enhance programs designed to create equality in health status.

We have been open to discussion with the federal government on how to restructure our government’s relationship with native communities. We all share the same goals of handing control in this area to the natives themselves.

In my particular situation, in our communities, I was privileged just about a year ago to attend the opening of the new community health centre at Wikwemikong. While attending the opening of this very beautiful and functional building, which also includes a

section for traditional native medicine, I was pleased to hear a speech by Dr Jack Bailey, who has recently been honoured as Canada’s family physician of the year, in which he talked about what services to the Wikwemikong reserve were when he started to practise in the 1950s.

At that time, Dr Bailey would come to the reserve about once a week. He would go to the church because there were no other facilities. They would ring the bells in the church so that the natives would know that he was there to serve them. While there is a long way to go, we are a long way from where Dr Bailey was just a few short years ago.

At the Wikwemikong reserve, they are doing wonderful things. We have a nursing home, one of the few nursing homes, I believe, in Ontario just for the native community. We have the Rainbow Lodge native alcohol recovery centre. Right now, I am working very hard with the communities on a traditional Indian medicine proposal. I think there are a number of significant things happening on our reserves, and certainly there is great need for many others to be happening.

In the resolution of the member for Lake Nipigon, however, he does note that jurisdictional disputes are part of the problem, and probably the largest part of the problem. But I would say to him, if he can tell me of any other federal-provincial program that does not have difficulties in the jurisdictional area, I would be most surprised. We are not living in Never Never Land. These things happen, and the province is committed to resolving these, but it takes three parties to work together to do that.

I would note that there was a partnership meeting this summer in Timmins with both levels of government and the Mushkegowok Tribal Council. This council represents the seven bands in the James Bay area. The issue of transference of power was the reason for the meeting and there are to be further discussions on how we do this. But just as one small example --

The Speaker: The member’s time has expired. Sorry, but that is what the clock says.

Mr Pouliot: I want to thank the many speakers who have today honoured me by saying a few kind and factual words in support of the resolution, speakers who have woven a tapestry of neglect, who have reminded us in their own words that our first Canadians went from first Canadians to the forgotten and the cliché of “First come, last served” in terms of services.

The member for Kenora, whose riding is neighbour to Lake Nipigon -- they are the two largest ridings in Ontario -- has experienced at first hand the dilemma, the impasse faced by our first Canadians.

I was honoured by having the contribution of our leader. It is not every day that a leader’s busy

schedule will allow him to support a private member’s resolution. With me, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr B. Rae) met several uncomfortable truths during his travels to both the coast of James Bay and Hudson Bay.

The member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr Brown) knows the problems well. He has had involvement, warm association and understanding and has listened well to the legitimate grievances of the less fortunate, the people who have less in our society and are often forgotten.

There were words of praise from the member for York South (Mr B. Rae) and the member for Parry Sound (Mr Eves). Northern members unanimously are aware and more so; we have a better degree of understanding. It is easier to communicate than ever before -- we have more venues -- what is at stake here.

One would be hypocritical in failing to mention that a lot has been done. I go back to the Berger commission, back to people who put their best foot forward, agonized, travelled all the way to the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, and I am looking straight at the Attorney General.

Mr Laughren: The former civil libertarian.

Mr Pouliot: Oh, they were trying to put their best foot forward, trying to bridge the kind of jurisdictional battle between two entities, if members wish, two bodies -- what is provincial, what is federal -- playing ping-pong while our first Canadians are left holding the bag as a third party. It may not be systematic, but what is systematic is the poverty. It is not systematic by design, but it follows through and the Attorney General among others has done a lot to do it.

If we go back 15 years, when we talk about the lack of sewer and water, the lack of basic facilities, we have come a long way. But we sense that we have to go quicker. We have to stop fighting among ourselves. We have to stop cultivating the differences, by convention and tradition, in the relationship between our first natives and the crown. We have to say, “Look, we as a rich province have a role to play,” and not pat ourselves on the back and with a sigh of relief say, “Thank God, it’s not our jurisdiction for we would have to pay for basic necessities.”

First Canadians are first Ontarians. Something is wrong, drastically wrong. A lot has been done; that is good. A lot more needs to be done and we should have a plan of attack. We should have a timetable accompanied by resources. We should listen better. We should give authority and encourage authority where they can take over their own jurisdiction, for they know better what their people need. Those are normal reactions. I think we will get there -- that is why we are on our feet -- but I think we need to do it faster.

The Speaker: That concludes the discussions on ballot items 31 and 32.

CUSTODY AND ACCESS

The Speaker: Mr Henderson has moved resolution 34.

All those in favour will say “aye.”

All those opposed will say “’nay.”

In my opinion the nays have it.

Motion negatived.

NATIVE HEALTH SERVICES

The Speaker: Mr Pouliot has moved resolution 33.

Motion agreed to.

The House recessed at 1200.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1330.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

FUSILLADE À MONTRÉAL

Mlle Martel : Si nous sommes toutes et tous bouleversés par l’évènement tragique survenu à l’Université de Montréal hier soir, les femmes, elles, se sentent particulièrement touchées. Cette tuerie effroyable rappelle la vulnérabilité des femmes, aujourd’hui encore, dans notre société, et que nous croyons parfois, naïvement, être à l’abri de tels actes de violence. Ce n’est malheureusement que la manifestation extrême de toutes sortes d’actes hostiles que vivent les femmes dans leur quotidien à l’université, à la maison, au bureau ou à l’usine.

La violence conjugale, le harcèlement sexuel au travail, les agressions sexuelles sur les campus universitaires : autant de manifestations de misogynie sont malheureusement parfois des manifestations de haine à l’égard des femmes. Nous ne saurions tolérer les attitudes dans notre société qui encouragent et engendrent une telle folie et nous ne devons jamais garder le silence quand une femme est victime d’une injustice parce qu’elle est une femme.

Permettez-moi, au nom de mes collègues ici présents, d’exprimer mes plus profondes condoléances aux familles des victimes, à leurs amis et à la population étudiante de l’Université de Montréal.

BOUNTY ON WOLVES

Mr McLean: My statement is for the Minister of Natural Resources and it concerns elimination of wolf bounties in Ontario. A joint letter from the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to the townships of Simcoe county indicated that wolf bounties reduce the animal population and suggested that there are other approaches available to farmers to protect their livestock.

Unfortunately, this letter failed to provide a list of suggested alternatives to wolf bounties. There were 417 wolf bounties paid out in 1988. Farmers believe the wolf bounty program worked well in protecting their valuable livestock. Then the minister comes along and discontinues the successful program. He says there are acceptable alternatives to wolf bounties, but he fails to say exactly what those alternatives are.

Wolves can cause unacceptable levels of property damage and livestock losses to municipalities, and farmers and other landlords in Simcoe county must be able to protect their interests. They have a right and a duty to do so, and the minister has the right and duty to let the municipalities, farmers and other land owners know what alternatives are available for them to protect their interests now that he has discontinued the wolf bounty program.

PASSENGER RAIL SERVICES

Mr Adams: I spoke yesterday at a Union Station rally protesting cuts in Via Rail services to Peterborough and other communities. Others attending were Mayor Art Eggleton of Toronto, author Farley Mowat, the member for Kitchener (Mr D. R. Cooke), Alderman Jeff Leal of Peterborough, and the rally organizer, the member for Brantford (Mr Neumann). The rally included people from many areas affected by the cuts and a variety of labour and other groups.

All members of this House, whether their own communities are directly affected or not, must realize that there will be huge cuts in Via services in Ontario not in the distant future but next month. The quality of life of everyone in the province will be affected by this cruel and shortsighted federal policy. The efficiency of our economy will be reduced and our environment will be damaged. Via services to Peterborough will be completely eliminated.

Once again, I call on all members to do everything in their power to persuade the federal government to heed its own standing committee and at least place a moratorium on the Via cuts so that there can be some proper planning. Let’s all work together to develop a modern, complete rail system in Ontario.

FOOD INDUSTRY

Mr Wildman: The Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology jointly established a Food Industry Advisory Committee to look at the serious developments in the food processing area of our economy with representatives of various sectors of the food industry in this province. The final report of that committee was supposed to be published in October 1989. Yesterday it was announced in the House in answer to a question that the report now will not come down until some time in January.

This government does not seem to understand the seriousness in the food sector as a result of various changes with regard to the so-called free trade agreement and the GATT announcements. The food industry is deteriorating in this province, yet this government is doing nothing.

We have a loss of 370 jobs in the beef slaughterhouses alone in this province over the last year. We have predictions from Gerber (Canada) that it will close in Niagara Falls and St Lawrence Starch will close in Mississauga, with a further loss of 550 jobs in this province, much less the dangers that produces for the agricultural producers who will not have a market if these operations shut down.

It is time this government came up with a strategy to protect and expand the food processing industry to protect the jobs in the industry and the market for farmers in Ontario.

NUCLEAR SAFETY

Mr Cureatz: Today Ontario Hydro is requesting permission to increase power output at the Darlington nuclear generating station which, of course, is in my riding of Durham East. With the brownout situation we are facing, Ontario Hydro and others might argue that it is prudent to get Darlington going quickly. However, we should not let expediency get in the way of safety.

The town of Newcastle, which is my own hometown, which is responsible for dealing with any emergencies arising at the Darlington plant, has not yet approved a complete fire plan for the plant. Until it does, Ontario Hydro should not be allowed to increase power, no matter what the external pressures are.

The safety of the residents living in the surrounding area should not be jeopardized because Ontario Hydro has not had the foresight, nor has this government, to supply adequate power to the rest of the province when it gets cold. Ontario Hydro and the Solicitor General’s office are not taking the town’s concerns seriously. If the local fire chief says he is not satisfied that public safety is adequately addressed, his opinion should be respected.

The corporation is trying to push an agenda that could jeopardize public safety. Using the excuse of brownouts to speed up the licensing process shows Hydro and this Liberal administration have not planned adequately enough, as I have indicated in this portfolio many times over the last two years. They have been dragging their feet in terms of ensuring that Ontario residents and industry will be supplied with an adequate amount of electricity. Here we have a situation facing brownouts which indicates they have not planned.

SIMCOE CHRISTMAS PANORAMA

Mr Miller: I would like to use this occasion to draw attention to the 32nd annual Simcoe Christmas Panorama. For those members who have not yet had the pleasure of being in Simcoe during the Christmas season, let me shed some light on what they are missing.

The Simcoe Christmas Panorama has been a yuletide tradition since a dedicated group of Simcoe businessmen decided to light up Wellington Park back in 1957. The panorama consists of 60 different displays illuminated by 25,000 Christmas lights and set in the natural beauty of Wellington Park along the Lynn River. In 1988, the panorama attracted 220 tour buses from all over Ontario and the northern part of the United States. The Simcoe and District Chamber of Commerce has estimated that a total of 500,000 people visited last year’s panorama.

The panorama is a labour of love for the 500 volunteers who unselfishly give of their time each December to make Simcoe’s Christmas-light show the best in Canada. The official opening ceremony for this year’s Christmas panorama was held on 1 December in Wellington Pork with our federal member of parliament, Bob Speller for Haldimand-Norfolk, pulling the first switch. The lights will be on every evening from 5:30 until midnight from now until 1 January. I invite all members, if they have the opportunity, to drop in and see them for themselves. It will be worth it.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Miss Martel: On Monday afternoon during the debate on Bill 68 and again on Tuesday, this party pointed out that Bill 68 would have a tremendous impact upon the workers’ compensation system. Specifically, the bill will take some $25 million a year out of that system. That will significantly increase the unfunded liability fund and cause the board to look for new and innovative ways to reduce workers’ benefits in order to cut costs and employer premiums.

The Minister of Financial Institutions (Mr Elston) does not understand what this means. In response, he argued that Bill 68 would increase costs and therefore employer premiums, but that these increases would be offset by lower insurance premiums paid by these same employers.

First, what employers pay into workers’ compensation depends upon what industry they are involved in and how many accidents their employees suffer. What an individual employer pays for his or her own automobile insurance has absolutely nothing to do with what he or she will have to pay to the Workers’ Compensation Board for coverage for his employees. Second, it is a fallacy to argue that injured employees will benefit by paying lower automobile insurance premiums, because this government has already admitted that rates in urban areas will jump another eight per cent.

The problem is that under Bill 68, the WCB will not be able to recover costs from a third party unless the worker dies or is seriously injured. That means more people will need WCB and that will increase costs to employers. In turn, the board will have to cut benefits to injured workers to reduce its unfunded liability. That is where the injustice lies in this bill.

DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED

Mrs Cunningham: I am rising in the House today to voice some very serious concerns over the children’s and infants’ development services program in York region. It is in tremendous need of support from the Ministry of Community and Social Services. I realize that there has been incredible population growth in regions outside of Metropolitan Toronto. This has placed a substantial amount of pressure to maintain levels of services in programs for infants and children in these communities.

The Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr Beer) must realize that there are over 150 families waiting for ministry support for the CIDS program. These children do not have the time to wait. Their development has been delayed and every day that they wait affects future positive development. Over 150 young lives are waiting in the balance while this government stalls in its support for this program.

My office has been contacted by numerous concerned and angry parents who feel that this government is ignoring them. One family’s daughter has been waiting since March to get physiotherapy. This two-and-a-half-year-old little girl is waiting right now as we speak for the services she deserves. Let me tell the House that there are many more children in York region waiting for similar services that they deserve. When will this government address this most urgent need? When will this government plan ahead to meet the pressures today and in the future?

The citizens of Ontario deserve services for developmentally delayed infants and children now and in the future. This community wants action, as does Ontario.

TRANSMISSION LINE

Mr Tatham: “Ring-a-round the rosie; pockets full of posies; hush-a, hush-a; we all fall down.”

Under the joint board, the Consolidated Hearings Act, 1981, the decision for the proposed transmission plan of Ontario Hydro for southwestern Ontario, dated 20 February 1987,

section 16 says:

“Narrow-base towers shall be installed on specialty crop lands and on class 1 to 4 lands on in-field locations where possible. These towers shall also be installed on fence lines and boundary lines crossing specialty crop lands on class 1 and 2 lands, wherever possible, where the lands are now capable of being farmed on both sides of the lines.”

“Wherever possible.” In Oxford, our farmers believe it is possible. Hydro suggests otherwise. There has been a mediation in one case. The mediator said yes. The cost would be up about 10 per cent to 15 per cent. Ontario Hydro, be fair.

“Ring-a-round the rosie; pockets full of posies; hush-a, hush-a; we all fall down.” The alleged origin of this nursery rhyme was the Great Plague of London, 1664-65.

Mr Sterling: Mr Speaker, I would like the unanimous consent of the House to express our regrets with regard to the happenings which took place in Montreal, Quebec, yesterday.

The Speaker: Is there agreement?

Agreed to.

SHOOTING IN MONTREAL / FUSILLADE À MONTRÉAL

Mr Sterling: On behalf of my party, we would like to express our deep and sincere regret and sympathy to the many families in Quebec who have experienced an unbelievable tragic event. A reaction to it can be nothing but a total lack of understanding why any individual would take upon himself this kind of reprehensible action. We really do not know what to say to the families, except that we are truly sympathetic and bereave the loss of their loved ones. We hope that they will take some comfort in knowing that the thoughts and prayers of members of the Legislature of Ontario are with them today.

Hon Mrs Wilson: On behalf of the Premier (Mr Peterson) and members of our party, and especially as Minister without Portfolio responsible for women’s issues, I rise today to express the shock and outrage of this House and the people of Ontario at the mass shooting of women students yesterday at the University of Montreal.

This incident is a tragic example of the violence that women face in our society, not because of who we are as individuals or where we go or what we do, but simply because we are women. We extend our sympathy to the injured and to the family and friends of the 14 women who were murdered.

Upon completion of members’ remarks today, I would ask the House for a moment of silence in memory of the 14 women who were murdered.

Mr B. Rae: I know all the House has been profoundly moved by the tragedy in Montreal and no words of ours can possibly express the horror, outrage and anger as well as the enormous sadness that all Canadians feel, and indeed the whole world feels, when we confront a tragedy of this dimension.

It is hard to imagine life as many members have experienced it in a university, a community like that being violated in this way. It is hard to imagine the feelings, the terror, of the women who were set aside and then shot. It is very difficult for us as parents.

Notre parti et moi, j’en suis certain, au nom de la population en général partout dans la province de l’Ontario, exprimons notre profonde sympathie aux familles qui ont été tellement touchées par ces évènements. Nous exprimons notre outrage, surtout parce que ce sont des femmes qui ont été tuées.

Nous savons très bien que la violence qui se manifeste contre les femmes est une triste réalité, une réalité inacceptable et atroce de notre société et que cet évènement si bizarre, si extrême et si violent est une expression de la violence générale contre les femmes.

Nous exprimons notre sympathie profonde en tant que parents. J’ai une nièce et un neveu qui sont étudiants à Montréal, à l’université, alors je comprends un peu et peut-être pouvez-vous comprendre, vous aussi ; nous avons tous des exemples ou des situations où nous comprenons très bien l’horreur, où nous comprenons la peur et la tristesse profonde éprouvées et comment celles-ci touchent tous les Canadiens.

Nous désirons dire aux parents, aux familles, aux femmes et à toutes les Canadiennes et à tous les Canadiens que nous allons sûrement survivre à cet évènement. Cependant, c’est un évènement qui a touché toute la population et nous devons encore trouver des moyens pour éliminer la haine qui existe dans nos cours et dans le coeur de certains de notire communauté. Aussi, nous devons trouver des moyens pour éliminer la facilité qu’ont les gens d’avoir des pistolets en leur possession et également, je pense que nous devons réfléchir aux lois possibles, peut-être, pour empêcher qu’un évènement semblable se reproduise.

To say that our hearts go out is just so inadequate in the face of this outrage, an outrage against women, an outrage against any person who is affected by this terrible random violence that occasionally and so awfully strikes our society. Nevertheless, we must commit ourselves to fighting hatred, the wild hatred that was obviously expressed in this terrible event. As well, I think we need to look hard at questions about how people get access to the guns that cause these terrible, terrible tragedies. That is all I can bring myself to say at this point.

The Speaker: I thank these members for commenting on this unprecedented massacre. As the minister has suggested, I am sure all members will want to join me in a few moments of silence as a sign of our deepest sympathy for those families touched by this tragedy. Would all members stand, please.

The House observed one minute’s silence.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

INTERPROVINCIAL ENERGY AGREEMENT

Hon Mr Ward: On behalf of the Premier (Mr Peterson) and my colleague the Minister of Energy (Mrs McLeod), I am pleased to be able to advise the members of the signing this morning of an unprecedented interprovincial energy agreement between the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba.

This pact, the largest and most significant of its kind in our nation’s history, was signed earlier today in Winnipeg by Robert Franklin, the chairman of Ontario Hydro, and Brian Ransom, the chairman of Manitoba Hydro. It was witnessed by our Premier, by Premier Gary Filmon of Manitoba and by our Minister of Energy.

The agreement involves the purchase by Ontario of electrical energy produced in Manitoba at a price of $13 billion over a period of 22 years. Beginning in the year 2000 our province has agreed to purchase from Manitoba 1,000 megawatts of electricity per year.

This energy pact is designed to assist in ensuring security of supply to meet our province’s energy needs well into the future. It will assist in providing the energy required to drive the engines of our economy, supplying our industries with a vital resource that will permit them to remain a strong generator of prosperity and the cornerstone of our province’s economic well-being.

As the Premier said this morning, “For Ontario, the agreement provides a reliable source of clean Canadian energy at competitive prices as well as contributing to greater diversity of energy supply.”

But I believe this agreement represents more than simply an economic gain for Ontario. It is, as the Premier said earlier today,

an act of nation-building in which our province, the province of Manitoba and indeed our country as a whole are clear winners. This pact manifests the will of our province to forge powerful new east-west ties in the tradition of generations of Canadians before us, ties that resist the historic pull between north and south.

For Manitoba this agreement enables the confident start of a major new hydroelectric power project at the Conawapa Dam on the Nelson River. This facility will provide Manitoba with a secure new source of electricity for its own needs, as well as for sale to others.

For Ontario, and especially for northern Ontario, this agreement means an important new transmission link between the northwest and the rest of our province. This link takes on special importance as we proceed with the development of private sector electricity generation in the northwest. It gives us added capacity to get that supply to market.

For Canada, this agreement stands to lead to the creation of a national power grid with the potential to turn Canada’s various electricity resources into a truly national resource.

This agreement calls for the construction of 2,000 kilometres of new transmission lines divided nearly evenly between the two provinces. These lines will be subject to environmental assessment in both provinces. Ontario Hydro will ensure that local communities are fully involved and consulted throughout the transmission project. Environmental assessments will be co-ordinated to permit timely implementation of the purchase agreement.

Development of the transmission line will mean new business and economic opportunities throughout northwestern Ontario, with new jobs and training programs, particularly for our native people.

This agreement is the largest co-operative venture ever undertaken by the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, but it truly is much more than that. As the Premier stated today in Winnipeg, “This agreement shows what can be accomplished when we stop talking about interprovincial co-operation and actually do something. This kind of exchange -- in energy, trade and other activities -- can help us to make this a stronger country, and one better able to meet the challenges of the 1990s and the century to come.”

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY

Hon Mr Wong: As members know, this Sunday 10 December will mark the 41st anniversary of International Human Rights Day. On that day, we will celebrate the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration affirms our faith in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women. As a charter member of the United Nations over 40 years ago, Canada cast its vote in favour of this universal declaration.

This year has indeed been a remarkable one. While we have witnessed changes all around the world, the ones in eastern Europe have been momentous. We have seen the Berlin Wall fall. We have seen thousands of citizens of eastern European states assert their rights to full participation in the destinies of their own nations. This is the year in which believers of all faiths will be allowed to worship in the Soviet Union. All of this gives us hope as we face a new decade, a renewed hope in the course of international human rights as we look into the next century.

Here in Ontario we can be proud of our province’s accomplishments, but we must be vigilant in ensuring that we enhance our commitment to human rights. In our province the Ontario Human Rights Code was proclaimed 27 years ago. The code draws from the United Nations declaration. Not only has it influenced our commitment to human rights in Ontario in the past, but it continues to inspire and guide us today, and I am sure will for many years to come. Ontarians should be proud that their province was among the first to adopt a code of human rights in Canada.

As I have mentioned, this year’s celebration of the universal declaration coincides with a number of historic events, events that have a universal impact, events that until recently we would have considered unlikely in our own lifetime.

As we approach a new decade, let us all ensure that the advancement of human rights is more than a reflection of principles. Human rights protection means that all of us take practical steps to change our attitude and behaviour to bring us to true equality everywhere.

FINES

Hon Mr Scott: Later today I will be introducing the Provincial Penalties Amendment Act, 1989. This act raises maximum fines and in some cases minimum fines for a large number of offences under provincial statutes. By and large, it does so to reflect the changed value of money since the fines for these offences were established or last revised, in many cases years and decades ago.

Therefore, the effect of the act will be to restore the fine to the level of seriousness it had originally. This will help to ensure that the fine’s effect as deterrent or as punishment will not be lost.

The bill should also increase provincial fine revenues in real dollars to the levels anticipated when the fines were first calculated.

A few fines are, however, being raised above the level required to compensate for inflation. The maximum fine under the Ticket Speculation Act will rise from $50 to $1,000. The maximum fine for selling tobacco to minors will rise from $50 to $500 for individuals and $25,000 for corporations. The maximum fine for paying for an adoption will rise from $5,000 to $25,000. The maximum fine for most residential tenancy offences rises from $1,000 to $5,000 for individuals and to $25,000 for corporations.

Maximum fines in statutes of the Ministry of Financial Institutions will rise in accordance with those proposed already for the Securities Act in Bill 155. The maximum fine under the Highway Traffic Act for failing to stop when requested by a police officer will rise from a range of $100 to $500 to a range of $500 minimum to $5,000.

The principal group of fines not included in this act is speeding fines under the Highway Traffic Act. The House will recall that these fines are being dealt with under the government’s driver protection plan.

The House should also note that we are dealing here for the most part with maximum fines, which are imposed only in the gravest of cases. The actual fine imposed in a particular case will depend on the circumstances of the case as weighed by the judge who hears it.

I hope the House will be able to give speedy attention to this bill in the interests of the more effective administration of justice in Ontario.

RESPONSES

INTERPROVINCIAL ENERGY AGREEMENT

Mr Charlton: I would like to take a few moments to respond to the statement made by the government House leader on behalf of the Premier (Mr Peterson) and the Minister of Energy (Mrs McLeod) regarding the announcement of an agreement with the province of Manitoba for the purchase of 1,000 megawatts of electricity per year starting in the year 2000.

This is the kind of announcement by this government that tears you in half. On the one hand it can be said that we are all glad this will be a hydraulic facility in Manitoba and not some other environmentally nastier option in a generation facility here in Ontario. Having said that, there is also, on the other side of the question, concern about hydraulic facilities in the far north themselves. There are concerns by Ontario citizens and aboriginal peoples in this province about a number of hydro proposals in northwestern Ontario. One would certainly hope we are not simply shifting those environmental concerns and the concerns of aboriginal peoples into Manitoba to get them off our backs.

As well, it is good to see the co-operation between the province of Ontario and the province of Manitoba. Having said that, on the other hand one would not want to see us causing to have built a major hydraulic facility in the Manitoba that is unnecessary because we have not achieved the maximum of energy efficiency that we should be striving for.

As I said at the outset, this is one of those statements that tears you in half because on the one hand you are happy it was not something else, and on the other hand we still have not got the order correct in terms of our approach to energy and the provision of electrical energy in Ontario.

The government House leader perhaps could pass on these comments to his colleague the Minister of Energy. The system needs to start from the top down, energy efficiency being at the top. You do not start buying power and causing the creation of generation facilities until you have achieved all that you can or all that is attainable at a reasonable price in t