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December 4, 1997

36th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

vol. A

Hansard Transcripts

vol. B

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

L256a - Thu 4 Dec 1997 / Jeu 4 Déc 1997

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

PROTECTION AGAINST PEDOPHILES ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LA PROTECTION CONTRE LES PÉDOPHILES

GOOD SAMARITAN ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LE BON SAMARITAIN

PROTECTION AGAINST PEDOPHILES ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LA PROTECTION CONTRE LES PÉDOPHILES

GOOD SAMARITAN ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LE BON SAMARITAIN

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

FAMILY RESPONSIBILITY OFFICE

DRINKING AND DRIVING

EDUCATION REFORM

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

MARK MESSIER

NIAGARA ESCARPMENT COMMISSION

EDUCATION REFORM

BLAKE MULLIN, DAVID STANLEY AND DONALD HILBORNE

DAY OF REMEMBRANCE AND ACTION ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

MILK AMENDMENT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR LE LAIT

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (DRIVER TRAINING COURSE), 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (COURS DE CONDUITE AUTOMOBILE)

ORAL QUESTIONS

PROPERTY TAXATION

CARDIAC SURGERY

EDUCATION FINANCING

WOMEN'S SHELTERS

ILLEGAL TIRE DUMPS

ACADEMIC TESTING

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

ELEVATOR INSPECTIONS

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

ONTARIO EXPORTS

CHARITABLE GAMING

TVONTARIO

INTERMITTENT SENTENCING

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

PETITIONS

EDUCATION FINANCING

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

EDUCATION REFORM

ABORTION

EDUCATION REFORM

FIRE IN HAMILTON

CERTIFIED GENERAL ACCOUNTANTS

RÉFORME DU SYSTÈME D'ÉDUCATION

EDUCATION REFORM

EDUCATION FINANCING

EDUCATION REFORM

CERTIFIED GENERAL ACCOUNTANTS

EDUCATION REFORM

COURT DECISION

ORDERS OF THE DAY

DEVELOPMENT CHARGES ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LES REDEVANCES D'AMÉNAGEMENT

The House met at 1002.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

PROTECTION AGAINST PEDOPHILES ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LA PROTECTION CONTRE LES PÉDOPHILES

Mr Brown moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 145,

An Act to provide protection against pedophiles by preventing them from working in direct contact with children / Projet de loi 145, Loi prévoyant la protection contre les pédophiles en empêchant ceux-ci de travailler en contact direct avec des enfants.

Mr Jim Brown (Scarborough West): There is no crime as reprehensible as child sexual abuse. Pedophiles are the stuff parents' nightmares are made of and pedophiles tend to be serial offenders. The majority continue to offend throughout their lives.

Several recent stories in the media have brought the issue of pedophilia into the forefront of public consciousness. Gordon Stuckless molested several young boys at Maple Leaf Gardens in the 1970s and 1980s. One of his victims took his own life last month, following what was widely considered to be a very light sentence for the offender.

Coach Graham James also preyed on young boys. His victims included NHL player Sheldon Kennedy when he was a kid. Many more players bravely came forward. A minor sports coach took advantage of our kids.

Joseph Fredericks was on parole for abduction and sexual assault. He was released into the Brampton community while on parole. He applied to coach minor baseball. While he was on parole he abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered Christopher Stephenson.

These highly publicized cases are really only the tip of the iceberg of the problem of pedophilia. The Globe and Mail quoted a Metro police document that showed almost 3,000 sexual assaults on children over a two-year period. There were also nearly 1,000 sexual interferences with a minor charge for the same period.

Experts estimate that one in four girls and one in eight boys experience sexual abuse as a child. An Australian study of 232 convicted pedophiles revealed they had each committed offences with an average of 76 children before they were caught. Pedophiles are serial offenders.

Dr William Glaser, a Melbourne, Australia, forensic psychiatrist said most pedophiles are "long-term offenders who have multiple victims." Sex offenders are the oldest group in the prisons. Burglars, car thieves and brawlers all give up their criminal careers in their 30s, but pedophiles keep on going.

Pedophiles are cunning and devious offenders who tend to be good with children, which is why they are so dangerous. They groom their child victims, building a complex relationship which, for the child, is exploitive and loving, cruel and kind, perverted and normal all at the same time. The average age of child sexual abuse victims is only 11 years old. Pedophile offenders are repeat offenders. Many pedophiles live in society undetected for years. Of those who are caught, the rate of recidivism is alarmingly high.

A study published by the American Psychological Association followed 115 child molesters after being discharged from prison. The recidivism rate was 14% at three years after discharge, 30% at 10 years and 52% at 25 years after release. Rapists have a disproportionately high rate of recidivism. A study on reoffence rates conducted at Brandeis University found child molesters were 100% more likely than rapists to reoffend. For many pedophiles, child sexual abuse is a lifetime pursuit, broken up only by jail terms if caught and convicted.

While most of us would like to believe that once a pedophile sex offender is convicted the danger has passed, that is rarely the case. The average sentence length of all sex offenders admitted to federal custody in Canada in 1995 was only four years and three months. Take away time for good behaviour or possible early release, and the threat is unbelievably high. In fact, time actually served averages at about 1.5 years.

In early 1996, a Hamilton court sentenced pedophile Keith Legere to a three-year probation because he violated a court order to stay away from children. The court order breach came as a result of approaching two toddlers. In 1988, the same man served only three years for the manslaughter of a six-year-old boy.

The Internet is full of sites catering to pedophiles, with sickeningly extensive collections of child pornography. Law enforcement agencies find the authors of these perverse Web sites very difficult to trace. The United Kingdom's "dæmon" Web server, often criticized for allowing its members to post illicit and illegal material, even has a page explaining ways to make your Web page more difficult to trace. Recent years have seen several child sex rings and child pornography rings in our own suburbs.

Because of the nature of their crimes, pedophiles often seek positions of trust with children, like coaching sports or leading community youth groups. Detective Wendy Leaver of the Metropolitan Toronto Police sexual assault squad said that school board screening policies are inconsistent across the province. Yes, school board screening policies are inconsistent. Some boards ask job applicants and would-be volunteers to submit to police screening, but most do not.

She wrote: "The pedophile is someone who is quite well known in the community and is going to be found working with children and knowing everything about children. What we observe in pedophiles is they love children and that is their whole goal in life. Screening is important, especially in the wake of an arrest of an elementary school principal in Burnaby, BC, charged with pornography and child sex offences."

Detective Leaver said that some schools are reluctant to call the police even if they suspect an employee of abusing children because they are worried about the school's reputation. In fact, the OSSTF manual specifies accused teachers must meet with the principal and victim to try to resolve the problem before police are called.

Pedophiles can walk into a room with a bunch of kids and in 10 minutes know who to target. They seek to win over the children with attention, affection and gifts. They do not attack them; they romance them. It is terrible and tragic when a child is abused by someone in a position of trust. It is unthinkable and unbearable when a child is abused by someone who has been given a position of trust despite a history of pedophilia.

I've been a minor hockey coach and have worked on a minor hockey board of directors. It's terribly difficult to know what kind of people you have volunteering to be coach. At least my bill will give people who select volunteers the tools to have some peace of mind. At least parents will be assured that they did not just deliver their child into the hands of a convicted pedophile or sexual offender.

What my bill proposes is very simple. My bill will make sure your child's sports coach, scout leader or teacher is not a convicted pedophile. To ensure this, every person who wishes to work or volunteer in a trust position with children will have to submit to a police record search. For a small fee and signed waiver given to the police, the police will search the person's record for any prior convictions for pedophile offences, and if there are none, the police will issue a letter stating that the applicant has not been convicted of pedophilia or sexual offence.

That letter is to be delivered to the employer or organization. Failure to obtain such a letter results in a fine for the organization.

The screening procedure is already being practised by Big Brothers of Canada. The Canadian Hockey Association has incorporated this police check as part of its league policy. This bill is not a perfect solution to the problems of pedophilia in our society. It probably won't even stop the majority of them. However, if this bill can save one child, one kid from the nightmare of sexual abuse, then this bill must become law. Children have a right to their childhood. They have a right to their innocence and they have a right to be kept as safe as possible from monsters like Joseph Fredericks and Graham James and hundreds more like them.

My bill has received support from the Metropolitan Toronto Police department, the Peel Regional Police, the Association of Children's Aid Societies, the Canadian Hockey Association and the Ontario Women's Hockey Association.

I would ask everyone in this House to support this bill and continue to work to protect our children, our biggest asset.

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): I should indicate at the outset we're going to be supporting Mr Brown's bill. I listened to his comments in advocating the bill. I appreciate his reference to expertise that he's consulted. I'm surprised, however, that he didn't refer to the expertise that's homegrown right here in the Toronto area, the Ontario Correctional Institute, OCI, in Brampton. I'm grateful to the professional staff there for having provided some insight into the issue, and specifically with respect to what this legislation hopes to achieve.

As you know, one of the programs OCI engages in is the treatment of pedophiles. Everybody acknowledges that historically treatment of pedophiles hasn't been particularly successful. A number of techniques and approaches have been utilized. Ultimately the real protection for our children is going to come from the effective cessation of pedophilic activity on the part of adult pedophiles.

OCI is one of the institutions that's slated to be shut down by this government. OCI, with its milieu therapy, has overcome some of the frustration of the past by demonstrating a particularly high success rate at treatment of pedophiles. In fact OCI was selected by the American Correctional Association to receive the 1997 Exemplary Offender Program Award for all of North America. It was presented in August down in Florida. The deputy minister went. I suppose, had it been February or March, the minister himself would have been down there receiving the award.

One of the issues about pedophilia is that although not every victim of a pedophile becomes a pedophile, almost every pedophile has been a victim. I think that's something that should be at the forefront of any discussion about this.

This government, which has talked a big game about victims' rights and responding to victims' needs and indeed passed the Victims' Bill of Rights, the Attorney General having sponsored that piece of legislation, is more notable in its failure to respond to victims and its failure to address victims' rights than it is in any observance of its responsibilities vis-à-vis the Victims' Bill of Right, be it in spirit or in terms of the letter of the legislation.

One of the things that I think Mr Brown and all of us should concern ourselves with is the need to intervene at a very early stage and to intervene effectively when we witness or when we're confronted by victims of sexual abuse, the sort of thing Mr Brown talked about. Yes, he's been very candid in indicating that this bill addresses only a small piece of the problem, a very small piece of the problem.

One of the other things I learned from speaking with the professional staff at OCI, an incredibly valuable resource in this province that's slated to be dismantled by this government, is that most pedophiles by the time they're convicted and imprisoned have committed a number of pedophilic acts, have subjected a number of children to their perversion. I'm not criticizing Mr Brown, and I think he's well aware that the act of course only deals with convicted pedophiles, people who have already reached that point - and almost inevitably after that trail of victims - where they're finally convicted.

One of the luxuries pedophiles enjoy is the fact that children are less inclined to become complainants. They're more inclined to keep that dirty little secret to themselves, out of fear, out of shame, any number of things. If we're going to address this issue we have to be developing institutions in our communities and programs whereby children are assured of a positive response to their complaint about having been victimized by adults by way of sexual abuse, or quite frankly any other form of abuse.

We're going to support the legislation. Mr Brown indicates that it will - and if it only does save but one child from the sort of abuse that's so horrific, it will have been successful. But we certainly have to do more.

I would call upon Mr Brown, and I say this in all sincerity, to prevail upon his Solicitor General and his Premier to rethink the goal of closing down OCI, the Ontario Correctional Institute in Brampton, to rethink the prospect of privatization of correctional services.

We have the single most effective program for treating sexual offenders, pedophiles, right here in Ontario at the Ontario Correctional Institute. As a result of them receiving the Exemplary Offender Program Award, they've been contacted by institutions internationally, from throughout the world, with inquiries about this very unique type of therapy and treatment that's being engaged in at OCI.

The last thing we want to do at this point in time is ring the death knell for a very successful treatment program that's been developed by very competent, skilled, dedicated staff at the Ontario Correctional Institute. The alternatives being offered up by the Solicitor General and the Ministry of Correctional Services to OCI are specifically incapable of doing the very things that the professional staff and the correctional staff at OCI have been engaging in for some time now.

I say to you, Mr Brown, we're supporting this legislation, but please rethink and call upon your Premier to rethink the privatization of correctional services and the closure of a number of institutions but in particular the Ontario Correctional Institute. You may well have consulted them and simply not referred to them during the course of your comments in the brief time you had to speak to your bill, but if you haven't, please do so. I'm confident that they're eager to talk to you and to explain to you the success they've achieved over the course of a considerable period of time with their unique therapy program for pedophiles.

Let's also rethink our commitment to victims. I say once again, although not every victim of sexual abuse becomes a pedophile, almost every pedophile has been a victim. We've got to stop the cycle, because that's inevitably what it is.

This bill doesn't protect organizations from the unconvicted pedophile. That's acknowledged, that's apparent. It doesn't mean the bill should be defeated or should be criticized, but the bill is but a small piece of what should be a far greater plan to protect children in our society. If the state has any single obligation that's paramount, surely it's to protect the weakest in our community, the weakest in society, and that, I tell you, includes children, inevitably one of our most valuable resources if not our single most valuable resource, our children.

This government has acquired by now a litany, a pattern of abandonment of children. Quite frankly, its most recent attack is by way of Bill 160 on public education. The defunding of public education here in Ontario, I tell you, is an attack on children. Its bungling mismanagement of the family support plan, more specifically the Attorney General's mismanagement, his incompetent mismanagement of the family support plan, is an abandonment of children. The slashing of assistance rates for moms and their kids by 22% has forced children into yet deeper poverty.

Still, we support Bill 145, but we also call upon this government to contemplate and to reflect on what it has done to children in the course of two years and a few months. I'm confident that no single person in this chamber is going to fail to support Mr Brown's legislation. But I'm equally confident that there's no single member in this chamber who, if candid - and I include the Conservative backbenchers and, quite frankly, their cabinet as well - can't understand that this government has acquired a pattern of victimizing children in its own right.

I understand the politics of Bill 145. I understand that it's a fast hit in the press. I have no doubt the Toronto Sun is going to cover it, and I applaud Mr Brown for his initiative in bringing it forward and, quite frankly, his cleverness at addressing an issue that's going to generate with it some publicity. Good for you. But the mere fact of having a column or two in the Toronto Sun does not relieve any member of this government from the responsibility they have to take for having acquiesced in any number of policy moves that have very specifically victimized kids in our province.

I say to Mr Brown and to the gaggle of Tory backbenchers present today, use this opportunity, use Bill 145, use your support of it and your concern about children in our society as a means to address your members of cabinet and your Premier about the litany of attacks on children, of attacks on the weakest. I look forward to this bill going to committee and I think it should. There are a number of institutions and individuals here in the province and perhaps beyond who could well address this bill by way of their presentations in the committee process to enhance our understanding of the victimization that Mr Brown is attempting to address, my vision of children as victims of sexual abusers.

The process would be one wherein we may well be able to persuade Mr Brown and others to preserve OCI and its treatment program for pedophiles, to understand that it has become the hallmark internationally, that it has achieved success where no other program admittedly has and that the real issue of pedophilia is one of stopping the cycle. Once again, if we don't address the needs of victims promptly and effectively, we stand a high risk of those victims - and not every victim becomes a pedophile - becoming abusers in their own right.

I would look forward to participating in that committee process. I would hope that the staff of OCI would be called upon to speak to it and I would hope that this government, in the course of doing that, would recognize the incredible resource that we have in Ontario Correctional Institute and, quite frankly, other correctional institutions across the province, many of them slated to be shut down and privatized, after which none of them will be able to pursue or achieve the goals that all of us would purport to aspire to.

Mr Bob Wood (London South): I rise to support this bill. I think it's an excellent initiative which will be a major step forward in protecting our children from predators. I would hope it would go to an appropriate committee of the Legislature, where detailed refinement can be considered. I'd like to suggest a few areas for such refinement.

The scope of the bill is currently very broad and may require narrowing in order to focus on children who are at actual risk from pedophiles. The current wording could affect persons who are employed in positions where they have some low-risk contact with children that is unlikely to result in further criminal behaviour.

The bill may have problems with the Ontario Human Rights Code, which prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of a criminal record for individuals who have received a pardon that has not been revoked. Refusing to hire or terminating the employment of pardoned pedophiles may therefore be a violation of the code.

The continuing responsibility would seem to be placed on employers in terms of verifying that an individual has not been convicted of a sex offence involving children. Although employers are given six months to check existing employees and can require a records check from new employees, the bill is silent as to the requirement for employers to confirm that employees have not committed a sex offence since the last records check. For example, how often should the check be required? This may prove onerous for both employers and employees who have no record and who may be required to pay for record checks on a regular basis.

There is some inconsistency in the definition of "sexual offence respecting a child" that requires clarification. The definition includes a list of offences if the victim was under 18 years of age. However, several of these offences are applicable only to children under 14 years of age.

We all know of instances where predators have had access to and have victimized children. This bill is a major step forward, and I hope all members of the House will support the bill.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): In just referring back to the comments made by the member for London South, maybe that's one of the reasons why this bill should go to committee: There may be some problems with it and they may have to be ironed out at the committee stage. Obviously, some inquiries have to be made to make sure that it is constitutionally all right and that it fits within the Canadian and Ontario human rights legislation.

Just at the outset, I'd like to congratulate the member for Scarborough West in bringing this bill forward, because I think it's a bill that is well thought out. I will be supporting it, but I think we also have to take into consideration some of the comments made earlier by the member for Welland-Thorold.

It's all right to say we don't want out children in any way or shape to be involved with pedophiles. I think we would all agree with that. I can't think of a more horrendous situation than somebody entrusting their children, whether in a recreational environment or an educational environment, and then having that essential trust being betrayed by an individual who turns out to be a pedophile. The kind of emotional effects that it has on individuals, and indeed on the families, I wouldn't want to contemplate. It must be absolutely horrendous.

But that's only one aspect of it. Yes, they shouldn't be in contact with them. Yes, they shouldn't be involved with them in any kind of activities. But that doesn't deal with the problem of what you do with the pedophiles. Whether or not we like to admit it or face it, these people do live in our society and obviously we want to do whatever possible to make sure that they don't perpetrate any crimes, whether it's within the context, as suggested in this bill, or in any other way.

That's why treatment is so important. The purpose of treatment shouldn't be so they can be totally rehabilitated and therefore start working with children again, but just treatment in general to make sure they don't do these kinds of activities with children under any circumstance. That's why I think it is completely shortsighted to have the rather successful treatment programs that are out there through the Ontario Correctional Institute in effect curtailed or abolished. We have to try to treat these people, we have to somehow deal with them or else they're going to offend, whether it's in the context of this kind of legislation or elsewhere.

That's why I commend the member for Scarborough West for starting this process. I think the bill is well thought out and it also allows for some changeover provisions to take place so that no one is all of a sudden placed in a position where one day they are a law-abiding citizen and the next day, because they may have hired one of these people to work with children under 18, they are in contravention of the law.

I keep going back to this and I spoke about this last night as well. We have to go back to the Provincial Auditor's report as to how he views the courts administration process in the province of Ontario. When you look at the fact that currently there are 224,000 criminal cases outstanding, which happens to be the same number that were outstanding at the time when all the Askov controversy started some eight or nine years ago - and you may recall, as a result of the Askov decision, there were about 50,000 cases thrown out of court.

Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): It may have been the Liberals.

Mr Gerretsen: It may have been the Liberals, somebody said. It may have been as a result of the Liberal government. Quite frankly, I don't care at this stage and I don't think anybody else does. The point is that we are back to the same position we were eight or nine years ago, where we've got the same number of cases outstanding as we did in those days, and now what's going to happen?

Are we going to hit the situation again where, all of a sudden, somebody one of these days is going to turf another 50,000 cases that are legitimately before the court out of the system and potentially let a lot of people go loose, as it were, without ever having been tried on crimes or criminal situations which have been properly laid before the courts?

What all that addresses is the question of resources. If you don't put adequate resources into the criminal justice system to make sure that these cases are dealt with in a speedy and expedient fashion, then you are going to run into those risks. I think that if all of a sudden another 50,000 cases were thrown out, it would do an awful lot of damage to the criminal justice system and to the confidence that the people of Ontario have in our system.

I'll just read you two sentences from the Provincial Auditor's report. He states, for example, "Despite the initiatives" - and this is on page 29 of the report. The Provincial Auditor is an individual hired by this Legislature. He is not hired by the government, he is not a government official but basically reports directly to the Legislature without any influence from the government of the day. And what does he say?

He states, "Despite the initiatives taken to date, the following chart indicates that the backlogs have been increasing since 1994 and have the potential to develop into a situation similar to the one which resulted in the Askov decision." Of those 224,000 cases, by the way, 70,000 are more than eight months old, so they could very well be thrown out on the basis of Askov.

It goes on to say, "Even though most factors contributing to delays in cases being heard are beyond the program's control, it can exercise considerable control in ensuring courtroom availability and providing adequate information to the judiciary and the crown attorneys."

There are problems within the Ministry of the Attorney General that have to be dealt with to ensure that the laws that we make here and to ensure that the Criminal Code, which is a law that is made in Ottawa, are adhered to and are followed and are respected. This kind of law being proposed by the member for Scarborough West will once again, as you add to the volume of laws that are out there, put an extra burden on our police officers, on our enforcement agents within the department of the Solicitor General and also within the Attorney General's department.

I think it is totally shortsighted to limit the resources that are available within the Attorney General's department and the Solicitor General's department, because we can have all the best intentions that there are in the world - we can have them all - but if we cannot enforce the laws that we pass here and if we actively take away resources from the enforcement agents, then in effect we are not doing anybody any favours. It's almost like a shell game. It's almost like we're trying the best that we can but at the same time we're not putting the enforcement mechanisms into place.

The other aspect of course - and the irony that I find about the Provincial Auditor's report is that it deals with the courts administration area - is this whole area of uncollected fines.

Here we have $139 million outstanding in fines and offences that have been committed under the Highway Traffic Act, where the auditor says, "In most cases we know the licence numbers; we know the addresses of the individuals who owe the fines; we have the mechanisms in place" - you know, if somebody owed you some money privately and you got a judgement against that person, you could enforce that judgement by either garnishing that person's bank account or wages or you put a lien or a judgement, an execution, against their house and, sooner or later, you're going to get paid.

What does the Provincial Auditor say about that? He states, "We note that none of these measures" - and the measures that he's referring to are the requiring of banks to deduct money owing from the person's bank account or registering a lien against a person's real property - "We note that none of these measures have been initiated by the ministry." He goes on to say, "While we recognize these measures would not be practicable in every case, some could be effective depending upon the nature of the case and the amounts of the fines."

There are 116 individuals who have fines totalling more than $10,000. I don't know what your experience has been but I know that when I get the odd $53 parking ticket or speeding ticket or what have you - and yes, I've got them; I'll be the first to plead guilty - if you don't pay it in time, you get a notice and then you'd better pay up pretty quickly or else they're going to be after you.

For the life of me I cannot understand how we can have 116 individuals - we know who they are - running around this province, driving around this province, owing $10,000 in fines each under the Highway Traffic Act. It is beyond my imagination how that could possibly happen. How do these people get away with it? They shouldn't get away with it because that $139 million is owed to you and me, to the taxpayers of Ontario.

As I said before, that money could be used to pay down the provincial debt. Remember, we will still have a debt of $120 billion by the time this government is finished. It started at $100 billion when they took over, and it's going to rise by another $20 billion to $120 billion by about the year 1999. I think in interest it costs about 15 cents out of every dollar. It's not as bad as Ottawa yet, but it's getting up there. We could be taking this money and paying it down on the debt or on the deficit for any particular year.

We could even put it into good useful programs such as the treatment of pedophiles at the Ontario Correctional Institute.

I know there is the attitude, and when we hear of these horrendous crimes these people commit all of us at times feel, "Why don't we just lock them up and throw away the key." The problem is that's not the answer in the long run because sooner or later most of these people come back into society, and whether they are involved in the kind of activities dealing with children envisioned by the member for Scarborough West's bill or whether they are just walking around in the general public, if these people have not gone through a treatment program of sorts, they are likely to commit a crime again, another act of pedophilia.

It is to all of our advantages, and particularly of the youngsters surely in our society, that it doesn't happen. Our initial reaction, "Lock them up and throw away the key," isn't going to work in the long run. That's just a gut reaction. We've got to deal with the problem.

If you collect the $139 million that's outstanding in Highway Traffic Act fines, I'm sure that will go a long way to run the program they do at the Ontario Correctional Institute. The $139 million that's outstanding to you and me is only part of it, because these are Highway Traffic Act fines but in other uncollected fines there is owing an additional $316 million. Can you imagine? This is right in his report again, on page 36. So when we add the $316 million plus the $139 million, there's almost half a billion dollars in uncollected fines and penalties that we're not doing a heck of a lot about in this province.

Mr Kormos: That would have paid for the pension buyout.

Mr Gerretsen: It would have paid for the pension buyout. It would pay for all sorts of programs. It could even be applied to the debt. What always gets me is that we have now elected a government that likes to carry on the business we do here in a businesslike fashion. Well, I know in my own business that if I were owed this kind of money, I'd try to collect it. If you want to run it in a businesslike fashion, use some businesslike tactics to get these legitimately owed fines paid.

Having said all that, I'm very pleased to support the bill put forward by the member for Scarborough West. It's a start, but let him get after the Attorney General and the Solicitor General to make sure that some of these other issues I've talked about are addressed as well.

Mr Preston: I rise today to speak to Bill 145, the Protection Against Pedophiles Act, 1997. Normally I would say I'm pleased to speak to a point in the House, but there is no pleasure in this subject at all.

In 28 years of involvement with youth, I don't only suspect the horrendous devastation; I know of the horrendous devastation these individuals cause. It takes a very strong individual to overcome the emotional trauma that is caused. Indeed, most of them don't completely overcome it. They carry the emotional scars for life. They only deal with it. Because these pedophiles earn the trust of children, the children somehow feel they are to blame - totally unreasonable, but that's the child mind.

I'm not naïve enough to think this bill will eradicate the pedophiles, but it will alert us to reoffenders. It won't catch those who are beginning their heinous career or those who have not been caught before, but it will put community organizations in a situation where they at least know that they are not taking on an already convicted pedophile or sexual offender. How many times, when these things come to light, do we say: "That person's been convicted before. My God, how could this happen? Doesn't anybody check on these things?" This bill will at least prevent the reoffending in our community organizations.

I use the term "community organizations" possibly to redundancy, but I don't want to inadvertently point out a particular organization in the community that may give the idea that this is a place where the occurrences are more prevalent. The number of people who are of good character, excellent people, caring, who work with children, who volunteer to work with children, 999 out of 1,000 are excellent, doing an irreplaceable job. This bill will catch the one who wants to use that position of trust to prey on children.

The pedophile situation is becoming more prevalent. It's front-page, ever more occurring. It's a nightmare. Parents are questioning the wisdom of sending their children out into these community activities, and what a loss that is for the children.

We demand that the people who handle our money are bonded because, boy oh boy, we've got to protect our money. We demand that the people who handle our affairs are licensed because, boy oh boy, we have to protect our chattels and goods. But we send our children out into the community in the care of individuals for hours on end, without a thought, or we did in the past. Parents are becoming very leery of doing that now. Possibly this bill can give them some modicum of security in at least knowing they're not sending their child out into the arms of a known pedophile.

We must ask that any person who is to be employed or volunteers into a position where constant contact with children is endemic to their responsibilities take the little step of providing a letter saying they have not been convicted of a sexual offence or as a pedophile, a small thing to ask of the people who are going to be dealing with our children.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): Today appears to be Scarborough day in the Legislature. The member for Scarborough West is making a presentation with this specific bill that is before us, and the member for Scarborough East also has a bill that we will be debating soon on the topic of volunteerism. Volunteerism has become a most important part of our society today, particularly with young people. It's something we in government, from whatever party, need to encourage.

Every day it seems that we open up the paper and hear reports of convictions involving the topic that the member for Scarborough West has raised today. Just yesterday I took out two clippings reporting on these incidents. A former Boy Scout leader had been charged with sexually assaulting a child. This scout leader's alleged assaults occurred between 1968 and 1974. This person is charged with two counts of indecent assault on a male, gross indecency and buggery.

In the same newspaper there is a report of a sentencing procedure involving a deaf pedophile facing dangerous offender status. He "told police that a tale he had spun about having a boy in his bed for sex was just part of a `sick game.'" It goes on and talks about how he had been convicted in the past on a number of occasions. Prior to his conviction last spring, in 1996, on this 13-year-old boy, he had three previous convictions of sex charges involving young males in 1989 and a similar offence in New York in 1988. He was also on record for breach of probation for being around children in 1994, as well as a conviction for possessing kiddie porn.

A most serious aspect of our society. The member opposite raised a constitutional issue and he may be right. I think those issues can be dealt with in committee. I believe this bill is constitutional and I think this matter should go to committee for further discussion, or better yet, immediate passage, because I think it's an important bill.

We need to encourage volunteerism. We need to develop trust in our volunteer organizations. We need to be confident that when we send our young children to camp, to scout meetings, to hockey teams, that these problems don't exist. One could say the onus is on the volunteer organizations to do that sort of thing. Well, they don't have that information available,

whereas under this bill a volunteer who wishes to volunteer for these types of organizations, goes to a police station, signs a waiver, which is done in some organizations already, and the certificate is given with respect to whether or not there are any convictions registered against this individual.

One raises the question, whether you're talking Boy Scout movements, hockey teams - Mr Brown, the member for Scarborough West, has referred to incidents in the press, just horrible, horrible stories where people are affected. Young people are coming forward 20 years later on how they have been affected by these terrible incidents that occurred when they were young.

It is interesting to look at reports about pedophilia, and this could be dealt with in the committee. Research has provided me with some news clippings from the past. One is from the Hamilton Spectator back in 1994, which was a joint report by the Spectator, the Brantford Expositor, the London Free Press and others, an item called "No Easy Answers." There is a comment by John Kernaghan in that report: "There is no cure for pedophilia, admit clinicians developing treatments."

Dr Barbaree of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry says: "There is no cure for child molesters.... Although pedophiles have an average of three to four reported victims each, the actual totals are likely much higher - often more than 100 - because many victims never come forward.... These offenders actively seek solutions that put them in close proximity to children, such as volunteers in organizations catering to children's needs or hobbies."

Grant Harris, a research psychologist: "The latest word on treatment for pedophiles is that since there is no cure, the goal is control."

It is for that reason that I congratulate Mr Brown, the member for Scarborough West, in bringing forward this bill. It's an opportunity in which we in this place can provide further debate as to how we can contribute to encouraging volunteerism, to encouraging trust in our volunteer organizations and how we can play our

part in dealing with this issue.

This topic of pedophiles of course has been studied all over the place, as I believe has been mentioned by the member for Welland-Thorold and there are a number of reports. There was one by the Solicitor General of Canada in 1990, who concluded: "A reasonable conclusion from the available literature is that treatment can be effective in reducing sexual recidivism from about 25% to 10% to 15%. No approach will guarantee complete success." There's report after report that comes to that conclusion.

We just can't let the world go by with these young people being affected by these individuals. Young people need to get involved in these organizations, whether they be sports or other types of organizations, church groups; it goes on. It's a suggestion that needs to be pursued.

The Big Brothers of Toronto screens all applicants before allowing them to join the association. They already require a police check before they will accept a volunteer to the program. Those with any convictions are requested to get a pardon before they will be accepted. Certainly those with convictions of molestation would not be admitted.

The Toronto Board of Education also requires a police check on each teaching applicant. The Ontario College of Teachers states that boards have a duty to submit to them any report of misconduct of a sexual nature with a minor by a teacher. These organizations and others are doing things now, and I believe this bill will encourage all organizations to provide this information so that our volunteer organizations can provide the service for young people that they do and develop the confidence that's required in our organizations.

These police checks only show convictions that a person may have. The list of charges is absent. That may be a matter that needs to be pursued as well.

Mr Jim Brown: We have to protect our kids from pedophiles. Pedophiles don't slow down with age like burglars, drug dealers and car thieves. There have been 80-year-olds convicted of pedophilia. We know that pedophiles are serial offenders. They have many victims.

Around the world, the high recidivism rate has caused many jurisdictions to impose chemical castration. That is the administration of a drug to chemically reduce the sex drive. Florida, California, Texas, Oregon, Montana, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden mandate chemical treatment to repeat offenders. A US study stated that 66% of the respondents were in favour of chemical treatment for repeat offenders; 92% wanted to know if a known pedophile lived in their area.

My bill, the Protection Against Pedophiles Act, will force all organizations that employ or use people in trust over children to have these people obtain a police screening. The procedure is simple, it works and it is presently a policy with the Canadian hockey federation, Big Brothers and the Ontario women's hockey league.

This bill will keep convicted pedophiles out of our children's sports change rooms, out of their camping trips and out of their classrooms. Community safety, our kids' safety, is paramount. This bill will be mandatory and give volunteer groups the structure, the tools to insist on police screening. Since it is province-wide, pedophiles can't go shopping from community to community for a better deal. For our children, I ask all the members to please support my bill, the Protection Against Pedophiles Act, 1997. Thank you.

GOOD SAMARITAN ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LE BON SAMARITAIN

Mr Gilchrist moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 166,

An Act to protect Persons from Liability in respect of Voluntary Emergency Medical or First Aid Services / Projet de loi 166, Loi visant à exonérer les personnes de la responsabilité concernant des services médicaux ou des pemiers soins fournis bénévolement en cas d'urgence.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): According to the rules, Mr Gilchrist has 10 minutes to make his presentation.

Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): I am indeed pleased to stand here today to speak to this bill. It's a bill that hopefully puts a different spin on exactly where our government stands in terms of our outlook on the responsibilities we have to provide stewardship and to ensure that within our society there is always the motivation for people to do their best.

We've all heard anecdotal evidence of people who stop and help others in times of need, whether it's roadside assistance after an auto accident, whether it's someone found choking in a restaurant or any other circumstance of similar emergency need.

Recently here in Toronto we saw someone celebrated for their eagerness to help out as two young boys were threatened with being thrown out of a subway car on to the live power rail. That gentleman, Mr Crowl, was rightfully celebrated as being a tremendous volunteer, a tremendous representative for all that is best in our society.

Unfortunately, to date we have no protection for people who offer their assistance to others in need. While the courts as yet have not followed the American pattern and have not found people liable in cases where their assistance may have left open the question of whether there was some sort of liability, the fact is that the stories are legion where people have gone to court and been sued after having helped out. At minimum, they have faced the legal expenses and the risk and threat to their assets and to their esteem in the community by having the suits levelled against them.

After one particular example was brought to my attention in June of this year, I believed it was appropriate to research this subject and to see where Ontario stood relative to other jurisdictions both across Canada and throughout North America and around the world.

As a result of that research, I ascertained that three provinces in Canada - Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland - have express good Samaritan bills, as they're known, on their statutes, and every other province in Canada has some exclusion in their health act that at least protects health care professionals from any liability if they stop and offer assistance in circumstances outside of a normal medical or hospital environment. However, even in those provinces the question is left dangling as to whether the general citizenry are protected.

Looking at what has been done in other provinces and the fact that 36 American states have good Samaritan acts and that around the world it is generally recognized that it is important to protect people who offer their assistance to others in times of need, protect them from any civil liability, it's in that spirit that I introduced this bill last week and rise to debate it on second reading here today.

The bill basically is broken into two parts. It recognizes that there has been a different test applied to health care professionals who may offer assistance in cases of emergency medical need. I was very pleased that both the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, representing registered nurses, and the Ontario Medical Association, representing Ontario's doctors, were pleased to support this bill.

In fact, Dr Ted Boadway, the director of policy for the OMA, joined me at the press conference last week where we first introduced this bill to the public. Dr Boadway is, obviously, a physician himself, with decades of experience in thoracic surgery. He provided personal examples of instances where he himself has stopped to render roadside assistance.

He said that the first thing that seizes you is that adrenalin rush - you want to help, it's the natural human instinct to help - but at the same time you're not in your normal operating environment: You don't have your equipment with you; you don't have any other staff to back you up, to give you that second opinion.

He said, "There's that moment of doubt, a moment of hesitation." He said, "Knowing how I as a trained MD felt in that circumstance, I can certainly appreciate how someone in the general public, with no medical training, would have been quite concerned about whether they should be wading in to offer assistance." Of course, he conquered that momentary hesitation and went on to render aid, but the fact remains that if even doctors in this province have that doubt, surely we need a bill like this to clarify the issue once and for all.

Dr Boadway said they have from time to time canvassed doctors, not just in Ontario but across Canada, and the issue is one that has been front and centre in the minds of doctors. They have a very legitimate concern that in our increasingly litigious age we're going to follow the American model and people will be suing for almost anything, and they might be caught up in that mindset.

In 1992 the British Columbia Medical Association commissioned a report that concluded that it was critical that there be some kind of protection for doctors. They outlined the conditions under which such a bill and such protection should apply, and I'm pleased to say that the bill we've put on the order paper here conforms to all five of those points.

What the bill also does, though, over and above protecting health care professionals, is that it very specifically says that anyone else in the public who offers aid to someone in a case of emergency will also be protected from civil liability. The rule of thumb is a very logical one. I'm not a lawyer, but it's been explained to me by legal counsel. Precedent exists that doing things that are the action of a reasonable man or woman will be protected.

Gross negligence, on the other hand, will continue to be something that might invite a lawsuit, but gross negligence is defined as doing something that you should know not to do, so that's hardly the category of what we're talking about here today, one would hope. One would hope that everyone who stops at the roadside to render assistance knows their personal capabilities, knows either how to perform first aid or CPR or at least get a blanket and call 911 and offer assistance. This bill will protect anyone who performs those sorts of good Samaritan acts.

The bill also does not prevent someone from reimbursing you. If in the course of performing that duty you use an ambulance and it gets damaged, if other supplies are used, it would be permissible for someone to respect the fact that it did cost you out of pocket and pay you back.

But the bill makes it very clear that, particularly for health care professionals, this doesn't relieve them of any kind of obligation to perform the top-quality services we take for granted in this province in hospitals and in their own offices, because the bill says this protects them only where there is not the expectation of being paid.

This does not in any way give new protection against any sort of medical suit arising from the work they would be doing in their normal practice, but it does respect the fact that in a circumstance where they're stopping to render aid without the expectation of payment, they will be protected.

The act defines what is a health care professional. That means a member of a college of one of the health professions as set out in

schedule 1 of the Regulated Health Professions Act.

I believe the act is very specific, not only in its intent but in its content. In talking to members on both sides of the House, I have yet to discover anyone who has any reservations. I'm very pleased, and I look forward to the comments that come forward during the debate in the next hour.

The bottom line, though, is that we should be celebrating voluntarism. We should be doing anything in our power to promote voluntarism, to promote helping others in times of need. There are any number of circumstances, any number of times in our lives where we will be called upon to make that decision, to make a judgement call about whether we have the capability to help out.

I hope this bill in some small way increases the comfort level particularly for health care professionals but also for the general citizenry, that one thing they won't have to worry about is civil liability if they go out there, do their best and serve others in the community in a caring and compassionate way that we would all like to see as the hallmark of life in Ontario.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): I'll be speaking on this bill very briefly, and then the member for St Catharines will be taking some time as well.

I was somewhat disturbed that the member stated at the outset that this bill is part of the government program or part of what this government believes in. I was under the impression that this is private members' hour and that we bring our concerns in that fashion to this House. I honestly do not understand how this bill fits in with the rest of the government's agenda, because the rest of the government's agenda is something that I and the members of my caucus don't agree with at all. Most of the agenda seems to be to go after the most vulnerable in our society, and I see absolutely no relationship between that agenda and the Good Samaritan Act.

The second point I want to make is that I hope the general public doesn't, as a result of this bill, have some sort of false sense of security that if this bill passes they can no longer be sued by people who may, for whatever reason, feel they weren't properly treated in an emergency situation.

I realize it was probably as a result of legal counsel giving this advice, but when you add clauses such as "unless it is established the damages were caused by the gross negligence of the person," I guarantee that if somebody has been helped by a good Samaritan and wants to initiate a court action against that individual, they will allege gross negligence. Whether they can prove it is something else again.

The general public ought not to misunderstand. Once this passes, there may be a smaller likelihood of them being sued by whomever they help, but it's still out there. The person would have to prove gross negligence, which I agree is tough to do under certain circumstances - there would have to be flagrant disregard of the person's security and of how the person is to be helped - but I don't think the general public ought to be under any illusions that somehow this puts an end to all that, that if they are a good Samaritan and help an individual who's in trouble, whether they're a health care professional or a private individual, they somehow cannot be involved in a court action.

Of course it's like that with respect to most court actions. I always tell individuals, you can't stop somebody from suing you. Whether or not they're able to actually prove what they allege in their suit is one thing, but there's no such thing as not being able to sue somebody else. I suppose to a certain extent what's happening in our Canadian field of justice and legal system is that we are getting closer and closer to and more and more involved in the Americanization of our system, where people do take actions a lot quicker than they would have let's say 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

Other than that, I support this bill, as long as the public is not under the illusion that this will give them a blanket protection with respect to helping people who are involved in emergency situations.

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): It's a most unusual day. The New Democrats find themselves supporting two bills prompted by Conservative backbenchers. I say it is remarkable that we see two bills, Mr Gilchrist's among them, that are non-partisan in nature. Enough said in that regard. I'll not be partisan in my comments.

I want to remind the sponsor of this bill that this isn't the first time a Tory government has had an opportunity to consider good Samaritan legislation. Mr Gilchrist, I hope your colleagues are kinder to you than Tory backbenchers were back in 1984, when Ray Haggerty, the member for Niagara South, for whom I have the highest regard and continue to have high regard - he's well, and working in those communities in Niagara South. Ray Haggerty sponsored a private member's bill in 1984, good Samaritan legislation. He was a Liberal opposition member at the time.

The Conservative government of that day let it die without calling it to be enacted into law. I hope you're more successful than Mr Haggerty was and I hope your Conservative colleagues are kinder to you than they were in 1984 to Mr Haggerty. It was very non-partisan and well-intentioned legislation, very similar to yours as contained in Bill 166.

You've spoken of some of the background. Interestingly, the first good Samaritan legislation in North America was, predictably, from the state of California, perhaps one of the most notoriously litigious jurisdictions in all of the United States, in all of North America. It was 1959. The trend soon travelled, as one author put it, northward, where we saw through the 1960s various Canadian jurisdictions considering good Samaritan legislation. Interestingly, back in 1970 the Ontario Law Reform Commission, as I understand it from the literature, recommended against good Samaritan legislation.

By some authors, regarding those jurisdictions that had enacted it and the experience they had, the legislation was described as otiose. This may well end up being the case for this bill here in Ontario. As I say, we're supporting it and we welcome it.

One of the observations is of course that Canadian jurisdictions tend not be as litigious for a variety reasons: mindset, but some other real reasons included. It's been explained by those who have felt there's no need for good Samaritan legislation that the common law as it exists in Ontario and throughout most of Canada, all but one Canadian jurisdiction, in fact protects Samaritans in any event.

Notwithstanding that - and I was particularly grateful for the

article written by Mitchell McInnes, "Good Samaritan Statutes: A

Summary and Analysis." McInnes speaks of the impact of good Samaritan legislation as not necessarily required to protect Samaritans, but, if that is the case, useful in that it encourages people to act and perhaps addresses the mythology of liability. In that regard alone, I agree with McInnes and I agree with Mr Gilchrist that the statute, this bill, is worthy of support.

Of course, the standard of gross negligence is contained here, a troublesome standard, because it's a very high one, as Mr Gerretsen has already explained. It's a very high threshold indeed. Whether or not the story about Mitch Hepburn and the hitchhiker is merely anecdotal, gross negligence is a standard that injured parties find very difficult to meet.

This bill addresses more so the concerns of health care professionals, because they're more inclined, I suspect, to be conscious of the potential for litigation inherent in their dealing with an injured party or injured persons. I'm confident that most Ontarians, if not all Ontarians, would be eager to address emergencies and traumas that are anticipated or contemplated by this bill without regard for the prospect of litigation. It would tend to be doctors or nurses who would be more conscious of the prospect of litigation.

The bill is modelled on current legislation across North America. Quite frankly, I suspect this bill should go to committee, because it should be addressed by some of the parties who are going to find themselves impacted. There may well be a need for addressing either deficiencies or language in the bill. I can contemplate a number of parties who would be interested in participating in those hearings and I look forward to addressing this bill in committee after today's second reading as well.

Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): It is my pleasure to join in the debate on ballot item 2,standing in the name of Mr Gilchrist, as he has presented Bill 166 before us today. He has carried many bills on behalf of the government, including Bill 81, the Fewer Politicians Act, where we reduced the number of politicians here at Queen's Park from 130 to 103. He also carried Bill 103, the City of Toronto Act, in his role as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

But he also has brought forward many different private members' bills to this House, like Bill 28, which was

An Act to amend the Municipal Act to name Civic Holiday as Simcoe Day here in Ontario for that long holiday weekend in August. He also brought before us Bill 53, which is

An Act to Promote Full Financial Accountability of Labour Unions and Employees Associations to Their Members.

These are a lot of bills that he has felt very passionately about, and it's no surprise that he would bring Bill 166 before the House today, which is

An Act to protect Persons from Liability in respect of Voluntary Emergency Medical or First Aid Services.

I want to commend him and let him know that I will be voting in favour of his bill because, as he said in his comments, doctors, nurses and other health care professionals will not be held responsible for damages that result from their negligence in acting or failing to act unless the damages were caused by gross negligence, providing that the care was provided at a location other than a hospital or health care facility and that the care was provided voluntarily and without reasonable expectation of reward.

I think this is a good bill because it goes beyond that in that it also protects any other individual who provides assistance at the immediate scene of an accident or other emergency to a person who is ill, injured or unconscious. I think that's very, very important to keep in mind because in Ontario, indeed across Canada, we're trying to encourage people to take

part in first aid training courses. In my community of Scarborough, which is the community that Mr Gilchrist hails from as well, all sorts of activities are happening where people are learning first aid and CPR training.

In one high school in my riding, R.H. King Academy, which celebrated its 75th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, they have a program where the students learn all about CPR. What a shame it would be if those students who learned CPR could not use it, if there were other first aid techniques that those students or indeed other people across Ontario had learned but couldn't use because they were afraid they would not be protected from civil liability.

What Bill 166 does is protect everyone in this province who wants to assist an injured person. I think, by assisting injured people in our communities, we are doing everything we can to provide for safer communities. I commend the member for bringing that forward.

He also talked about roadside assistance taking place, where perhaps there was an accident happening and someone drove by and wanted to help an individual there, that they would not fear any civil reprisals for assisting that person.

If we didn't have this bill, if a civil action were to take place in this province where someone did successfully sue at a large cost to someone for helping, those individuals would set an example to the rest of the province and they would not want to help others. I think it would be a sad day in Ontario if that day were to come forward. Mr Gilchrist's bill addresses that and makes for a much safer province because people will want to help their fellow people here in Ontario.

I know he has support from the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario. There is a letter Mr Gilchrist sent to all the members, signed by Doris Grinspun, RN, who is the executive director of the RNAO, who says: "We believe our members will appreciate the explicit statement that they could voluntarily render this type of assistance and that they would not be liable for problems resulting from the assistance, with the exception of those resulting from gross negligence."

I would join Ms Grinspun and all other members of the House who have spoken today to encourage everyone to support Mr Gilchrist's bill. I think it's a worthy bill. The type of bill he has brought forward shows he is a member of principle and is working hard on behalf of his constituents; indeed it shows a lot of compassion for the people of Ontario.

Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): It's certainly a pleasure for me to be able to rise and support the member for Scarborough East in his bill, the Good Samaritan Act, Bill 166. I commend him for this thinking and this idea; it's not exactly original, it is in several other states, but I certainly commend him for bringing it forward at this time.

One of the roles of government is to protect our citizens. Certainly the Good Samaritan Act is about that, protecting people from liability when they try to go and help someone else, particularly those in the health professions. However, it also recognizes that it's not about to protect people for stupidity or gross negligence.

I'm certainly very supportive of this bill. You may recall that back in December I brought forward a resolution to provide some protection from liability to volunteers in general. There's no question that people hold back because of this kind of concern. This particular bill is more specific, referred to as the good Samaritan bill. We use this term quite commonly, and really the title comes from our Christian Bible and a parable in that Bible. When asked by a teacher of law, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus responded with the parable of the good Samaritan:

"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was, and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him."

You have to wonder why the priest wouldn't have been doing the very same thing; probably not because of liability but because of the association, and there would be some liability with his peer groups at that time.

This bill recognizes the medical profession in particular. As they arrive on an accident scene with not even a stethoscope to help them, they certainly feel very uncomfortable and concerned about liability. Private citizens coming forward, doing anything from putting pressure on a bleeding point to tourniquets to moving somebody off a busy street, could cause some other kind of damage that they might be sued for, so they get pretty concerned about this kind of thing and step around or try not to get involved.

I'm even told that some of our medical professionals have been told by insurers who cover their liability insurance, "Don't get involved, because it may end up costing you more in liability insurance in the future." I think that's pretty unfortunate.

Doing a little research on this particular bill, I found that the only provinces and territories in Canada without a bill such as this are Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba. As mentioned earlier, it was brought forward in 1984 but did not get passed. In the United States, some 50 states have a total of 110 statutes covering legal protection headed up as good Samaritan bills.

I also think it's interesting to note that in many countries, almost all the countries in Europe, many of the states and even in Quebec, there is a law about duty to rescue when people are in trouble, particularly with their health. People are required to come to their rescue. However it's rather ironic, as you look at Quebec, that they don't have a good Samaritan act to protect their residents from liability, but they do have this requirement in their province that a person seeing somebody else in trouble is liable if they don't come to their rescue. It's kind of an interesting bit of legislation there.

I see this as enabling legislation to encourage people to get involved so that people won't be in trouble with liability and be sued for their life earnings and they will be more willing to come forward when they have that opportunity.

I think it warrants a quote at this time from the 20th-century philosopher Kahlil Gibran, who wrote: "You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give." Here we want to protect those people who truly give of themselves.

In winding up, I think this is certainly a very worthwhile bill put forward by my seatmate here, the member for Scarborough East. It's very thoughtfully brought forward at this time. It certainly deserves our support, by all three parties here in the House. I don't think there is any question it's going to receive that. I'd even encourage them to go one step further and give unanimous approval that this receive third reading and we get on and put it in law.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak in favour of the bill by Mr Haggerty, the member for Erie - I'm sorry: Mr Gilchrist, the member for Scarborough East. I recall as well as the member for Welland-Thorold has that Ray Haggerty, the former member for what was called Erie, and then Niagara South, was an individual who brought forward such a bill and it was compelling at that time. We could have had it in 1984, as a matter of fact, but the Conservative government of the day refused to allow the bill to proceed so it could be in effect, so here we are in 1997, dealing with the issue once again.

Heaven knows we will need a lot of good Samaritans in Ontario for a variety of reasons I can think of. We'll need good Samaritans to keep the hospitals open in the Niagara region because when the person is assisted at roadside, as we would hope the person would be, that person then has to go to a hospital. Well, in the Niagara region, the plan now is to close or radically alter five of the hospitals region.

They want to close the Hotel Dieu Hospital. They want to close or radically change the Douglas Memorial Hospital in Erie, the Port Colborne hospital, the West Lincoln Memorial Hospital in Grimsby, the Niagara-on-the-Lake hospital. I'm wondering if, when the person assists someone in the Niagara region, for instance, they will have a hospital to go to. I doubt that is going to be the case.

That is why we'll need other good Samaritans out there to ensure we don't close the hospitals, because I remember, as everyone in the House will, the Premier during the last provincial election campaign saying, and I quote - you will remember me saying this on numerous occasions - "Certainly, I can guarantee you it is not my plan to close hospitals."

We've had several hospitals now that have closed in the province and several that are under the potential axe of the provincial government. I just hope that when someone assists someone at roadside, as I believe they should, as this legislation will enable them to do, there will be other good Samaritans out there to advocate on behalf of the various hospitals that are under threat by the Harris government.

I hope there are good Samaritans out there because once the people leave hospital, they have to have home care, and in the Niagara region we have cutbacks in home care now. People who before were able to get a service from nurses and physiotherapists and housekeepers and so on - this is often the frail elderly who are now being kicked out of the hospital more quickly and more sickly - are being cut back at this very time in their home care services.

I worry whether the person who is helped by the good Samaritan at roadside, for instance, will have hospital care and then will have this home care. So we'll need good Samaritans as well to advocate for more home care in the Niagara region and for not cutting the services out while we're giving a tax cut which will benefit the wealthiest people in our society.

We will need good Samaritans to deal with user fees, which the province is now imposing in the field of health care. I'm worried about that because once the good Samaritan has come to the roadside to help the person who is in the accident, they have to get that person to the hospital, and now we find out that downloaded to the municipalities is ambulance services. I know there are companies on the other side of the border, American companies that charge huge amounts of money for ambulance services, that can't wait to get into Ontario and take over this privatized service. As a result, people will have to pay even more.

I worry about those people who are being helped by the good Samaritan. You can see that there is more than simply assisting the person, as I believe we all should, particularly medical personnel who have some expertise. They have to get them into a hospital, and we're closing hospitals. We have to get them then to home care, and they're cutting back on home care. Then we have to make sure they don't have these user fees for the ambulance, and that there are ambulance services out there for them. We need good Samaritans to advocate there as well.

We need good Samaritans because some of these people are going to have to get health cards. As my colleague from Renfrew North has noted, there are people now who are going to have to come a long way from smaller outlying areas, and these are often people who don't have the capabilities to travel, into a major, I won't say urban area but a town at the very least to get their health care cards, to get that photograph taken. There's great worry about that, so we will need good Samaritans to advocate on behalf of those people. We have to make sure of that.

Sometimes as a result of an accident that takes place on the roadside where the good Samaritan goes to help that person - and we always hope this doesn't happen - people are permanently disabled as a result. We will need good Samaritans to advocate for the disabled, who are worried that they are losing their disability benefits as a result of the changes of policy of the government of Mike Harris. I'll be looking for the good Samaritans advocating on their behalf.

Some of them, as a result of an accident, for instance, may end up needing psychiatric care. It may affect them in a psychiatric sense. Those people will need the psychiatric services of the community. They will need good Samaritans advocating on behalf of those psychiatric services. There are families out there today who are finding it extremely difficult to cope with relatives and perhaps close friends who need psychiatric services. At this time, as governments deinstitutionalize or take people out of major hospitals and place them into the community, we don't see the services in the community.

If you look at the homeless people, many of those homeless people have psychiatric problems that have to be addressed, but when we're busy giving a tax cut of 30% in the provincial income tax, which benefits the wealthiest people in our society, it's difficult to address those needs and we will need those good Samaritans to address those needs.

Indeed, just their peace of mind has to be addressed, so we will need good Samaritans to protect the Niagara Escarpment, because people want to enjoy that peace of mind, that beauty that's around them. If there happened to be an accident that took place near the Niagara Escarpment, people might even be thinking about the Niagara Escarpment and the need for good appointments to the Niagara Escarpment Commission.

I note that one of the people who was appointed to the commission, who we in the opposition opposed strenuously, has now had to leave the commission. I wish I could say I was surprised. I was not. This is what happens when you have the old boys' network that says: "We've got to get good old whoever on the commission because he's been a good Tory supporter and he'll show those pointy-headed professors in Toronto and those pinko environmentalists that we can develop that Niagara Escarpment. We can have the Hilton. We can have golf courses. We can have all kinds of development, because development's good, it'll produce jobs." We'll need good Samaritans to protect the escarpment.

We will need good Samaritans to protect -

Interjection.

Mr Bradley: I always wonder why our good friend the member for Etobicoke-Humber didn't run for the federal Parliament. He sits here as a provincial member. He interjects constantly something about the federal government - all the time. I think he should run federally next time.

I would like to see as well a good Samaritan to help out those who are going to be hurt by the defunding of the education system. We now have a situation where the Ontario government, despite the fact that in Bill 160 the government said, "That has nothing to do with it," they said to the members: "Here's your script. You go out and you say to the people: `Don't you worry, this bill has nothing to do with funding of education. It's not about taking money out of education.'"

Then, of course, they found -

Interjection.

Mr Bradley: Speaking of bureaucrats - I'm glad there was an interjection, illegal as it might be, because we found the contract from the bureaucrat. The Deputy Minister of Education had right in her contract that she must take an additional $667 million, two thirds of $1 billion, out of the education system, on top of the $533 million - that's over half a billion dollars - already taken out, and the amount that was cemented as a permanent cut as a result of the social contract. So we will need good Samaritans to advocate on behalf of the students of this province, from junior kindergarten to adult education.

We will need good Samaritans to help out with the Minister of the Environment, who has had his budget cut by one third, the staff cut by one third, the resources cut way back, subtle changes made to regulations and some legislative changes that will have a detrimental impact on the environment.

I'm glad my colleague from Scarborough East brought forward a bill that deals with good Samaritans, because we'll need all these good Samaritans. I want to tell him I'm going to vote for it. I'm going to tell the member for Scarborough East I am going to vote in favour of this legislation, because I think with the Harris government in power in this province we will need a lot of good Samaritans; not just the good Samaritans to help out appropriately, as my friend from Scarborough East suggests in this bill, and I want to support that, but also to help out in the many other areas where people are feeling the impact of the oppressive policies of the Conservative government of Mike Harris.

I want to commend the member for bringing forward this legislation.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I too wish to rise and speak in favour of this bill. This is a good Samaritan bill, and I'm not sure but I think there was a bill called the Donation of Food Act which was passed in 1994, and I believe it may have been under the sponsorship of the leader of the official opposition, but I could be corrected. That bill was to protect the food bank donors.

There have been a number of good Samaritan bills that have passed across this country. I think New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have one, and I believe there's one here - I think it received third reading; it may even be law - from the leader of the official opposition, as he then was, as a private member in a private member's bill. That was to protect donors or distributors of food from liability for damages arising from injury or death resulting from the food. So the good Samaritan bill is not a new principle in this place. I had a bill several years ago that was similar.

What I believe this bill is trying to do, among other things, is to protect the individual who comes and discovers an accident - it could be a motor vehicle accident - and tries to assist that person. It could be a health professional, it could be a layperson who does their best to assist the person until the appropriate medical authority, a police officer, an ambulance person, a firefighter, comes to provide assistance to that individual, and protect those individuals from civil action.

I might emphasize that the words "gross negligence" are used. Obviously, if there was gross negligence by the good Samaritan, they would not receive assistance. The definition of "gross negligence" is - of course, that's sometimes dangerous because it applies in different situations.

"`Gross negligence'" - this from Black's law dictionary - "is defined as the intentional failure to perform a manifest duty, in reckless disregard of the consequences as affecting the life or property of another. Gross negligence consists of a conscious indifference, a voluntary act of omission that is likely to result in grave injury when in the face of clear and present danger." And it goes on.

The type of situation - I have an acquaintance, a nurse, who a number of years ago was having coffee in a restaurant. Outside the restaurant an accident occurs. She and her friend, a nurse, went to the assistance of this person - I believe it was a motorcycle accident and he was thrown something like 50 feet. They began CPR. As luck would have it, a passerby who was asthmatic gave them an oxygen tank and a mask he had in the car. As a result, there were problems and these two nurses were sued in a civil action.

The action was subsequently lost, but when that type of thing gets around, that passersby, good Samaritans, who are honestly doing - they were completely exonerated later by a medical examiner who determined in fact that their actions saved the life of this individual. Problems were caused not as a result of the actions of the nurses, but because of the injury itself. The problem was these two nurses were sued. They had to hire a lawyer, they had to pay lawyers' costs and they had to go to court. It didn't get that far, but the very fact of the matter is that it was instituted.

This bill will protect those nurses, if that were to happen today. I might add, the medical examiner said, "Be less intrusive. Just wait for the ambulance to come," to reduce their chances of a lawsuit. That was the advice that was given. We don't want that to happen in our province.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The member for Scarborough East has two minutes to wrap up.

Mr Gilchrist: First off, I would like to thank my colleagues on both sides of the House, the member for Kingston and The Islands, the member for Welland-Thorold, the member for St Catharines and of course my colleagues the members for Scarborough Centre, Northumberland and Dufferin-Peel, for their comments. I appreciate very much their expressions of support. It is very important for people to see that this is an issue that does transcend partisan politics, although I was pleased to indulge Mr Bradley the equal air time for his other expressions.

There's no doubt, and Mr Gerretsen raised the issue, that no bill is going to stop people from being able to put forward a lawsuit, but by setting such a high standard of expectations, it will certainly minimize the likelihood of a frivolous lawsuit or one that the proponent of the suit does not believe meets the test of gross negligence. Again, that is expressed by the actions, as my colleague from Dufferin-Peel pointed out, that someone should know not to do.

My colleague from Welland-Thorold correctly pointed out, as did the member for St Catharines, that attempts have been made to introduce similar legislation in this House before. It was something we discovered during our research. I'm disappointed it didn't pass then, but I think it highlights the fact that, even as far back as 1984, members in this House recognized the need to plug this loophole, recognized the need to bring forward legislation that protected volunteers, protected good Samaritans in this province.

As my colleague Mr Newman from Scarborough Centre pointed out, we're making investments - not just the province, but others are making investments, such as the Advanced Coronary Treatment Foundation of Canada that's promoting CPR training in high schools in this province. Given the partnership there, the promotion of volunteerism, the promotion of first aid training, it would be ironic if we had any kind of a barrier in the minds of people or on the statute books. This bill assures that there is no such barrier.

Again I thank my colleagues, and I look forward to their support of this bill now and during third reading.

The Acting Speaker: There being no further debate, pursuant to standing order 95(e), this House is suspended until 12 noon.

The House recessed from 1149 to 1200.

PROTECTION AGAINST PEDOPHILES ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LA PROTECTION CONTRE LES PÉDOPHILES

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): We will deal first with ballot item number 1. Mr Brown has moved second reading of Bill 145. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? It is carried.

Shall the bill be referred to the standing committee?

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): Yes, of justice.

The Acting Speaker: Is it agreed? Agreed. It will be referred to the standing committee on administration of justice.

GOOD SAMARITAN ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LE BON SAMARITAIN

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): We will now deal with ballot item number 2. Mr Gilchrist has moved second reading of Bill 166. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Shall this bill be referred to a standing committee?

Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): Yes, Mr Speaker, I would ask agreement from my colleagues to refer this bill to the standing committee on general government.

The Acting Speaker: Is it agreed that this is referred to the standing committee on general government? Agreed.

It being a little after 12, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 this afternoon.

The House recessed from 1202 to 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): I wish to address my remarks to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. I would like to bring to his attention the release from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp of a few days ago where the availability of rental units has taken a sharp drop in most Canadian cities, especially here in Ontario, including St Catharines, London, Oshawa and Ottawa. Here in Toronto we have dropped from 1.2% to 0.8% vacancy rate. I would like to tell the minister that this represents a dramatic drop and it's causing a dramatic situation with respect to those people looking for reasonable accommodation.

What this means is that rents are going to skyrocket and the availability of reasonable, affordable accommodation is going to be practically nil.

Those most affected, especially now as we enter the Christmas season, as we enter winter, are the homeless, those people who can't afford anything else. They will have to look for underpasses or bridges to find accommodation this winter.

I'm surprised to see the minister in total inertia, doing nothing about it. I would say to the minister, make it your New Year's resolution and do something about it. Don't wait for the municipalities. It is your job, your responsibility to provide affordable, decent accommodation for the needy people in Ontario.

FAMILY RESPONSIBILITY OFFICE

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): More than a year after the Attorney General's family support plan was exposed as being non-operational, my constituency office and the constituency offices of my colleagues continue to be plagued by complaints about the ineffectiveness and the bungling that continues to go on at the support plan, Charlie Harnick's supposed Family Responsibility Office.

My staff are plagued with calls of women and children not receiving moneys that have been remitted by their spouses' employers. Their inquiries to the family support plan are met as often as not with an indifference and a mere shrug. One comment received by one of my staff people was, "Why don't these people," to wit, the mother and children, "get their lives together?" implying that it's their fault that they're not receiving the moneys that are being garnished from their ex-spouses' wages.

In another instance it was suggested to one of my constituency staff that it was "only $500," that family support plan employee of Charlie Harnick not understanding that for that woman and her children, yes, a mere $500 is a considerable amount of money.

You, Attorney General, have displayed your incompetence, your laziness and your indifference to children and their mothers in this province long enough. It's about time, I tell you, Attorney General, that you resign, that you transfer responsibility for the family support plan to somebody who displays a modest amount of competence.

DRINKING AND DRIVING

Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): It gives me great pleasure to rise today and inform the members of the House of a local anti-driving-and-drinking campaign that is taking place in my riding of Chatham-Kent. Operation Red Nose is first and foremost a campaign against impaired driving. It provides, during the month of December, a free designated driver service to motorists who have been drinking, who are not able to drive their own vehicle.

The program, managed and run by local volunteers, aims to improve the safety of our streets not only during the holiday period but throughout the year. The program is designed to enhance our community by building community ties through five common goals: awareness, education, information, prevention and funding local youth organizations.

Operation Red Nose is non-moralistic and is neutral on drinking. The position is simple: If you drink, don't drive. As honorary chair of Operation Red Nose in Chatham-Kent, I would like to say that I'm very proud to be part of this organization and of a community that believes in neighbour helping neighbour.

EDUCATION REFORM

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): This past Tuesday evening a town hall meeting on Bill 160 was held at Lockerby Composite School. I want to thank David Chellow, the president of the parent advisory council of MacLeod Public School, for organizing the event which involved 10 south end Sudbury schools.

There was an excellent turnout and an excellent exchange of ideas, but in the end most of the people who were in attendance were still very concerned with Bill 160.

Pat Nurmi from my Sudbury office forwarded a petition to me signed by concerned residents from Sudbury and Sudbury East. In it, they expressed concern about the partnership between Mike Harris and the former NDP Minister of Education Dave Cooke. Certainly the feeling is that this alliance of educational philosophies between the Conservatives and the former NDP education minister equals bad education. Although this alliance in philosophy between Mike Harris and Dave Cooke may define EIC as the Education Improvement Commission, my constituents, and those of the Sudbury East riding, define EIC as education in crisis.

They ask that the government rescind Bill 160, dissolve the partnership between Mike Harris and the former NDP Minister of Education Dave Cooke.

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): I want to take this opportunity today to congratulate all those men and women who recently ran for office in municipal elections right across the province, in particular the riding of Cochrane North. The commitment, goodwill and dedication that will be demanded on the part of the newly elected mayors, reeves and councillors and school trustees will be enormous, given the scope and the magnitude of the change that is being forced on them by this Conservative government with the passing of Bill 152.

Communities in the north will be hit hard by the whole downloading exercise: provincial highways, social assistance, policing, public housing, ambulance service, day care, public health, policing costs and a number of other issues. Local governments are forced to make do with what is essentially a shell game.

With this in mind, I want to extend my congratulations to the following people: Donald Genier of Cochrane, Fred Poulin of Smooth Rock Falls, Roger Chevrier of Opasatika, Jean Claude Caron of Kapuskasing, Real Cousineau of Glackmeyer township, Claude D'Amours of Moonbeam, Paul Zorzetto in Mattice and Laurier Bourgeois in Val Rita. I know these men and women are going to work hard. They're committed to working to ensure that northern communities remain strong and vibrant communities despite the actions of the Conservative government.

As I pointed out, I'm meeting with the various reeves and mayors and town councillors. We know there's going to have to be money brought out because the downloading is not revenue-neutral. It never was intended to be revenue-neutral as far as I'm concerned. There are probably millions of dollars - $25 million or more - owed to Cochrane North municipalities.

MARK MESSIER

Mr Ron Johnson (Brantford): I rise in the House today as a patriotic Canadian and native of Brantford, the home town of hockey great Wayne Gretzky, to draw attention to a grave and serious injustice.

Daily on the streets of my community, in its coffee shops, restaurants, barber shops, on the radio and in telephone calls to my constituency office, I hear the indignation, the sense of betrayal, shock and even outrage. I speak of something which I believe can have far-reaching and long-range implications on national unity, which could tear at the very fabric which holds our country together.

I speak of the very serious omission of a fellow patriotic Canadian from the Canadian Olympic hockey team, someone who has always answered the call of his country without hesitation, someone who has consistently exemplified the qualities of leadership and team building we try to instil in our young people.

I speak of the exclusion of a six-time Stanley Cup winner, two-time Hart Trophy winner for league MVP, Conn Smythe Trophy winner for playoff MVP, a four-time, first-team, all-star player with 1,272 regular season games, 575 goals, 1,552 points, 1,596 penalty minutes, 236 playoff games and 295 playoff points.

I speak of Mark Messier, a true Canadian. I urge all patriotic Canadians to contact the Canadian Hockey Association in Calgary at 1-888-846-4244 to voice their displeasure at this very serious injustice.

NIAGARA ESCARPMENT COMMISSION

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): When the members of the opposition expressed grave concern about the appointment of Norman Seabrook to the Niagara Escarpment Commission, the Conservative members of the government agencies committee rallied to his side and voted unanimously to approve his appointment.

Even though Mr Seabrook was believed to have a rather negative approach to the preservation of escarpment lands at a time when this environmental gem, declared by the United Nations to be a world biosphere, would be under pressure from developers eager to develop the landscape, the Minister of Natural Resources accepted the recommendation of the Niagara Escarpment critic, Bill Murdoch, to appoint Mr Seabrook.

Mr Seabrook in one of the meetings made a racial allusion which is no longer, and never should have been, acceptable in our society and referred to the commission by using this terminology. What this points out is how important it is that the government assess very carefully its appointments to various agencies, boards and commissions. It simply isn't good enough to have the old boys' network, where a member of the Legislature who happens to dislike, for instance, the Niagara Escarpment Commission and the preservation of the Niagara Escarpment lands is allowed to influence the government to have one of his friends appointed to the commission.

Let us hope this is a lesson for the government. Let us hope that the minister will now appoint those who are going to truly protect the escarpment.

EDUCATION REFORM

Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): I have read with interest in the Toronto Star this morning Mr Harris saying that he doesn't think the educational court challenge was "a productive use of time or money." Then he says, "It seems to be the way of the land these days that if you don't like anything that's done by a company or a municipality or a provincial or federal government, you hire lawyers and march off to court."

I say to the Premier that if he'd start listening to the people, bring democracy back to Ontario and stop breaking the law himself - his government has been caught on several occasions - then people wouldn't have to as a last resort go off to court. Where does the Premier get off telling people that he doesn't think going to court to fight against the unjust laws that are being made in this province against the will of the people is a productive thing to do?

On Saturday all kinds of people all over the province are finding ways to continue this battle over the demise of our public education system. On Saturday in my riding, from 11 o'clock to 3 o'clock, people will be gathering, parents and teachers and students, in my office at 288 Danforth to go door to door asking people to sign the petition to repeal this bill.

BLAKE MULLIN, DAVID STANLEY AND DONALD HILBORNE

Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): Tonight, two Oxford county volunteer firefighters will be honoured for their distinguished service as they are presented with the Ontario Medal for Firefighter Bravery. Princeton firefighters Blake Mullin and David Stanley will receive the honour along with three others from across Ontario.

These medals are given to individuals who show extreme bravery in the line of duty. Blake and Dave certainly displayed this extreme courage in November 1996, when they jumped into a liquid manure tank to rescue three farmers who had passed out due to the thick lethal gas fumes. The two firefighters, wearing air masks and air packs, went into the 12-foot tank to pull farmers out. They were assisted by other firefighters, who tied a rope around the waist of each of the men to help lower them into the tank and pull them out along with the three unconscious men.

This is indeed

an act of bravery. Tonight in the Legislative Building the volunteers will receive this prestigious award from the Honourable Hilary Weston, the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.

I would like to also bring the attention of the Legislature to the Oxford county -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Are we out of time? I think I made a mistake, member for Oxford, and didn't set the clock. It was my fault. I cut you off. When I stood up, you were cut off the mike, so if you want to continue from where I cut you off.

Is there unanimous consent that he read it again? Agreed. Okay. One more time from the top.

Mr Hardeman: I'd also like to bring the attention of the Legislature to Oxford resident Donald Hilborne, who was honoured Wednesday for outstanding achievement with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs in Woodstock. Donald was one of the recipients of this year's Amethyst Award. The Amethyst Award honours Ontario civil servants who are recognized for their excellence and outstanding achievement. He was honoured for his efforts in developing a computer program to help farmers reduce water pollution stemming from manure. We in Oxford are extremely proud of all three of these men and wish to congratulate them for their efforts.

Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): Point of privilege, Mr Speaker -

The Speaker: I should get those in advance.

Ms Churley: It's just unanimous consent to wear a button.

The Speaker: The member for Riverdale is requesting the wearing of a button for the women who were massacred. Agreed? Agreed.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I believe there is unanimous consent of all the parties to mark the anniversary of the murder in Montreal of the 14 women.

The Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.

DAY OF REMEMBRANCE AND ACTION ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): It is eight years now since the senseless, tragic killing of 14 bright young woman at l'École polytechnique in Montreal. Eight years later the horror of it is no less, and it should be no less. We cannot allow ourselves to forget the pain of the families or the incredible waste in the loss of these 14 lives. We cannot know for certain that these women were targeted for killing because they were pursuing a non-traditional field, although we believe that's so. We do know for certain that they were targeted for killing because they were women.

We know for certain that the bright futures of these young women were suddenly erased by a senseless, mad act and that it was not

an act of random violence; it was

an act against women, carried out against them because they were women.

I try, as the parent of four daughters, to imagine the continued grieving of the families and the friends of Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Maria Klucznik, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault and Annie Turcotte, and I cannot conceive of how their families and friends can cope with such a loss.

But my sense of the magnitude of what was lost eight years ago in such a sudden and horrific way increases my awareness of the vulnerability of my own daughters and all young women like them, and that renews my own commitment to do whatever I can to ensure that women can be safe and free from fear. We have such a long way to go. We know that domestic violence is increasing, not decreasing, despite greater awareness that domestic violence is a crime and that the crime now carries a greater likelihood of conviction and harsher penalties. We are not yet doing nearly enough to ensure that women can be safe in their own homes and can escape violent situations when their safety is threatened.

We know little about the origins of the senseless acts of violence against women on our streets or in a Toronto subway station. It is not sufficient to say that these are the acts of sick minds. Of course they are. But what predisposes a twisted mind to direct its anger and its violence towards women? Why are we so reluctant to understand that the roots of this targeted violence lie in the persistence of the abuse of power where women and children are so often the victims? And why do we not understand that sexual harassment is not unrelated to the horrific acts of violence that have the power to shock us so much?

We must do more to make our homes, our schools, our streets and our subways physically safe places for women. I acknowledge the efforts that are being made to take back the night, but even beyond this, we must not stop short as a society in our readiness to be shocked by violence wherever we see it, in every way that it makes itself known, from the abuse of children to the verbal abuse and sexual harassment of women, and to say: "Stop. This is not tolerable and it will not be allowed to continue."

Only then will our remembering of the killing of 14 young women eight years ago become truly meaningful and only then will we be able to pull some kind of sense out of this senseless loss.

Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): Eight years ago, after this horrific crime was committed, Stevie Cameron, a journalist who I think is well known to everybody here, wrote a story for the Globe and Mail in sharp reaction to the event. I thought it would be useful today to read excerpts from that article, because you have to remember that it was written very, very soon after the murder of these eight young women.

"They are so precious to us, our daughters. When they are born, we see their futures as unlimited and as they grow and learn, we try so hard to protect them: This is how we cross the street, hold my hand, wear your boots, don't talk to strangers, run to the neighbours if a man tries to get you in his car.

"We tell our bright, shining girls that they can be anything: firefighters, doctors, policewomen, lawyers, scientists, soldiers, athletes, artists. What we don't tell them, yet, is how hard it will be. Maybe, we say to ourselves, by the time they're older it will be easier for them than it was for us.

"But as they grow and learn, with aching hearts we have to start dealing with their bewilderment about injustice. Why do the boys get the best gyms, the best equipment and the best times on the field? Most of the school sports' budget? Why does football matter more than gymnastics? Why are most of the teachers women and most of the principals men? Why do the boys make more money at their part-time jobs than we do?

"And as they grow and learn we have to go on trying to protect them: We'll pick you up at the subway, we'll fetch you from the movie, stay with the group, make sure the parents drive you home from babysitting, don't walk across the park alone, lock the house if we're not there.

"It's not fair, they say. Boys can walk where they want, come in when they want, work where they want. Not really, we say; boys get attacked too. But boys are not targets for men the way girls are so girls have to be more careful.

"Sometimes our girls don't make it. Sometimes, despite our best efforts and all our love, they go on drugs, drop out, screw up. On the whole, however, our daughters turn into interesting, delightful people. They plan for college and university and with wonder and pride we see them competing with the boys for spaces in engineering schools, medical schools, law schools, business schools. For them we dream of Rhodes scholarships, Harvard graduate school, gold medals; sometimes, we even dare to say these words out loud and our daughters reward us with indulgent hugs. Our message is that anything is possible.

"We bite back the cautions that we feel we should give them; maybe by the time they've graduated, things will have changed, we say to ourselves....

"But we still warn them: park close to the movie, get a deadbolt for your apartment, check your windows, tell your roommates where you are. Call me. Call me.

"And then with aching hearts we take our precious daughters to lunch and listen to them talk about their friends: the one who was beaten by her boyfriend and then shunned by his friends when she asked for help from the dean, the one who was attacked in the parking lot, the one who gets obscene and threatening calls from a boy in her residence, the one who gets raped on a date, the one who was mocked by the male students in the public meeting.

"They tell us about the sexism they're discovering in the adult world at university. Women professors who can't get jobs, who can't get tenure. Male professors who cannot comprehend women's stony silence after sexist jokes. An administration that only pays lip-service to women's issues and refuses to accept the reality of physical danger to women on campus....

"What can we say to our bright and shining daughters? How can we tell them how much we hurt to see them developing the same scars we've carried? How much we wanted it to be different for them? It's all about power, we say to them. Sharing power is not easy for anyone and men do not find it easy to share among themselves, much less with a group of equally talented, able women. So men make all those stupid cracks about needing a sex change operation to get a job or a promotion and they wind up believing it....

"Now our daughters have been shocked to the core, as we all have, by the violence in Montreal. They hear the women were separated from the men and meticulously slaughtered by a man who blamed his troubles on feminists. They ask themselves why nobody was able to help the terrified women, to somehow stop the hunter as he roamed the engineering building.

"So now our daughters are truly frightened and it makes their mothers furious that they are frightened. They survived all the childhood dangers, they were careful as we trained them to be, they worked hard. Anything was possible and our daughters proved it. And now they are more scared than they were when they were little girls.

"Fourteen of our bright and shining daughters won places in engineering schools, doing things we, their mothers, only dreamed of. That we lost them has broken our hearts; what is worse is that we are not surprised."

This was written, as I said, shortly after, in the aftermath of the horrifying shock for all of us to find out about the murder of these young women.

Every year I join with my colleagues from all three parties. We attend a candlelight vigil at Women's College Hospital. As I stand in the House every year, I talk about what a painful and sad time that is, but how important a ceremony it is, because every year 14 of we women are given a red rose to hold, and that rose is not just a rose. Each rose symbolizes a young woman who was gunned down that day in the university. As we stand there and slowly, one after the other, come forward and place the rose representing a name, a person, that person, to each of us, becomes very real.

Most of us, as mothers ourselves, come out of there with broken hearts because in that ceremony every year, as we to some extent relive it, these young women who were murdered become real to us. It's not just something that happened eight years ago. And we remember all of the other women who have died at the hands of their male partners and other forms of violence against women.

I think it's important that we take the time every year in this House to stand up and speak and remember the murder of these women, because we must never forget.

Hon Dianne Cunningham (Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, minister responsible for women's issues): I rise with my colleagues today to recognize that December 6 is the national Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Today we remember the 14 bright young women, full of promise, whose lives were brutally cut short on December 6, 1989; whose lives were cut short because they were women and because they dared to walk a path that once had only been walked by men.

The female engineering students at l'École polytechnique represented hope for a profession that was opening its doors at that time to women in greater numbers. They stood as proof that entering a professional college is a matter of ability, not gender.

Today we remember the victims of the Montreal massacre. We mourn along with their families. Today we also commemorate the women who have died at the hands of their current or estranged partners.

We remember the thousands of Canadian women who right now, as we sit here in this Legislative Assembly, live under constant threat of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. They are our wives, our mothers, our grandmothers, our daughters, our aunts, our sisters, and we love them and we need to protect them as they nurture us.

Today we remember the victims and survivors of these crimes and we renew our commitment to end all forms of violence against women.

In the eight years since the Montreal massacre, too much attention has been paid to the person who did the killing. We look at news reports; we see his picture. We must stop it. We must stop mentioning the name and printing that picture. We must, however, remember what his motives were.

On this national Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, let us resolve to focus on the 14 women who lost their lives. Let us remember their names, as their families are surely doing today, and let them live on as symbols of hope for the future.

For every woman who graduates from a school of engineering - and there are many of them, but not enough - let us say, "This one is for you, Michèle Richard." For every woman who breaks through that glass ceiling and reaches her goal, let her say and let us say, "This one is for you, Annie Turcotte, Geneviève Bergeron or Hélène Colgan." And for each small victory in our own effort, for everyone here in this House who works in our communities to end that violence against women, let us say, "Sonia Pelletier, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maryse Laganière, Annie St-Arneault, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Barbara Maria Klucznik, this is for you."

On this national Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women, let us recognize the right of every woman, of every person, to be safe in our communities, in our homes, at school, on the street. All of us must state our commitment. All of us in this House, in our country, across our provinces, our communities and in our homes must commit to provide those supports, each and every one of us, to those women who continue to experience this terrible violence.

Mr Speaker, I ask that we take a moment of silence to remember those victims and their names.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Please rise.

The House observed a moment's silence.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

MILK AMENDMENT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR LE LAIT

Mr Villeneuve moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 170,

An Act to amend the Milk Act / Projet de loi 170, Loi modifiant la

Loi sur le lait.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Hon Noble Villeneuve (Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, minister responsible for francophone affairs): It's my pleasure to introduce a bill that will amend the Milk Act to allow the transfer of the raw milk quality program to the dairy farmers of Ontario. This legislation will ensure a continued supply of safe, high-quality dairy products to Ontario's consumers and increase efficiency in our raw milk inspection system.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (DRIVER TRAINING COURSE), 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (COURS DE CONDUITE AUTOMOBILE)

Mr Wettlaufer moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 171,

An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act to require applicants for a driver's licence to complete successfully a driver training course / Projet de loi 171, Loi modifiant le Code de la route pour exiger que l'auteur d'une demande d'un permis de conduire termine avec succès un cours de conduite automobile.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): I'm pleased to move the bill. The bill amends the Highway Traffic Act to require that an applicant for a driver's licence must, not more than two years before making the application, have successfully completed a driver training course approved by the Minister of Transportation.

ORAL QUESTIONS

PROPERTY TAXATION

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): My question is to the Premier and it's on the new property tax plan that will begin in 27 days. It's increasingly evident that the Premier and the government have taken a good idea, property tax reform, and are completely screwing it up.

I use the clerks and treasurers themselves, the people who have to implement this, who have said that this plan is going to create chaos in the municipal sector. They have told us that you are putting at risk the financial health of our municipal sector. They went on to say that they expect 600,000 appeals in the province of Ontario, and they've told us that no municipality will be sending out its final tax bills until at least July, probably August, and as late as September.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Question, please.

Mr Phillips: My question is this: The last date for appeal of your taxes in 1998 is June 29. That is before the tax bills go out. Why are you having the appeal date -

The Speaker: Thank you. Premier?

Hon Michael D. Harris (Premier): I'm not sure where you get your dates from or your information from. I appreciate your comment that it's a good idea, and I'd be interested in your thoughts on, if it was such a good idea, why you didn't do it in the five years you were in government.

Mr Phillips: You probably aren't aware of the dates because they're in your own bills. The last date for appeal, Premier, is June 29.

I just say on behalf of the taxpayers of Ontario, Mike Harris is going to set for the business community over half their property taxes. That bill will not arrive at our businesses until July or August, but Mike Harris has told you that the last date you can appeal your 1998 property taxes is June 29. The Mike Harris property tax bill arrives in July and the last date for appeal is June 29.

I ask you again, Premier, why have you set this up so that the last date of appeal is June 29, before they even get their tax bills? Why would you not allow people in 1998 to appeal their taxes after they finally find out how much you're socking to them?

Hon Mr Harris: I think the information will be out long before that, as it always is. There will be the interim tax bills, there will be the assessment data and there will be the formulas there. I think people will know, as they always do. I don't know what nonsense you're spewing.

Mr Phillips: I just say to all of the property taxpayers, listen carefully to this, because the Premier obviously does not know what he's talking about. The last date for appeal is June 29. No one in this province will be getting their 1998 tax bill until July, August or September. No one will know, Premier, how much their taxes are for 1998 until July, August or September. That is fact.

If you want to contradict that, I challenge you to contradict that. I challenge you to say I'm wrong. The final tax bills will not go out until July; the final date for appeal is June 29. That is fact. Stand up today and say it is not.

Hon Mr Harris: You are saying that people will not know by the time for the final notice, and you are wrong.

CARDIAC SURGERY