role="main" class="main-container container js-quickedit-main-content" id="main-content">

June 11, 1998

36th Parliament, 2nd Session

< Previous sitting day

Next sitting day >

Hansard Transcripts

vol. A

Hansard Transcripts

vol. B

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

L025a - Thu 11 Jun 1998 / Jeu 11 Jun 1998 1

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

SAFE SCHOOLS ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA SÉCURITÉ DANS LES ÉCOLES

PHYSICIAN SHORTAGE

SAFE SCHOOLS ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA SÉCURITÉ DANS LES ÉCOLES

PHYSICIAN SHORTAGE

SAFE SCHOOLS ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA SÉCURITÉ DANS LES ÉCOLES

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS PHILIPPINES INDEPENDENCE DAY

CONTROL OF SMOKING

MUDCAT FESTIVAL

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

NORTHERN TREATMENT CENTRE

ROHYPNOL

PAY EQUITY

BOROUGH OF EAST YORK

SENIORS' MONTH

VISITORS

JANE LEITCH

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

CITY OF TORONTO AMENDMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR LA CITÉ DE TORONTO

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

VICTIMS OF CRIME

ORAL QUESTIONS

VICTIMS OF CRIME

NURSING STAFF

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

CHARITABLE GAMING

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

AGRICULTURE PROGRAMS

YEAR 2000 PROBLEM

SAME-SEX BENEFITS

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

FIRE IN HAMILTON

ELECTORAL REFORM

ROYAL ASSENT / SANCTION ROYALE

PETITIONS

DURHAM UNIVERSITY CENTRE

ABORTION

PROTECTION FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

ABORTION

CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH CARE

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

PROTECTION FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

SCHOOL SAFETY

PROTECTION FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

ABORTION

COURT DECISION

CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH CARE

COURT DECISION

ORDERS OF THE DAY

RED TAPE REDUCTION ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 VISANT À RÉDUIRE LES FORMALITÉS ADMINISTRATIVES

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

SAFE SCHOOLS ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA SÉCURITÉ DANS LES ÉCOLES

Mr Newman moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 21,

An Act to promote Safety in Ontario Schools and create positive Learning Environments for Ontario Students by making amendments to the Education Act / Projet de loi 21, Loi visant à promouvoir la sécurité dans les écoles de l'Ontario et à créer des milieux d'apprentissage favorables pour les élèves ontariens en apportant des modifications à la

Loi sur l'éducation.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Pursuant to standing order 95(c)(i), the honourable member has 10 minutes for his presentation.

Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): Over the past decade, school yard violence has changed throughout North America, and Ontario has certainly not been immune to that change.

While many may argue whether violence in schools has or has not increased over the years, one thing is indeed certain: The acts have become more violent in recent years. More weapons are finding their way into our schools, and students are becoming more accepting of retaliation and violence as the norm in our society.

The problems do not exist solely in our largest cities. Small communities in Ontario are beginning to see changes as well.

Although Ontario schools cannot be compared to US schools, with metal detectors and armed guards roaming school corridors, we must not shy away from the issue just because it has not yet exploded here.

My Safe Schools Act will ensure that Ontario's schools are the safest places in the world to study and to work.

During the past two and a half years, I have been consulting with principals, teachers, students, parents, police and others across Ontario about school safety and what changes are needed. The overwhelming majority of people said that the province needed clear and consistent policies and programs, programs that would ensure safe learning and working environments for all students and teachers in Ontario, whether in a school in Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor or Thessalon. They told me that legislation needed to address all aspects of school safety, from programs to deal with those who had engaged in misconduct to programs designed to ensure that violence does not happen in the first place.

My Safe Schools Act provides a provincial framework and set of standards, while allowing local communities to tailor the specific programs and policies to their own local needs. My Safe Schools Act will ensure that generations to come are raised in an environment that stresses conflict resolution, not conflict, and teaches responsibility for one's actions.

My Safe Schools Act has certainly been a collaborative effort with education partners from across our province, and it will be an effective tool for reducing violence in Ontario's schools because it was developed with the input of people who will use it in Ontario's schools.

My Safe Schools Act, if passed by the Legislature, will create a new power entitled "exclusion" that will provide principals with a means to exclude students from regular classroom settings who are at risk of engaging in dangerous conduct, whose conduct is detrimental to the safety and security of other students or staff or as a response to students' misconduct. These students will be assigned to a guidance counsellor and directed to attend an alternative education program where they will remain until such time as the principal and the guidance counsellor are satisfied that the student is no longer a risk.

My act will also create a new provincial offence for trespassing on school property, with mandatory reporting of such incidents on the student's official record.

Further, my Safe Schools Act will require school boards to establish safe school programs, anti-bullying policies, school codes of conduct and anti-vandalism policies.

Safe school programs will have to include measurable objectives for improving school safety and a procedure to provide a public report card, on an annual basis, to demonstrate whether those objectives are being met.

Anti-bullying policies will require mandatory reporting procedures and will help to recognize and halt bullying before these students grow older and more violent.

School codes of conduct will also require mandatory reporting procedures and may include such things as a ban on pagers, cellular phones and gang paraphernalia.

Anti-vandalism policies will provide principals with the ability to order students to make restitution or to perform community service.

My act will make parents liable for damage done by their children.

My act will also require school boards to appoint court liaison officers, who will monitor proceedings involving board students, act as a link between courts and schools and assist in the development and monitoring of bail and sentencing conditions.

If passed, my Safe Schools Act will allow boards to direct psychological assessments of students who present a risk of engaging in dangerous conduct and will require parents to advise a board if they believe there is a risk of their child engaging in dangerous conduct.

My act will also require school boards to provide training to students and staff in such skills as conflict resolution and anger management.

My Safe Schools Act will create a provincial weapons and violence-free schools policy that will apply not only to misconduct committed at school but on school buses, at school-sponsored functions off school property and anywhere else that misconduct has a direct impact on the safety or wellbeing of any student or staff member.

This policy will mandate automatic exclusion and possible expulsion for students who commit assault or who possess a prohibited or restricted weapon. It will provide principals with a framework for responding to other student violence as well. My act also gives principals powers to search for and confiscate prohibited items, and it gives teachers and staff immunity from civil liability in specific circumstances where they act to maintain order in our schools.

My Safe Schools Act will require all boards in Ontario to design and implement alternative education programs for students who are suspended or excluded and will require those programs to meet some specific provincial standards. The programs will be required to take place at alternative sites from regular classes. They will have a maximum class size of 10 students. They will focus on the fundamentals of literacy and numeracy and will teach skills like conflict resolution and anger management.

Finally, if passed in this House, my act will require all school boards to establish safe school advisory committees that will make recommendations to their board.

My Safe Schools Act is a comprehensive piece of legislation that not only responds to student misconduct but provides for early intervention, education and rehabilitation. This bill provides principals, boards and police with better tools than they have today to deal with at-risk students and to make Ontario schools safer places to study and to work. The response and support from across Ontario for my act has been overwhelming. I have received literally hundreds of e-mails via my Web site at www.HelloNewman.com, numerous phone calls, faxes and other calls from across Ontario.

Deborah Knapp, a parent and chair of the Robert Service Senior Public School council, who is in the members' gallery today, says: "I appreciate the fact that we are no longer going to tolerate violence in our schools. As a parent, I am glad to see that we will finally have consistency in all schools in Ontario."

Keith Currie, a principal from the Algoma District School Board, says: "This is legislation that sets out an excellent framework so that local policies can be developed that will have a consistency throughout the province of Ontario. This is legislation that will put order back into our school system. As a principal for the past 28 years I can say, `A job well done!'"

Bob Heath, the associate director of education for the Toronto District School Board says: "This act has captured most of the `best practices' of schools and school boards that are successfully addressing the safe schools issue. It includes measures for prevention, intervention and response to school violence and will be strongly supported by school administrators, parents, students and the community."

Our students know how important this bill is. Geoff Alston, an OAC student at Cedarbrae Collegiate Institute in my riding of Scarborough Centre, says: "There needs to be more discipline and respect for authority in our schools. This act will certainly set things straight, and that's important to me because my younger sister will be entering high school next year and I want to feel that she'll be in a safer environment." I commend Geoff for putting those comments forward.

I received an e-mail from Carp, Ontario, from a concerned citizen who hoped that there will be the political will in this House to pass this bill. I do hope there is political will in this House to pass this bill, because this bill's important to everyone in Ontario.

I look forward to the support of every member of the Legislature, regardless of their political affiliation, so we can pass this bill to make Ontario's schools the safest places in the world to study and to work. We owe it to our students; we owe it to our teachers.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I don't think anybody in the House would argue with the stated purpose of this bill, which is to ensure that Ontario's schools are safe and secure learning and working environments and to reduce the potential for violence. This is an initiative which members of our caucus and party supported when the safe schools policy was put forward by the previous government, and we continue to be wholehearted supporters of the safe schools policy.

In fact, Mr Newman notes in his prefatory notes to his bill that where quality violence- and weapons-free school policies are indeed enforced in schools, school violence has dropped dramatically. I would suggest that what those safe schools policies need are support and resources to be enforced rather than additional legislation.

Mr Newman's bill is much less, I believe, than what his crime commission colleagues have suggested should be in a Safe Schools Act. It doesn't seem to have things like the isolation of students within the school setting. What the bill adds is "exclusion" to the provisions that already exist in the Education Act to have a 20-day suspension or an expulsion of students.

I want to note that it also has some good ideas: an alternative program for students who are suspended or excluded from school. The difficulty I have is not with the alternative program; it's the fact that there is no money for alternative programs now. The bill also suggests that there should be a monitoring of any excluded student by guidance counsellors, and I think that is a superb idea.

My concern is that, as I look at the funding formula that this member's own government has put forward, I see that guidance counsellors are included with librarians and that boards are going to be forced to cut both librarians and guidance counsellors. In fact, in our elementary schools, there will only be one guidance counsellor to every 5,000 students, according to this government's formula. I don't know how one guidance counsellor to 5,000 students can monitor the day-to-day activities of excluded or suspended students, as much as I believe that's a good idea.

I also think that the idea of boards having court liaison officers is a good idea. We now have attendance counsellors who could serve that role. What has happened to attendance counsellors under this government's funding formula? They are included in a category of professionals and paraprofessionals. The boards must fund, out of that specific funding line, psychologists, psychometrists, speech pathologists, social workers, child and youth workers, community workers, library technicians, computer technicians and attendance counsellors. Where would boards get the money to add attendance counsellors, let alone designate them as court liaison officers?

I would suggest to the member opposite that, as a member of the government caucus, he pressure his government to provide the resources to implement what we would all agree are good ideas. In the absence of resources, in the absence of real support, this bill leaves us only with another form of exclusion, a moderated form of expulsion. I don't believe it requires legislation to put in place the good ideas of alternative programs and the monitoring of guidance counsellors; it requires the support and the dollars of government.

Despite the good ideas and the concerns I have that those good ideas are not supported by government resources, my major reason for not being able to support this bill today is a very specific clause which falls within this bill. The member opposite should not be surprised, because he's put this bill together very carefully, and I respect that. That's why I am extremely concerned about the clauses in this bill which give the freedom to board employees to use reasonable force to maintain order in the schools.

Beyond that - and the bill is very specifically worded - it gives protection from liability to a board employee or to a teacher who uses reasonable force for correction, provided that force is used in good faith. This is in this bill without any kind of qualification, without any kind of condition. This is not about freedom from liability if you use restraint to prevent a student from doing violence to himself, to others or to the school property. This says reasonable force for correction.

I've spent almost 30 years involved in public education, and consistently throughout those 30 years I have believed that we should not open the door in any way to the sanctioning of physical discipline or corporal punishment. I cannot read this bill in any way other than to believe it does that, and for that reason I cannot support it.

I'm joined in my concern by the Ontario Federation of Home and School Associations, who have said they have grave concerns about this bill. They believe it clearly infringes upon human rights and is open to subjective

interpretation. There has been no province-wide public consultation with parents, teaching staff or students. For that reason, the home and school associations call upon parents, their members and educational partners to lobby their local MPPs to delay the second reading of this bill until the formal consultation process has been established. I share their concerns and will not be supporting second reading of the bill.

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): I rise to participate in this debate. I think I understand the motivation of the member in bringing forward this bill. He has attempted to craft the bill carefully. However, the member himself mentions that if there are safe schools policies in place, the amount of violence has dropped in the schools where they are in place. Also, under the previous government, school boards were supposed to implement the policy which deals with a number of the issues raised by Mr Newman in the arguments he makes for his bill.

The safe schools policy that was instituted by the previous government takes a broad view of violence, including in it not only bullying and the possession of weapons and these very difficult problems experienced in some school yards and schools, but also racial and other types of slurs and discrimination, discriminatory attitudes. I'm not sure that these kinds of violence are properly addressed by the legislation. Also, if the boards across Ontario have properly implemented the safe schools policy instituted by the previous government, I think legislation is not really necessary.

I also want to point, as my colleague from Fort William did, to the current situation faced by boards across Ontario. Whether or not we support the legislation proposed by my friend from Scarborough Centre, it will be very difficult for boards to do a number of things that he proposes in his legislation simply because of the cutting formula that has been instituted by his government, the amount of funding that has been taken away from classrooms and taken away from schools in this province despite the promises made by the party of which the member for Scarborough Centre is a member when they were running for election.

We have situations across the province where there will not be adequate guidance counsellors available to do the kinds of things that guidance counsellors are responsible for, and if they are to be given additional responsibilities under this legislation, I don't know how that will be funded.

Also, many schools now, particularly at the elementary level, are eliminating vice-principals because of the cutting formula that has been brought in by this government. In many schools now the principal is being twinned; in other words, one principal in charge of two schools. So the principal will not even be in the school all the time because the principal is responsible for more than one school and thus will be in one school in the morning and the other school in the afternoon, or alternate days and so on.

In many other cases where this is not happening, boards are having principals who will return to the classroom; in other words, they will be part-time principals. They will still have the full-time responsibilities of the principal, but they will only have part time to do it, and the rest of the time they'll be teaching, back in the classroom. The Minister of Education and Training has specifically advocated this kind of measure as a way of trying to cut costs.

If the principal had the proper resources, the proper time and support - of vice-principals, in larger schools, of the guidance counsellors who are required, of the psychologists and support staff who are required - then we could deal with a lot of these issues. But to cut funding and at the same time add these responsibilities to ensure safe schools is to be self-defeating. It can't be done because of the funding.

The other thing that the cutting formula is doing is significantly cutting the number of custodial staff in schools. Particularly at the elementary level but also at the secondary level, custodians don't just ensure that we have a clean, environmentally safe school; they also are the eyes and ears, in many cases, for the teaching staff and for the administration of the school in determining if there are problems among students. If there is a student who is acting out, if there is a student who is perhaps skipping class and so on, the custodian is often the first one to know and the first one to alert the teachers and the principal or the vice-principal.

Yet what we're seeing now, because of the cutting formula of this government, is that many schools will not have a full-time custodian, or even a part-time custodian in many cases. In many cases the boards now will have teams of custodial staff who will go to a school perhaps once a week or every two weeks to clean, or they may go more often than that but it may be in the middle of the night when the school isn't even operating. They will not be able to give the kind of support to ensure a safe, secure environment in the school that they now provide.

Unfortunately, this government doesn't see custodial services as part of the classroom. Despite the fact that they say they are putting more money into the classroom, they've significantly cut the funds that provide support for the classroom. As a result, we're seeing many custodial staff laid off by boards across this province, thanks directly to the cuts that this government has brought in.

How they are going to play the kind of role that I think is necessary to implement a safe schools policy, and certainly necessary to support and help to implement the kind of legislation that's being proposed by the member for Scarborough Centre, I don't know.

I regret that we have what appears to be an attempt to deal with a serious concern of parents, of teachers, of trustees and administrators and of students across Ontario in the proposal of this legislation at the same time we have a government that isn't prepared to put its money where its mouth is in terms of funding proper, safe, secure schools for our students in Ontario.

Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): I am pleased to support this bill which has been brought forward by my colleague from Scarborough Centre. It's a step to assist our educators and students; that's what this bill is all about.

For too many years they have been faced with an onslaught of anti-social behaviour. Every day we hear stories of violence, drugs, gangs, vandalism, swarming, suicide, and other anti-social behaviour which jeopardizes what should be safe havens of learning for our young people. We need to take affirmative action. We need to help our educators maintain and regain control in our schools. We have to reassure teachers that they are not alone in their battle against aggressive, anti-social behaviour, behaviour with which they have been faced for the last 10 or 20 years.

I recently introduced a bill aimed at rewarding responsible students by elevating the responsibility criteria for students' eligibility to obtain or maintain a driver's licence. This bill that my colleague has brought forward is an additional step, a very favourable step, along the path which we need to provide our educators and our students.

I support the bill. Thank you very much to my colleague.

Mr David Caplan (Oriole): I am very pleased to join this debate. I'd like to say at the outset that no one in this House opposes safe schools and the intent of the kinds of measures that are in this legislation. I know that in my past as a former member of a board of education, I took many actions and worked with school communities, worked with groups like the North York Parent Assembly, to promote safe schools.

Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre): What results did you get?

Mr Caplan: Well, safe school policies are not new to most boards and to most schools, and I'm going to comment on a few issues.

My initial reading of this bill and my initial thoughts on it are that this bill amounts to nothing more than grandstanding. Many of the measures in this bill are contained in current legislation, and the current practices in place seem to be working. In fact, a study done by the member's three crime-busting colleagues, if you will, says that the violence-free school policy which was brought in by the previous government, which mandated that incidents of violence have to be reported as they occur in schools, shows a 23.6% decrease in violent incidents. Amazing.

If you read this bill, you get the sense that there is a mounting and escalating problem. It's not held up in fact. In fact, this bill weakens current practices and current legislation.

The second issue that I'm going to talk about is the implementation, because there is no money in the funding formula to provide for some of the measures in this bill.

Finally, I'm going to talk about how far this legislation will go, particularly as it mandates court liaison officers and safe school committees - those provisions are very vague - and some of the potential problems when it comes to privacy issues.

My initial remarks talked about grandstanding, and that's what this is. Some of the measures in this bill, as I said, are already in current legislation, and in fact some of them weaken existing legislation.

The member suggested that he's brought in a new concept of exclusion from schools. I happened to take a look at the Education Act,

section 265, under "Access to school or class." It says: "(

m) subject to an appeal to the board, to refuse to admit to the school or classroom a person whose presence in the school or classroom would in the principal's judgement be detrimental to the physical or mental wellbeing of the pupils."

Exclusion: The principal can exclude kids from classrooms and from school. This is a new power that the member claims is being proposed. It exists in legislation, it can be enforced by principals, and there's an appeal route to the board. Quite amazing that the member would pass off something that already exists as a new power.

The second instance that I would suggest is in the area of trespass. I have problems with the way this law is set up, because it is far too loose. The prohibitions to entering school property are covered in something called the Trespass to Property Act, an existing piece of legislation. In fact,

section 2 of the Trespass to Property Act outlines the rights of school boards. I'll give you one example that I dealt with as a school board trustee.

A family unfortunately had broken up; there was a divorce. The custodial parent was the mother. One day the father showed up at the school, walked into the school and removed the young boy at lunch. The mother hit the roof, because the father did not have that right. The Safe Schools Act allows for unfettered access by any parent to school property. If this was going to have any teeth, they should be custodial parents. That is a very dangerous and difficult practice, and I think the measure that the member has brought in is not well thought out.

I don't have much time, so I'm going to have to go very quickly, but in the area of parental responsibility, the member is proposing to throw out hundreds of years of our justice system, where you no longer have a defence. If you take every reasonable action to maintain discipline with your kids, then you should have a defence against this parental liability issue. What the member is proposing is that you have no defence. If you've been negligent, certainly you should be able to be held liable, but you have no defence.

As the member for Fort William and the member for Algoma spoke about, the funding has been cut by this government. How are they going to come up with the dollars to implement some of these ideas? I would much rather have seen the member stand in his place and talk about adequacy of funding for our schools and fight for adequate funding for our schools.

A couple of other matters: The court liaison officers

section is vague. You say "school advisory committees." The access to information I think is quite troublesome as well.

I will not be supporting this legislation, and I can advise the member for Scarborough Centre that he doesn't have to have his constituency assistant call to solicit opinion posing as a home and school group.

I will turn this over to my colleagues.

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): It's a little bit of a wacky bill, if you get right down to it. I understand the title. The title's consistent with the style over there of titling bills to put a nice spin on them, but when you go through the bill and see what's actually included - and it was so readily commented on by Bud Wildman, the member for Algoma, as well as the member for Fort William, Ms McLeod, and Mr Caplan. It becomes pretty obvious.

I wonder, is this a wannabe crime commissioner? Is he trying to outgun the Three Stooges? I'd be interested in hearing from Mr Newman's close friend and colleague. I know he has a strong rapport with Mr Brown; I know he and Mr Brown share some common interests and they work closely together in a spirit of cooperation. I know they've abandoned self-interest in this level of cooperation, that they join each other. I know they have no dispute between them.

I'm concerned, and I'm anticipating Mr Brown joining this debate. Would Mr Brown attack this as being another liberal bleeding-heart sort of move that is only going to cause further deterioration in our communities? What would a real crime commissioner have to say about this? I'm anxious to hear from a real crime commissioner rather than somebody who merely wants to outgun him.

You've got some weird stuff in here. Maybe I'm out of touch. Look, I come from Niagara, from small-town Ontario. I'm in schools there on a frequent basis.

The business of trespassing on school property: I understand there are a couple of Tory backbenchers, one in particular, who have some intimate familiarity with exclusion from school property. He was told: "Go away. We don't want you here. You're trespassing. Be gone with you." That was the member for Halton Centre. He wasn't charged with trespassing, but it was clear that the school administration, the principal, utilized his powers under the Trespass to Property Act to say: "Go away. We don't want you here.

You have no business on the school property." I don't know whether he knew who Mr Young was or not and, if he did know him, whether that was what prompted him to say, "Go away," as compared to a mere stranger on the premises. But in any event, clearly a principal of a school has powers, and Mr Caplan referred to them, under the Trespass to Property Act to say: "Go away. You're not welcome here, and if you don't go away, you'll be arrested." It's as simple as that.

There's a provision in here permitting school boards to have a ban on wearing hats. I understand that for generations past wearing a hat indoors was considered at the very least impolite. I understand that.

Mr Wildman: By a male.

Mr Kormos: By a man. Quite right. I remember going to church as a kid, and women traditionally wore hats; it was required of them.

Interjection.

Mr Kormos: You're right, it's tough to imagine me as a kid, but I remember well women wearing hats in church. It was required of them, quite frankly, in the church that my family belonged to.

A ban on wearing hats smacks of being - I remember the hysteria of the 1960s, when it wasn't hats, it was length of hair. Some of us had hair in the 1960s; some of us have hair now, as compared to other members of this assembly. The subversive quality of long hair - you recall that, Speaker, don't you? By God, the world was going to collapse; we were going to fall into thorough moral decay because kids wanted to grow their hair over their ears, or Lord knows where they wanted - who cares?

But the mania, the obsession with long hair, which proved so stupid at the end of the day - the fact is, whether or not it's considered polite by previous generations for somebody to wear a cap with the bill, the beak - what do you call it?

Mr Wildman: The peak.

Mr Kormos: The peak, whatever it is, the sun visor on the cap, down the back of your neck as compared to over your front - do you really care? I'm far more interested in seeing that kid in school, where that kid should be. If that kid feels he's a little cooler, as compared to being less cool, by wearing his cap, do we really care about that? Is that the sort of thing we want to become obsessed with?

As Ms McLeod mentioned, this bill turns back the clock a good number of years. Someone's going to say that's a good thing. This bill endorses corporal punishment. We already know the Criminal Code. Mr Caplan has made reference to it. The Criminal Code makes it clear that anybody can use physical force to resist violence. That's clear; that's a given. This bill encourages the use of violence. I find that very bizarre, that a bill the theme of which is to control violence would at the same time endorse it and reinstate violence as a means of correction. What a bizarre concept it is now, in 1998.

I understand that 40 years ago that was considered appropriate. Thank goodness a whole lot has changed in 40 years.

The bill, to me, smacks of something of an insult to the teachers and the young people I know at schools in Welland and Thorold. It denies the reality that down in Niagara region alone we've lost 200 teaching jobs in the last week and a half, 200 jobs gone. Just this week, 94 support staff gone from our schools, not to be replaced: not people who are retiring, who are going to be replaced by new staff, but gone, eliminated.

I hear the member when he says he has consulted with teachers. I don't think the teachers where I come from have been talked to by Mr Newman or by this government, not that they haven't been talked at because Bill 160 spoke volumes to them.

Here's a government that has demoralized the teaching profession, that has gutted - we're going to lose up to 10,000 teachers across the province. It talks about imposing these sorts of standards on what's left. What this government has done by way of Bill 160 is going to result in fewer kids finishing high school, in more discord, more acrimony, more violence, not less.

Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex): It's certainly a pleasure to add some brief comments to the debate this morning. I'd like to start by congratulating my colleague from Scarborough Centre for his perseverance and diligence in the preparation of this bill. Certainly, through my involvement with the ministry, his dedication has been very evident, given the number of hours he has allocated to crafting this bill and the extent of the work he has undertaken with the ministry in preparing the legislation itself, as well as those people who find this issue important in his community.

I would say at the outset that I certainly support the thrust and the intent of this bill, as I trust all members of this Legislature do, in our efforts to ensure that every effort has been taken to protect the safety of our students and our teachers in the classroom.

That issue was heightened again last night as I participated in a public forum on education issues with my colleague from Peterborough, where a parent came forward expressing this very issue, an issue that was important to her as it relates to the young children she has participating in the elementary school system in the Peterborough area. It's a recurring theme I see and hear constantly across this province as I have the opportunity to visit with different education communities and representatives, and it's that recurring theme that re-emphasizes the need, as has been indicated by other members, that is very important: the safety of our schools.

As well, the context of the member's bill, to promote safety and create a positive learning environment for Ontario's students, is very consistent with the government's objectives with respect to education reform in this province. Contrary to the point of view expressed by my friend from Algoma, the government's objective with respect to education reform in this province is clearly one of investing in the students of this province and investing in front-line teachers.

It's about making schools places of academic excellence, and clearly my colleague from Scarborough Centre shares that point of view, by ensuring that each and every day that students are in the classroom, the safety mechanisms are there that they need to achieve the academic excellence that both parents and others want to see them achieve in their academic career.

I am somewhat surprised by the comments from the member for Oriole, given his past experiences as a trustee. He will know that typically the use and application of the terminology of exclusion has not been pursued in practice, albeit there is reference in the Education Act. The strength of the Education Act is in the reference to the terminology as it applies to expulsion and suspension.

That is why the member for Scarborough Centre has moved, in my opinion, to strengthen the language around the exclusionary provisions that are referenced in the Education Act by placing it in a stronger context with respect to school safety in the future. It's my understanding as well that this is consistent with the direction the Ministry of Education is pursuing in terms of anti-violence and violence-free schools.

I congratulate the member for bringing this forward, I congratulate him for his diligence and for his concern for the safety of students and teachers in this province.

Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East): I'm pleased to join the debate here today. I'm not going to repeat what my colleagues on this side of the House have already mentioned. I think there is some violence in our schools, some difficulty in our schools, but if you listen to the government members you'd think that every single student in this province is running around with guns, knives and gang colours on.

The reality is that there are some bad kids, some kids who cause problems. The vast majority of kids in the schools in this province today do not cause the types of problems we've talked about here today. Most of the kids go to school for the right reasons. Most kids go to school and behave.

I want to focus in on the issue of reasonable force. I find it absolutely amazing and ironic that the intent of a bill that is to curb violence in schools advocates violence as a way of achieving that result. Most parents in this province would be appalled to believe that this government wants to give teachers the right to physically assault their kids. Reasonable force is totally open-ended.

My colleague mentioned the defence issue, and nobody would argue with that, in self-defence. Why should any teacher in this province, with the exception of self-defence, have the right to use force on a student? That concept of 30 or 40 years ago, where teachers thought it was appropriate to slam students against lockers, where teachers thought it was appropriate to pick up students and slam them against the wall: I think we have progressed from that stage as a province and as a society. What message do you send to the student?

Teachers don't want that power. They don't want the responsibility in trying to make them police officers in the schools that you're trying to give them. They don't want that.

We got rid of the strap in this province for good reasons. I can tell you I was the victim of 40 or 50 beatings by the strap as a kid. I didn't enjoy it. It was wrong.

Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): Should have got it more often.

Mr Agostino: I can tell my colleague across the floor, sitting there with that smirk, "Should have got it more often," that if you think it's acceptable for your kids to be assaulted by a teacher in a school, I sure don't agree with that concept.

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: Order, member for Etobicoke-Rexdale.

Mr Agostino: I believe that what you want is simply to continue bully tactics and you're going to try to force teachers to be bullies. Teachers don't want to be bullies. They don't want to use force against students.

Why in a bill that's supposed to promote safe schools, supposed to curb violence, would you suggest that a means to that continues to be giving teachers some power that they don't have or want today, to use force? Think about it, the example to 25 or 30 kids in that classroom when a teacher uses force against one student. It sends out the message that it's acceptable for the kids to use force against each other or against a teacher, and that is a wrong message.

Any educator, anyone who's dealt in the field will tell you that this bill, as it invites the use of force, is wrong. It's detrimental to the kids and it's detrimental to education in the province.

Mr John Hastings (Etobicoke-Rexdale): It's amazing to hear some of the remarks from members opposite, that there hardly is any problem of violence in the schools today, that the schools are almost like Beaver Cleaver of 1950. I guess reality does impinge in some areas and it certainly has in Metropolitan Toronto and throughout other parts of the province.

To me, the member for Scarborough Centre's bill is one of the fundamental ways of dealing with the problem. What is the problem? Two weeks ago in my own area we had two students stabbed near a school. We've had other incidents in the last year of using guns. But of course the members across would say that's not a product of the schools, it's not a product of society; of course we do have a gun control law from the federal government and that should have solved that problem.

There is no doubt this particular bill deals with some of the specific problems that not only bother teachers and parents, but kids in the schools. Let me quote. The students of Lakeshore Catholic High School, in their own submission to the Crime Control Commission, said, "There should also be zero tolerance in all schools to deal with youth crimes in the area of drugs, weapons and acts of violence."

I have to commend the member for Scarborough Centre for getting this bill prepared with the diligence and the careful preparation that he has brought forward in the bill, because it deals with some of these fundamental problems.

If you look at some of the school boards that have amalgamated, they still haven't developed a coordinated anti-violence policy dealing with this whole issue that the member for Fort William has mentioned. That is another fundamental reason for bringing forward this bill. Not only that, she spoke about the necessity of more resources. In point of fact the Rotary Clubs across this country and in the Metro area haven't been waiting to deal with sexually abused kids who are sometimes the products of schools.

We've dealt with it through what is called the Gatehouse, which will be setting up very shortly in the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore's riding. The Gatehouse is funded by the Rotary Club of Toronto West, Etobicoke Sunshine and the Etobicoke Rotary Club. This is community based resources focused at its best.

I hope that the problems we're dealing with in this particular area aren't around, so that the member for Scarborough Centre's son, who was just born about three weeks ago - congratulations - is able to go to school in a free learning environment. That's what we need.

Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): I'm going to start by commending and congratulating my good friend the member for Scarborough Centre, Mr Newman, on bringing forward a policy that's long overdue. Zero violence policies and, as the member for Fort William said, safe schools policies are not new. Clarification is what students, parents, teachers and school community councils have wanted for a long time. They've wanted it to clarify their role, duty and what they're authorized to do. But let's face it, today our politically correct, litigious society makes all our jobs much more difficult. Really we need clarification.

I think Mr Newman's attempt in this private member's bill is to outline clearly and specifically the school codes of conduct. I think there's a great role here for all of us to play to clarify the role within the school.

In my riding of Durham East I've met with many parents, parent councils, schools and educators. For the record, recently I met with one of the teachers, Mr Aggett, from Port Perry High School, and the OAC class. They attended a working forum here at Queen's Park. I can tell you, for the record, I was impressed. I was impressed with their behaviour.

I'm generally impressed with youth in our society today. We are generally letting the few marginal people spoil it for the rest of the decent citizens. I think Mr Newman's bill attempts to segregate those groups of individuals that want to spoil it for the rest.

In my riding I've met with principals and school community council chairs who work very hard to develop good working relationships in the schools and make it safe for our students, principals like Sharron Turbovitch and her school community council; Allan Garbe, from Hampton Junior Public School; Sue Medd, from Newcastle Public School; Joanne O'Sullivan; and the Christian schools in my riding.

I think all members here today would want to look at Bill 21, the Safe Schools Act. We need all members to support this. A vote for Mr Newman's bill is a vote for safe school communities. I ask every member to give it serious consideration.

Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): It gives me great pleasure to rise today and join with my colleagues in support of Dan Newman's private member's bill, the Safe Schools Act, 1998.

I would like to speak to amendments made to subsection (23), suspension and expulsion of pupils, of the Education Act, which creates a new category of suspension called "exclusion." This new tool allows principals to exclude a student under the age of 16 years from the regular class setting and direct that student to attend an alternative education program.

The principal makes these decisions based on a number of criteria, such as, is there a serious risk of the student engaging in dangerous conduct or is the pupil's conduct detrimental to the safety and security of other students or staff? The student shall remain in the alternative program until the principal and other staff are satisfied that the student has received training, therapy or counselling and is unlikely to engage in dangerous conduct or commit conduct similar to that for which the student was excluded.

Too often today kids consider suspension from school an unscheduled holiday. They do not consider this punishment. Parents, on the other hand, are put in the difficult position of having to decide whether or not they leave this child at home unsupervised for the duration because they do not have the flexibility to take unscheduled time from their work. No one wins in this situation. The student, now behind in his school work, will continue to be angry and disruptive. There has been no lesson learned, other than the unintended consequence of a holiday.

Schools and taxpayers cannot be expected to take over parents' responsibilities for the actions of these children. We have to create an environment at home and at school that teaches kids how to think, not just what to think. This should be a process where kids learn that they can make choices, decisions and mistakes, and can continue to grow from all of these. Kids need responsibility and decision-making opportunities so that as they approach adulthood they will be making all their own decisions and will be truly responsible for their own behaviour.

The existing system does not meet these needs; the Safe Schools Act and the alternative education program do. "Exclusion" provides a way for dangerous or at-risk students to be removed from regular classroom settings, while leaving principals enough flexibility to design programs that meet their individual needs. We should remember that the most effective deterrent is not the severity of the punishment but the certainty of it.

Mr Klees: I want to join with my colleagues in congratulating my colleague the member for Scarborough Centre for bringing this bill forward for debate.

I will be supporting this bill for two reasons: first, because I know that my constituents, in the vast majority, support this initiative; second, because I personally believe it's time that this Legislature deal with matters of substance that relate to young people in our province.

This bill deals with some key principles that I'm sure we all support: first, that all students in this province should have the right to know that when they go to school, they're going to a safe place in which they can learn and develop positive relationships; second, the principle that all parents in this province should have the right to know that when their children leave in the morning they are going to a safe place where they can learn, where they can play, where they can develop positive relationships in a supportive and friendly environment that is not threatening to them; third, that all teachers in the province have a right to know they can carry out their profession, they can teach in an environment that is safe, that is conducive to learning and that in the end is positive in developing characteristics in the young people for whom they have responsibility; fourth, this bill sets a framework for our education system within which there are known consequences for inappropriate behaviour, and it also builds in a support system for those young people who have special needs, behavioural problems, and gives them a support to ensure that they can go on to live supportive and productive lives.

The Acting Speaker: Member for Scarborough Centre, you have two minutes.

Mr Newman: I'd like to thank the members for Kitchener, Middlesex, Etobicoke-Rexdale, Durham East, Durham-York and York-Mackenzie for their comments and their support of Bill 21. I want to thank the member for Algoma for his comments. To the member for Welland-Thorold, as wacky as his comments were, I appreciated hearing them; they were rather entertaining. To the member for Fort William, I am quite frankly shocked and disappointed that you're not in favour of this bill and you're not in favour of safe schools.

To the member for Oriole, I think you have a lot of nerve making the accusations you made today in your comments, and quite frankly your debate is not even worthy of response on my part.

I'd like to remind all members that this private members' hour is a time when private members can bring forward bills or ideas on behalf of their constituents. That's what I've done here today. This is not a government bill. So I remind opposition members today to show some courage, go against how your leaders' offices are telling to vote against this bill, stand up for safe schools, stand up for the students of Ontario, stand up for the teachers of Ontario and show some courage, because a vote for this bill is a vote for safe schools; a vote against this bill is a vote against safe schools.

Judging from the debate today on the part of the Liberals and NDP, they're simply playing partisan politics and they ought to be ashamed of themselves. I ask them again to show some courage, stand up and vote for this bill, because this bill is what's needed in Ontario today.

In fact, in my own community there was a stabbing right across the road from the high school I attended, R.H. King Academy. So I say to the members opposite, get your heads out of the sand, get out and see what's happening in Ontario today, and you'll know that this is what's needed. This bill is needed in Ontario so we have safer schools.

The Acting Speaker: The time for the first ballot item has expired.

PHYSICIAN SHORTAGE

Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur):

Whereas a 1996 agreement signed by the Ontario government and the Ontario Medical Association commits the Ministry of Health to spend $36.4 million of new moneys to implement alternative payment plans in medically underserviced communities in the fiscal years 1997-98, 1998-99 and 1999-2000; and

Whereas in the past fiscal year virtually none of this committed funding was spent due to the government's insistent on funding only a minimum of physicians per community rather than a sustainable physician complement necessary to retain and recruit needed physicians; and

Whereas the Ministry of Health has stated in the Legislature that she is looking for proposals to utilize these funds; and

Whereas a group of 38 physicians in northwestern Ontario eligible for globally funded group practice agreements have worked together with the Professional Association of Internes and Residents of Ontario, the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce and the OMA to put such a proposal forward to the Ministry of Health that identifies realistic and practical improvements to the present GFGPA model which, if implemented, would result in sustainable physician recruitment and retention in northwestern Ontario communities; and

Whereas the proposal, if accepted by the Ministry of Health, could serve as a model for many northern and rural medically underserviced communities in the province;

Be it resolved that, in the opinion of this House, the Minister of Health must fulfil her commitment to provide the positive incentives necessary to attract needed physicians to northern and rural communities; the Minister of Health should negotiate a change in the alternative payment plan agreement so that the committed group practice funding would be based on a sustainable physician complement, a critical mass, in underserviced communities rather than the present underserviced minimum designations; and the Minister of Health should allow funding for physician services to recognize the special and unique workload and responsibilities of physicians practising in northern and rural underserviced areas.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Pursuant to standing order 95(c)(i), the member for Port Arthur has 10 minutes for his presentation.

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: This is a very important issue. I think we should have quorum and I don't believe we have one.

The Acting Speaker: Would you please check if we have quorum.

Clerk Assistant (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Clerk Assistant: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Port Arthur.

Mr Gravelle: As you know, Mr Speaker, I have stood in the Legislature on many occasions and spoken about the need for improved, or at least equal, health care service for the people I represent in Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario.

Speaker, think about it. What could be more upsetting to an individual and their families than to seek needed medical care from a qualified physician and discover that no physician is there to treat them. That sounds like something that should not be happening in Ontario. Yet, as all members of this House will know, that is a harsh reality in many parts of the province, a reality that is at present being dealt with by designating an extraordinary number of communities in northern and rural Ontario as underserviced and providing a variety of incentives to attract doctors to locate and stay in these communities.

But it is very clear that in 1998 the measures that are now in place under this program are not sufficient to meet this crisis and new, innovative ideas, which will require some flexibility by the Ministry of Health, must be considered seriously and then put into place. Let's make no mistake about it. New concepts must be agreed upon by the minister that will make recruitment of doctors more successful in all these communities, but the real measure of success will ultimately be the retention of these physicians; in other words, will they stay?

Until we deal with the retention issue, we will continue in the cycle that we now find ourselves: Too many communities with too few doctors treating too many patients; the doctors, dedicated as they are, becoming burned out by the extraordinary demands and being forced to make the inevitable decision that there are only so many years they can provide their services and, as a result, they move, leaving patients in underserviced areas scrambling to find a doctor.

Yet I believe there is hope. It is with that hope in mind that I stand here today seeking all-party support for my private member's resolution, a resolution that calls upon the Minister of Health to fulfil her commitment to provide the necessary incentives to attract needed physicians to northern and rural communities.

To give the government its due, that commitment has been made by the Minister of Health. Late in 1996, an agreement was signed by the Ontario government and the Ontario Medical Association that committed the Ministry of Health to spend $36.4 million of new moneys to implement alternative payment plans in medically underserviced communities through the fiscal years of 1997-98 to 1999-2000. The problem? The fiscal year 1997-98 has come and gone and virtually none of the committed $36.4 million was spent recruiting physicians to our underserviced communities.

I recognize that there is not a simple solution to this long-standing problem; in fact there may be different solutions in different communities. My resolution does not ask this House to support one model or one method of using these committed funds. However, in the Legislature recently, in response to a question that I asked about the moneys not being spent last year, the Ministry of Health stated that, "The money is there, it's ready to go; we're simply waiting for people to take us up on the offer."

I can tell the House today that at least one proposal has been brought forward that, in many ways, has motivated this resolution today. Last year, in response to the agreement signed by the Ontario government and the Ontario Medical Association, a group of physicians in northwestern Ontario, with the support of the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce and the Professional Association of Internes and Residents of Ontario, put forward a proposal that they believe, if implemented, could solve the problem of chronic doctor shortages in many of our underserviced communities.

Their proposal has several components to it, but the crucial aspect of it deals with the issue of critical mass, the need for a sustainable physician complement in our underserviced communities. At the present time the underserviced area program designates the number of doctors who are required in each community, but the fact is that these minimum designations frequently do not take into account the reality of providing medical services in many northern and rural communities. The on-call demands alone can be overwhelming as, with too few physicians, one could be working virtually non-stop and finding that's the only way that doctors can meet the patients' needs.

The proposal put forward also calls for globally funded and salaried contracts, not fee for service, so that physicians are all working through a group practice for the community. The fact is that our northern and rural communities require unique solutions to solve the chronic doctor shortages, and this well-thought-out local proposal recognizes and deals with that reality. The fact also is that unless the minister is prepared to look at this proposal seriously, the problem of doctor shortages will persist in many of our communities and continued opportunities will be lost.

As George Macey, vice-president of the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce put it, and I'll quote him: "This resolution deals head on with the issues faced by doctors practising in northern and rural communities. The government took a positive first step in signing the agreement, yet they are refusing to let northern communities work out precise local service priorities." And that gets to the heart of it. Each community knows its local needs the best. Flexibility must be shown by the minister in order to have these committed and needed funds properly utilized.

In wrapping up, I want to thank the many people and communities that have helped me put together this resolution and offered me their very strong support.

Certainly I want to thank Dr Michael Sylvester, the Marathon physician who is a spokesperson for the northwestern Ontario group putting forward the proposal, and Dr George Macey, Dave Barker and Dick McKenzie, executive members of the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce, who are strongly supportive of the proposal, and of course, PAIRO, for their advice and support.

I also want to thank Dr Ian Park, chair of the Ontario Medical Association on Rural Practice, for the invaluable information and insight he provided.

I must give particular thanks to the municipalities that wrote me in support of this resolution, for this is an issue that affects them and the residents of their communities so profoundly. I think it's important to note that this support came from all across the province, with representatives of all three parties looking after these constituents.

So thanks to the townships of Terrace Bay and Norwich, the township of Havelock-Belmont-Methuen, the towns of Nickel Centre, Aylmer, Kirkland Lake, New Liskeard, Mount Forest and Sioux Lookout, which supported this resolution strongly themselves but did it also on behalf of the towns of Ignace and Pickle Lake, the municipality of Bayham and the villages of Dundalk and Newbury, and all the others that time does not permit me to mention, but I'm very grateful.

The truth is that we have an opportunity today to do something good, and something good for the residents of northern and rural communities all across this province, and I think we need to seize that opportunity. All the residents of our northern and rural communities deserve high-quality and accessible health care, and access to a physician is clearly a priority. Support for this resolution today by all parties in the House may convince the minister to look at the proposal put forward in northwestern Ontario more seriously and, if she does, we will all be the better for it.

For the truth is that this proposal can serve as a model for the province, and it is not stretching the truth to say that the globally funded model could also one day be applied in larger communities, like my home town of Thunder Bay, for clinics and services that focus on group practices.

We need to see the possibilities and to grab the opportunity. I believe that today we can move in that direction by supporting this resolution and providing the people of northern and rural Ontario with the quality health care that they prize, that they need and that they deserve.

I thank you for the time today. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate and hope that I am able to receive all-party support for this resolution.

Mrs Boyd: I want to thank the member for bringing forward this issue in this way today because it is extremely important at this juncture in time for people in Ontario to understand that there are ways we can solve the underservicing problem. There are many mechanisms that could be used to solve this problem of communities that have a hard time keeping and retaining physicians in their community.

These models are models that have the support, particularly of the young interns and residents complements that have been coming forward over the last few years, but also of the community groups that have struggled to find ways to break through the fee-for-service system of payment of doctors which has disadvantaged rural and northern communities for a long period of time.

The issue of alternative payment plans for physicians is a very thorny one, and no one should underestimate the effect of the political pressure that governments of every stripe have faced from the established political direction of the OMA. It is quite clear that the resistance to any change to fee for service is a political issue that continues to be fostered by the leadership of the OMA. I think it would naïve of any of us not to see that kind of pressure as being one of the reasons that the government has not moved forward with a specific provision of the agreement that it signed with the OMA, which is now in its second year.

In fact, I would go so far as to say this is one of the few positive aspects of that agreement at all, the provision of $36.4 million for globally funded group practices for northern and rural areas. There's very little else that serves the community in that OMA agreement. There's a great deal that serves the pocketbooks of physicians. There's little that serves the community as a whole; there's little that serves the other health care professionals; there's little that serves the province as a whole.

It is simply a mechanism whereby most of the additional operating dollars that are in the health budget are going directly into the pockets of fee-for-service physicians, and I think we need to be very clear about that.

When the government did agree to a plan that set aside additional dollars to go forward with this, there was great hope that at last the government was going to recognize the need to move forward. When I talk about the resistance of the OMA to alternative payment plans, you only have to read their various publications to understand how deep this goes, and to read the plans and the speeches of Dr Wendy Graham, who led the so-called pilot effort around alternative payment plans.

For one thing, the OMA, although it appears to have dropped its very vehement opposition to existing community health centres, is very clear that it will oppose the establishment of any additional community health centres, even though communities all over this province have made it clear that they favoured the model of community health care centres in some areas. The $36.4 million and the lack of success in terms of the negotiation which the member has outlined so clearly in terms of the rigidity that the ministry has insisted upon in terms of number of physicians, in terms of the mix of health care professionals, is another area.

I'd like to talk specifically about the issue of the agreement itself and how it in itself mitigates against changes, conversions to an alternative payment plan. I think we all ought to be concerned to realize that very clearly the OMA has taken a position in that agreement that any further conversions to any form of alternative payment plan are not allowed. They are claiming that even the $36.4 million is a conversion. I can give some backup to that, because in a letter from Minister Witmer dated December 10, 1997, in response to a request from Seeleys Bay, a small two-doctor community in southeastern Ontario, for community-sponsored contracts, she said:

"The current ministry agreement with the Ontario Medical Association stipulates that the fee-for-service funding amount shall not be reduced by conversions that occur from fee-for-service to alternative payment plans. As a result, the ministry's ability to negotiate and finance new alternative payment arrangements needs to be resolved within our current framework of discussions with the OMA."

In other words, the agreement that this government signed with the OMA gave the OMA the complete whip hand in terms of determining how we were going to provide services to underserviced areas, the complete whip hand to prevent conversion to alternative payment plans, which every community that is underserviced wants available to them as a mechanism.

The Professional Association of Internes and Residents of Ontario has done us all a great service in this province by going throughout the province, throughout northern Ontario and most recently in southwestern Ontario, talking to communities about what it is they want, what they would support, what they expect the government to do. Their reports are very clear. They had very extensive consultations.

Their report that is dated March 1998, Toward Solutions: Recruiting and Retaining Physicians in Southwestern Ontario, states very clearly that communities understand they are not served by the fee-for-service mechanism when they are small, when they are rural, when many of the amenities that are there for physicians in large urban areas are not present for them.

Communities are demanding that the government take a much more active role in its so-called negotiations with the OMA to prevent the OMA from stopping them from coming into these alternative payment plans. The difficulty that Mr Gravelle mentioned faced by communities throughout northern Ontario is replicated in southwestern and southeastern Ontario, where the very same problems prevail, although the mileage may be somewhat different.

The real issue here is, are we, as a community, signing agreements with the OMA to benefit doctors or are we signing agreements with the OMA to benefit patients? The answer from the agreement that was signed by this government some time ago was that it was clearly to the benefit of physicians, but there's much less clarity about how it benefits the citizens.

I know that when the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health gets up he's going to talk about the wonderful pilot projects that have been set up, and he's going to try and tell us that these are the answer. He needs to explain in his speech why there is no control on those projects to prevent those networks of physicians from creaming out of their patient complement all the difficult and time-consuming patients that they don't wish to service.

He also needs to explain in his speech how the government is actually going to evaluate whether or not the service is improved for consumers, not just whether doctors like it, which is what seems to prevail in the dealings that this current minister and this government have with physicians, but whether the citizens of Ontario are better served by the huge numbers of dollars that we're pouring into health care.

As we debate this resolution, it's extremely important for us to ask why, when the government did include a specific amount of money for globally funded group practices, they have not listened to both the communities and physicians who know how that will work, who know the minimum requirements to make that work and insist on the inflexibility and the absolute roadblock that has been set up by the OMA and by the Ministry of Health.

Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South): I'm pleased to rise to offer my comments on the member for Port Arthur's resolution before the House today, and a couple of other members of my caucus as well. As previous speakers have said, it's not an issue of physician supply in Ontario; it's an issue of distribution. How do we get the physicians to come to the underserviced areas, whether it's in the riding of Port Arthur or in Niagara South or in Middlesex, around London, for example?

In terms of a general perspective, some of the recent government announcements of improvements in health care help to make Ontario a better place to attract health care professionals like physicians either to stay in Ontario or to come into Ontario.

A couple of examples: the $1.2 billion invested in long-term care; 20,000 new beds across the province, with thousands of other refurbishments and improvements in long-term-care facilities, relieving some of the pressures in that area and helping to make the province more attractive, a better health care system; $60 million announced recently for mental health, to improve community-based programs for mental health patients, the multidisciplinary approach and the ACTT programs, for example, again to improve the quality of health care in the community and make it more attractive for health care professionals to practise in the province.

Primary care pilots, as the member for London Centre had mentioned - I appreciated her advice on my comments, but my time is constrained and I'll address Mr Gravelle's resolution. That's a debate we can have another time. But we certainly see primary care reform as a key to helping to attract physicians to the rural, northern and underserviced areas and I think we lose track of this. We have seen a 7% increase in physicians in the past five years in the province. Again the issue is, how do you get them to Port Colborne to support the work of Dr Remington and his team there - Fort Erie, the same thing, Marathon or Emo or other parts of the province?

There are three basic principles in the member from Port Arthur's resolution after the

preamble: first of all, to offer the proper incentives to attract physicians to rural and northern areas. I believe that the incentives we've put into place in this government will work: the negative incentives, the discounted billing through OHIP for the overserviced areas, coupled with positive incentives like the $36 million, like the community contracts and the group practice issue that we're dealing with today. The payment is about $10,000 on top of the average fee-for-service billing in that area. I think the proper incentives are there.

I agree that they're necessary, no doubt about it: negative incentives for overserviced areas, positive ones for underserviced. I believe that in the approach we've taken, those incentives are there.

The member also asks for a change in the ultimate payment program plans for "sustainable physician complement." I would say there's a flexibility in the group practice to allow for a sustainable group complement. In fact, that's what the goal is, I would say, to the package we are offering. In Marathon, which was brought up in the earlier discussions, on a strict population basis, and correct me if I'm wrong, the complement would be three physicians. The group practice allocation complement is five. We are recognizing the unique needs of rural and northern areas.

That is a sustainable complement, I would argue, not a minimum. The minimum would be around three or fewer. We are approaching that and the ministry has been flexible in negotiating with communities to ensure that sustainable complement is there.

Third, he talks about the unique responsibilities and workload. Again, I would say that the GFGP does this already. The contract plan is for the average fee-for-service billing for that particular region, not for other parts of the province or the province as a whole but the particular region in which the municipality exists plus about $10,000. There are additional fees available for additional services provided by the doctors in that community: locum support; some time, obviously, as any person would raising a family; vacation, additional training and such.

I would argue that the principles are on line in terms of proper incentives, in terms of sustainable physician complement and recognizing the unique workloads and responsibilities. I support the principles in the resolution. I would argue that there is not the need to go and renegotiate the contract that was negotiated in late 1996 into 1997. We have the flexibility in our current program to meet those needs. We have seen more communities come on board - Manitouwadge, for example. Three others have recently expressed interest. We're negotiating with Little Current, Englehart and Emo, to name three.

Four more, I guess, have entered into the initial stages. I believe that the package we have fits the needs. I support the member's resolution in principle and therefore I'll be voting in favour of the principles in the resolution of the member for Port Arthur.

Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): We are very heartened to hear that the parliamentary assistant in his non-partisan capacity is able to support this resolution. It is important. This is a time that the House has to be able to provide some advice to the government, to be able to tell them where they may be falling down and where they need to improve. Thanks to the member for Port Arthur, we have that opportunity here today.

The $36.4 million is not the largest expenditure this government hasn't made or could make, but there's a lot more at stake. The fundamentals of this are about, do people who live in rural and northern areas of this province have the right for this government to make every effort to give them access to physicians? Is that not something we would expect of any reasonable government? In effect, this is the only measure we can look to in terms of being able to provide that effective right to the people of this area. The success of this means that fundamental service is either available or it's not.

It means that those of us who live in urban areas can only relate very conceptually to the idea of not having a doctor there to respond when you have all the same fundamental health needs. So the service component is first and foremost.

But this goes deeper because this is about this government's promises. This is a government that promised explicitly, clearly in December 1996, as part of the deal with physicians in this province, that it would spend each year $36 million. It helped some of the people in this province believe that this government was getting the message that quality things had to be done for health care. People in all communities appreciated that some extra effort had to be made to ensure access to physicians in this province, which many people are now calling a crisis.

It doesn't just affect what we would traditionally think of as underserviced areas, northern and rural areas, but also places like Windsor and Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph. If the government can't yet determine where it is most conspicuous, what chance do we have that they're going to do it elsewhere?

On the issue of promises, a government that can't be depended on to deliver its most fundamental promises, the ones that relate to people's health and wellbeing, that have all-partisan support, is really a government that brings itself into disrepute and distrust. Today the members of that government have a chance to prove otherwise.

We look also for what this means in the north in general. This is something, in terms of access to doctors, that falls into the same category as some of the slashing that's happened to hospitals. Taking apart some of the ability of hospitals to function has implications for a definition of what a northern and rural community can be in terms of quality of life. It starts to govern whether people, no matter where they live - Geraldton or Marathon or any of the communities - can have access to the very things they need to be able to sustain a community.

It's shortsighted of us not to recognize that if we're prepared not to concede that quality of life is something we want to be concerned with. Let's at least recognize that economic development can't happen either unless there's a platform of some basic, fundamental services.

We heard from the parliamentary assistant that everything is fine and that the principles of this resolution are simply reinforcing that. We need to understand that it's somewhat different than that. What needs to happen is some real action and some real adjustment in the thinking on the part of the government. We have here a vision on the part of physicians, the people who live in the north. When we look at the people who have signed - Dr Jackson-Hughes in Nipigon, Dr Hollway and Dr Klassen in Marathon, Dr Larochelle in Manitouwadge, Dr Galea in Geraldton - we recognize that this is also an issue of, "Will this government listen?"

Will this government listen to local communities when local communities come together with the doctors they've been able to attract and say, "You need to do something different; you need to adjust"? Can you adjust?

Can you bring into account what local communities have been telling you, have gone to considerable energy and effort to say to you as a government that you need to be able to do this, particularly and conspicuously when it's something you've already agreed to do, when you already promised you would do this on behalf of the citizens and physicians of those communities and for the integrity of the province as a whole?

If we can't provide and can't commit to provide the best efforts to some equality, some justice in terms of health care, then you can't be credible anywhere in the province if we don't do it where the needs are most conspicuous.

I'm very glad today to be able to rise in support of Mike Gravelle, who has been a champion of this issue, as other members have been for their communities. It is extremely important to learn today whether we in our private members capacity can request and receive that amount of understanding and adjustment from this government. The real test will be, after this vote today, will this government act in a very short time?

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I also want to thank the member for Port Arthur for coming forward today and presenting to the government an opportunity that they, I don't think, have any choice but to act on. We've had this problem in northern Ontario and rural Ontario for a long time now. Different governments have come at it from different perspectives and none of us have been successful in finding an answer to the doctor shortage that continues to bewitch all those communities that so desperately need the care of well-trained, committed and dedicated doctors in our communities.

The member bringing the bill forward today talks of a model that has been put together in northwestern Ontario that obviously has a buy-in from the doctors who practise in that area, a goodly number of them, that obviously has a buy-in from the communities which will be served by that particular model that he is fully committed to supporting and trying to be helpful in moving forward.

I want to say to you this morning that there are other models. There has been good work done by other groups of people around this province in an attempt to answer this particular challenge, and it would behoove the government to take a close look at those models and to give the kind of resource and encouragement and support to those groups that will help them put in place or continue to grow those answers that are out there already or that are being developed that will go a way to resolving this very difficult challenge.

In my own community there is the Group Health Centre, a facility that was put together in the early 1960s by the United Steelworkers of America, who recognized that their members weren't getting the kind of health care they needed, given some of the very difficult health problems they were facing at work, in the community and at home.

So a group of Steelworkers got together with some other professionals in the community and outside the community to put in place a structure and an operation that has grown in spite of some very aggressive and effective opposition in the community and outside the community and they have succeeded today in providing to our community opportunities that we otherwise would not have.

I only have to speak to you about a couple of doctors I have spoken to who operate through the Group Health Centre to help you understand how effective that institution has been in attracting doctors to Sault Ste Marie and keeping them there, so in Sault Ste Marie we at least have some degree of success on this issue. I remember going to a doctor at the Group Health Centre and his telling me how nice it was that when he came to work in the morning he didn't have to worry about all the administrative details that so many of the doctors do in private practice these days.

When he comes to work in the morning, all he has to think about is his patients and delivering the service they require, and when he goes home at night, he doesn't have to worry about whether the nurse is going to make it the next day or whether the office administrator is having a problem at home and won't be able to come in for the shift. He just has to comes in and provide service.

Another doctor said he was attracted to Sault Ste Marie as a young doctor because the Group Health Centre was there, because he could walk into a practice that was already established and set up. He wouldn't have to go through the long-drawn-out process of setting up a practice in the larger areas where it often takes years to get something as simple as hospital privileges.

The Group Health Centre in Sault Ste Marie stands out as a beacon in many ways and is something that the Ministry of Health should be willing to look at as it tries desperately to find an answer to this very difficult and challenging question. I suggest that this government needs to be a bit more courageous, a bit more willing to step out and give leadership and take some risks, because if you're not courageous and you're not willing to take risks on behalf of the people in northern Ontario and rural Ontario who are counting on you to help provide the kind of service they need by way of health care, then it's not going to happen. The Group Health Centre is an excellent example of that.

Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): I rise in support today, in principle, of Michael Gravelle's private member's resolution asking the government to continue building on its commitment to address the long-standing problems of physician distribution to underserviced areas in northern and rural Ontario.

While Ontario is considered to have an adequate supply of physicians overall, there is a persistent problem with physician distribution, and numerous communities in the province have long-standing difficulties in recruiting and retaining physicians. The government is working with stakeholder groups such as the Ontario Medical Association, the Professional Association of Internes and Residents of Ontario and the Council of Ontario Faculties of Medicine to find solutions to this ever-growing concern.

The underserviced area program has been helpful in addressing the problem faced by this communities by initiating financial incentives, locums, visiting clinics and exemptions to billing thresholds, but there still seems to be a reluctance on the part of physicians to relocate in an underserviced area such as Mount Albert, a village located within the town of East Gwillimbury in my riding of Durham-York. Their need for a physician is based on a growing number of seniors, as well as young families, making their home in this village. Public transportation is not readily available, and residents find it difficult or impossible to travel to Newmarket or Toronto.

The Sunderland-Brock Community Health Centre in Brock township, located in my riding of Durham-York, has also applied to be designated as an underserviced area. As of today, this community has raised over $80,000 towards the expansion of their medical facility. They hope the expansion of their medical facility, coupled with an underserviced area designation, will be the winning formula which will encourage doctors to relocate to their area.

International studies suggested that when medical training is provided in rural and remote areas, physicians who have received their training are more inclined to set up practices there. Medical schools not oriented to rural medicine tend to create a negative attitude about rural practice. Our government took this advice and set up the northern Ontario health sciences network. There was a reallocation of training resources from existing programs in southern health science centres to northern Ontario.

Its focus is on the unique challenges of northern practice, where family physicians and specialists must be more self-reliant, because specialists and sub-specialists are less available in the north.

There is $36.4 million available to deal with the issue of underfunding and the shortage of doctors. The minister has stated in the Legislature that the money is there and it's ready to go. We are simply waiting for people to take us up on this offer. Our priority is to serve patients first. We have been working hard to accommodate doctors' demands for alternative payment arrangements where they are needed.

The rural and northern health care framework, while focusing on the development of hospital and health care networks, is also committed to expanding rural and northern training opportunities for medical undergraduate students and residents, and to facilitate additional training opportunities for nurses working in rural and northern hospitals. This government is looking at a variety of different options to encourage doctors to practise in underserviced areas. This is in addition to the significant steps we have already taken to help attract doctors to rural and northern communities.

My caucus colleague Helen Johns, MPP for Huron, has introduced a private member's resolution which would have the effect of reducing tuition fees for physicians and doctors going into remote areas. The government has committed to reviewing this suggestion as part of our solution. We recognize that there are other factors that have a significant impact on a physician's decision to relocate to remote or rural areas, such as proximity to family and friends and availability of employment for spouses. Our government has taken more steps than any other government in an attempt to address this issue.

We are confident that the incentives put in place by this government will help improve Ontarians' access to medical services.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I'm happy to rise and participate in this debate on an important resolution from my colleague from Port Arthur, a resolution that calls on the Minister of Health to provide the positive incentives that are necessary to get needed physicians to northern and rural communities. I can't stress how essential it is that action be taken. I can't stress enough to members opposite that we face very real situations in our northern communities where access to basic needed health care is seriously threatened by the critical lack of physicians. This is not some potential future danger; this is the reality today.

In my home community of Thunder Bay we are at this point short 28 family doctors. What this means is that people who have come to our community have been there two years, three years and have no hope of being able to get a family doctor. What this means is that there is an overuse of our emergency rooms because there is no place else for people to go. They can't call their family doctor. They don't have a family doctor and they have little hope of having one. It certainly means that there is little ability of the physician to remain to see patients on a regular enough basis that there could be an emphasis on health maintenance and illness prevention.

There are as well shortages in many critical areas, and today I particularly want to stress the shortage we face in psychiatric services in northwestern Ontario, another critically underserviced area.

In southern Ontario you have one psychiatrist to 1,500 people. In northwestern Ontario we have one psychiatrist to 33,000 people. The caseload in southern Ontario would be about 1,200 patients for the average psychiatrist. In northwestern Ontario many psychiatrists have caseloads over 5,000. We are so short of psychiatrists that our psychiatrists have reached the point of saying, "We simply cannot see the patients," and patients in need of immediate care are being turned away. We may have to close psychiatric beds. We may face the prospect of having to send acute psychiatric patients to southern Ontario.

One of the reasons we face this acute crisis in psychiatry is because of the uncertainty in health care planning, and that is related to the underserviced area issue. With our psychiatric hospital to close, with no mental health care agency established to do the planning to provide the community services that are supposed to be in place before any loss of beds, there is tremendous uncertainty about whether we will have psychiatric services, whether we will have enough beds to provide psychiatric care.

In that climate of uncertainty, it is very difficult to recruit psychiatrists to fill the void that's left when our psychiatrists are either retiring or indeed leaving the community because the stress of the workload has simply become too great.

But beyond the need for clear planning and action to address the future in psychiatric care, I come back to the fact that we need to have creative ways to meet the needs in all underserviced areas, and that's the focus of my colleague's resolution. His focus is on the fact that $36.4 million that was set aside by the government last year for the Ministry of Health was not spent, despite the fact that the need is acute now and has been acute for many years, despite the fact that models for the creative alternative approach to providing health care in northern communities have been presented. They've been on the minister's desk for months, if not years.

My colleague has specifically talked about the model put forward by the Northeastern Ontario Association of Chambers of Commerce and by PAIRO, the residents and interns association, which have done tremendous work to put forward creative alternatives for ensuring that underserviced areas not only can recruit physicians but can retain physicians.

Two quick facts: It's important to recognize that rostering, which seems to be the government panacea, does not work in underserviced communities. Rostering is for overserviced communities in the hope that doctors will leave the overserviced communities and come to areas in northern and rural Ontario. The second fact is that we need long-term solutions. We need a comprehensive approach to dealing with underserviced area needs.

A four-year incentive program, although it has been a valuable stopgap, isn't enough to keep people in our communities. We need ongoing professional development. We need locums who will come in and give physicians in small communities some respite so they can take a vacation. We need to expand our training programs so that people who come and train in northern Ontario or in rural communities will stay in those communities. We need accurate information, accurate data, on what the needs really are. We can't assume that minimum numbers of physicians are going to be enough to meet the health care needs.

The bottom line is that we need to ensure that every Ontarian, wherever they live in this province, has access to health care services when and where they need them.

Mr Bert Johnson (Perth): It's my pleasure to rise in the House today to join in the debate on the resolution tabled by the member for Port Arthur. Although I do not necessarily agree with everything the member brings up in his resolution, I do appreciate and support his concern for the provision of quality health care in Ontario.

As the representative for the riding of Perth, I spent a great deal of time over the last three years trying to improve the health services available to my constituents. All too often in the past governments have avoided the issues surrounding health care in small communities in Ontario, and it is the small communities in Ontario that have suffered.

When asked how they would describe the best place in North America to live, my constituents respond by naming their hometowns: Stratford, Listowel, St Marys, Milverton and Mitchell. They see what I see and they know that is why I am proud, honoured and humbled to represent them.

The people of county Perth also see the need for efficient and effective health care services that are available when they need them.

They know that I will fight for those needs and they know that is why I support the government's initiatives, such as (1) the $70 an hour sessional fee for physicians working nights, weekends and holidays in emergency departments in rural communities; (2) the community development officer program which matches communities recruiting physicians with physicians looking to establish a practice in rural communities; (3) the development of rural medical training through the rural Ontario medical program in Collingwood and the southwestern rural Ontario rural medical program based in Goderich; (4) the expansion of rural and northern training opportunities for medical undergraduate students, as well as additional training opportunities for nurses working in rural and northern hospitals, which is offered through the government's rural and northern health care framework.

The health care needs of people in rural areas of the province are not the same as the needs in the more urban areas. The initiatives introduced by this government, which I have just mentioned, are the first steps towards addressing the difficulties faced in underserviced rural communities.

A more profound recognition of rural health needs is reflected in the new health care policies adopted by the hospitals in Huron and Perth. I'd like to congratulate the members of the Huron-Perth District Health Council, the task force and the many men and women in the health care field in Perth. They have begun implementing a plan to provide for more efficient and effective health care services in county Perth. Hospitals in my area have implemented a proposal to restructure that will see a reduction in administration and an increase in service provision.

The Huron-Perth plan calls for a single board of directors for all eight hospitals and for sharing of administrative staff and resources, such as food and laundry services. Once again, the people of Perth are setting a benchmark for others in the province to rise to, and I congratulate them.

The policies of this government have presented an opportunity for doctors to come to the rural areas and see what is offered. I may be a little biased, but I maintain that anyone who takes the time to come and live and experience the riding of Perth would never willingly leave. The people of Perth county work hard and they deserve the best.

Rural and northern Ontario have different needs in health care provision and this government is recognizing that. I'm happy to see that the member for Port Arthur recognizes that as well, and that he is supportive of this government's initiatives to provide positive incentive to physicians to practise in rural and remote areas of the province.

In response to the resolution presented by the member for Port Arthur, I agree wholeheartedly that the Minister of Health should continue to provide positive incentives necessary to attract needed physicians to rural communities. In addition, we must all, not just the minister, recognize the special and unique workload and responsibilities for physicians practising in rural underserviced areas.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I'm delighted to be here on this Thursday morning to support the very timely resolution of my colleague the member for Port Arthur. I've enjoyed that part of the debate that I've been able to hear.

As a member from rural eastern Ontario, this is a subject I have dealt with almost all of my time here, and I want to say that it's not just an issue, as my friend from Port Arthur knows, for communities like Red Rock and Nipigon, but a vitally important issue in communities like Barry's Bay, Deep River, Bancroft and Whitney, to name four in my part of eastern and midnorthern Ontario.

The aspect of the resolution that I would like to focus upon is the question of critical mass. Governments of all stripes over my 23 years have, with the best of intentions, developed and amended the so-called underserviced area program, and I say "with the best of intentions" because quite frankly the intentions have often been better than the results.

The major issue I see as a difficulty in producing the results we have wanted is that we have under our underserviced program in too many cases ended up with a sole practitioner in a small town like Whitney, for example, in the district of Nipissing that I represent. The reality is that a sole practitioner in the small, rural and northern communities is, after a relatively short period of time, just pounded into the ground. None of us, notwithstanding our best intentions, is going to be able to survive the kind of rigour and daily pressure that is applied. That has led to very undesirable consequences.

We've had a revolving door. People come, they work very hard, and the burnout rate is very high. So the door just keeps spinning.

What I like about the resolution today is this notion of critical mass. For that to work, it's going to mean that communities are going to have to say, "Rather than each one of us having a sole practitioner, a lone ranger running like mad trying to keep up with the pressures of daily practice, we are going to have to all sit down and say, `Maybe it's a better thing to develop a critical mass of a number of practitioners clustered in a given community and from that critical mass have outreach programs into smaller communities.'"

I say to the member for Port Arthur, I commend you for the resolution. I particularly find attractive the argument that new policy has got to deal with the critical mass issue. Lone rangers cannot survive practising modern medicine in these small towns. I have too many examples of very good people who left town battered and beleaguered because they simply couldn't keep up with the professional pressures, and their spouses and their families, as I think the member for Perth and someone else observed, also couldn't cope with the pressures. There's just simply no getting relief; there's no getting away from the daily grind and the pressures that are out there.

I find it interesting that an agreement signed nearly two years ago that allocated over several years millions of dollars to stimulate interest in creative new alternative payment schemes has not been taken up in any meaningful way. I congratulate the government and the OMA for making the deal providing the $35 million or $36 million - but nothing yet spent? We've got a proposal up in northwestern Ontario waiting for attention, waiting for support; still no response.

Again, intentions are one thing, but results are another. There are a lot of people whom I represent and my colleagues from rural and northern constituencies represent who are hopeful that we are going to be able to translate good intentions into good results.

The member for Port Arthur is very timely in his resolution and its focus. I repeat: A critical aspect of achieving a better success is dealing with this critical-mass issue. We have not done a very good job in the past, and the member for Port Arthur points to a better and more positive possibility.

The Acting Speaker: Member for Port Arthur, two minutes.

Mr Gravelle: I want to thank all those who spoke this morning: the members for London Centre, Niagara South, Sault Ste Marie, York South, Fort William, Durham-York, Perth, and of course the member for Renfrew North. I appreciate that they all spoke in essence in support of this resolution.

The member for Fort William talked about the primary health care reform pilot projects that are out there. I think the key point that needs to be made is that indeed the rostering system cannot work unless you have enough doctors there to actually do the rostering. Obviously the intent of this resolution is to ask this government to show the flexibility that's needed to make sure these agreements can be brought forward.

The proposal by the northwestern Ontario physicians is one that can work, but it requires the government to acknowledge that, yes, they've signed the agreement. We acknowledge that and we congratulate them for doing that, but they need to show flexibility and recognize that it's the local communities themselves that will recognize the needs.

I'm also grateful to the member for Renfrew North for talking about the whole essence of critical mass, because that is a very, very important point and it's one that is brought forward very clearly in that proposal.

I'm hoping we can receive all-party support today. There are certainly many other issues of concern that I alluded to ever so briefly in my remarks earlier. I don't want to divert from the main essence of my resolution, but I do want to also make mention of the fact that of course the mental health care crisis in Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario is one that we have great concerns about.

I did ask the minister yesterday if she would bring forward information as to how the moneys she has announced will be spent and what amount will be spent in Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario and asked her to deal with the issue of the closure of Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital. I hope that she is able to follow through and provide us with that information today.

In terms of my resolution, I am grateful for the support. I hope it is forthcoming from all members. I believe this is something that could really make a difference to the people who need health care desperately in northwestern Ontario and all across the province.

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

SAFE SCHOOLS ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA SÉCURITÉ DANS LES ÉCOLES

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): We will deal first with ballot item number 15 standing in the name of Mr Newman.

Mr Newman has moved second reading of Bill 21,

An Act to promote Safety in Ontario Schools and create positive Learning Environments for Ontario Students by making amendments to the Education Act.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour, say "aye."

All those opposed, say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

PHYSICIAN SHORTAGE

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): We will now deal with ballot item number 16 standing in the name of the member for Port Arthur.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

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

The division bells rang from 1202 to 1207.

SAFE SCHOOLS ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA SÉCURITÉ DANS LES ÉCOLES

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): We're now voting on second reading of Bill 21 presented by Mr Newman.

All those in favour of the bill will please rise.

Ayes

Arnott, Ted

Baird, John R.

Boushy, Dave

Bradley, James J.

Chudleigh, Ted

Danford, Harry

DeFaria, Carl

Ford, Douglas B.

Fox, Gary

Grimmett, Bill

Hastings, John

Hudak, Tim

Johnson, Bert

Jordan, W. Leo

Kells, Morley

Klees, Frank

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

Leach, Al

Leadston, Gary L.

Maves, Bart

Munro, Julia

Newman, Dan

O'Toole, John

Ouellette, Jerry J.

Parker, John L.

Pettit, Trevor

Phillips, Gerry

Rollins, E.J. Douglas

Ross, Lillian

Shea, Derwyn

Sheehan, Frank

Skarica, Toni

Smith, Bruce

Spina, Joseph

Wood, Bob

Young, Terence H.

The Acting Speaker: All those opposed will please rise.

Nays

Agostino, Dominic

Boyd, Marion

Caplan, David

Cullen, Alex

Lessard, Wayne Martin, Tony

McLeod, Lyn

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 36; the nays are 7.

The Acting Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

This bill will now be referred to the committee of the whole.

Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): I'd request that Bill 21 be referred to the standing committee on general government.

The Acting Speaker: All those in favour, please rise. We have a majority. Therefore, the bill will be referred to general government.

All matters related to private members' business having been completed, I will now leave the chair and the House will resume at 1:30 of the clock.

The House recessed from 1209 to 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS PHILIPPINES INDEPENDENCE DAY

Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): On behalf of our Liberal caucus I rise for the purpose of recognizing a special event that occurred 100 years ago, on June 12, 1898, the establishment of a free, independent and democratic republic of the Philippines.

Philippines Independence Day is not only an important date in history, but it has great significance to our Canadian citizens of Filipino heritage.

In recognition of the important contributions that Canadians of Filipino heritage have made to the economic and cultural enrichment of our province and country, the blue, red and white flag of the independent Philippines will be raised in Toronto tomorrow on June 12, 1998. These Philippines colours have become an international symbol of the indomitable spirit of democracy and serve as an inspiration to us all to strengthen the bonds of friendship, to strengthen us all and to respect as we have the affection in mind of Filipino Canadians.

Today, we encourage all Canadians to observe this anniversary because it fosters within us a deeper appreciation of freedom, liberty and democratic ideals.

In the Speaker's gallery we have a number of Filipinos who are helping us today to celebrate: the consul general, Mr Santos, Mr Ricky Castellvi and Mr Rick Falco, who is from the Catholic school board.

CONTROL OF SMOKING

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): I have in my hand a copy of a letter dated April 20, 1995, sent by one Michael D. Harris, the leader of the Conservative Party, to the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco, in which extensive promises are made by the then leader of the third party about what this government would do when it was in office. Of course, this government is great at saying, "A promise made, a promise kept," but they certainly haven't kept their promises with respect to tobacco control, and the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco wants that noted.

I mentioned the other night in the debate on Bill 25 the refusal of the cabinet to accept the harmonization of tobacco replacement technologies on over-the-counter drugs. But this is an example of the kind of promise that the government doesn't like to even think about.

In this area the Premier was asked, "In common shopping malls, would the government designate the following facilities as smoke-free?" He said, "A Harris government will continue to work with shopping malls toward a goal of 100% smoke-free by 1998." Where is the legislation?

"A Harris government believes that any place used as a recreational facility, particularly by young people, should be smoke-free," and it goes on.

MUDCAT FESTIVAL

Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): On a positive note, I am pleased to stand today to announce the 24th anniversary of the Mudcat Festival in Dunnville. This festival celebrates the friendship of the people in Dunnville, it celebrates the Grand River and it celebrates agriculture, which is at the base of all of Ontario.

In the parade on June 13 the honorary parade marshal is going to be Ms Becky Kellar, women's hockey silver medallist from Nagano, and it is going to be a grand event. There are all kinds of craft sales. The Salvation Army is going to be there with a number of services. There are car competitions. There is something for everybody.

Come out, enjoy the Grand River, enjoy the people of Dunnville and enjoy a good spring festival.

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): I am here to tell you today that this government is once again ignoring the advice of local people and forging ahead with its own agenda. In Kingston, our district health council undertook a review of the health services in Kingston. The DHC presented a vision for us, locally made, called Charting the Course.

What happened next? Mike Harris sent in his front men, sometimes known as the Health Services Restructuring Commission. They ignored the advice of the local people, who know the needs of their area best, and among others have closed the Hotel Dieu Hospital. After giving compassionate and excellent health care to thousands of patients for over 153 years, the Sisters of the Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph were told they were no longer capable of running and providing governance to a hospital.

Mike Harris's commission recommended closing a downtown hospital which is accessible to all, including the elderly and individuals with special needs who live in the downtown area of Kingston. This hospital also plays an important role in keeping our downtown vibrant and economically prosperous.

The Harris commission can't even get its numbers right. They have been totally underestimating the cost of their plan. Professionals have said that the commission underestimated the restructuring plan by at least $76 million.

I'm here to tell you that the people of Kingston and area, which includes the 60,000 individuals who signed a petition, want the Hotel Dieu to remain open. We have a homemade solution. We don't need Mike Harris to come in and tell us that the sisters are no longer capable of running a hospital.

NORTHERN TREATMENT CENTRE

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I want to take a short moment this afternoon to expand on the question I asked the Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services yesterday afternoon on the Northern Treatment Centre and the potential closure of that facility.

He may not know that this is the only centre of its sort in all of northern Ontario, which accepts inmates from across the province. It's a centre that deals with areas of anger management, drug and alcohol rehab and inmates with difficulties of a sexual nature. It also has a very clear first nations or native Canadian focus that is unique in the province.

The history of its placement in Sault Ste Marie has not been an easy one. Sault Ste Marie and the mayor of the day, Joe Fratesi, actually went out on a limb to take that facility into our community at a time when other communities, particularly Sudbury, did not want it. It has become a success story of many dimensions. The excellent staff and professionals who work there contribute not only to the success of that facility but also to a need that is very real in the community of Sault Ste Marie, and the volunteer program that has developed around that facility is of a very first-class and excellent nature as well.

Yesterday it was pretty obvious by his answer that the minister wasn't aware of this facility. I would today like to invite him to come up and take a tour of the Northern Treatment Centre at his earliest convenience.

ROHYPNOL

Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): Today I rise to speak on an issue which is quickly becoming a major problem for young people right across the province. I'm speaking about the drug Rohypnol, better known as "roofies" or the date rape drug. When slipped into someone's drink, this drug can render a person in a near-comatose state, leaving them vulnerable to sexual assault.

The increase in the number of cases involving this drug is alarming. In Hamilton alone, there have been 11 cases reported in the past eight months. I say "reported," because countless victims do not report the crime to police.

As a mother of two daughters, both in their 20s, I am extremely concerned about the serious danger this drug represents to the young people of today. That is why I'm pleased to announce that on Friday, June 19, radio station 102.9 is sponsoring an event, Groove Night at the Olympia, to benefit the Hamilton Sexual Assault Centre's rape drug awareness campaign. I am proud to be honorary co-chair of this campaign.

The Hamilton Sexual Assault Centre will use the proceeds from this event to educate and make aware the potential victims of this horrible drug. I strongly support their efforts, and want the Legislature to know about this.

PAY EQUITY

Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): I rise to bring to the attention of this House today an issue on behalf of the employees of Yorkview Lifecare Centre, situated in my constituency.

Yorkview Lifecare is a nursing home and as such is a predominantly female workplace. Despite these workers having repeatedly asking the government for information regarding their pay equity increases, to date they have been totally ignored. It seems as though pay equity for Ontario women is at the bottom of the list of priorities for the Harris government.

As part of Seniors' Month, this week is designated as Caregivers Week so that we may have a greater appreciation of those who assist our seniors with activities of daily living or specific health problems.

There are 28,000 employees in Ontario nursing homes. Our seniors rely on the high level of care they receive from these workers, who are committed to providing the best service possible.

Now is the time for this government to quit stalling. The courts ordered you to reinstate pay equity for these employees more than eight months ago. The Minister of Finance committed $140 million for retroactive pay equity settlements. What's the problem, Premier? I remind you that the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that this government's actions on the elimination of the proxy method of achieving pay equity violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Live up to your obligation under the court order and pay these women.

BOROUGH OF EAST YORK

Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): Today I will be introducing a private member's bill, or perhaps I should say I will once again be introducing a private member's bill, because this is actually the third private member's bill I have introduced dealing with the issue of achieving a third councillor for the area of East York.

This private member's bill will correct a couple of technical concerns that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs had with the previous bill I submitted. In fact, that means that the Minister of Municipal Affairs will have given his blessing to this bill. That's very exciting for the people of East York. This Legislature will therefore in the next two weeks be dealing with this private member's bill when the government calls it forward and it will receive second and third readings, and we will achieve the goal of the people of East York for equitable representation.

I suppose I am nothing if not persistent, and my persistence in this case has paid off and there has been a very cooperative attitude from the minister and his staff. I want to thank Minister Leach and Jeff Bangs, his executive assistant; legal staff within the ministry, Scott Gray, who worked very quickly to turn this around and give us an opinion on this; and of course legislative counsel, Cornelia Schuh, who has been working with draft after draft for me, getting this bill correct. It is the way the House should work, with this kind of cooperation. I am appreciative and I know the people of East York are appreciative.

SENIORS' MONTH

Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea): June is Seniors' Month and, in recognition, tomorrow afternoon I will be hosting my 15th annual Salute to Seniors Day in my riding at the Grenadier retirement residence located at 2100 Bloor Street West. We have a full program planned, including entertainment, fashion show, food and refreshments and a nutritional workshop, all geared towards the theme of looking good and feeling good.

This government has taken a vigorous look at how we deliver services to seniors. This is especially clear in yesterday's announcement by the Minister of Health and the minister for seniors made at Copernicus Lodge in my riding of High Park-Swansea of the latest instalment of the $1.2-billion long-term-care initiative that will see care delivered to seniors in their own community. I can appreciate these programs, since I have a 98-year-old mother, Kathleen Shea, who still lives in her own home in my riding -

Applause.

Mr Shea: Thank you, on her behalf - and, I might point out, still finds a way to keep m