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April 12, 2007

38th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2007-Apr-12 (PDF)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L'ONTARIO

Thursday 12 April 2007 Jeudi 12 avril 2007

PRIVATE MEMBERS'

PUBLIC BUSINESS

LABOUR RELATIONS

AMENDMENT ACT

(REPLACEMENT WORKERS), 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL

(TRAVAILLEURS SUPPLÉANTS)

ONTARIO CLIMATE CHANGE ACT, 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 SUR LES CHANGEMENTS

CLIMATIQUES EN ONTARIO

LABOUR RELATIONS

AMENDMENT ACT

(REPLACEMENT WORKERS), 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL

(TRAVAILLEURS SUPPLÉANTS)

ONTARIO CLIMATE CHANGE ACT, 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 SUR LES CHANGEMENTS

CLIMATIQUES EN ONTARIO

LABOUR RELATIONS

AMENDMENT ACT

(REPLACEMENT WORKERS), 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL

(TRAVAILLEURS SUPPLÉANTS)

ONTARIO CLIMATE CHANGE ACT, 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 SUR LES CHANGEMENTS

CLIMATIQUES EN ONTARIO

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

SCHOOL BUS ACCIDENT

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

COMMUNITY CARE ACCESS CENTRES

SPECIAL OLYMPICS

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

YORK SUBWAY EXTENSION

VISITORS

UNPARLIAMENTARY LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

SAFER ROADS FOR

A SAFER ONTARIO ACT, 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 VISANT À CRÉER

DES ROUTES PLUS SÉCURITAIRES

POUR UN ONTARIO PLUS SÛR

REMEMBRANCE DAY

OBSERVANCE ACT, 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 SUR L'OBSERVATION

DU JOUR DU SOUVENIR

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

ROAD SAFETY

RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE

ROAD SAFETY

RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE

ROAD SAFETY

RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE

ORAL QUESTIONS

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

HYDRO RATES

REPLACEMENT WORKERS

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

ONTARIO ECONOMY

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

MUNICIPAL FINANCES

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

GRAPE AND WINE INDUSTRY

SPORTS AND RECREATION FUNDING

PETITIONS

NATURAL RESOURCES

PROGRAM FUNDING

TUITION

REGULATION OF ZOOS

LAKEVIEW GENERATING STATION

STEVENSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

REGULATION OF ZOOS

LABORATORY SERVICES

MACULAR DEGENERATION

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

REGULATION OF ZOOS

LONG-TERM CARE

LABORATORY SERVICES

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

ORDERS OF THE DAY

SAFEGUARDING AND SUSTAINING

ONTARIO'S WATER ACT, 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 SUR LA SAUVEGARDE ET LA

DURABILITÉ DES EAUX DE L'ONTARIO

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS'

PUBLIC BUSINESS

LABOUR RELATIONS

AMENDMENT ACT

(REPLACEMENT WORKERS), 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL

(TRAVAILLEURS SUPPLÉANTS)

Mr. Kormos moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 192,

An Act to amend the Labour Relations Act, 1995 / Projet de loi 192, Loi modifiant la Loi de 1995 sur les relations de travail.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Pursuant to standing order 96, Mr. Kormos, you have up to 10 minutes. The floor is yours.

Mr. Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): Thank you, Speaker.

Jack London gives us a little bit of guidance in this whole matter. He wrote:

"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab.

"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumour of rotten principles."

I'm grateful to Jack London for having given us that insight a century ago.

You'll recall–you surely will—back in 1993 when the NDP government of the day outlawed, Bill 40 outlawed, scabs in the province of Ontario.

The legislation, of course, refers to them as "replacement workers." But down where I come from in Niagara, and where my colleagues come from, whether it's here in Toronto or Hamilton or Timmins—James Bay or Kenora—Rainy River or the Sudbury area, people who cross picket lines and take workers' jobs when those workers are involved in oftentimes life-and-death struggles to keep good jobs in their community, to ensure fair shares of the wealth that they create, to ensure safer workplaces, to ensure some modest pension plans that permit them to retire with even a basic level of decency and dignity—when those workers are on a picket line fighting for those things, women or men who would cross that picket line to take their jobs, while the legislation calls them replacement workers, are scabs, the very same sort of scabs that Jack London talked about.

In that period of time when scabs were banned in the province of Ontario—and we recall the history. When the Conservatives got elected in 1995, they repealed the anti-scab provisions of Bill 40, along with a whole lot of other things. But in that period of time, there were fewer work stoppages here in the province of Ontario. When there were work stoppages, they were of a shorter duration. And the tragedy of working women or men being assaulted, mutilated or killed on picket lines was averted. And we don't have to go back that far to understand that that prospect of a picketing worker being assaulted, mutilated or killed isn't a fiction or a matter of a mere fanciful imagination.

I remember being on the picket line with Navistar workers down in Chatham after one of their brothers, Don Milner, a CAW member from Windsor, was brutally injured when a van operated by a scab-protection security guard drove over Mr. Milner, brother Milner, and injured five other CAW members at a picket line at that Navistar plant on the outskirts of Chatham. I remember the factory well. It was back in June 2002. Mr. Milner broke his pelvis, required hours of surgery, and spent an incredible amount of time in hospital.

A 21-year-old employee of London Protection Inc.—it's a strike-breaking operation—was charged with dangerous driving. London Protection Inc., of course, was hired by Navistar to break the strike at their international truck plant in Chatham.

October 2000, here in the greater Toronto area, Mississauga: 450 workers on strike at CFM Majestic Inc. As soon as those picket lines were set up, burly security guards were sent out there, intimidating and harassing those strikers. These are the guards—you've seen them. They're the ones with the shaved heads—it's all about the image—dressed from head to toe in black uniforms and black caps and military jackboots. As the workers tried to block buses filled with scabs to prevent them from crossing the picket line—peacefully, peaceably—guards were brutally slamming those workers aside and out of the way.

I can go on: workers terrorized by strikebreakers in Sudbury, Falconbridge, in 2000, and the company Accufax; another scab protection operation, a scab delivery company.

This is all about values. No worker takes lightly the decision to withdraw their labour from the workplace, but what could be a more fundamental right in any democratic society? Because surely it's a hallmark of a democratic society when we ensure that workers do have that right to withdraw their labour when lawful negotiations around a contract break down. Surely this Legislature is going to protect the right of that worker to withdraw his or her labour. And no worker ever makes that decision lightly. I want to repeat that.

As for lockouts, I say to you that we should condemn those outright, because they withdraw from the worker his or her contractual right to negotiate a contract when they put a proverbial gun to that worker's head.

Let me complete the reference to scabs by Jack London. "After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab.

"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumour of rotten principles.

"When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out.

"No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there is a pool of water to drown his carcass in, or a rope long enough to hang his body with. Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab has not.

"Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas sold his Saviour for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British army. The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife, his children and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer.

"Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country; a scab is a traitor to his God, his country, his family and his class."

As New Democrats, we stand here unhesitatingly in solidarity with workers in this province and beyond, and in our efforts to restore anti-scab legislation to the province of Ontario.

It is only with anti-scab legislation that we can restore that tradition created in the early 1990s—in 1993 to be specific, when Bill 40 passed—of peaceful contract negotiations with minimal work stoppages, with safety on picket lines on the rare occasion that they do develop, and with an assurance that contract disputes will be resolved at the negotiating table rather than with armed goons, strikebreakers and scabs hauled in through smoke-mirrored buses, crashing through picket lines of women and men trying to better their lot in their workplace and in their community.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?

Mr. Khalil Ramal (London—Fanshawe): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the chance to speak and comment on Bill 192,

An Act to amend the Labour Relations Act, 1995, introduced by Mr. Kormos, the member from Niagara Centre.

I've been listening carefully to Mr. Kormos. I know his passion about this issue. Hopefully, he can extend his passion to the leader of his party, especially when he was against the extension of the subway, which can eliminate a lot of work in the province of Ontario. We, as a party and as a government, were trying to create more jobs in order to have more workers working. Hopefully, they will have a consolidated effort in one direction.

Anyway, we're talking about Bill 192, which I think is very important. We live in a democratic society. We live in a society where we should be respecting the human rights of everyone, especially when workers who have some kind of dispute go out of their job and may be looking for more money and better conditions for their safety in the work they do. It's a very important issue.

A couple of times since I was elected I introduced a bill to erect a monument outside of this place to remember people who died while they were working, to commemorate people who have given their lives, efforts, talents, skills and physical abilities to build this province, which is very important.

This bill talks about how we can create a balance between employers and workers. I think it's very important because most of the time, when workers go to work and give their ability, attention and skills to build a factory or build a company, the company makes more money and a lot of progress, and I think they are obligated to support their workers and give them more attention. That's why most of the time disputes happen between workers and companies or employers. I think we should have fair treatment. That doesn't mean we should replace them when they go on strike or are locked out. It's a dangerous situation.

I want to commend the member from Niagara Centre, and also our Minister of Labour who worked very hard to create that balance since we were elected in 2003. If you want to talk about work stoppages, I think you'll see a minimal level in God knows how many years. I think if we are able, through mediation, to create some kind of balance and bring a lot of agreements to the bargaining table which are mitigated by our Minister of Labour and the special people who work in the Ministry of Labour, that is going to create peace and tranquillity between employers and workers or people who work in different locations and different places.

I'll give you some examples. We brought in a four-year agreement with the elementary and secondary teachers' support staff; also the Ontario public service health care workers, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the city of Toronto inside and outside workers and several dozen other large municipalities. They created some kind of agreement between the employers and employees due to our understanding of the importance of those workers. The agreements give the ability.

I know it's against human rights to place workers at many different times in many different locations, especially when they strike on a picket line. They shouldn't be forced out, injured, killed, harassed or abused. They have the right to strike in order to better their conditions, better their situations, maybe for more money or more safety in the workplace. It's very important to create that dialogue and that understanding. Most of the time, we are able through mediation to create that harmony between employers and workers.

I understand that the member from Niagara Centre wants to repeal Bill 7, I believe, which amended the Bill 40 in 1992. I think it's important to deal with the issue and look into it because we owe the workers a lot of respect. We should support them in whatever they do in their daily life, but we have to create that balance, as I mentioned at the beginning.

Some workers work in hospitals, for instance, ambulances, or in correctional services, and what do you do? Do you leave the jails empty of protection or the jailed people out on the street without any protection? I don't know. It's a very delicate issue. I think we should be dealing with it and be open to suggestions.

The member from Niagara Centre brought up some different issues that brought important elements to the situations that should be dealt with. All workers are entitled to go on strike without any hesitation or fear of being replaced at any time and they should also be allowed to express themselves with passion, and they should be supported. Most of the time we are able, by negotiation, to reach an agreement.

What's happened many different times is that we have a government and a minister who are open to talks and able to bring the two parties to the table to try to counsel both sides in order to reach an agreement for the sake of the work, for the sake of the workers and for the sake of the cities or the whole society at large.

I think it's important to talk about the important elements of our society, especially since we live in Ontario, a province that strongly believes in workers and in people who give their lives, their abilities and their skills to build this province, especially in the auto industry. At the present time, we have the best auto industry locations in the whole world and we have a lot of workers who work in different agencies, companies and factories, and also many different elements in our society.

It is very important to give the right to workers to express themselves the way they want without harming our society, without hurting others. I think it's important to open up the subject and talk about it, and hopefully the member for Niagara Centre understands the importance also of keeping all the elements working without jeopardizing our society.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to speak. Hopefully we can reach a situation where we can create a more peaceful, democratic and open workplace for the sake of human rights and the sake of the rights of all the people who work and give their life and ability to others.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh (Halton): Labour relations, labour bills, labour laws are always an interesting subject to debate. However, in close to 12 years in this House, in all the time that we've talked about labour law and the issues surrounding labour and management, the confrontations, the co-operation, the building of relationships between labour and business, the one thing that has seemed to be a constant in all of those conversations is the word "balance." There has to be a balance between what labour requires and what management requires in order to accomplish the goals of those two parties.

It strikes me that the modern way to balance those goals, those two needs, is that more and more we're finding that labour and management's goals are the same. They both want success for the company. They both want the company to do better, which will result in higher-paying jobs and more jobs. They both want success in that area and to be competitive in that area. That requires not only the partnership between labour and management; more and more in today's environment it requires the partnership of government as well. It strikes me that in what I call the old days of labour and management relationships, there was a constant confrontation between the two.

This week, when we've celebrated and remembered the victory at Vimy Ridge, we've remembered those people who sacrificed themselves on that very noble hill for Canada and indeed for the world and world peace. That victory was more than just a military victory. It was much more than that. Not only was it the day that Canada came together, as they say—although some debate that, as I saw in the press—I believe strongly that it was the day Canada came together as a nation on that battlefield. It was the first time they had fought together, but more than that, they fought in a way that nobody had fought before.

The individuals in the trenches, the privates, the corporals, the sergeants, they were given maps. They were given goals. They were involved in the plan. And being involved in the plan, they knew they weren't just going over the top, out of the trenches, across the field and into the machine guns. That's what had happened for the last three or four years in that war. It was just a matter of putting the number of manpower that you could into the field in order to hopefully gain the position of the machine gun. Man's ability to kill had outstripped his ability to attack those positions.

But at Vimy the Canadian soldiers were given maps of the trenches. They were given maps of the lay of the land. They knew what was happening. They were involved in the plan. They knew what their objective was. That had not happened before. And when you involved those people to that degree in the great objective of taking Vimy Ridge, taking the hill that dominated the plains in that part of France—whoever owned the hill owned the plains. Involving those people in that push became the decisive point in the victory at Vimy Ridge.

I think that labour management was at that same crisis some years ago. When people found out that if they involved labour in their management plans, if they involved labour intimately in their progress and in what they wanted to accomplish in their goals and aims, they became a very much more successful company than the companies with labour and management that were constantly at loggerheads and fighting each other.

I think this bill does not encourage that co-operation between management and labour. It doesn't make for the one-team effort that any jurisdiction has to have in order to be successful in today's marketplace when we are desperately trying to be competitive, when we are desperately trying to be as good as anyone else in the world, if we're going to maintain our standard of living and the way in which we live in this wonderful province of Ontario. This bill doesn't do that.

This bill goes back to the 1990s. What happened in the 1990s? We've had experience with this bill. This bill basically reinstates Bill 40, which was one of the most controversial labour bills ever put forward in this province. People were in the galleries in this House, they were almost coming through the doors out here. They broke through the front doors of the Legislature trying to get at the government that was doing this. It wasn't a very popular piece of legislation at the time. Then, of course, when our government took it out with Bill 7 in 1995, the other group was here in the galleries and in the front hall creating quite a stir as well.

But let's go back to 1990, when we have experience as to what this bill would do to the province of Ontario. Granted, there was a US recession in 1991, but by the second quarter of 1992, the US was out of their recession and the economy was starting its climb in the longest economic boom that the United States and Canadian economies have ever seen. In fact, that boom is still going on. It had a little hiccup in 2000-01; it was not a recession. It is continuing to grow through today. There are some weaknesses in the US and Canadian economies.

The US economy has weaknesses in the housing area, and the automotive industry in the United States seems to be a little weak at the moment, but by and large that economy is chugging along in extremely good fashion and is continuing to go even after such a long run.

What happened in Canada? The rest of Canada, not including Ontario, over the period of 1990 to 1995, the four and a half years of the Bob Rae government, created 80,000 new jobs. That's about a normal gain of new jobs in the rest of Canada over any four-and-a-half-year period. There were better times in some areas and there were worse times in other areas, but that's about average, especially when you work in that there was a recession in the heartland of Canada, in Ontario, that didn't seem to want to go away.

During that same period of four and a half years of Bob Rae's government that ran from September 6, 1990, to June 8, 1995, Ontario lost 10,000 jobs. So the rest of Canada gained 80,000 jobs; Ontario lost 10,000 jobs. Something was obviously happening in Ontario that was not happening in the rest of Canada. What was that? That was the Bob Rae government, which had a very adversarial approach to business.

When you take that adversarial approach to business, business and capital have wings and they go to a jurisdiction that is friendlier to them, and they take their jobs with them. So all the labour that you're trying to protect with legislation like this—it's actually creating higher unemployment. That's what happened in Ontario when this type of legislation came in.

Many businesses from Ontario went to the United States, and mainly to Buffalo, where they could set up and supply their Canadian customers, their Ontario customers. That jurisdiction was a much more friendly jurisdiction than Ontario. So many companies went to Buffalo that Buffalo made Bob Rae their man of the year because he had created such an economic boom in Buffalo because of legislation like this and because of the high taxes that he continued to increase and put on business and taxpayers of all ilk.

This bill is very much from the 1930s and the 1940s. It's very much a setback to the labour dominance of the early 1990s in Ontario, the Bob Rae years. This would set labour relations back 50 years. This piece of legislation does not create the team spirit that you need within management. This legislation does not create the linked unity of labour relations and management relations in Ontario's economy. This legislation doesn't create the common goal that labour and management need if they're going to be successful in the 21st century.

Labour relations today is not the confrontational stuff of the past. Labour relations today is about building teams and about building a future for this great province of Ontario.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate? The member for York South—Weston.

Applause.

Mr. Paul Ferreira (York South—Weston): Applause from the Conservative benches, too.

I'm very pleased to rise in this House this morning to speak to this important bill that has been put forth by my colleague the member for Niagara Centre. I know that my party's time is limited, so I shall only take up four or five minutes in order that my NDP colleagues can also get a chance to participate in this debate.

This bill means a great deal to me personally. I was raised in a union household. My father is an active trade unionist, a proud member of the United Steelworkers for nearly three decades now. My mother was an active member of the UFCW. Growing up, it was the union that made my family strong. There were times when that strength was challenged by strikes and work stoppages. However, we were always comforted by knowing that there were laws that gave my parents important rights and protection when it came to bargaining for improved working conditions, salaries and benefits.

In my own case, my very first elected position was as a 14-year-old shop steward at a drugstore outlet that belonged to one of the big chains of the day. For nearly five years, I juggled high school, a part-time job and representing the best interests of more than a couple of dozen of my colleagues, most of them students and seniors, who worked alongside me as members of the UFCW. I learned a great deal. While we never had to go through a strike during my five years as a store clerk, as a cashier and as a union rep, there were a couple of instances where bargaining went right down to the wire. But we never had to walk a picket line, and for that I felt that we were fortunate.

In 1992, as I was leaving my union position to go on to university, the landscape for unionized workers in this province fighting for their rights was much different than it is today. We were treated as equals, and the playing field was level. That was largely a result of the groundbreaking legislation that was passed by the government of the day. My colleague from Hamilton East is here this morning, and if members will recall, it was one of her predecessors from that riding, the Minister of Labour, the legendary Mr.

Mackenzie, who toiled tirelessly to bring into effect the seminal labour relations legislation that provided workers with fairness, real protection and full rights when it came to job action. That legislation gave us labour peace and, in fact, contributed to economic growth during a time of great economic uncertainty. In the two years following the passage of Mr. Mackenzie's legislation, Ontario saw the creation of nearly 170,000 well-paying jobs. Compare and contrast that with the present situation, during which we have witnessed the recent loss of more than 120,000 jobs in manufacturing alone.

That pioneering piece of legislation was gutted in 1995 by the anti-worker Conservative regime. Since then, striking workers and their families have been pummelled and pilloried across this province. Their rights were stripped away, and we see the heavy toll that this has taken across Ontario.

It's union-busting at its worst: large, very profitable enterprises whipping workers into line, taking advantage of legislation that this present government has refused to take action on. We see strikes lasting months and months, if indeed they are resolved at all; unionized workers essentially being beaten into submission, hopelessly watching as scabs—and I say this, scabs who themselves are victims of the present flawed system that pits worker against worker, man versus man, woman versus woman—ride buses across the picket lines.

We need to restore the rights of striking workers. We need this bill passed into law so that Ontario's unionized workers can once again be given full and equal rights when it comes to taking job action.

I especially urge members on the government side, many of them from proud blue-collar union towns like Sarnia, North Bay, Windsor, Thunder Bay, Niagara Falls and Cornwall, to name just a few, to stand up and be counted on this legislation. I say to them, give your constituents—the hard-working women and men and their families who have been victimized by 12 years of iron-fisted anti-union rule—the protection they so richly deserve.

These workers and their families can count on the members of the NDP caucus to stand here and stand up for what's right. This morning, I challenge the members of the Liberal government to rise in their places and do the same and support this bill.

Mr. Wayne Arthurs (Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge): I'm pleased to join in the debate this morning with respect to Bill 192,

An Act to amend the Labour Relations Act, 1995, brought forward by the member from Niagara Centre. Before doing that, though, I want to take the opportunity to congratulate the member from Davenport, who was here just a few moments ago and had to step out briefly, on his speech last night, as we had debated a motion until about 9:20 prior to the vote. I arrived home last night about a quarter after 10.

My wife, as she welcomed me home, said, "Who was the fellow who was talking at the end of the evening just before you adjourned?" She commented that his speech was extremely well done, well-understood and articulate. So I'm going to try to take a bit of a lesson today, if I can, from the member from Davenport. I think he started off by saying that his constituents were telling him, when he was at a community meeting prior to being here for his speech, during part of the evening, that they found that we spoke too quickly and didn't articulate.

I'm known to speak quickly in my family; my mother did, and my aunt and my children. I'm going to try to slow down a bit and maybe try to articulate more.

Like many of us in this House, we probably have some roots in our families in the labour movement. My first summer job was working on what is the Toronto city hall in the mid 1960s. I remember walking up many flights of stairs carrying boxes of insulation. I worked for the International Brotherhood of Heat and Frost Insulators, Local 95. My father worked there throughout his career on any number of job sites, both private sector and in some cases public sector job sites. So like many of us, I have a history within our household of the likes of working in and of those who have made their living and raised their families in that movement.

I would suggest that our government understands the importance of stable labour relations. Just last evening, Minister Peters addressed the Ontario Construction Secretariat here in our own building. That's a group of both employers and employees that operates as the secretariat. They spoke to the support that the minister has shown to employers and employees through the Ontario Construction Secretariat and the working relationship that exists through that organization, particularly in their role in the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors of construction.

We have been through a history, quite a history, in collective bargaining in the past several years. Negotiations have taken place in almost every part of the broader public sector. We came to office, and at that time, Minister Kennedy, then the Minister of Education prior to leaving for other endeavours, was instrumental in working with employers and employees in the elementary and secondary school systems to put in place long-term contracts, the longest-term contracts that had been negotiated between the parties in history—four-year contracts—for some peace and stability in the educational sector.

Minister Phillips, in my early days here, was responsible for—and is responsible for, but I worked with him as his parliamentary assistant—negotiations with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and negotiated a fair and equitable contract with that group. I was honoured and pleased to be able to participate in that and watch that process unfold on the government side, watch that process unfold of those structured negotiations and the success that occurred in those.

It certainly would be our view that government has to show the lead in respect to setting standards for negotiations to create some fairness and stability and equity within the labour movement. Over the past number of years, quite a number of years, one has to look at some statistics, I guess, to determine how successful legislation is, how successful the capacity to sit across the table and negotiate contracts in a fair way, and, in the event that there is a strike or lockout, to be able to bring those to a conclusion in as equitable and as quick a way as possible.

I'm looking here at work stoppages. In 1975—it was in 1975 that I started my teaching career. As a matter of fact, I think I was teaching two or three days before we were locked out. So my own personal experience was one of starting a career and finding myself out the door in a matter of days. That was resolved reasonably quickly at that point in time. But under Ontario jurisdiction there were some three-million-plus days lost in 1975 to strikes or lockouts.

As a matter of fact, during the period from 1975 to 1984, that decade period, there were years in which there were 1.6 million, 2.9 million, 2.5 million, 2.2 million days lost. In only one of those years were the days lost to strikes or lockouts less than one million; there were 760,000 in that particular year.

Things improved between 1985 and 1994. It was only in 1990 that there were just under three million days lost to strikes or lockouts. There were three other years in which there were a million plus, and some five years or so, five or six years, in which there were a million, 900,000, 800,000 and as low as 371,000 days lost. That was in 1993, during the time that the NDP government was in place.

From 1995 to the present: In 1996, 1997 and 1998, we had losses through strikes or lockouts of 1.9 million days, 1.9 million days, one million days, and then again in 2002 a loss of 1.5 million days to strikes or lockouts.

I think when government sets the tone, the mood in the industry at large changes. In the years 2003 to 2005, we've seen less than half a million person-days lost to strikes or lockouts in matters under Ontario jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, in 2006 it's dropped to virtually the lowest level except for one other year that I can see, to some 394,600 persons-days lost, and that's acknowledging the growth in the labour force during that period of time. I think if government takes a strong lead and if you build strong relationships, you can set the tone for others in the industries that are out there.

What we've seen is an increasing diminution of days lost to strikes and lockouts. What we've seen is 97% of recent contracts being negotiated without strike or lockout.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you.

I draw members' attention to the members' west gallery. We are joined by Bob Huget, member for Sarnia of the provincial Parliament in the 35th Parliament. Welcome.

Further debate? The member for—don't tell me—Nepean—Carleton.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod (Nepean—Carleton): Nepean—Carleton; thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Sometimes people confuse me and the member from Ottawa—Orléans, because we look so much alike. He looks good with long red hair. In any event, Mr. Speaker, I'm just teasing him because our ridings are adjacent, and he's a good fellow.

I'm happy to be joining the debate today. When I was a kid growing up, my dad had a bit of a background in these sorts of things. Being my dad—everybody here has a father or mother that they just adored—I would follow my dad around. He was the chair of the unemployment appeals board, the chairman of referees, back in the 1980s and 1990s, and to this day he's still on the Nova Scotia Labour Relations Board—and he has a business background himself. So these sorts of issues would come up from time to time.

One thing I learned as a child, following in my dad's footsteps, is that you have to have a balance and a sense of co-operation among management and labour and staff, and it must be progressive. With all due respect—because I do have the greatest respect for my colleague from Niagara—I don't think we can support this, because I don't think this is as progressive and as forward-looking as I would like to see a bill like this; I think it takes us back a little bit in time.

Today, in this Legislature and in these modern times, we must be talking about other issues that can improve our economy here in Ontario. We should be looking forward, particularly with thousands upon thousands of manufacturing jobs leaving this province, and we should be thinking about how to attract business so that the people in my riding of Nepean—Carleton and the people in all of Ottawa and eastern Ontario and Ontario in general are going to have good-paying jobs and some stability in their lives so that they can send their children off to college and they can save for their retirement.

We should be using our time today to bring Ontario from worst to first in terms of economic growth. When I learned earlier this year that we were lagging, in this province, the biggest province in Confederation, behind Prince Edward Island, Canada's smallest province, I was very disappointed, and I think that we should be spending more time in the Legislature thinking about that and trying to bring jobs to this province.

We should be talking about something that impacts farmers in my riding, throughout eastern Ontario and throughout all of rural Ontario, and that is the lack of a risk management strategy for workers on farms, who are spending countless hours working on the family farm. Unfortunately, with the recent budget cuts, systemic budget cuts since this Liberal government has taken office, the farmers in my riding are just at wits' end. We can't see any more cuts and slashes to the Ministry of Agriculture.

I also think we should be talking about changes to the labour laws in this province that would make it easier for people to make organ donations. If people are expected to take some time off work to donate a liver or another vital organ, we should be making it easier for them to give the gift of life.

Finally, I think we should be spending time in this Legislature discussing companies that, despite the fact that we have eliminated the mandatory age of retirement, still force their employees out the door at the age of 55. I know that's happening and I've heard it has been happening, for example, in places like Wolseley Canada, which is just reprehensible. We shouldn't be doing that. We have come too far as a society.

Just to recap, we need to have a good balance of co-operation between management and unions. We should be protecting those employees who have been working hard. We've said that they don't need to be retiring at 65, and we should be looking at those types of issues. We should be looking at risk management strategies for the family farm, we should be looking at generating economic growth in this province to bring us from worst to first, and we should be talking about the ability to make it easier for people to take time off from work to give the gift of life.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate? The member for Parkdale—High Park.

Applause.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo (Parkdale—High Park): Thank you, colleagues.

Certainly we forget very easily in this province what is real and what is not. I too grew up in a union household, like many of my colleagues, and I listened with fascination to my colleague from York South—Weston. My background was a little different and my father a little older. He remembered the labour movement of the 1930s, the 1940s, the 1950s and the 1960s. He was not only a union member, but he was a union organizer.

I remember waiting for my dad to come home, and we didn't know, first of all, whether he would have a job that day, because union jobs were few and far between in many of those points in history. Also, we didn't know what shape he'd be in when he came home. We didn't know whether he'd have a broken arm, which he did on occasion, or whether he'd be roughed up because of a strike, because of company-organized thugs who would be used to break up strikes, to hurt union members, to hurt workers to force them out of unions.

You know, I listened to the member from Halton about a team—the team of corporation and union member—and I have to say, from my own background as a child watching my father come home, it didn't seem like much of a team to me. It seemed like two very separate entities and sometimes certainly antagonistic entities.

We live in a world also that's not ours alone in Canada. You know that in the United States, the second-largest employer is Manpower temporary agency. Now, that's where we're headed in this province. We're headed to precarious employment, to part-time employment, to non-union employment—that's what's happening. We live in a volatile situation. You heard my colleague speak about the loss of good manufacturing jobs. That's the reality in which we live and they're being replaced, as I said, by service sector jobs—not well-paying jobs. That's what they're being replaced by.

Your chance, if you are an employer, of ever having a visit by a government member to inspect how you treat your workers, is about one per cent.

Essentially we have employment standards that are not being enforced. We all know that a law that's not being enforced is not a law at all, and of course, we do not have card-based certification. The Harris-Eves government eliminated that. McGuinty Liberals denounced it, but have they done anything about it? Absolutely nothing. The McGuinty Liberals have done absolutely nothing about bringing that back, and from what I've heard across the floor and next to me, I'm hoping that at least they will support this motion from our member from Niagara Centre because at least this is a step in the right direction. But I suspect that they will not. We'll see.

So not only have they done nothing to bring back card-based certification, but this is in contrast to how they ran in the last election. I just quote, and this is from now-Minister Dwight Duncan, who said in 1995: "We in this party believe that workers ought to be treated as equals in the economy. We in this party are opposed to the use of scabs. We believe that the amount of violence on the shop floor will increase....it takes us back to a time long, long ago when it wasn't uncommon for the governments of the day to try and break unions or prevent them from coming into our province." I would love to hear from him now.

Then, the current Minister of Northern Development and Mines, Rick Bartolucci, said: "All you have to do is talk to the people who are on the picket line at Falconbridge to find out that Bill 7"—that's a Tory bill, of course—"hurts labour-management relations. There is absolutely no incentive, none whatsoever, for management to get back to the table, because they're able to use scab labour."

That's what they said when they were running for office, but now that they're in office, we see a very different set of actions. Again, I would call on my colleagues across the floor to do the right thing here and to vote for this motion. Clearly, this is a step to redressing it, but more than this motion, they also need to bring back card certification.

It's interesting how history repeats itself, because now I'm married to a man who would like to be a member of a union but is not allowed to be a member of a union in this province, because he's a teacher at a community college on contract and part-time. He's been through two strikes, one when he was a TA up at York University and again, in the community college system. It was déjà vu. There I was waiting again, to see if my husband, this time, would come back from the picket line injured, would come back with a job, and even now we wait, because he's not allowed to be a member of the union by this government.

We wonder every September, will he have a job again this year? Even though he's working full-time, he's not considered a member of a union—another action this government has not taken.

Finally, I want to raise one particularly troubling strike here in Ontario in the riding of London North Centre at Huron University College. Food service workers at the Huron University College food court, members of Local 144 of OPSEU, have been on the line since March 26 on strike against the Compass Group. These 20 workers are on strike for fairness, justice, health and safety. These women and men who work preparing and serving food are afforded only one—one—paid sick day per year, despite the fact that they handle food for the public every day. They cannot afford to take unpaid sick days.

They simply want a living wage and fair benefits. This employer is bringing in scabs and paying them $14 an hour—for them; not for the employees, but for the scabs.

No new talks are scheduled. The union is more than willing to get back to the table. This is yet a living, present example of how the McGuinty Liberals are failing union workers. I want to make it clear that New Democrats stand in solidarity with these women and men in London, in their fight for fair wages and dignity.

I'd like to close by saying, shame on the Compass Group for using scabs and paying poverty wages; shame on the member for London North Centre for letting this go under her watch; and finally, absolute and utter shame on the McGuinty Liberal government for their horrendous track record where unionized workers are concerned. Let's pass this motion of my colleague from Niagara Centre and let's do it now.

Mr. Gilles Bisson (Timmins—James Bay): I want to put on the record my support as the member for Timmins—James Bay, but more importantly as a New Democrat and a trade unionist, for this particular bill.

I didn't grow up in a house of labour; I was in the house of labour. I came out of the labour movement. I worked in the mining industry for a number of years; I was with the United Steelworkers of America, Local 4440; I've bargained collective agreements on behalf of unions. My local—I've also been hired and I was employed within the trade labour movement, both for the Steelworkers and for the Ontario Federation of Labour.

In my experience, I have no doubt in my mind that legislation such as this is necessary. Why? It's because of what my colleague the member from Niagara Centre talks about, which is that you have to basically level the playing field when it comes to the power that the employer can exercise over workers when it comes to collective bargaining. There is no incentive to resolve tough negotiations if an employer knows he can bring scabs into the workplace. All this does—not having legislation that bans the use of scab replacement workers—is basically give the power to the employer to prolong a very difficult situation and negotiations, and not work at trying to find a resolution.

The other part that I want to talk about very quickly is the issue—it was raised, I believe, by one of my colleagues—in regard to the need to end the right for employers to lock out. I just want to say very quickly—because I know my good friend Andrea Horwath wants to have a few seconds on the bill—that that is very necessary. We currently have, in the city of Timmins, Grant Waferboard, which has basically locked the workers out in Timmins since September of this year. It has no interest in negotiating a collective agreement with the employees.

I think that's wrong, it's reprehensible, and we need to have legislation that bans people like Peter Grant from doing what he's doing to the workers in Timmins. I say, high time that we pass legislation to that effect.

Ms. Andrea Horwath (Hamilton East): I want to join my colleagues in speaking very much in favour of this private member's bill that the member from Niagara Centre has brought forward.

I want to spend the few minutes that I have bringing to light a situation where there are a number of women workers—in fact there are 70 workers at FirstOntario Credit Union in Hamilton: 69 women and one man who work for FirstOntario Credit Union. They have been on strike, trying to get a fair deal from their credit union, since October of last year. These women and this one man are up at their six-month mark for their strike, and it's absolutely unacceptable.

The employer wants to have rollbacks on things like pension eligibility, health benefits and full-time work hours. They're taking these women back to the 1970s and 1960s in terms of working conditions—unacceptable. The only reason that this strike has been able to drag on and on and on is because the employer is able to use replacement workers to do the work of the credit union.

Interjection: Scabs, you mean?

Ms. Horwath: Well, you know what? They're not scabs. In this particular situation, they're management. But management becomes scabs when they start doing the work of the workers in that credit union.

So I'm here to say that on Saturday night I'm going to a fundraiser at the labour council in Hamilton to support these women workers. All of the members of this caucus have bought tickets for that fundraiser. Anybody who's watching, who is from Hamilton and knows the disgrace that's going on at the worst Ontario credit union, an organization that's headed up by a guy who comes from the banking sector, who is used to putting the boots to workers, a guy named Mr. John Lahey—I have to tell you, this man has been an absolute nightmare of a person to work for and try to negotiate with.

These women deserve a decent shake and we're going to be there, in terms of our spirit anyway, supporting these women on Saturday night.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Kormos, you have up to two minutes to respond.

Mr. Kormos: As we canvass some of the great history of working-class struggle in this province, be it the Stratford furniture workers strike back in 1933, be it the Oshawa General Motors auto workers strike in 1937 or be it the pivotal workers' struggle, the hallmark of the struggle of the working class in this province, the Ford Windsor auto workers in 1945—which of course resulted in the Rand formula, we understand, as David Moulton pointed out—the right to organize the union of their choice, the right to a collective agreement and the right to strike, all were rights never willingly given to workers. Rather, they were conceded to them after a tremendous amount of hardship, pain and blood.

I say to colleagues in this chamber that the importance of workers' right to struggle meaningfully has never been greater, as globalization has impacted on every worker and every family and every job in this province. It's not this government that's kept good jobs in the province of Ontario; it's not this government that's protected workers against concessions being forced upon them, and lower and lower wages; it's not this government that's protecting workers from the ravaging and raping of their pensions and pension plans. It's certainly not the corporate world.

It's the workers, and workers in their working-class struggle, who are going to fight these things. We as a Legislature have the responsibility to give those working women and men in this province—yes, indeed—a level playing field. That means that when those workers exercise that ultimate function of withdrawing their labour, it's our job to protect them from the violence, the scandal and the assault of scabs, and scabs being bused across their picket lines protected by organized goons like Accufax.

ONTARIO CLIMATE CHANGE ACT, 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 SUR LES CHANGEMENTS

CLIMATIQUES EN ONTARIO

Mr. Bisson moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 200,

An Act to provide for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario / Projet de loi 200, Loi prévoyant la réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre en Ontario.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Pursuant to standing order 96, Mr. Bisson, you have up to 10 minutes. The floor is yours.

Mr. Gilles Bisson (Timmins—James Bay): I want to first of all say that I'm extremely proud to stand here as a New Democrat today, along with my colleague Mr. Peter Tabuns, who was the original author of this bill, and the rest of my caucus in regard to this particular issue. I think we've all understood, quite frankly, that this particular issue is one that is fast becoming a huge problem, not only for Ontario but for our planet.

I come from a part of Ontario, northern Ontario, where we're seeing the effects of greenhouse gas emissions probably far more than people realize in other parts of the province. For example, you will know that I represent the Timmins—James Bay riding. We have seen over the last 10 or 15 years huge shifts, as far as patterns, when it comes to climate in the northern part of this province. It used to be, as most of us remember when we were younger, that winter started probably at the end of November and never ended until about April or May.

You knew that you were going to have snowfalls in fairly large amounts, you knew the weather was going to be 20 to 30 below zero for at least two and a half months, and you got ready. That's what you were used to, living in a northern climate.

We are now seeing, basically, green Christmases, something that is unheard-of in northern Ontario, the part that I come from. You are seeing, for example, winter ending in the beginning of March. This year, we were barbecuing, in the city of Timmins, in 18-degree weather at the end of March this year. That is something that tells us that we certainly have a problem when it comes to the effect of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

I will also point out another example, one that most people probably don't know because they've never had a chance to travel up there, and that is the James Bay communities. There are winter roads that are established, a winter road from Moosonee up to Attawapiskat that has been basically, for a number of years, put in place in order to transport goods and services to the communities of the James Bay.

Normally, that road would be open with ice bridges by sometime in December, and the road would be available for the public and for those who need to use it until, at the very earliest, late March, more times than not into April. We're seeing now that those winter roads are not up and running until about the end of January. So clearly, there are at least 30 to 45 days when we're seeing that the winter road is open, and it is ending a lot earlier. You can normally count on that winter road to be open at least three months per year, and we're lucky now if we're getting 45 days a year.

This is not something that just happened this year. We're seeing the pattern, over the years, that our winters are becoming shorter and shorter. Although I must say in jest that all of us in northern Ontario would appreciate a little bit of good weather every now and then, we recognize that this is a serious problem for our environment.

This bill is based on work that was done by Peter Tabuns, the current member for what used to be Riverdale, and work that was done by our former colleague Marilyn Churley, along with our federal leader, Jack Layton, that says we need to do something to deal with this particular issue. I want to go through some of the mechanics of the bill very quickly, and I know that my colleague and our critic for the environment, Mr. Tabuns, who knows a lot about this, is going to get an opportunity to speak to this as well.

What this bill says—and I certainly hope that the members of the assembly will support it—is that the province of Ontario needs to put a plan in place that sets us in the position of being able to meet the protocols negotiated under the Kyoto agreement. Under

section 3, it says that if emissions were set at 1990 standards, by 2012 we need to meet what our commitments were under the Kyoto Protocol and that they have to be no less than 25% below their 1990 level by the year 2020. What that does is say to the government, "Put in place a plan. Develop a plan based on science, technology and everything else. Call in the people that you need in order to develop a plan." Certainly, as New Democrats, we would want to participate in that.

We have a number of ideas that my leader, Howard Hampton, talked about yesterday at a press conference in regard to some of the things that can be done, but ultimately the government would have to develop a plan that brings us to meeting those commitments.

The second thing it says is that the Environmental Commissioner will have the authority to look at what has been done to make sure that the government has met its commitments under this legislation. We need to have some sort of a watchdog. I think this is one of the key points. You can't just say, through an order in council, "We'll have the Ministry of the Environment go out and do this," and have no mechanism by which to determine if in fact we are meeting our goals set out in this legislation.

The other thing that it does is something that was raised in the press conference yesterday, and I just want to go back over it again. Some of the media were asking, "Isn't it kind of late? Can we meet our current targets by 2012?" I'll admit that it'll be somewhat difficult but not impossible. This government has had a chance for three and a half years to meet those commitments. They have not sent us down that path, in my estimation, to the degree needed.

What it does is it gives us the ability to go to 2016. Under subsection 3(3), we're saying, "If greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario are not reduced to the level required under clause (1)(

a) by 2012, the executive council shall ensure that the emissions are reduced to that level by 2016...." It builds in a bit of a buffer to allow us to get there, recognizing that there may be some difficulty getting there. I think that if we're serious and we work hard, we're going to be able to meet those commitments. We can reduce those emissions by 50% with Nanticoke alone. If we were to do the kinds of things that we need to do to move people from cars into public transit, both intercity rail and in-city transit systems, I think we'd be able to do that.

That can be done in a number of ways. For example, the extension of the subway line that was announced previously in the budget is one way, but I think we need to not only look at that; we need to look at issues beyond just the subway. We need to take a look at what the TTC and other transit authorities across this province have to say about how they're able to move people off city streets and put them into the transit system. As we know, in Ontario, there's only one subway system, and that's the one in the city of Toronto. We need to take a look at light rail, we need to take a look at buses, we need to look at others.

The other part of all this is that we need to take a look at intercity transit. Clearly, GO Transit could play a huge role in pulling people off the 401 and the QEW, which would greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I think the proper type of coordination about how community transit systems interact with the GO system, from Hamilton to Oshawa, to Niagara, Toronto and everything in between, and properly funding those transit authorities, such as GO Transit, in order to increase their services so that we can encourage people to get off the roads would go a long way toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

I also want to say that

section 5 of this bill allows the minister to deal with reducing greenhouse gases in a number of different ways. The bill gives the authority to the minister to regulate emissions limits and performance standards—something that was talked about yesterday in the press conference—and we would be using market-based mechanisms such as emission-trading offsets, something that has been talked about at the federal level. Also, we need to put in place the spending and fiscal measures—in other words, incentives—in order to move industry and move individuals toward strategies that would reduce greenhouse gases.

I would argue that if we were to do things such as have been suggested by Howard Hampton, the leader of the New Democratic Party, and that is to really put in place incentives that allow individuals in their own homes to reduce the amount of energy utilized by better insulating their homes, by using technologies that allow us to reduce the amount of energy used, both natural gas and others, we would be able to reduce by a long shot the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into our planet.

In the couple of minutes I have left, I want to end on this point: I truly believe this is a non-partisan issue and I truly believe all members of this House are going to do the right thing here and allow this bill to go forward. We should not allow politics to get caught in the middle of this bill. This is a private member's bill. It's one that basically goes towards responding to an issue in our society that is quite serious. We owe it not only to ourselves today, but to future generations, to take this issue seriously and try to move forward by way of being able to develop strategies that do Ontario's bit towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

I call on members to support this bill so that we can move forward. We certainly want to work with whomever within government, industry and others to give suggestions on how a plan would be developed. But I want to say again that I'm not pretending for one second that I, as the author of the bill, or my party, as a political party, would dictate exactly what the plan should be. That's something that has to be developed in co-operation with the Ministry of the Environment and all others who can be brought into this debate, as far as what the plan should look like.

This is a plan the government would have to develop in co-operation with others so that we can meet our commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

Again I say—and I end on this note—that we owe it to not only today's generation but future generations to ensure that we do what we can in our contribution to making sure that we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by cutting carbon emissions so that we can make this planet a safer place for all of us into the future.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?

Mr. Jeff Leal (Peterborough): Indeed, it's a pleasure for me to make some comments this morning on Bill 200.

I ran across something the other day that I thought was somewhat interesting. It was in a recent

article of Time magazine, the Canadian edition. It said that "Svante Arrhenius was a little-known Swedish chemist who in the 1890s issued a remarkable warning: Keep pumping carbon dioxide"—CO 2 —"into the air the way humanity has been doing since the dawn of the industrial age (around 1750), he said, and you can double the level of the heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, raising temperatures dramatically." Those were his observations in the 1890s, the first person to start talking about the issue of climate change and greenhouse gases.

The current Premier has shown distinctive and dramatic leadership on this issue over many, many years. I want to go back to May 21, 2002, when the member from Ottawa South, Mr.

McGuinty, asked to seek unanimous consent to move and pass the following motion without debate: "That the Ontario Legislative Assembly encourage our federal government to ratify the Kyoto agreement." Further in that statement he said, "If you are truly committed to doing something about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, then here are some of the things you could do in a positive and concrete way: you could get into the business of funding public transit in a real and meaningful way; you could encourage renewable electricity generation in Ontario; you could phase out our coal-fired hydro plants; you could begin to promote energy conservation in Ontario; you could begin to promote the use of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.

Those are all things you could do...." The member from Ottawa South, then the Leader of the Opposition and now the Premier of Ontario, has been a real leader when it comes to climate change and meeting the Kyoto commitments.

It's also interesting to look at the fact that we've been working with other partners over the last little while to look at this issue on a transnational basis, to come forward with a collective approach with others to solve the problem of climate change.

I'd like to get on the record this morning what Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said just recently: "Ontario's announcement is terrific news. We know that the science is clear and political leaders everywhere have a responsibility to act decisively to combat global warming. But we also know that no state, province or country can do it alone. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global effort, and this interest from Ontario, along with California's agreements with the United Kingdom, western and northeastern states and others will continue to inspire other states, provinces and countries to join the fight against global warming."

Further to that, we have the new Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer. We know him as New York's Attorney General who cleaned up Wall Street. This is what he had to say: "The harmful public health, environmental and economic impacts of global warming do not recognize or respect international boundaries. Ontario and New York may be separated by a border, but we're united in a common cause to seek solutions to this most pressing challenge," that we have today, that being climate change.

There are some good elements in Bill 200, but from my perspective, there are a number of deficiencies. One of the things that I might have included in the bill would be the establishment of a permanent committee in this House to look at climate change.

This issue, climate change, will transcend this Parliament, the next Parliament and the Parliament after that because climate change will bring about a fundamental change in Ontario's economy, and I think the establishment of a committee to look at that over the next period of time will be helpful to look at the kind of policies that we can shape collectively to achieve the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to look at the climate change issue.

Secondly, I think there needs to be an amendment to the Education Act, particularly for grade 5 civics and grade 10 civics, an opportunity to put course curriculum in those two grade levels to look at climate change. Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, the special edition that Time magazine had just recently on climate change outlined 51 steps, Mr.

Speaker, that you and I could take every day in order to help to reduce the impact of climate change, those practical kinds of things that we could drive home in a grade 5 civics class, then again in a grade 10 civics class, to instill the notion of responsibility: that collectively, if we work together, we can make change—just as we did a decade or so ago in terms of instilling the notion of recycling in our young people.

The other issue when you look at this bill is that Ontario will have to take on more responsibility if other provinces fail to meet those targets. We know that the province of Alberta, through the oil sands development, is going to have some difficulty down the road meeting those targets. As I understand Bill 200, it would come back to Ontario to increase Ontario's effort beyond some established goals to take into account other provinces that won't achieve their goals.

I could keep going on for a while longer, but I know my other colleagues want to have an opportunity to talk on this very important measure this morning.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh (Halton): It's interesting today that we're in the Legislature and we're joined by two school classes. I think this one is in grade 5, and this one looks about the same age. Would you be in grade 5 over there? Yes, they are. They're from grade 5 as well.

I think it's important that grade 5—that's 11 and 12 years old, I think. It's important to understand that what we do today for the environment—and I want the children, the kids, to understand this—will have very little effect until 50 years from now. You'll be 60 years old before there's a significant change in the environment if we start today and do something. If we don't start today and do something, then we'll be living in an environment that is very much like two cities I just visited, Beijing and Shanghai. Those are two very large cities in China.

When you visit Beijing, you find out that you only see the blue sky between eight and 15 days a year. All the rest of the time the air is so polluted that you can't see the blue sky. In fact, it's difficult to see a quarter of a mile. If you visit the Forbidden City, you cannot see from one side of the Forbidden City to the other because of the smog. It's in a constant state of upgrading. It needs constant painting because of the acid in the air that is eating away at the paint. That would be the future of our environment if we don't do something about the environment immediately.

This is an interesting place. You came on an interesting day. Just a little while ago in the previous bill we heard an NDP member talk about cancelling the York subway program. Now, just 10 minutes ago, we heard a member talking about encouraging people to use more subways. You heard the speaker before me talk about the Premier and what a great environmental record he had, and I'm standing here and I'm going to say that the Premier has an absolutely terrible environmental record. He has done nothing to help encourage a cleaner environment for us today, for you in your future and for your children in your future.

So this is a somewhat confusing place. We put all of our ideas out on the table, and hopefully out of all those we can get some synthesis that makes sense that we can go forward with.

In support of my contention that the Premier has not been a friend of the environment, I would quote no less an authority than the Environmental Commissioner, Mr. Gord Miller, who has been somewhat savage in his comments regarding this government's environmental record. That's an interesting point, because Mr. Miller was appointed when we were in government. This was prior to 2003. We sat over there, and we were the government. Mr. Miller was appointed, and the Liberals and the NDP were aghast that Mr. Miller would be appointed as Environmental Commissioner. Mr.

Miller had very good credentials, and he was extremely well qualified for the job. When it came time to reappointment him, he had done such a good job that the Liberal government did indeed reappoint him. He continues to do, I think, an excellent job, especially when he savages the Liberal government for their record on the environment.

I want to say right off the top that I'm going to support this bill. I have some concerns about some of the elements within the bill. I think it needs some major amendments to change the direction, in some cases, of this bill. But any bill we pass in this House that affects the environment in a positive way I think is a good thing for Ontario, it's a particularly good thing for the youth of this province and it's a good thing for anybody who wants to live in a clean environment in this world.

There are many places in this world where that clean environment just doesn't exist, where they have turned their backs on the environment in order to pursue the economic activities that create those kinds of disasters that we see in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and Formosa. Taiwan was another example. There's lots of pollution in and around Japan, which is very significant. We were on a boat approaching Shanghai, and we were out in the Yellow Sea about 150 miles when the sea turned colour.

It turned from that blue sea colour to a brown, and that brown was the effluent that was coming down the Yangtze River. That was 150 miles out into the sea, and from there on into Shanghai the water was absolutely polluted, no fish, no—

Mr. Bisson: It's silt.

Mr. Chudleigh: That's silt. Also, let me tell you, there was some pollution in it. You could see it. You could also smell it. It was a sad quote on the future, and that's what our future will look like if we don't do something very significant about the environment.

We talk about the Kyoto accord and the Kyoto Protocol. I have some significant reservations about the Kyoto accord, because the Kyoto accord allows a polluter, for instance, to go to a country that doesn't pollute and to buy pollution points. So you can go down to Uruguay, which has not a lot of industry, and you can buy from them pollution points because they're not polluting the air. You can buy their points and bring them back to Ontario, and then you can continue to pollute the Ontario air.

That system doesn't seem to have much of a global aspect to it. It doesn't take into consideration that the world is one and that we have to get together and fix this problem because it's a global problem. Simply shifting the pollution around the province or around the world doesn't solve the problem. That's one of the major concerns that I have with Kyoto.

I think that Kyoto is right-headed. It's aimed in the right direction in that it's a world body that has agreed that we have a problem. But there is one significant country, the United States of America, which has not signed on to Kyoto, and of course, there's a huge backlash and outcry about the United States not co-operating in this area.

But after the first five years of Kyoto, when you measure the pollution that has taken place and how successful individual countries have been in controlling that pollution, the United States has been far more successful at controlling their pollution with their programs than Canada has been. So signing on to Kyoto or not signing on to Kyoto isn't the issue; it's how successful you've been and how far you want to go in providing the kind of support that it needs.

There's an interesting

article today in the Globe and Mail written by Gary Mason. Gary Mason is out in BC. It's a real concern. One of the things that he says is: "The voices of doom have begun to drown out the thoughtful, rational discussion that needs to take place around solutions. We need to consider how we're going to get out of this mess while not plunging the world into economic chaos at the same time."

He goes on to quote Professor Howard, who has edited a book on Asia's environmental crises. He believes that the ideologues—those people with ideas and political agendas—have hijacked the climate-change debate; in other words, they've taken over the debate and have begun to channel it in the direction that they want to go.

People have a huge disconnect between the apocalyptic vision—the tsunamis, the hurricanes, the droughts, the disasters, those kinds of things that are befalling us—that some are predicting while at the same time being told that they can change the direction we're going by changing the type of light bulb they use. There's a disconnect between the world disasters and the proposed solutions.

I think we need that sane, rational voice to carry on with the job of getting that done. I don't think that voice rests with the government. I don't think Dalton McGuinty's record is one that we can continue to have in Ontario. I think we need a thoughtful process to come up with a strong environmental approach to this problem and get that done at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. Peter Tabuns (Toronto—Danforth): It's a privilege to debate this bill in this House this morning. I want to say that my friend from Timmins—James Bay has talked about the impact of climate change on the north, and he has spoken about that quite eloquently. I want to thank him for bringing this bill forward today.

The essence of this bill is the need for action: action on a speedy basis; action that will actually make a difference to our climate, a difference to our economy, a difference to our society. That's why this is before us today. The targets are ambitious, but I want to speak to the comments of the member for Peterborough before I go into the main body of my speech. If he has amendments to bring forward that are constructive, and the ones that he made were constructive, I suggest that the Liberal caucus vote for this bill and put it into committee, where it can be refined, just as the federal Clean Air Act was refined by the joint action of the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals.

One thing that he has misunderstood—and this needs to be understood by all those who are going to debate this bill—is that there is no

section of this bill that requires Ontario to take on the commitments of any other province. It simply says that Ontario, in setting its goals, will use the same regime that Canada took on when it ratified the Kyoto Protocol. That's a 6% reduction by 2012 and, where Ontario fails to meet its goals, it will take those goals and add a 30% penalty and work those through in the following three years. Because I know—we all know—that a great deal of time has passed and what we have now is a short window.

Time and its passage: In 1988, James Hansen from NASA testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Almost 20 years ago, he stood up and said, "Climate change is real. Climate change is happening. Climate change is reshaping the world around us and we need to act now." That summer was the summer of heat waves and drought across North America. People understood that something was afoot because in fact the conditions they were looking at were record-breaking.

In Toronto, in the summer of 1988, there was a UN conference on climate change. The conclusions that were arrived at in that conference are known to all those who deal with the issue, and that's the statement that humanity is engaged in a large-scale, unplanned, unpredictable experiment with the world's climate. And we depend on that climate to make sure that we have crops, to ensure that our bridges and roads are not washed away in floods, to ensure that there is stability in our lives. We are engaged in destabilizing that upon which we stand. That was 1988.

In 1992, the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro: At that point, the world committed to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. A very significant piece in that agreement was that no country would do anything that would bring about dangerous climate change. Then, for a number of years, very little happened. Countries went on as they had before. The convention was simply a statement.

It wasn't until 1997 that an agreement was actually negotiated, with some detail—what we know as the Kyoto Protocol—to bring emissions down. Still, life went on and very little was done. In Canada, greenhouse gas emissions under Jean Chrétien continued to rise dramatically. Under Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien, tax breaks were given to the oil sands, the tar sands developments in Alberta, that caused a huge boom in oil extraction and a huge boom in emissions. Thus Canada was set on a trajectory of falling far outside any commitment that had been made.

In 2005, the Kyoto Protocol came into effect. Here we are in Ontario, with emissions continuing to climb. We're not in a position to let those emissions continue to climb. In 2005, the Guardian in the UK reported very simply that "Rising sea levels, desertification and shrinking freshwater supplies will create up to 50 million environmental refugees by the end of the decade." That's substantial. That is tens of millions of people uprooted from their homes by drought and by flood. For the most part, those refugees will be in the developing world, not here.

For many of us, they will be relatives or friends, people facing desperate situations. The world is starting to come to grips with that tide of environmental refugees, but the cost of that tide, the implications for world security and military conflict, have not yet sunk in.

Within the last year, the Stern report, produced by the government of the United Kingdom, noted that the impact of climate change this century would be equivalent, if unchecked, if not acted on, to a 20% reduction in world gross domestic product, comparable to the combined effects of World Wars I and II and the Great Depression. We all know that those were not great times for humanity. We know the conflict that came out of them and the human price that was paid, and we are in a situation where we actually have the ability to take action.

That's why it's important to have

an act before us that says what the destination is that we have to reach to avoid the kinds of problems that Lord Stern outlined for the government of the United Kingdom. If we don't take rapid action, if we let things go on as they are, if we take the very slow timelines that are now being adopted in the United States, you can be very sure that our chances of stabilizing the world climate at a level that allows us to live the kinds of lives we want to live diminish substantially. Every year that goes by where we're not turning back the tide means that we will have to take much deeper cuts, much more expensive cuts, much more problematic cuts in the future.

This bill, as has been outlined by my colleague, says Ontario is going to take an ambitious approach to dealing with climate change. If it doesn't reach that approach, it will accept the Kyoto burden of adding 30% on to its goal, meeting that within three years of 2012, and that by 2020 we will go a further 25% below the 1990 levels. That's consistent with the European Union. The European Union has adopted the Kyoto Protocol. I think they've got 5% below 1990 but they've recently agreed to go 20% below 1990 by 2020, and if the rest of the world agrees, if the rest of the world is willing to take action, cut by 30%.

One of the things that has frustrated me about this debate—not here this morning, but the debate in the larger context—is the sense that on the one hand, people don't have a picture of the full scope of what's ahead of us, and I tried to outline that, but also that they often feel they're helpless. The simple reality is that our society has the technology, the legislative means, the resources, the wherewithal to make that move to sustainability, to actually make it a far more energy-efficient society, to phase out fossil fuels, to avoid the nuclear path and develop a society that can exist on the earth, can thrive on the earth without undermining the foundations of its well-being.

I want to speak very briefly about this whole question of nuclear power being the answer to climate change. Amory Lovins, who heads the Rocky Mountain Institute, is one of the foremost energy analysts in the world. He looks at this whole question of how humanity can afford to cut emissions and at the same time preserve its way of life.

In doing the numbers analysis of nuclear power, he concludes that it is an extraordinarily expensive way to provide energy, far more expensive than conservation, far more expensive than micro power, using the heat that's thrown off when you have boilers in office buildings to make electricity—far more efficient and far cheaper than nuclear power and far faster to put in place.

This government is committed to spending about $40 billion, $45 billion on nuclear power and approximately another $30 billion on the distribution facilities to carry all that power. We do not have the luxury of checking something out to see if it works and then saying, "Oh, we blew $80 billion. Sorry, we can't afford to do this other stuff."

We made a decision about powering our society through fossil fuels. Frankly, the outcome of that is now apparent. We know that when you do something that's unsustainable, the by-products, the waste products, are going to have negative impacts. Let's not do the same with nuclear power and provide ourselves with waste products that no one wants anywhere near their community, near their riding.

We have to keep in mind that as the world heats up, the physical conditions that we confront change. As the world heats up, the permafrost in the arctic regions of the world starts to melt, and the permafrost is holding millions of tonnes of methane, locked away for millennia, which will start to leak out into the atmosphere. As the world heats up, the world's soils will give up their carbon. As the world heats up, the forests we depend on will be dryer and more prone to fire.

At some point we will have a situation where the release of greenhouse gases from natural processes exceeds the release of greenhouse gases from our energy systems. At that point, we face profound challenges to the stability of our economies and our societies.

No one knows where that tipping point is. No one really knows at what point you start getting those sorts of feedback that will make it very difficult for us to have any real impact on the changes that are coming about. We do know that in order to at least stabilize the world's climate, at least avoid some unpredictable impacts, the world should not warm more than two degrees centigrade higher than it was at the beginning of the pre-industrial period, and we've gone up about 0.6 in the last century. We have to do everything we can to keep under that red line.

The analogy that I'd just like to use in my last few moments is that of walking on a frozen lake. In January, after a week or two of minus 30 degrees, you can walk across a frozen lake in northern Ontario and it's a beautiful experience. The sky is blue, the air is crisp. Some people like it more than others, but it's quite spectacular, and you know that the ice underneath you is thick and it's safe. But as spring comes, this becomes a more and more perilous operation. The ice weakens unpredictably. Currents thin out the ice so that what you see as solid ice may simply be a thin skin on the surface.

Increasingly, humanity is walking on that frozen lake as spring is coming and there are more and more thinning spots. Humanity is going forward; it doesn't know where those thin spots are. We have to do everything we can to avoid those spots, understand where they can be and do everything we can to arrest the process that is making that lake, that foundation that we walk on, that we survive on—we have to do everything we can to ensure that it doesn't break under our feet.

I call on all members of the Liberal caucus to support this bill. I call on them to bring it forward to committee and have it adopted by this Legislature. I believe that for the good of this province and this country we have to take that leadership.

Mr. Phil McNeely (Ottawa—Orléans): I really appreciate the opportunity again to speak about climate change and the environment. It's always difficult, in five minutes, to see what you're going to address, because the five minutes go by very quickly. It will be a difficult decision, at the end of this meeting, whether to vote against the bill or for the bill, because the ideas put forth by the third party are sound ideas, and they're ideas that we all buy into, but there are major flaws with this bill.

In 2001, with the city of Ottawa, I worked on the Better Buildings program. We had Chuck Wilson there, a great scientist, and we had people from industry, from government, from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. I was the councillor attached to the Better Buildings program. Chuck Wilson showed that we could freeze or at least limit our footprint with our buildings by doing a few things: building better buildings. I'm glad to see that our government has come that way.

We will be going to the California standard for our new buildings and we'll be building great buildings that will have the least cost when you consider principal, interest and energy. At the same time, those buildings will be saving energy, lowering heating costs, decreasing smog and CO 2 and—the nice thing about it—at the same time creating more employment. So that's where we're going with our building code, which is very important because we are a northern nation. We have to go in and over a 20-year period make sure that our existing buildings are the best from an energy point of view. That's all good stuff.

I've been involved in this with a motion in 2004, and on September 26, 2006, I brought in Bill 139. Bill 139 had second reading, had full support. It's a bill which just names April 21, the day before Earth Day, as Climate Change Awareness Day. I have something going on in the high schools, a competition now. I find that young people are ahead of us, certainly ahead of politicians if you look worldwide, on where we should be going on the environment. The students are competing in a poster contest, and the best poster will be judged on April 21 at the 10 high schools involved. The kids are quite interested in it.

The winner will win an iPod. The member for Timmins—James Bay, I think in your riding you do include some of the habitat for polar bears. So you'll be happy to hear that our awards for the kids who win the poster contest will be Polar Bear awards and it'll be small glass trophies. I'm sure that it will be meaningful to the kids and we're getting quite a bit of interest.

We have to look at where the talk this morning came from and some of the issues that the third party has with this. The leader of the third party is showing he's against Toronto, he's against the idea that we should have public transit that allows us to move. I'm just quoting: "We don't need another subway mega-project that might perhaps happen sometime four, five years or six years from now extending the subway line into a lightly populated York region." Sustainable transportation is so important, so how does this bill this morning measure up to that?

Our government is a green government. It supports Canada meeting our Kyoto targets. A $200-million program will be coming forward. We should be waiting for that climate change plan. That is going to be a good plan, a plan that builds in Ontario.

The bill this morning does not protect Ontario in carrying a fair load as we move forward. Part of the bill, subsection 3(3), states that if Canada does not meet its Kyoto obligation by 2012, Ontario must further reduce its emissions due to the failure of other provinces to meet the national standard. This is a very difficult area to get into. We do not want to take on the oil sands responsibilities of Kyoto. So I will be voting against the bill because it's a flawed bill, although there are very many good ideas in it.

Mrs. Elizabeth Witmer (Kitchener—Waterloo): I'm very pleased to join the debate on the Ontario Climate Change Act, 2007, which is intended to provide for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the province of Ontario.

Certainly we support the bill in principle, but we do take some exception to some of the specifics of this bill. We support, as this bill does put forward, the idea of clear targets which can be measured. We're pleased to see this bill here today in that it gives us an opportunity to discuss an issue which we know is one of the greatest challenges facing us, not just in this province but obviously throughout the world.

We do believe in a very-well-thought-out, proactive plan to address climate change now, not later; however, we also believe that any good plan that is drafted must be drafted in consultation with the people in this province who are going to be impacted. But again, it allows the public to take a look at the bill. It allows for this bill to go to committee. It allows for public input. Certainly there are many amendments that need to be incorporated into a bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this province.

I think this bill also points out the lack of any action on the part of the McGuinty Liberals during their term in office. They have done absolutely nothing to address the issue of climate change after four long years in office, and I think this bill highlights the fact that there has been no action whatsoever. I can assure you that John Tory and a PC caucus would develop a plan of action. As I say, we agree with the establishment of clear targets and we would be prepared to compare our plan to the Liberal plan of inaction and lack of leadership at any time as we move forward.

I want to speak a little bit about the fact that in this plan that has been put forward by the member from Timmins—James Bay, and before him the member from Toronto—Danforth, they are proposing that they would achieve some of the greenhouse emission reductions by way of closing Nanticoke immediately and cancelling the York subway. Obviously we are concerned about that particular plan because, and I go back to what I said before, we believe that any plan—and we support the need for a plan, which has been lacking these past four years—must be done in consultation with all those who are going to be impacted.

It needs to be realistic and it needs to clearly delineate how you can achieve these reductions. So we have a problem with the immediate closing of Nanticoke and obviously the cancelling of the York subway. We're also concerned because in this bill there is no mention made as to the cost of the plan. We believe there is a need for much more consultation, but at least we support the spirit of the bill and we appreciate the fact that it has been put before us.

If we take a look at the track record of this government, there were so many promises that were made in regard to the environment and there were so many promises broken. In fact, the Environmental Commissioner, in his 2005-06 annual report entitled Neglecting Our Obligations, states that "there is no strategy for climate change..." and, "The ECO notes a distinct lack of leadership in the Ministry of the Environment. Although the ministry is supposed to lead other ministries in the coordination of Ontario's response to climate change"—it is shameful that there was no leadership.

They made a promise in their 2003 campaign. They said, "We will clean the air." We all know that in 2005 we had the worst year on record in terms of air quality. There were 15 smog advisories covering 53 days. They also said in 2003, "We think our most vulnerable citizens—seniors and children—should be able to go outside in summer without consulting a smog index." Well, 12 of the 15 advisories in 2005 occurred during the summer months. Then of course their most famous broken promise was, "We will shut down Ontario's coal-burning power plants by 2007 and replace them with cleaner sources."

Mr. Khalil Ramal (London—Fanshawe): This is a very important subject, Bill 200,

An Act to provide for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario. I think this is a big, huge title. I hope the member from Timmins—James Bay will be able to convince his leader, Howard Hampton, who is against the subway to York region because he thinks there is not enough population living in that area. It would help our province and our city of Toronto a lot to minimize greenhouse gases and also the emissions that go into the air, to reduce the number of cars driving on the road.

The second thing is, I was puzzled when I heard the leader of the third party, Mr. Hampton, is against closing the coal generation in the north, and is with it in the south. What a contradiction.

The member for Timmins—James Bay is trying to exclude the forestry industry from that bill. I hope he consulted the member for Toronto—Danforth before introducing this bill, because there is a lot of confusion.

Also, he has recommended a cap-and-trade system in, I think, subclauses 5(1)(a)(

i) and (ii).

I wonder what confusion is going on in that party? Why not—before he tried to convince us as a whole in this House—convince his party in terms of one direction, one ideology and one system? Because it is very important for all of us.

As a province, as a Premier, Dalton McGuinty, and as a caucus on this side of the House, we've been working very hard. It is a very important issue for us. We introduced a lot of measures to minimize the emissions in the province: by giving $2,000 support for people who buy hybrid cars; introducing ethanol; creating a system to persuade many different companies and factories to produce hydro from windmill and solar systems and bio-methane—all these initiatives in order to minimize the emissions in Ontario—and also our conservation initiatives which help to minimize emissions in the province.

All of these initiatives fit in the same direction, and I hope the member for Timmins—James Bay will be able to convince his party to come forward and support our initiatives, working together to minimize the greenhouse emissions in the province of Ontario. It is our duty as citizens of this land; we are the stewards of this land. We should protect that land, protect it for future generations.

Despite all of this talk from the Conservative Party—I listened to Mr. Chudleigh from Halton region, and he is talking about supporting the Kyoto accord; in the past he's against it—we should be a part of that globalization system, because if we reduce the emissions in Ontario, it doesn't mean it's going to help the environment across the border.

Our Premier has been working very hard alongside the Minister of the Environment to consult with the states around the province of Ontario, like Michigan and New York state, to work together in order to help the region to minimize the greenhouse emissions, because it is very important, not just for us at the present time but also for future generations.

Our duty, as I mentioned, as a government, as a province and as a people who are in charge as stewards of this land, is to protect it, not for a year or two or 10, but forever. I'm proud to be part of the government. We are taking the right initiatives, and I hope the member for Timmins—James Bay—

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you.

Mr. Bisson, you have two minutes to respond.

Mr. Bisson: I want to thank all of those members who participated in this debate. I heard some support. The question will be just how much support we have.

I remind members that this is an issue that is affecting not only the people in this province but across this world, and we need to do our bit in Ontario in order to be able to deal with reducing emissions of carbon into the atmosphere. We all know far too well how difficult it is to live on a planet as polluted as this, and where it will be.

I do want to say to members and I want to make it clear: Bill 200, if people take the time to read it, doesn't purport to tell you what to do as far as the plan. What this bill says is that there will be a plan drawn up by the Ministry of the Environment. That plan will be drawn up by them and other experts who are involved in the field. Certainly we as New Democrats would like to participate in giving suggestions about what would be in the plan, but in the end it will be up to the cabinet, it will be up to the ministry, to decide what's in the plan. This bill does not tell the government what's in the plan.

What it does is say, "Here's the process you'll have to follow to develop a plan." That's the first issue.

The second issue I want to speak to in regard to this particular bill—and I would just end on this point—is that we have very little time to act. I think Mr. Tabuns, our critic for the Ministry of the Environment, was very clear: Our planet, more and more so, is being affected, and the issues are starting to compound themselves in regard to emissions that are going into our atmosphere. If we don't take action, all of us individually, all of us collectively and all of us as provinces and nations, to do something about doing our bit to reduce greenhouse gases, this planet will be in a much worse state.

I would argue that Ontario needs to do its bit, and this bill, introduced by myself but originally conceived by my colleague the environment critic for the NDP, Mr. Tabuns, and supported by New Democrats, helps to get us along that way. I call on members to vote in favour of this bill.

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

LABOUR RELATIONS

AMENDMENT ACT

(REPLACEMENT WORKERS), 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL

(TRAVAILLEURS SUPPLÉANTS)

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): We shall first deal with ballot item number 77 standing in the name of Mr. Kormos.

Mr. Kormos has moved second reading of Bill 192. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour, say "aye."

All those opposed, say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

We will call in the members for a vote.

ONTARIO CLIMATE CHANGE ACT, 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 SUR LES CHANGEMENTS

CLIMATIQUES EN ONTARIO

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): We shall now deal with ballot item number 78 standing in the name of Mr. Bisson.

Mr. Bisson has moved second reading of Bill 200. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour, say "aye."

All those opposed, say "nay".

In my opinion, the ayes have it. Carried.

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

The division bells rang from 1201 to 1206.

LABOUR RELATIONS

AMENDMENT ACT

(REPLACEMENT WORKERS), 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL

(TRAVAILLEURS SUPPLÉANTS)

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Mr. Kormos has moved second reading of Bill 192. All those in favour, please stand and be recognized by the Clerk.

Ayes

The Deputy Speaker: All those opposed, please stand to be recognized by the Clerk.

Nays

The Clerk of the Assembly (Ms. Deborah Deller): The ayes are 27; the nays are 6.

The Deputy Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

Mr. Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): I request that the bill be referred to the standing committee on general government, please.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Kormos has asked that the bill be referred to the standing committee on general government. Agreed? Agreed.

ONTARIO CLIMATE CHANGE ACT, 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 SUR LES CHANGEMENTS

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The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Now we will deal with some unfinished business. Mr. Bisson.

Mr. Gilles Bisson (Timmins—James Bay): I would ask that the bill be referred to the standing committee on justice policy.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Bisson has asked that Bill 200 be referred to the standing committee on justice policy. Agreed? Agreed.

All matters relating to private members' public business having been dealt with, I do now leave the chair. The House will resume at 1:30 of the clock.

The House recessed from 1209 to 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

Mrs. Joyce Savoline (Burlington): As of yesterday, 120 questions have been asked and zero answers have been given regarding the involvement of the Premier, the Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal and members of their staff regarding the OLG debacle. My constituents have asked me questions using phrases like, "Why is the government avoiding answering questions?" and words such as "contradiction," "blame game," "hiding the truth," "dishonest," "can't be trusted," "arrogant," "shameful," "avoidance."

I find that through the entire questioning on this matter, members of this House and the people of Ontario have yet to hear the truth. The minister has hidden behind the Ombudsman and the OPP investigation. It is further disappointing that the Premier and the minister want to continually look back to previous governments to lay blame. In almost four years of this government, it has done nothing but assemble their campaign strategists and other spin doctors to create a story rather than just tell the truth. Where there is smoke, there is fire, and there is a lot of smoke.

I call on the Premier and the Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal responsible for lotteries to open their offices to an investigation and a review by a legislative committee so that a forensic audit can be done, so that the people of Ontario can know the truth on this matter. We ask that the Premier and the minister begin to show leadership and do the right thing.

SCHOOL BUS ACCIDENT

Mr. Peter Fonseca (Mississauga East): It's with a heavy heart that I make this statement today. Yesterday in my riding of Mississauga East, a young boy was involved in a very serious accident on Highway 410. The school bus he was riding on was taking the students of St. Alfred Catholic School in Mississauga on a field trip. Sadly, 10-year-old John Pham died late this morning in the Hospital for Sick Children. This is a terrible tragedy that touches so many, including parents and teachers across the province and the country. Our hearts and prayers go out to John's family.

Twenty-seven other children and four adults were also on the bus. Fourteen of those 27 children and at least one of the adults were sent to hospital.

I have visited St. Alfred school and other schools in my riding on numerous occasions. Many St. Alfred Catholic School students have recently been guests of Queen's Park on a school tour. The children at St. Alfred have always been an enthusiastic group. I have called the school and spoken with Principal Julie Command-Tollis to offer my support.

On behalf of all Mississauga residents and the members of this chamber, I'd like to offer our prayers and condolences to the Pham family and all the children involved in the accident.

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh (Halton): I rise today to make all members aware of an important day for this Legislature that is fast approaching.

On Monday, the leader of the official opposition will rise to debate a most important motion. The motion will ask the Legislature to endorse its desire for the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly to hold an inquiry into what has become known as Lottogate. The motion calls for an investigation into the flow of information between the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., the Minister and Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal and the Premier's office regarding the issues of fraud and other irregularities within Ontario's provincial lottery system, including documentary and viva voce evidence.

The motion is very important as it will determine once and for all whether or not this government and its members believe in the very issues they ran on in the last election, such as empowering the Legislature and its MPPs, governing with honesty and integrity, respecting the traditions of the Legislature—that was a good one—and operating an open and transparent government—another good one.

On Monday, members of this Legislature have a choice: Vote in favour of this motion so Ontarians can find out the answers to the questions the Premier and members of his cabinet refuse to answer during question period, or vote against it, furthering encouraging the cynicism Ontarians have towards politicians and government.

The choice is clear. I encourage all members to carefully consider over the weekend how they're going to vote on this bill, on this motion, and return to the Legislature on Monday to vote their conscience.

COMMUNITY CARE ACCESS CENTRES

Ms. Shelley Martel (Nickel Belt): Current CCAC policy regarding in-home nursing for medical injections must be changed.

Right now, the CCAC will only let a nurse administer an injection to a client if the client can't be transported to a doctor's office or an after-hours clinic without their condition worsening or if the client or the primary care giver can't be taught to administer the needle himself or herself.

Our constituent, 60-year-old Ghislaine Desrochers, was released from hospital and was told a nurse from the CCAC would teach her how to inject herself twice weekly with two medications. She objected, as her medical condition made this impossible. Her husband objected, as he feared hurting her, poking around with needles. She was then told she would have to go to her doctor or after-hours clinic twice weekly for these injections.

The CCAC only changed its position because the family doctor was away for several weeks and couldn't administer anything, and a review of the file showed that a nurse was already coming in to provide other health care and so could administer injections at the same time.

This policy wastes a doctor's valuable time when a nurse is perfectly qualified to do the job. It costs the health care system more if you don't have a family doctor and have to go to an after-hours clinic for needles. It's unrealistic to tell a 66-year-old son that he has to inject his 87-year-old mother with her medication, another case we've had to deal with. If CCAC clients need injections, then nurses should do this at their homes. Patients and caregivers have enough to deal with without worrying that they're going to hurt themselves or their loved ones with needles.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS

Mr. Dave Levac (Brant): It's my pleasure to rise today to offer my congratulations on behalf of myself, and I'm sure the members of this House and the entire McGuinty government, to my constituents Betty Farr and Jason Richardson, who are medal-winning Special Olympians.

Mr. Richardson and Ms. Farr are currently training vigorously in preparation for the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games that are being held in Shanghai this October. I would particularly like to take this opportunity to highlight the accomplishments made by these two great athletes during the Special Olympics summer games of 2006. Mr. Richardson and Ms. Farr literally dominated the power lifting portion of the competition.

Ms. Farr, who is the first female Special Olympian to take up power lifting in Brantford, set a new record by dead lifting an incredible 130.5 kilograms. For those of us who are metrically challenged, that's 287 pounds. That's incredible. Ms. Farr was not done there, however. She won another gold medal in the squat and a silver medal in the bench press.

Mr. Richardson was also successful, as he won a gold medal in the bench press, a dead lift and the squat: a triple gold medal winner—simply amazing.

On behalf of myself, and all the members of this House, I might add, I offer and we offer our congratulations to both athletes on their remarkable accomplishments to date and wish them good luck during the competition in China this coming October. Thank you very much. Bring home the gold, guys.

ONTARIO LOTTERY

AND GAMING CORP.

Mr. Ted Arnott (Waterloo—Wellington): In 1973, the fundamental question in the Watergate scandal in the United States asked by Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee was, what did the President know and when did he know it? When the truth came out after a Senate committee investigation, the President of the United States resigned.

Here we are, more than 30 years after the Watergate scandal, and the McGuinty Liberal government hasn't learned a thing. Today, the fundamental question in the Lottogate scandal is, what did the minister know and when did he know it?

For the past three weeks our party has been asking this question. In fact we've raised it, and questions stemming from it, 121 times. We've received not one straight answer from the Premier or any of his ministers. Instead, they are hiding behind the Ombudsman's report by claiming they will adopt his recommendations. What they don't acknowledge is that the Ombudsman is highly critical of the way the government has managed our lotteries, which may have led to thousands of Ontarians having their winnings stolen.

I recall during my first term here in the early 1990s the Ontario Liberal caucus, then in opposition, insisting on committee hearings when an NDP minister was accused of inappropriate conduct. They demanded hearings and they participated in those hearings with enthusiasm and zeal. Now in government, 15 years later, they would seek to deny the opposition that same opportunity to seek the truth. What have they got to hide?

There's an old adage that those who don't learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them. What did the minister know and when did he know it? The only way the public trust will be restored is to answer this question through a legislative inquiry.

CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Mr. Jeff Leal (Peterborough): I'm pleased to rise in the House today to share with my colleagues a letter that appeared in yesterday's Peterborough This Week newspaper. The letter was written by Mr. Mark Walsh, president of Kinark Child and Family Services, and I quote:

"Ontario's children and youth will benefit from the $24.5 million in additional funding earmarked for children's mental health that was announced by Minister Mary Anne Chambers earlier this week.

"These additional funds are welcomed with open arms by the children's mental health sector. Through this announcement, the Ministry of Children and Youth Services and the current government have displayed a commitment to helping Ontario's youth and a determination to tackle the mental health issues facing this province's young people.

"This announcement will not immediately eliminate wait lists and provide each child in the province with the same opportunity to live a quality life, but it is progress and will help agencies provide more service to children and youth who have been waiting for months.

"This funding will move the cause of children's mental health forward and hopefully lay the foundation for future increased funding announcements in order to catch up and meet the mental health needs of Ontario's children and youth.

"Kinark Child and Family Services"—of Peterborough—"applaud Minister Chambers and the government for listening to the sector's call for action."

YORK SUBWAY EXTENSION

Mr. Mario G. Racco (Thornhill): I rise in the House today to speak about the McGuinty government's commitment to the subway extension from Toronto to the city of Vaughan, which is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Ontario. This extension will reduce gridlock, enhance the York region economy and provide more efficient transportation for students traveling to York University. It will also create thousands of good jobs in the construction industry. This is a positive step in providing better transit options to those living in York region, the fastest-growing regional municipality in Ontario.

The NDP thinks that York region residents and students of York University do not deserve to have efficient transit that connects them to downtown Toronto. The McGuinty Liberals, on the other hand, believe that this is a necessary step to keeping the two areas connected and to keeping emissions from cars down. The McGuinty Liberal government is building a successful, green, sustainable economy while the leader of the third party has once again demonstrated that the NDP are stuck in the past without a clear workable environmental plan.

While the third party voted against subway expansions and giving an alternative to those stuck in gridlock, the McGuinty government recognizes the need to improve air quality through reducing vehicle use and improving public transit. The McGuinty Liberals are moving forward with their commitment to tackling climate change, and the NDP continues to delay progress, play politics and destroy—

The Speaker (Hon. Michael A. Brown): Thank you. Members' statements?

Mr. Brad Duguid (Scarborough Centre): I rise today to talk about a very important issue for Toronto, York region and the GTA, which is the expansion of the York subway line.

The McGuinty Liberals have committed funding to the people of the GTA for the York subway expansion because we know that it will play a vital role in helping to lessen the problems associated with gridlock, help commuters, students and others to get to where they need to go quicker, and help fight climate change, something very important to all of us.

At a press conference yesterday, the leader of the third party suggested that we didn't need the York subway expansion. I want to state for the record that this is not the case. It is a betrayal of public transit and the people of Toronto and York region to say so. Why the NDP would want to deny commuters, students and all those who would rely on this vital service to have more access to transportation and to lessen the amount of cars on the road is absolutely inexplicable.

Given the NDP's lack of support for the subway and the discussion earlier today at Toronto city hall, I want to quote the mayor. He said, "That link is a critical transportation link in Toronto because it links downtown to the 905 and creates a new transportation hub in Vaughan. We should be city building. These links should have been done years ago." Those words came from the mayor of Toronto, March 24, 2006.

It's time the leader of the third party took some responsibility for his comments and answered the question that—

The Speaker: Thank you.

VISITORS

Mr. Norm Miller (Parry Sound—Muskoka): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I would like all of us here to welcome the parents of Calla Pfrimmer, who's been doing an excellent job as a page from Huntsville, Ontario. Pat and Brian Pfrimmer are down for the day and they're in the members' west gallery.

UNPARLIAMENTARY LANGUAGE

Mr. Dave Levac (Brant): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Over the last couple of days you've made comment on some of the language that's being used in the House, and again I think I heard it today where accusations of misrepresentation and untruths are being made again. I didn't want to interrupt the statements, but I want to ask you if it's still appropriate in this place for those types of things to be said, whether or not the intent was somebody else said it and then it was read by somebody else that said it. I'd like your ruling on that so that we can get this place back to the spot where you have asked us to be.

Mr. Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): To that point of order, Speaker: As the NDP House leader, I appreciate the comments made by the member. I agree with him that the member's statements by his Liberal colleagues were entirely inappropriate, inaccurate, non-factual, and his courage in criticizing his own colleagues is to be lauded.

Mr. Levac: On that same point of order, Speaker: I do appreciate the member for Niagara Centre's interjection on this, but what we're looking for is actually a ruling on whether or not anyone in this House is allowed to read a statement made by somebody outside of the House into the record when it's against what you've been trying to tell us to do.

The Speaker (Hon. Michael A. Brown): All members would know that in this place we need to practise the civility that we would practise outside of this place and that although some words and some phrases may in fact be found to be technically parliamentary, we should exercise that kind of good judgment that would exist in the general population. I've been urging members to do that. Thank you for the point of order.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

SAFER ROADS FOR

A SAFER ONTARIO ACT, 2007 /

LOI DE 2007 VISANT À CRÉER

DES ROUTES PLUS SÉCURITAIRES

POUR UN ONTARIO PLUS SÛR

Mrs. Cansfield moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 203,

An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act and the Remedies for Organized Crime and Other Unlawful Activities Act, 2001 and to make consequential amendments to other Acts / Projet de loi 203, Loi modifiant le Code de la route et la Loi de 2001 sur les recours pour crime organisé et autres activités illégales et apportant des modifications corrélatives à d'autres lois.

The Speaker (Hon. Michael A. Brown): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

The minister may wish to make a brief statement.

Hon. Donna H. Cansfield (Minist