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May 20, 2003

37th Parliament, 4th Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

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Hansard Transcripts 2003-May-20 (PDF)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L'ONTARIO

Tuesday 20 May 2003 Mardi 20 mai 2003

HOLLY JONES

CONTEMPT OF PARLIAMENT

OPPOSITION DAY

ELECTRICITY DEREGULATION

Tuesday 20 May 2003 Mardi 20 mai 2003

The House met at 1330.

Prayers.

HOLLY JONES

Hon Chris Stockwell (Minister of the Environment, Government House Leader): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I seek unanimous consent to allow

this House to observe a moment of silence in honour of Holly Jones.

The Speaker (Hon Gary Carr): Is there unanimous consent? Agreed.

Would all members and our friends in the gallery please rise for a moment of silence.

The House observed a moment's silence.

The Speaker : I thank all members, and members in the gallery as well.

Hon Mr Stockwell: I seek unanimous consent to conclude the current debate, in light of the fact that 63,500 schoolchildren are currently not in

school, and I seek unanimous consent that the question be now put.

The Speaker: Is there unanimous consent? I'm afraid I heard some noes.

CONTEMPT OF PARLIAMENT

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 15, 2003, on the amendment to the amendment to the motion by Mr Conway arising from the Speaker's ruling of May 8, 2003.

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I spoke on this subject a couple of days before the two amendments were put to indicate that there is example

after example out there across this province of communities that are being negatively hammered because of the attitude of contempt by this government to this Legislature and, in turn, to the people

it serves across this province, and to indicate that not only are communities suffering, but individuals are suffering and so are small businesses and industries across the province.

At that point, I spoke at some length about the small town of Wawa, north of Sault Ste Marie -- where I grew up -- that is being affected very negatively by this

government's single-minded effort to deregulate and privatize the delivery of hydro to the citizens of this province. I talked about the impact of that decision on the everyday lives of those

citizens and their attempts to get in touch with and speak to the Minister of Energy or to any government official in an elected capacity about this and their failure to do so -- the failure of the

government to respond, the arrogant attitude of the government in front of a community that's on the precipice of disappearing if something isn't done to set up a meeting and talk to them about

these very real and important issues that affect them on a day-to-day basis. That's a crisis as big and as difficult and as challenging as any crisis that has faced the city of Toronto, for

example, most recently the crisis of SARS, where the government walked in here and tabled a bill and within a matter of a day resources began to flow, people began to meet with people, issues were

talked about and resolved, and money is being spent. The town of Wawa can't even get a meeting with the minister who is directly responsible for the regulation or oversight of the way we deliver

electricity in this province.

In the short time I have here today, I want to share with you that it's not just me who is concerned about this. There are people across Algoma, across northern

Ontario, and as they begin to hear about it across this province, more and more are becoming concerned about the impact this decision to regulate and privatize hydro is having on the town of Wawa

and the area of Algoma served by Great Lakes Power.

I think it's important as well for people out there who may be listening today to understand whom the government is in cahoots with as it rains this damage on

this small community. It's a company called Brascan Corp, which owns Great Lakes Power. Here's an

article out of a newspaper of April 30, when Brascan released its first-quarter profit information.

It says here, "Brascan Looks at Power Business as Biggest Opportunity for Growth: Firm Posts Q1 Profit of $56 Million US."

A big chunk of that money was taken directly out of the pockets of the people of Wawa and those areas of Algoma served by Great Lakes Power.

It says here that Brascan "sees great growth potential in the power-generation business and is looking for more acquisitions in Canada and the United States.

"Brascan spent $650 million Cdn on 16 hydroelectric plants last year and will continue to build that part of its business, which presents Brascan with its

`biggest opportunity.'"

I suggest that one of their biggest opportunities is out there as they eye the pocketbooks and bank accounts and pocket change of the people of Wawa.

"While the US utility industry is in turmoil, that may provide Brascan with a chance to get good assets at a good price....

"`We think, longer-term, that this business is very high quality and will produce the types of returns and the type of stability in cash flows that is a great

business for us to be invested in'....

"Brascan is one of Canada's oldest conglomerates, with controlling stakes in such well-known companies as metals giant Noranda Inc, lumber producer Nexfor, real

estate developer Brookfield Properties, Brascan Power and Brascan Financial, owner of the Royal Lepage real estate brokerage. It also owns Great Lakes Power Ltd."

In this

article about the profits Brascan is making, there isn't one reference to the damage it's doing to the people, to the town of Wawa and to its customers

all over the Algoma area.

People have to understand that Wawa is slowly but surely becoming the clearest, purest face of privatized, deregulated hydro in this province. It may be

happening to Wawa today, but it could be in your backyard tomorrow. In Sault Ste Marie we had a contract with Great Lakes Power, which gave us a preferred rate for hydro, that has now been

cancelled. There has been no new agreement on that rate, and so, come the end of this year we in Sault Ste Marie will be facing the same scenario that Wawa is facing. Our industries and businesses

will be facing the same high costs. I suggest that towns, cities and communities across this province will be facing this very difficult challenge in the very near future if they're not already

facing it.

It behooves all of us to sit up and take notice and pay attention to what's happening in Wawa, because Wawa is becoming known, as well, as the first community to

stand up and resist the agenda of this government to deregulate and privatize hydro. They brought together a group of citizens, who said, "If this is what it's going to cost us for our power, if

Brascan is going to get away with this and the government won't talk to us about some resolution or answer to this challenge or dilemma for our community, then we're just not going to pay. But

we're not going to keep the money ourselves; we're going to pay what we owe in trust. We're working with the municipal council to pass a resolution to that end."

They were about to do that up until last week, when Great Lakes Power, under the pressure of that possibility, blinked, backed down ever so slightly and decided

to give a little bit of relief to the people of Wawa on their distribution costs, which will go nowhere near to reducing the very onerous and almost impossible charges that have been laid on this

community since May 1 of last year.

The important thing here is that Wawa has become, very clearly, the symbol of resistance in this province to the deregulating and the privatizing of hydro. The

rest of us should take heart from that. We should take courage from the fact that these folks have had the courage to stand up in the face of this giant and say no, and to take the small action

that they could to indicate to this company and this government that it was serious about this issue, and that it was going to do something that would not look good on the government or the

company, and create a fight that would become known from one end of this province to the other if it was allowed to continue on.

I have to say to you today that I am heartened that the people of Wawa have not been bought off by this small reduction in their bills, in their distribution

costs by Great Lakes Power, and that they continue on in their attempt to meet with the Minister of Energy, to talk to him and his government about the impact of this agenda on them and their

ability to make a living and actually to have an economy in that part of our province.

Let me just share with you a bit of an editorial that showed up in the Sault Star on Wednesday, April 9, which should make you, I think, sit up and take notice.

It says, "Rectify Electricity Mess." It's calling on the government and it's calling on Great Lakes Power to rectify the electricity mess in Wawa and in the customer area of Great Lakes Power. It

says:

"How ironic. Wawa has survived challenges as dramatic as the shutdown of the mining operation that was its reason for existence for so many years, but the

community may be dealt a crippling blow by the outrageous local price of something it still produces in great abundance -- electricity.

"Too many people across the province, including political leaders, have ignored or dismissed the tragedy that is eating away at the little town.

"That's a mistake. Even if people are so heartless as to ignore the plight of a fellow Ontarian, they should pay great heed to what is happening there. Wawa

could be" -- and I suggest is -- "the canary in the mine shaft, an early warning of what awaits us all unless Queen's Park comes to its senses and reverses its devastating electricity restructuring

strategy.

"In Wawa's case, we can't even blame privatization directly. For generations, the community was served well by Great Lakes Power. The little corporation was an

incongruous privately owned island serving Algoma in the middle of a vast sea of Ontario Hydro serving the province as a whole.

"While the public utility struggled with mounting debt and generation problems, GLP quietly but valiantly hung on and prospered. Customers served directly, as in

Wawa, and indirectly, as in Sault Ste Marie through the Public Utilities Commission, were pretty happy with the arrangement.

"When the province restructured Ontario Hydro and changed the rules governing electricity generation, distribution and pricing, GLP stayed on.

"If the same private company is still providing electricity to the same geographic area, how come the price of hydro for many consumers in the Wawa area has

almost doubled?

"How come residents are worried they will be forced out of their homes by their electricity bills?

"How come businesses are closing or cutting back, putting people out of work?

"GLP says it is following the rules for billing customers, explaining that under provincial pricing formulas the distribution charges are high because of the

`rural' circumstance.

"But the townsite of Wawa, at least, is about as compact as any suburban neighbourhood. What Wawa has that most cities do not, however, is multiple

hydro-electric generating stations within its municipal boundaries.

"Hydro generation is touted as one of the most benign methods of capturing energy, cleaner and less problematic than coal or oil or nuclear. If this town has

such natural advantages and still can't afford the electricity produced in its own backyard, what hope is there for the rest of Ontario?

"If Great Lakes Power is following the rules, the rules are a bad joke.

"This is a bitter example of how badly Mike Harris's Conservative government has fumbled electricity reform," and I suggest now Ernie Eves. "Why is it taking the

Conservative government of Ernie Eves so long to recognize the problems and fix them?

"Maybe Eves is waiting until he's closer to calling an election before cleaning up the mess. That" -- alas -- "may be too late for many people in the Wawa area

whose lives are being turned upside down by an unfair and untenable energy policy.

"The `reform' must be reformed now."

Let me just share with you a bit of the historical context of the Wawa problem as well. On May 1, 2002, several radical regulatory changes affecting the

Electricity Act, 1998, came into effect. As you may be aware, the majority of these changes, combined with other economic and changing weather patterns, resulted in a detrimental effect on users of

electricity in Ontario. These detrimental changes have resulted in a large flood of media reports and letters from various public utilities, municipalities, special interest groups and residents

from across the province. Perhaps the most salient examples of the problems created by the reregulation of electricity in Ontario can be best illustrated by the district of Algoma and the township

of Michipicoten, exclusive of the city of Sault Ste Marie.

In December 2002, after extensive consideration of many examples of the detrimental trends experienced by the users of electrical power in Ontario, the

Legislature considered and passed Bill 210, the Electricity Pricing, Conservation and Supply Act. Among other actions, and certainly most important to the people of Ontario, the act fixed the

commodity rate of electricity at 4.3 cents per kilowatt hour. This fixed rate, which is in effect until 2006, ensured that all users in the province of Ontario would pay the same commodity rate for

the electricity power they used.

While Bill 210 may have temporarily prevented any further escalation in the commodity rate for electrical power, it did not address those areas of the province,

particularly the Algoma district, that experienced large increases in distribution charges. In some cases, the increase in the distribution charges alone has placed the affordability of electricity

beyond the grasp of the average person. Customers of Great Lakes Power located in the township of Michipicoten, Dubreuilville, Laird, Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional and across the

Algoma district have all recorded increases in hydro rates that approach 40%. While Bill 210 fixed the commodity rate at 4.3 cents per kilowatt hour, the average residential consumer in the subject

area pays approximately 9.9 cents per kilowatt hour in distribution and other charges. Thus, the average total charge in the area is 14.2 cents kilowatt hour. In comparison, these same residential

customers were paying in the area of 8.5 cents per kilowatt hour just prior to May 1, 2002. That's the increase they've experienced.

More concerning is the fact that Great Lakes Power has indicated that it will seek additional relief through increasing distribution rates -- distribution and

commodity -- in three consecutive years once rate hearings resume. This, combined with a drastically declining economy, will severely disable the Algoma district and most certainly the township of

Michipicoten -- Wawa.

Significant layoffs have already been experienced in Dubreuilville and White River. These layoffs have begun to further cripple the economy in Wawa and the

surrounding area. A solution must be found to this very devastating problem. Attempts have been made to discuss this matter with the Ministry of Energy on a number of occasions. Letters have been

sent by the council of the township of Michipicoten, the residents of the township of Michipicoten and adjoining municipalities. Attempts have also been made by a group called POWER, People

Opposing the Whitewashing of Electricity Rates, to contact the Ministry of Energy by letter, phone and through requests for meetings. There have also been attempts to meet the Premier, the Minister

of Energy and the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. Lastly, the matter has been raised several times in the Legislature. All of these efforts have failed to even approach discussing a

possible resolution to this matter.

The issue of high power rates is a matter of government policy. Further to that, the township of Wawa would be remiss if it did not include related government

policy issues in any discussion regarding power rates. To that end, this report does discuss how government policy matters in selected areas apply to the situation. In addition to dealing with the

direct issue of electrical rates, this report also identifies several areas that could be considered as supplementary issues.

Bill 140, the Continued Protection for Property Taxpayers Act, amended the Assessment Amendment Act by exempting private power dams from the municipal property

taxation base. Although some mitigating measures were provided to affected municipalities and school boards, detrimental effects were, and continue to be, experienced. The justification for the

change included the consideration that the municipal property tax system was hindering the further development of hydroelectricity in the province of Ontario. So Wawa must pay for that, I

guess.

On January 31, 2001, then-Premier Mike Harris announced the government's vision for the future of the province of Ontario. The key component of the announcement

was a 21-step action plan to move the province into the 21st century. The plan was to provide and highlight a path for the ongoing commitment of the government to the residents of Ontario for the

promise of a better life. Consideration should have been given as to how the changes to the electrical market may or may not assist in accomplishing this goal, particularly as those changes relate

to the Smart Growth program and now the introduction of supplementary proposals on tax incentive zones.

This government obviously does not understand the impact of the decisions that they've made where the deregulation and privatization of hydro is concerned. It's

devastating towns like Wawa and all of those communities that are served by Great Lakes Power; it's killing their industry; it's killing their business; it's driving people out of their homes.

Senior citizens who live on fixed incomes don't know where they're going to get the money for their electricity power bills. They're already strapped up there with the poor economy. We've had a

difficult time over the last seven or eight years up in northern Ontario. This just adds pain to the already existing misery that was there.

We always looked at the fact that we had hydro in our backyard as an advantage. It has now become, for everybody concerned, and for this town in particular, a

liability; something that this government, if it were serious about its platform for change for the province, would get together with the people of Wawa about and fix immediately.

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): It's interesting that we are here after quite a number of days, debating a motion by my colleague Sean

Conway, the member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, the dean of the House, a member who has been here for 28 years. We are debating a very simple motion. The motion essentially says, I want to

remind the members of the House, that we should present the budget of the province of Ontario to the Legislature first.

Mr Speaker, that is an incredibly simple motion. It follows of course upon your finding that there was a prima facie case of contempt of the government of

Ontario by reading their budget at a warehouse in Brampton owned by Magna International.

It seems to us on this side of the Legislature, and frankly I think it should seem like this to all members of the Legislature, that this is a reasonable, simple

and traditional remedy to the situation in which the government put all of us. We don't want to be here.

I think the first thing we should recognize is how we got into this situation. We got into this situation when the government decided and announced, I believe

the day was March 12, that the Legislature, which had not sat since mid-December, would not come back on March 17. Unilaterally the Premier, as is his right, went to the Lieutenant Governor and

asked that the Legislature be prorogued. What that means, of course, is that all legislation dies. Anything that was on the order paper is now gone and, for all intents and purposes, a new session

of the Legislature will begin, but not on the scheduled date of our calendar; it will begin when the Premier decides to call the Legislature back.

It was indicated that the Legislature would come back at the end of April, meaning that the Legislature would not meet for 128 days. In the meantime the Minister

of Finance announced, almost simultaneously with the announcement that the House would be prorogued, that she would deliver this budget at a venue outside of this place.

We know the commotion that caused, and rightfully so. I just want to bring to the attention of legislators the words of the Speaker of the British House of

Commons, Madam Speaker Boothroyd. She said, when asked about this situation, "That's a very strange way of doing things. There would be an uproar in the British Parliament. [The ... speech] could

only be done through the House of Commons and there would be great demands of recall of Parliament [if it wasn't]."

She went on to say, "It is the questioning of that [budget] statement that is so central to our democracy. The elective representatives [of the people] get the

right to question. I'm very adamant about the way Parliament works."

That is what the Speaker of the British House of Commons said about this. Further to that, probably the pre-eminent authority today on Canadian Parliament is the

former Clerk of the Canadian House of Commons, Robert Marleau, who wrote to every member of this Legislature on March 15, it is a "gross affront to parliamentary democracy. Budgets are about

levying taxes and spending the proceeds. Over the centuries, we, the people, have acquired rights from the crown to scrutinize government policies, especially spending policies, through

well-established and time-honoured parliamentary process." That's what the former Clerk of the House of Commons said, somebody Speakers from across Canada are known to have conversations with when

they wish to determine tradition and precedent.

Mr Speaker, your ruling 10 days ago or so, when you found the prima facie case of contempt, was one that all of us, if we gave it any thought at all, would

recognize to be correct. What I found disturbing, though, about your ruling was the government's attitude. The government decided that they didn't have much of a case. They decided they could not

convince Ontarians that they were not in contempt of the Legislature and were not in contempt of Parliament. So they chose to attack the Speaker of this Legislature on a personal level. On that

very basis alone, attacking the personal integrity of Speaker Carr should be, for all members of this Legislature, enough to cause you, on your side of the House, to also support Mr Conway's

motion.

As we all know, Mr Carr is well-respected not only in this province and in this place but he is respected across this great country. I have attended meetings

with Mr Carr with Speakers and presiding officers from across Canada, and I can tell you that Mr Carr is held in the highest respect by other parliamentarians, by other Speakers and by Clerks of

other assemblies. To attack Mr Carr because you cannot attack his logic is an affront to all of us. Mr Carr has worked diligently not only within Canada but throughout the entire Commonwealth

Parliamentary Association to bring dignity to this House, to this Legislature. I think that attacking this person, the Speaker of our House, someone who is beyond attack, someone who is not even

seeking re-election and who has no reason to do anything but maintain the highest of all authorities, is something the government itself should be ashamed of.

I look across and I see many of my friends on the government benches, and I say to you, can you really support a government which is clearly in contempt of this

Legislature by all accounts other than some dog-and-pony paid lawyers whom you might put up to get your own particular opinion; that by any dispassionate, non-partisan consideration would

understand this is an affront to Parliament -- and the ridiculous, absolutely absurd arguments I have heard from some of my friends on the other side, which I'm sure they would have trouble

believing themselves: that this was about a new way of doing business, about a new way of communicating, about a whole lot of wonderful 21st-century sorts of things and that the Parliament was just

evolving.

They seem to forget that Parliament could have gone to Magna International if we had wanted to, but the people who would have decided this would have been this

Parliament. It would not have been decided by a government; it would have been decided by motion in this place. That's how it would have happened. That's how we change. Parliament changes with the

consent of its members; it does not change because of the whim of some government which is on a power trip, which is trying to convince Ontarians through advertising dollars, through huge

expenditures of the public purse, through continual ads, through media event after media event, all being paid for by us, the taxpayer, to promote their own particular agenda. We should all find

that offensive. Therefore, I think all members here have a duty to support Mr Conway's motion which finds this government to be in contempt and as a remedy suggests we do what we have always done,

what all Parliaments have always done, and that is to read the budget here in the Legislature first. That is not a gigantic leap.

I call upon my friends across the floor, when it comes to making a decision on this very fundamental contempt motion, to do what they need to do: they need to

support our traditions, they need to support our practice, they need to support the very essence of parliamentary democracy.

As the member for Algoma-Manitoulin, there are many things in Algoma-Manitoulin I want to talk about that, at the moment, are being kind of pushed off the page.

We are not able to talk about health care. We are not able to talk about our continual effort to attract sufficient doctors to the various communities across the constituency of Algoma-Manitoulin

to provide us with service. We are continually asking the government to understand that we not only need the specialists in Sudbury, Sault Ste Marie and Thunder Bay and the access to those

specialists in Thunder Bay, Sault Ste Marie and Sudbury so that our folks don't have to travel too far but also that we want to make sure that the northern Ontario travel grant is not an impediment

for people in Algoma-Manitoulin attending a specialist because they are financially incapable of going.

We are convinced that the forest industry within my riding is coming under considerable pressure. I look over at the member for Timiskaming-Cochrane and some

of the other northern members who share my concern that, with the rising Canadian dollar, many of our forest product companies -- who have already suffered through softwood lumber duties and taxes,

all unfair and unreasonable, but they are surviving under that regime -- are very, very concerned that the amount of profit or margin that they may have going into the American markets will become

an increasing concern and will cause increasing difficulties to deal with. Companies are already at the edge. Some of our lumber producers have had too many layoffs already, be they White River;

we've lost shifts in Chapleau; 150 people in Dubreuilville are presently laid off; and there are significant concerns in the softwood lumber business throughout all of the constituency.

There are many challenges, and yet we have not heard anything from the government that would lead us to believe that the smaller communities of northern

Ontario, and even the larger communities such as Sault Ste Marie, are going to be able to survive versus the rising Canadian dollar and the effect that has, combined with the softwood lumber

duties, combined with energy prices that have been quite outrageous over the last period of time, and whether that will continue to happen. We need to have debates about those issues, but those

debates are not happening.

The contempt motion is the most fundamental motion that we will face in this Legislature. It is the most fundamental thing we do because it's about the power

of the Legislature. As representatives here in the Legislature, when you are in contempt of the Legislature you are in contempt of every one of our constituents. We have a government that can't

seem to make the distinction between itself -- the government -- the Legislature and the Conservative Party. Over and over again we've seen those distinctions blurred. The Conservative government

tends to spend public dollars as if they were Conservative Party dollars. It's very convenient. You don't have to raise the money; you don't have to do anything. You just spend, spend, spend my

money and everyone else's money on your particular propaganda, to no particular effect, at least for the good for the people of Ontario.

That lack of distinction is, I think, at the heart of why we went to Magna corp. It was at the heart of a media event; it was at the heart of controlling the

spin; it was at the heart of making sure that the government got its correct spin on the budget. They wanted to cut out any kind of criticism. They wanted to make sure that anybody who might have

questioned what was in the budget had no opportunity or platform to do that. They wanted to make sure that there could be no good analysis that came out. And in some ways they've succeeded. It's

amazing. The firestorm over providing the budget out at Magna corp was such that nobody ever remembers what was in the budget. There's a reason for that, and it's quite simple: the absolutely

outrageous nature of the presentation. What did McLuhan say? "The medium is the message." That's what it was. This is wrong. I think there were 85 or 90 editorials across the province during that

time period that said, "You're in contempt. The government should not do this." Every day for 13 days, if I recall correctly, the Globe and Mail criticized the government for this, and they did it

anyway.

How many editorials across the province supported your position; supported the position that tradition did not mean anything; supported the position that you

can do what you want, provided you get elected every four years, and you don't have to pay attention to anybody else in the meantime? How many supported that? The answer is simply none. The score

was overwhelming. It was larger than the Blue Jays score last night in terms of a win.

I don't really have a lot to say, because I don't really know what to say, Mr Speaker. Your ruling speaks for itself. Your ruling clearly says, in a

well-reasoned, intelligent way, that there is a prima facie case of contempt. There is no other place, no other Legislature in no other country, in no other province, in no other state -- an

Australian state, for example -- no other jurisdiction that belongs to the Commonwealth that has ever attempted to read a budget outside their own Legislature or Parliament.

It is with great sadness that many of us are forced to stand in this Legislature trying to defend the rights of the people, rights we thought the people had

earned hundreds upon hundreds of years ago in this country as we struggled for responsible government. It stretches back for centuries. It stretches back in this place -- we're having a debate

these days as we talk about what happened to the site of the first Ontario Parliament, where they want to build a car dealership. And I noticed on the news that they were commemorating the

Rebellion of 1837.

I would like to think that the members of this Legislature, if they were in York in 1837, would have joined William Lyon Mackenzie in marching up Yonge Street.

That is when we took the power from the Family Compact. That is what many historians would see as the beginning of responsible government in this province: when the people took control of their

affairs from the governor. The budget represents that; supply represents that.

I would ask that when it comes time, the people who understand how absolutely important the resolution is, which Mr Conway has put before us, that it actually

is the crux of our democracy, will stand and support Mr Conway.

Mr Michael Gravelle (Thunder Bay-Superior North): I'm very pleased to be able to join this debate. Like so many of my colleagues, I want to

have an opportunity to express how my constituents feel about this issue, this story and indeed the decision you made, Speaker, in terms of the fact that there is a prima facie case of evidence of

contempt of the Legislature.

I think it's important to point out that unfortunately this government's contempt for the House did not begin with the Magna budget. As a new member in 1995, I

certainly recall the excitement of being elected to the Legislature for the first time and looking forward to having the opportunity to represent my constituents and believing very much that there

would be an opportunity to see democracy at work and be a part of that process. I recall that fairly early in my first term an economic statement was being delivered in the House, and it was

actually a lock-up. When we came back into the House that afternoon -- I think it was late in November 1995 or maybe early in December; I'm not quite sure of the date -- we discovered that indeed

the government had put forward a piece of legislation, which is now memorably known as Bill 26, an omnibus bill that was an astonishing piece of legislation that the government tried to sneak

through, which basically turned on its head all kinds of legislation and had a huge impact on the operation of this province. It brought forward the Health Services Restructuring Commission and

basically took away the government's responsibility and threw it on to the responsibility of the restructuring commission. There was education restructuring -- the point is, it was an extremely

offensive piece of legislation that really set the stage for what we are seeing even with this contempt motion that's before us today.

Were it not for my colleague Alvin Curling, who made a decision on his own that he would not rise and would not vote, he would not leave the House and would

not follow through -- if that had not happened and we had not sat in the House overnight, essentially, the government would not have bent on that issue as well. They would not have allowed any

committee hearings. It was the beginning of a process that I think has continued to this day.

We've seen that particular bill; we've seen rule changes coming in place related to the limiting of debate. Certainly the fact that now we are offered the

opportunity to speak, as I am right now, for 20 minutes, and 20 minutes alone, on this and any other legislation is another limitation to the process of democracy. We know that the government has a

rather astounding record of invoking closure on all kinds of pieces of legislation in a fashion that has never been done before to try and end debate. That process has gone on since 1995.

We've seen our committee structure, which once I think was a truly extraordinary process -- certainly when I speak to my colleagues like Sean Conway and some

of the veterans in the House, they tell me of the times when indeed we brought legislation forward and the committee system went out to the province and really listened to the people and there was

actually a sense of camaraderie, may I say, between the three parties in terms of trying to really bring together legislation that would work -- that committee system has virtually fallen

apart.

I think what we're talking about is a government that has presided over a steady erosion of the democratic tradition of the Legislature, and I think, very

sadly, they have done it deliberately. It has been an actual, deliberate decision made, which to me has shown the arrogance of this government.

The contempt that this government has shown for the Legislature has continued past this budget farce as well. We certainly have heard about the process by

which this farcical budget in the Magna auto parts plant took place, but it has gone well past that. I don't just mean in the form of backbenchers making obscene gestures and then denying it --

lying about it, in fact; most seriously, it took the form of a sustained attack on you, sir, a reprehensible attack on the Speaker, that was made not only by the same member who used those sneers

and scowls in the place of reasoned arguments but also by senior cabinet ministers who have used their time in this debate to attack the Chair.

Contempt, in my opinion, is also what the government shows for this Legislature when we see speeches like those given by various ministers of the crown when,

instead of talking about the issues at hand, they waste the time of this House with partisan nonsense that is particularly distressing coming from these senior ministers. Let me remind the House

and the people who are following this debate what the resolution that we are debating today actually says: "That this House declares that it is the undisputed right of the Legislative Assembly, in

Parliament assembled, to be the first recipient of the budget of Ontario."

Others before me in this debate have pointed out that this should not be a contentious issue, and I know there are members on the government side of the House

who do agree that it's not a contentious one or a difficult one for the government to support: the budget should be presented in the Legislature first. Yet the government members have been standing

up over the last five or six days speaking out against it, using specious arguments, saying there was a budget lock-up, using other quite bizarre arguments that make no sense, people like the

Minister of Labour even suggesting that although Mr Conway's motion was kind of a motherhood statement that nobody could actually disagree with, he was thinking about voting against it anyway.

There's a pretty interesting notion. A motion comes forward stating that the Legislative Assembly, in Parliament assembled, be the first recipient of the

budget of Ontario -- again, not very contentious -- and although some members of the government, hopefully probably most members on the government side, agree with the sentiment, agree with the

tradition -- we'd like to think so -- they say they're going to vote against it anyway. Why? Have you no principles? Do you care at all about the institution of Parliament? Or are government

members so terrified of the thought that supporting this motion means effectively admitting that you were wrong not to have presented the budget in this House, that each and every one of you is

willing to compromise your own principles, your own integrity, simply to avoid admitting wrongdoing?

Interjection.

Mr Gravelle: I'm glad that the members are listening.

I must say I've been very interested, Speaker, to see the way some of the members on the other side of the House, on the government benches, have reacted to

this debate, both in the House and outside of it. It's fascinating to note. I saw the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, and the Minister of Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation, I

believe, join my colleagues from this side of the House in applauding my colleague from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, Mr Conway, when he first asked the Speaker to make a ruling on contempt two and a

half weeks ago. I didn't see their applause particularly as evidence of their lack of confidence in the government, to tell you the truth, or even as displeasure with the budget process; I saw it,

I hope, as evidence of their respect for the institution of Parliament and its practitioners. They were applauding a colleague on the other side of the House, my colleague Mr Conway, who made an

eloquent, learned and passionate argument about something he cared deeply about -- nobody questions that -- and they admired that. I don't think there's any shame in that. It was good to see them

acknowledge that.

Similarly, I found it interesting to see my colleagues from London West and Ottawa West-Nepean suggest that they agreed with your ruling, Speaker, when you

found a case of prima facie evidence of contempt. Now, does that mean that these two members have given up on their government? I suspect not. I admire them for saying those words. I would suggest

what it said was that they have enough confidence, and perhaps some integrity, to understand that admitting a mistake, admitting this particular mistake, in fact may strengthen their own

credibility.

It's easy enough, perhaps, to say, "We should put the politics aside and look at the issue at hand." I certainly understand that I am very much a member of the

opposition who is asking government members to vote for a motion that their own leader, the Premier, has said he will not support. Yet I ask them to think of their constituents and to think about

how they felt when they were first elected to this extraordinary institution, the Parliament.

When you go back to talk to the people of your riding and your community, I think it would be appreciated if you said, "I absolutely believe that the budget

should be presented first in the Legislature." I suspect you'd get a pretty large level of agreement with that. To me that's a succinct, simple, straightforward thing to be able to say to the

people you represent. You don't have to start bobbing and weaving. You don't have to explain that regardless of its apparent innocence, this motion was not in fact some sort of trap. Mr Conway

fashioned the motion very, very carefully in order to allow as many members of the government side, in fact all members of the government side, all three parties, to simply carry on.

It would have been great to have said, "Yes, Speaker. Indeed your ruling makes sense. My constituents agree that the budget should be presented in the

Legislature," and that they are proud to have supported this motion.

Speaker, it is worth remembering why we're here debating this issue right now. It came about as a result of something that few of us in this House, or indeed

this province, had really expected or contemplated before: a government deciding to push back the scheduled spring session, prorogue the House and present the budget outside of the Legislature.

One of the interesting defences we've heard during the debate was, of course, "We couldn't present the budget because the House wasn't in session." That

certainly has been one of the more embarrassing defences, in that the Premier decided indeed that he didn't want to sit in the House. He clearly wanted to avoid question period or wasn't prepared

to come forward and had other plans altogether.

We certainly know about the order in council that was signed for $36 billion in spending that was done very much behind closed doors, which I don't think would

have been found out if not for, again my colleague from Renfrew, Mr Conway, being made aware of that extraordinary apportionment.

The government made a really clear decision that they wanted to maintain some form of commitment to the previous promise that they were going to present the

budget before the end of the fiscal year. So somebody in the bowels of Mr Eves's office said, "Here's how we'll do it. We'll present this budget outside the House. It'll be just fine."

As I look back on it now, it is astonishing to think that that really could happen, that that advice would be taken, let alone hearing the statement from the

Premier that indeed the $36 billion that was done as an order in council -- as a special warrant, I guess is the term -- was on the advice of the public servants, which to me just reeked of a

peculiar form of arrogance, or of trying to avoid responsibility for a decision they made. They made all these decisions, recognizing that there was a price to pay for it.

I suppose there are members over there who will say that we're dwelling on this way too much, but I think it's incredibly important -- and, Speaker, obviously

you did as well, and your ruling was one that you obviously researched very carefully.

Ultimately, what it comes back to for me are my constituents. When this happened, my constituents reacted with a form of disbelief. It was quite remarkable,

the number of people who called my office. People often say that the public isn't engrossed in the minutiae of government and Parliament, but I think they have a great respect and regard for it. In

fact, I will tell you that some of my constituents were rather angry at me because I wasn't, in their opinion, speaking up strongly enough at the time. I must admit that I spoke about it, I did a

press release, I spoke to the media, but they didn't all hear me, I guess. They were calling and saying, "Look, this is huge. This is a major issue." This is one of those issues that I think people

reacted to in almost a visceral way. Whether or not they felt they understood all the principles and intricacies of Parliament, and some of them acknowledged that they didn't, they instinctively

felt that this was wrong.

When one lines it up with all the other actions this government has taken over the last eight years to basically denigrate Parliament, to treat Parliament as

kind of an annoyance -- in fact, it's always fascinating to remember that the former Speaker and present government House leader issued a ruling of contempt against this government -- I can't

recall the year exactly -- related to a piece of legislation that the government was acting as if it had passed. They were putting out notices of the legislation being done, long before that

actually took place. That was another ruling of contempt that, indeed, I think was an appropriate ruling.

My constituents, I think, were even angrier. They were very angry about it and wanted me to speak up because they saw it, as I think I see it, as just another

attack on Parliament from a government that has seemed to go out of its way, in my opinion, to show the worst aspects of politics: the politics of division, of wedge issues, of politics that turn

The record of this government, in my opinion, is a very sad one in many ways, but perhaps one of the worst is the way in which it has alienated so many of the

people it is supposed to represent. I do my very best, as I think most members do, to represent all of my constituents, which can be a challenge. But this government, as a policy, doesn't seem to

want to do that at all.

People call my office constantly. They come and see me, talk to me, stop me on the street and tell me that they get the impression that this government

honestly does not care about people with disabilities. They tell me that. They tell me it doesn't care about students, single mothers or people receiving social assistance. I could go on forever,

as a former critic of Community and Social Services, about some of the decisions you've made related to social assistance. It shouldn't surprise you that my constituents might say that.

Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener Centre): Mike, that's below you.

Mr Gravelle: All I'm telling you is what people come in and tell me. I appreciate, I say to my colleague from Kitchener, that you may strongly

disagree with that, but there is no denying that there's a level of cynicism, suspicion and bitterness that is felt by many who feel that their government has abandoned them. It just is out there,

and I think you know that. That doesn't mean you're like that, but that is the way that this government has acted.

Taking the budget outside of the House, in an attempt to sidestep the scrutiny that the parliamentary system provides, is just another message to many people

that the government does not care to listen to the people of Ontario or their representatives, and I don't think you can deny that.

Some of my colleagues have raised the issue of government advertising. I agree that it is closely tied into this debate. It is also an issue of contempt, in my

opinion, for the institution of Parliament. The government is of the opinion that the only way to communicate with the people of Ontario is to buy their way into the homes of Ontarians. I think

that is sad. I think that's very sad. It's an admission that the government is obsessive about controlling their own message. It's one thing to send out information about West Nile virus, SARS and

other health-related issues -- I think that's very important -- but it's another to run self-congratulatory ads or messages about all the money that you say you've spent, or are apparently

spending, on education or health care.

I think people have become so desensitized to those ads that we sometimes forget just how offensive they can be, because at heart they end up being cynical

and, I think, quite destructive. I say "cynical" because they are basically defensive. They are a product of a government that does not want to admit that the status quo is less than perfect, and

they're destructive because they take away funding that could be used by the programs and systems they are ostensibly promoting.

I honestly believe that most people would rather be pleasantly surprised, perhaps, by the quality of health care they receive when they have to go to the

hospital or the improvement in the state of their children's education environment, if that's the case, than be constantly assaulted with feel-good messages about all the wonderful things the

government is apparently doing. They don't believe this any more. I mean, the reaction that you get is extraordinary. I'm sure you're getting it on your side of the House as well. Every dollar that

we spend telling people how great things are is one less dollar we spend actually improving things.

That's one of the reasons why Dalton McGuinty will stop that partisan advertising -- absolutely stop it -- and will make sure there's a real arbiter in terms

of how that decision is made. In fact, there are so many democratic reforms that I am excited about that Dalton McGuinty will be bringing forward to truly bring democracy back to this Legislature,

and it's something that we all anticipate.

I just think it's very sad that this government does not basically understand or even seem to care about what it is doing. Ultimately, I think it's very sad

that we're having this debate in the first place. The Speaker quoted Erskine May on the issue of contempt, noting that, by definition, "any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House

of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly,

to produce such results may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence. It is therefore impossible to list every act which might be considered to amount to a

contempt...." That's really the issue here: that the government, in all its twisting and turning to avoid the Legislature, was in contempt of it.

I think this is fascinating, because the reality is that what put this government in the position it is in is its real and long-standing contempt for the

Legislature, and there is example upon example. If we had a government that recognized the importance of full debate, complete with questioning from the opposition, they never would have pushed

back the spring session of the Legislature or taken the budget outside of the House. They wanted to avoid that. They would never have put on an expensive, invitation-only infomercial in Brampton,

and they wouldn't be in this mess. In fact, in opposing this motion they are continuing to show contempt, in my opinion. They believe that they are above the law, the traditions and the rules of

Parliament.

I believe that my colleague from Thunder Bay-Atikokan spoke very wisely, as she usually does, when she reminded this House earlier in this debate that we are

the inheritors of over 700 years of democratic tradition, and it behooves us to respect that. The reason we are having this debate is because this government does not respect our democratic

traditions. Instead, they seem to see them as some sort of impediment. It's time, I say to my colleagues on the other side of the House, to rethink this rather belligerent ideology, accord to the

institution of Parliament the respect that it deserves, and support this very important, very straightforward and very acceptable motion from my colleague from Renfrew, Mr Conway. Because, frankly,

it's simply the right thing to do.

Ms Shelley Martel (Nickel Belt): As I begin today, I think it's worth reminding people who are watching how we got to where we are today. We

are dealing with a government that earlier, in March, decided it was going to throw years and years of parliamentary tradition to the wind because it was more interested in a public relations stunt

with respect to the budget than it was in ensuring that we were going to hold the budget in this place, that the assembly was going to be recalled, as it should have been, and that all members

would have been in their place, dealing with the government as it brought forward its budget.

I don't know who was involved in that decision, what brain trust was involved in deciding that they were going to throw away all those years of tradition, but

the brain trust made a huge mistake, because immediately after the announcement by the Treasurer and the Premier that the Legislature was in fact not going to be recalled and the government instead

would hold its dog-and-pony show up at Magna, a major contributor to this party, there was a very immediate negative reaction, not just with respect to Toronto media but, frankly, right across the

province.

I know the Sudbury Star in our community, which is notorious for not supporting any position of New Democratic Party, was actually very opposed to the decision

the government had made. There were other, what I term to be right-wing media outlets, usually traditional supporters of this government, who said the same. In fact, the response across the

province from editorial writers and from those on the news was overwhelmingly against the government decision: it was a slap in the face to democracy, a slap in the face to other MPPs not of the

government side and, frankly, a slap in the face to the public, who had every right to expect that after at least three months of not being in session, the government was at least going to recall

the assembly so we could sit and have the budget. This was especially true because the House was supposed to be recalled just after the March break, and the Premier decided that wouldn't be done.

And not only would that not be done, but a time-honoured tradition of having the budget in this place would also be swept under the carpet so the government could have its public relations stunt

out at Magna, I guess in the hope they could control the media coverage of that event.

When the House was finally recalled, and that was a month after the dog-and-pony show at Magna corp, people will recall there were cases put to you, Speaker,

that this was a case of contempt. You, in your wisdom, came back to this Legislature in a very important decision and said essentially -- and I'm quoting from the last page of your ruling, page 11

-- that "I am finding that a prima facie case of contempt has been established. I want to reiterate that while I have found sufficient evidence to make such a finding, it is now up to the House to

decide what to do."

That is the process the House is involved in. We are dealing with the Speaker's ruling of contempt and what we should do as a remedy to deal with that finding.

For those who haven't been watching this debate for all of last week, Mr Speaker, I should just point out that we are dealing with amendments to the motion whereby the House would deal with your

finding of contempt. Of course the motion that was moved by Mr Conway said that this House declares that it is the undoubted "right of the Legislative Assembly, in Parliament assembled, to be the

first recipient of the budget of Ontario." That would end, forever and a day, the government's PR practice that it implemented, in this case, of deciding to just hold in disdain years of tradition,

hold in disdain the rest of us and the public as well and have their budget off-site.

That motion has now been dealt with with two other amendments, the first by my colleague Mr Bisson, which says, "and not to present the budget in this way" --

that is, here in the assembly first -- "constitutes a clear contempt of the House." I think that very clearly falls in line with the ruling you made that a prima facie case of contempt had been

found.

The motion has been further amended by my colleague Mr Kormos, and it says very clearly, "and its members," meaning that if the budget was not presented here,

it would be a clear case of contempt to both the House and the members of the House, being all of us who are duly elected by the people of Ontario. We are in the rotation dealing with the main

motion and the two amendments, and what the government should now do or might do.

The last time I spoke to this, I talked briefly about some of the comments that had been made, particularly by the government members, as they tried, oh so

very hard, to say it really wasn't contempt, that the budget has been done off-site like this before, that it didn't matter if it had been held at Magna anyway because it had been clearly the

intention of the Premier to bring the House back and for the budget to be tabled here.

I made some comments with respect to some of those observations the last time I spoke. I just want to add to them this time particularly because I had an

opportunity to listen to Mr Turnbull last week. Mr Turnbull was trying very desperately to make a point that this wasn't so out of the ordinary, that budgets had been presented outside this place

before, that it was quite commonplace, that he didn't understand what the to-do was all about, that there really wasn't a problem, that somehow this was not a common practice, that this is what we

did every second budget in this place.

What's interesting is that if you go back to the government's own press release, which was issued on March 12, it is clear that it was not a common practice to

hold the budget outside the assembly, that it's not done every second year, and that the government itself recognized that this would be a major break with tradition in having the budget

off-site.

Here's what Madame Ecker had to say: "The Eves government will change the way budgets are presented in Ontario." I repeat, "The Eves government will change the

way budgets are presented in Ontario," said Madame Ecker very proudly in her press release. Not only that, the Minister of Finance "underscored the point when she acknowledged that, while past

finance ministers have gone outside the chamber to present budgets due to a parliamentary filibuster or leak" -- and I'm quoting Ms Ecker in this -- "`What is ... important is that this, the actual

initial communication of this to the public will occur outside the Legislature.'"

It was because she was really proud of that fact. She acknowledged that in the past we might have had to have a budget outside this place because of a leak --

that happened particularly at the federal level -- or because of a filibuster occurring in this place, which is what happened when the NDP was reading petitions and Robert Nixon had to table the

budget outside of this place, but she made it very clear that this was the first time that the government was actually going to purposefully, consciously make every effort to communicate the budget

outside of this place -- not because of a leak, not because of a filibuster; because that was the first route that they wanted to take to deliver it to the public -- and that it was a

communications message, a communications event first and foremost. Most importantly, I repeat, she said that while past finance ministers had gone outside the chamber to present the budget due to a

parliamentary filibuster or a leak, "What is ... important is that this" -- these are her words -- "the actual initial communication of this to the public will occur outside the Legislature. That

has occurred in some circumstances before," but "not in this kind of circumstance."

So the government was very clear in what it was doing. The government knew exactly that this had nothing to do with a leak or a stall in the parliamentary

process. No, the government wasn't even going to call the House back, so that wasn't even an option. The government wanted to use this as a communications tool, as a public relations stunt, and

that's what the government was going to do. The government didn't care that people were outraged by this. The government didn't care that many of its right-wing editorial friends wanted nothing to

do with this and were condemning the government daily, not just in Toronto but right across the province. The government didn't care. They got their back up to the wall and said, "We know better.

Who cares? We're the government." In a display of arrogance that has been continual with this government, they just decided to forge ahead, torpedoes be damned. "Who cares? Who cares about the

tradition? Who cares what the lawyer the Speaker retained has had to say? Who cares what the editorials are saying? Who cares about the people coming into our offices?" -- because of course they

did. I heard some of the Conservative members say last week, "Oh, we didn't hear from anybody about this." Well, they cornered some other Conservative members outside of a caucus meeting in

mid-March, and there were a lot more of those spilling their guts about how many people were complaining, particularly their own Conservative supporters who were complaining, about the break in

tradition.

There's no doubt in my mind at all that those members across there got complaints, but they didn't care. They'd made a decision. They're the government. "We're

going to do what we want to do, and that's the way it's going to be."

It would have been so easy for the government to stand and say -- because they had the time to do it; the announcement about going to Magna for the

dog-and-pony show was well in advance of the actual charade itself -- "We made a mistake. There's been a really visceral, negative reaction. We're going to back off." But no, they got their back to

the wall, more adamant and insistent than ever, then breaking with tradition and away they went with the dog-and-pony show. Now the government is reaping the consequences of the dog-and-pony show,

of the media communications event, because now we're dealing with contempt and the House is dealing with the remedy for your finding of contempt.

Speaker, given what you have said, given what has happened here in the province, the motion and the amendments themselves should be accepted, because we should

be able to be guaranteed that never again is a government going to consciously, purposefully decide to circumvent the House, contravene years and years of parliamentary tradition and hold a budget

off-site merely because they're trying to control the media spin. That's why everybody should be voting favourably with respect to this motion.

We shouldn't be surprised by the contempt shown by this government on this issue, because, frankly, it's quite in keeping with the contempt that this

government has displayed to the public on a number of other issues. There are two that I want to deal with directly.

The first has to do with the contempt, the disdain that this government shows to Ontario families who have autistic children. I've been dealing with this issue

for some time now in an effort to get the government to understand that autism should be recognized, the IBI treatment for the same should be recognized as a medically necessary service, and the

government should pay the cost for this very expensive treatment through OHIP. When the government does not do that, many, many Ontario families who have autistic children know that although there

is a treatment that could probably help their child, they will never be able to get it because of long waiting lists and because of the discrimination that this government practises against

autistic children over age six, when the government cuts off that treatment merely because those children turn age six.

Last fall we brought a number of families to this Legislature, you will recall, particularly who had children who were age six or were going to be turning six

shortly, who were receiving IBI treatments, whose families had noticed an incredible change in their situation: that they were for the first time starting to focus, were being toilet-trained, were

finally able to feed themselves, were not banging their head against the walls continuously. Because of this treatment, they were noticing a marked change in their condition, to the point where

they were convinced that if the treatment could only continue they would be fully functioning members of society, would be able to live independently and not end up in an institution. We brought

many families here -- Leo and Sheri Walsh of Welland, for example, who were having to sell their home in order to pay for IBI treatment for their son. Can you imagine in 2002 -- because we did this

last fall -- an Ontario family having to sell their home in order to get medically necessary treatment for their child? That is shameful.

Because we brought so many families and we made it a public issue, on November 18 the minister made a big announcement that the government was going to double

funding for IBI treatment by the year 2006-07 and go from $39 million to $80 million at that time. What was interesting about the announcement -- because I was there -- was that the government

didn't lay out any timeline for their funding, didn't announce there was going to be new funding last fiscal year to help get some kids off the waiting list, and didn't even put out a timeline

about how much and over how many years they were going to spend that money. What the government also did not do was remove its discrimination against autistic children who were turning the age of

six, who now get cut off from treatment. That was November 18 that the government announced this funding. The government reannounced the funding in the budget.

Did you know that I checked last week and none of the agencies that provide IBI treatment in the province have received a penny of the money that the

government announced November 18 to deal with autistic children? The government made an announcement and hasn't flowed the money. That is disgusting, it is shameful, it is clear evidence of the

contempt that this government and these ministers in the House today show for autistic children and their families. Not a penny has been allocated to those providers to deal with those children,

despite an announcement made last November.

You know what else we discovered, because the ministry has given some of the providers an additional inclination of how much money they're going to receive?

Across all of northern Ontario we're going to get enough money to get two kids off the waiting list. Two children across northern Ontario are going to get treatment this year because of the money

the minister announced in November and still hasn't flowed. That's shameful too.

We now have the scenario in the province where we have parents who are in court, right here in this city; parents of autistic children who have had to go to

court to try and get what is rightfully due to their children, spending thousands of dollars to try to get what they are entitled to. We have 100 families before the Ontario Human Rights Commission

on a complaint of discrimination. We have the Ombudsman, who is doing a special investigation looking at the waiting list for IBI treatment. We have a government that shows disdain for these kids

and their family by not recognizing IBI as medically necessary and not funding it through OHIP. That is shameful. That is contemptuous. It is unacceptable that in this day and age these kids can't

get treatment that is available and can't get treatment that will dramatically change their way of life so they can be fully functioning members of this province. It is unacceptable.

I want to deal with one other issue, and that has to do with our regional hospital. We are a community that had an order by the Health Services Restructuring

Commission that said that three of our hospitals had to amalgamate into one. From the very beginning the construction costs of that amalgamated hospital were grossly underestimated, and that was

the same in most communities. The cost for equipment alone was estimated at $9 million; it's closer to $80 million.

For the last at least one year there has been no construction at the Sudbury Regional Hospital because the costs have increased and this government refuses to

fund that increased cost. We have a hospital that is not complete, that has been directed to be amalgamated as a result of a commission put in place by this government, and we cannot get phase 2

construction underway to complete our hospital.

Our community has risen to the cause, because our community, in fundraising in the last three years, has raised over $23.7 million, which is about $5 million

higher than the local share that we were told we had to raise. The city of Sudbury itself, through tax revenue, is going to contribute another $26.7 million for the hospital and the cancer centre

that's attached there as well.

The community has done its share, has met its obligation, has met its responsibility. Do you know the party that continues to shows contempt for our community?

That's this government. This government holds our community in disdain, in contempt, and for over a year now has not uttered a single word about when it is going to put its money on the table so we

can get our hospital finished.

Finally, last week the chamber of commerce in Sudbury, which usually doesn't support the NDP and usually says nothing contrary with respect to what this

government is doing, had to come out and say very publicly, "It puts a black cloud over the community." Debbi Nicholson, who is the president and CEO of the Sudbury chamber of commerce, said, "From

an economic point of view, it doesn't look good on a community. We've attracted new doctors here, new businesses to the community. They came with the understanding that the hospital was moving

forward.

"Now there are a whole lot of questions ... about" the hospital. "It's a critical component in our community and the uncertainty does not bode well."

As well, the chair of the economic development corporation said, "Until we have some assurances that it's a go-forward situation, that the money is committed

to finish" this project, "this community is going to be continually struggling. All we are saying is, for God's sake, get on with it." They are exactly right.

We have a medical school that's coming to our community and we have a hospital that's not complete, so where are those new doctors actually going to do their

training? Can you imagine how difficult it is to try and recruit physicians to come to be part of building a new medical school when they don't know if the hospital is going to be finished so that

their students can practise there? That's ridiculous. But what is hardest of all to accept is that our community has risen to the occasion. We have raised much more money than we were ever asked to

do. We've done our bit. It's time for this government to stop showing contempt to Sudbury and area. Stop showing disdain for our community and put your money on the table to finish our hospital

now. This is an important project in our community. We need quality care, and it's time that this government put its money on the table to finish our hospital.

Ms Marilyn Churley (Toronto-Danforth): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would ask for unanimous consent for me to wear my "Adopt It" Bill

16. This is a sticker to promote my adoption disclosure reform bill.

The Speaker (Hon Gary Carr): Is there unanimous consent? I'm afraid I heard some noes.

Further debate?

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton West): I gather from that that the government and the official opposition are no longer putting up any

speakers, so we will continue to struggle along as best we can, nine of us, keeping this debate going.

Interjection.

Mr Christopherson: I don't know. We're going to get a couple of more hours anyway. We'll certainly exhaust our speakers' list, for the simple

reason that when you take an issue like this as seriously as all of us in the opposition benches have said we do, we're taking the position you've got an obligation to carry this thing through to

its completion, because if we let go of it, if we don't make it a priority, then I have to say I'm concerned that we're playing into the very kind of scenario that let the government feel they

could get away with this in the first place.

The last time I had a chance to speak to this, I pointed out that I think a lot of us on the opposition benches and a lot of people in Ontario have to wake up

to the realization that we have to take some of the blame for the government not so much taking the action they did and ultimately having the Speaker find a prima facie case of contempt, but we

need to be very clear that it's about the fact that you thought you could get away with it. That's what's really scary for me, as someone who is not seeking re-election. I'm not going to be back

here in the next Parliament, so I don't have political hay to make out of this particular issue. But I have to tell you, I'm worried about the fact that your people in the backroom, the cabinet,

and the Premier felt that the people of Ontario were either so gullible or so disinterested as to lead you to believe you could do this and get away with it.

Let's step back and ask ourselves, how did we get to a position like that? Well, the fact of the matter is that anybody who has watched this place consistently

over the last eight years will know that the rule changes which have happened here have not just been a matter of inside baseball, which is often the way the public views debates around the rules,

and that's totally understandable. But there are enough people who do know the significance of the rule changes, and there are enough people who ought to know the significance of the fact that

major pieces of legislation are introduced here in the House and then we have either very little or no committee hearings on them.

So you limit the ability of the opposition to take the floor, because our time has been restricted so tightly, you deny us every single possibility there is to

slow the House down if we believe something is important enough to do that, and then you refuse to take the legislation from the floor of this place to a committee process and give them the mandate

to go out into the public and ask the people what they might think about their own laws. Because at the end of the day, this isn't your place any more than it was ours when we were in power or the

official opposition's when they were in power. All of us are there temporarily -- and whether "temporarily" is one term or 42 years, it's temporary; at some point, you leave those seats and the

cabinet room. So what you're doing is taking away the public's right to democracy.

To come full circle, that's why I have taken and continue to take the position that all of us have some responsibility, and that includes people who are here

today in the galleries. Wouldn't it be nice if there were more people here outraged over the fact that the Speaker, a member of your own party, felt it necessary, in the defence of the democracy

this place is supposed to represent, to find a prima facie case of contempt against his own friends?

I have to say that's not an easy thing to do. There have been a lot of people who have commented on the growing respect, the continuing respect, that they have

for Speaker Carr in making such a difficult ruling. Think about it from just an ordinary Ontarian's everyday-walk-of-life point of view. The fact of the matter is that when the honourable Speaker

leaves the chair, removes the robes and puts his civvies back on, these are his friends. He has served with these people for 13 years, the same as I have with my caucus colleagues. It cannot be

easy to walk past the frosty attitude that I'm sure some government members show toward the Speaker because in their hearts they believe he has turned on them. That has to be difficult.

I would hope that people well beyond the opposition benches would be willing to stand up and go on the record and acknowledge that Speaker Carr went above and

beyond the call of duty that most of us face when we're elected to this place, when he found himself in that chair as a result of a majority vote of this House, and he, in his own heart, felt there

was so much at stake that yes, he was prepared to, in some ways, put himself into a position of being excommunicated by his own. Again, I can imagine there are people in the party and supporters

across the province who are angry. But the anger should not for a moment be directed to Speaker Carr. What he did was speak up for what the traditions are and the significance of this place. I want

to remind my friends across the way that the only difference between us and being barbarians is the fact that we have this kind of debate back and forth of ideas and words, and strategic moves,

tactics and things of that nature that don't involve violence. But how far are we away -- and I realize I'm talking in an extreme now; fair enough, but I want to make the point -- how far are we

away from the day when this place is just not here? Gone. You've privatized it, turned it into condominiums and that's the end of it.

Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton): Can we do that?

Mr Christopherson: I see one of the backbenchers laughing. I won't mention his name -- I know he means it tongue in cheek. But there he goes;

he said, "Can we do that?" It's funny, but for us over here there's an element of, "Boy, oh boy, they would if they could get away with it." If they thought it would get them a vote, they'd do it.

It'd be in the platform. But when you're at the point, and this is what I believe Speaker Carr is pointing to and it's certainly what we're saying here, where you made the decision that this place

is so irrelevant to you -- by the way, I think every Ontarian should find that alone insulting -- because when you find this place insignificant and irrelevant, you find Ontarians insignificant and

irrelevant because this is their House. This is the people's House.

We are at the point where you decided that it was OK to take the presentation of the budget -- you know, there is an argument, and Speaker, you've been around

here like me for a long time now and have seen a lot of budgets and throne speeches. There's an argument that 90% of politics or the decisions in this place are about the budget, because in most

cases, where you spend money is where you can effect change. The very essence of government authority, government power and government control lies in where a majority government decides to place

the emphasis of priorities in a budget. That is why, for centuries in the parliamentary process, with a couple of exceptions that you've tried to hang your hat on -- and nobody's trying to let you

get away with that, I might add -- but with just a couple of exceptions, for centuries Parliaments, the House of the people, have been where budgets have been presented. You decided that your

partisan interests were more important than the people of Ontario, more important than the tradition of this place, more important than the legacy of those MPPs, Tory and others, who came before

you and occupied those very seats, that all of that was to be set aside and thrown away -- Conservatives, mind you. Aren't you supposed to be the ones who don't want to change anything? You like

everything the way it is. And why not? In most cases you're winning under the current rules, so why wouldn't you like things the way they are, you and your supporters? You're the ones that normally

stand on the notion of tradition. Heaven forbid the smallest amount of change should happen. I can remember where some people were on an issue that involved a piece of apparel around the RCMP. That

whole argument, in large part, was, "Wait a minute. Tradition." That's your history. That's what most people thought you were: Conservative. It means, "Keep things the way they are. Preserve it.

Keep it."

Yet you're the ones who took a step that I can assure you nobody in the NDP caucus and, I suspect, the Liberal caucus would ever dream of taking: throwing away

hundreds of years of tradition, accountability, minority rights -- and I remind government members that there are real people who died over history fighting to give us these rights. You're the

party, the party of conserving everything, that took the precious and respected traditions of this place, threw them out the window and said, "Sorry. It's more important for us to look good as the

Progressive Conservative Party rather than the government of the people of Ontario."

That's why we're not going to back away from this debate -- nor should we, because, I argue, that's how we got into this situation: by too many of us standing

aside and letting you get away with what you've done.

We saw this coming. Again, I'm going to come back to this argument, to this historical fact, because it's real. A few months after you were elected, you

brought in the omnibus bill, the bully bill, just before Christmas, and it took Alvin Curling to refuse to vote, which caused a parliamentary bind, if you will, because the House couldn't move

forward if he refused to vote -- I forget for how many hours. It was certainly overnight. It certainly required some imagination and creativity. Let me tell you, given what he went through as a

human being, it took an awful lot of commitment to what's important to do what Alvin Curling did. He will be long acknowledged and respected by me for what he did and, I think, many others. Why did

he do that? Why did he take such an extreme position? Anybody who knows Alvin Curling will know he's not exactly a fire-breathing radical. That's not Alvin Curling; that's just not who he is. Yet a

person with the respect, a veteran MPP, was prepared to put his physical discomfort on the line, and I remember vividly that night and those times. That was not physically an easy thing to go

through. He put his political career and reputation on the line, because you don't know where things like that are going to end up, or what's going to be said about you at the end of the day.

It's not like he had to go out and make a name for himself. He'd already been a cabinet minister. He was already very well known. So it wasn't about

opportunism. This was a man, a member of this Parliament, who felt so strongly about what you were doing that he was prepared to put himself through what he did to try to drive home the point: that

you can't ram that bill though without giving us public hearings. because that's what you were attempting to do: a couple weeks before Christmas, a massive bill, a bill that led to umpteen hospital

closures across this province, that took all kinds of legislation from the floor of this place of debate into the secrecy of the cabinet room.

It took a commitment to democracy to the point where New Democrats were prepared to join with Liberals to support Alvin Curling.

Interjection.

Mr Christopherson: Well, we did. I remember, when he refused, we already had it set. My friend Dominic Agostino from Hamilton East, a Liberal

and myself, as soon as he said, "No, I'm not going to vote," we bolted over there, and anybody who remembers the front page of the Toronto Sun saw the two of us standing there side by side like

this, blocking the Sergeant at Arms from getting to the member, because it was the only way to carry out the strategy. We don't do that very lightly.

Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough Centre): That is contempt.

Mr Christopherson: I hear from the former cabinet minister that that is contempt. Well, that, my friend, is a laugh.

Interjection.

Mr Christopherson: No. No. Even you shouldn't stoop that low. That's what you want to talk about, bodily functions? Go away. I have a feeling

that will be taken care of soon enough, but go away.

I've got to tell you that the fact of the matter is that man's a hero. You haven't done one tenth of what Alvin Curling has already done, if you stayed here

another 200 years. You should be so lucky to have people speak about you the way that we all talk about him. He stood up for democracy. You, my friend, supported Bill 26, the bully bill. You

supported, I suspect, going to Frank Stronach's property to announce the budget of the people in his backyard. Let me tell you something: it's not a coincidence that Speaker Carr, one of your own

members, felt that an attitude like yours deserves to be debated, put forward and held accountable in front of the people of Ontario, because that's who you insulted.

I remind you that this isn't one of your favourite little warm and fuzzy bills that we're debating. We are debating contempt of Parliament, and let's not

forget that it's not the first one. You had another one, and -- boy oh boy, if history serves me -- it seems to me that was a Tory too, who stood up and said -- these are not his exact words, but

his actions said, "As much as I like my friends and want to please my friends, this is wrong." It's also interesting that that very Speaker is now the government House leader. But the fact remains

that this isn't some plot by the opposition to make such a wonderful government look bad. You did that yourselves. You did that by showing the contempt that you did for this place and for the

people of Ontario.

I invite anybody to think about what the dynamics of this House would be like right now if it were Bob Rae and the NDP sitting there, and Mike Harris, Chris

Stockwell and the Tory caucus sitting here, which is the way the House looked in 1995. I can just imagine the theatrics that would put us to shame. I have to admit that they would be Oscar

performances.

Hon Chris Stockwell (Minister of the Environment, Government House Leader): Not a chance.

Mr Christopherson: There's the man himself. There we go. The Oscar winner himself is here.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Timmins-James Bay): Stockwell's eyeballs would be this big.

Mr Christopherson: They would be. I said the last time I spoke that you'd still be peeling him off the ceiling, and you would be, because

there is no defence of this. There really isn't. At the end of the day, you're going to regret it. It's yet one more stain on your record.

I have to tell you that I personally find it very offensive to sit here for eight years -- and again, I'm not running for re-election -- and watch the

relevancy of this place, of committees, of public hearings, of the voice of the ordinary Ontarian, of the rights of the opposition members -- slowly drained away, chipped away. It's heartbreaking.

I think it is oh, so correct that this House is bringing this point to the people of Ontario by debating it day after day after day. What would be your next step if we didn't draw the line now? We

didn't draw the line before, when you changed the rules; we didn't draw the line when you stopped taking public business out into the public; we didn't draw the line when you took away a lot of the

other rights and privileges that opposition members had. We didn't draw the line then, and this is what you did.

I fear what their next step would be if we don't collectively, as Ontarians and parliamentarians, say, "Make no doubt about it, this is the line in the sand.

You are not going to do this to the people of Ontario any longer."

Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): It's a pleasure for me to rise to join this debate. It's always fun to follow my colleague from Hamilton across

the way. As a person, I know that when he leaves this Legislature, over the coming few years, if the people of my riding do me the honour of sending me back here another four years, on a personal

note, I'll miss the member from Hamilton. I won't miss his very loud speeches, which I've been listening to for eight years now. They require you to listen, that's for sure, because you can't cover

your ears and do your reading and drown him out; you've got to hear everything he has to say. So I'll miss him as a person. I wish him well in his future endeavours. I believe he's running for

mayor of Hamilton. I haven't talked to him yet about how that's going, but I know he will be leaving for that.

Ms Martel: Send him a cheque.

Mr Maves: "Send him a cheque" -- the NDP asking for money off the bat here, for campaign donations. But I'm sure the member opposite is doing

fine in that regard, and I wish him well.

Speaker, it always helps to kind of revisit where we are and how we got here. I may note that I believe we're into our third week of debating this motion by Mr

Conway. We have not been allowed, because we're debating this motion, to start debate on the throne speech yet. We still need to do that.

When the Legislature came back, we had a throne speech, which was very well received throughout the province, much to the chagrin of the members opposite. The

throne speech was very well received. I can understand why they want to tie up the Legislature for weeks on end, because what we have to do as soon as we conclude this debate is revert to

discussing the throne speech. Because that was so popular, I know the members opposite don't want the people of the province of Ontario to hear more about it. Immediately upon winding up this

motion, we will be speaking about the throne speech for at least another week, and that was full of good news, an excellent description by the current Premier of his view of where we are moving

into the future.

After that, of course, is the whole debate surrounding the budget, and we need to begin to debate the budget bill in the Legislature. It's another good-news

budget by this government in so many different ways.

Interjections.

Mr Maves: The members opposite again don't like the budget. They know the content of the budget was excellent. They don't want to debate that.

They are fearful of debating the content of the budget. We want to get to those things.

I see the Liberal opposition has no longer put up speakers on this motion. I think they feel that three weeks is enough debate on this motion. They want to get

on with the people's business and debate the throne speech and the budget. But the NDP continue to want to drag out this debate, to not let the people hear about the throne speech, to not let the

people hear about the budget.

It's been said many times over the past three weeks that we have been debating this motion -- I've heard many members over here on our side of the House talk

about how we got to this stage. We got to this stage, really, because the Premier of the province was caught between two commitments he had. He wanted to have a throne speech. There were many

people in the public in Ontario and at the same newspapers that criticized him, eventually -- but many of those people said, "What's the Premier's vision? We have a new Premier now who came along.

Halfway through his mandate, what's his vision?"

When he became the Premier of the province and we came back into legislative session, there were a lot of bills on the order paper that came forward when he

was not the Premier. We dealt with those. Then he did want to put his stamp on it and let the people know about his vision. You traditionally do that in the House through a throne speech. So he

adjourned the Legislature and we prorogued so he could have a throne speech. He set that for April 30.

At the same time, having been a finance minister for many years, Premier Eves knew the importance of having a budget come out before a fiscal year-end, which

is March 31. So he got caught between the two dilemmas and he had to make the decision of having the budget and delivering the budget first of all in the House. He tabled the budget before the

Minister of Finance decided to do her first budget speech outside the Legislature. So he was caught between two commitments, and the solution he came up with was to allow the first budget speech to

be done outside the Legislature.

While it obviously wasn't the most traditional, Speaker, you yourself talked in your ruling about the other times in Ontario's history when a budget speech has

been done outside the Legislature. The Ontario Liberals did it in 1988, I believe, when they went down to the press room and delivered their speech there. The NDP did not sit for the last 18 months

they were in office. They tabled their budget, the social contract -- I believe you called it a mini-budget in your ruling or alluded that it was very much like a budget. They didn't come into the

legislature to do that.

It's interesting, when the members from the NDP get up and speak in the House, that they complain about this break with tradition, but they themselves did the

very same thing, as you alluded to, Speaker, in your decision on the prima facie case. It seemed to be OK for them then, and they now seem to forget having done that. But you were right to allude

to that.

The federal Liberals have done the same thing. They didn't pass a budget in the federal Parliament for nearly two years, I believe, and all their finance bills

were done outside the Legislature. So it has certainly happened before.

As you said in your ruling, circumstances were different in each and every one of the cases I have mentioned. In your ruling -- I recall listening very

intently that day -- it seemed to me you couldn't find anything out of order and you couldn't rule on convention or constitutional problems. It very much seemed like the Table had assisted in

determining that there was nothing out of order with the budget process. I'm paraphrasing you, but you decided it was time to perhaps set a precedent -- and precedents get set now and then -- in

your words, because you had received so many phone calls and had heard from people who didn't like the process, you were going to decide on a prima facie case of contempt; however, only the House

can decide on that, and that's why we're here debating Mr Conway's motion.

So really it came down to a break with tradition. As my colleagues have said, there are a variety of examples of breaks with tradition that haven't even been

talked about. I know my friend Mr Chudleigh and the member from Hamilton talked about Mr Curling and when the House was held up. It was really quite contemptuous, in my view, to have the members of

the opposition on that occasion basically stop by force the Sergeant at Arms from doing his duty. I think most people, when looking back at that, would find that a very contemptuous act. During

that time and during that filibuster, a lot of other things happened in the Legislature that were out of order, contemptuous and definitely breaks with tradition.

I've seen people lose their temper in this Legislature over the past eight years. I've been in the Legislature when people twice crossed the aisle to fight, to

physically fight with members on this side of the aisle. That was never spoken about in the media. Everyone kind of lay low about that. They said tempers flared and that's too bad and people were

taken out of the room. It's interesting to me that the members opposite can bypass that and overlook that and the media always overlook that. In fact, I remember one time when one of our members

raised that issue and was actually berated by the press for making it up. But I was in the Legislature and saw it happen. So there are a lot of breaks with tradition. There are a lot of things that

people would find contemptuous that just aren't talked about by members opposite.

It appears the Liberal opposition now have stopped putting up speakers. We look forward to finally voting on this motion and getting on with the business of

the people of Ontario. What will that be? As I said, we will return to debating the throne speech, an excellent throne speech, delivered here almost three weeks ago now. We look forward to debating

that. We also look forward after that to debating the budget, because again we delivered an excellent budget in the House. We are delivering our fifth consecutive balanced budget. Incredibly enough

it's the first time since 1908 that any government has delivered five consecutive balanced budgets. That's a remarkable accomplishment. In the past four years, and this would be the fifth year, we

have actually paid down the debt by $5 billion. I get a kick out of the members opposite, the Liberal members especially, when they talk about the eight years we've been in office, and their union

friends who make up the working family coalition.

Mr Bisson: They've got union friends?

Mr Maves: Oh, they do have union friends; you're right.

They make up this group called the working family coalition, who ran some ads. The working family coalition TV ads really parrot everything the Liberals have

been talking about in the Legislature; for instance, the debt issue, that over the life of this government we've increased the debt by some $20 billion.

This goes back to the fact that when we took office in 1995, we were facing an $11.5-billion deficit left to us by the NDP. They had run four consecutive

deficits over $10 billion, and we were facing a fifth. We reduced expenditures right away and reduced the first-year deficit to about $8 billion. The next years we went to six and four and so on.

If you add that up, you get to about $18 billion or $20 billion. Depending on how much you want to assign to the NDP for that first year, 1995-96, you get, over that time, a cumulative amount of

debt, that's true.

But the really bizarre thing is that the Liberals have the audacity to stand up and complain about that, because they complained about every single expenditure

reduction we did as we moved toward balancing the budget, and they continue to complain. They hung from the rafters and screamed at any expenditure reduction we made from that 1995 budget, it

didn't matter what it was, even though for five years they had also complained about the NDP's runaway budgets and deficits. When we started making expenditure reductions, the Liberals complained

that every one of them was bad.

So over four years, rather than five, which is what we campaigned on, we balanced the budget. If you accumulate some of those deficits, you get to $18 to $20

billion, as I said, depending on how much you want to apportion to us and how much you want to apportion to the NDP in their last year in office.

So it's really funny, really ironic to hear the Liberals and their union friends trying to now say, "They managed poorly. They shouldn't have raised that much

debt over the years." When we were balancing that budget, they did nothing but scream and complain and say we shouldn't have cut any of that spending. That's something we look forward to debating

when we get to the budget and can talk about this government's five balanced budgets in a row.

At the same time, we've been reducing taxes. Everyone in this Legislature now knows all the income taxes we've reduced for people, the property taxes we've

reduced, the small business tax, the employer health tax. We've now reduced workers' compensation premiums by about 26%. Every time we made a tax cut in Ontario, our revenues actually went up. Why?

Because in 1995 when we got elected with our agenda, the businesses around Ontario and around the world said, "Finally someone is speaking some common sense. Finally we can start trusting that a

government won't punish initiative and won't punish entrepreneurship." They started to reinvest in Ontario and create jobs. We've had well over 1.1 million new jobs created since 1995, and because

there are 1.1 million more people working and paying taxes in Ontario, revenues have gone up every year. What did we do with that? Well, we balanced the budget.

We've also added $10 billion to the health budget. When we took office, the expenditure on health care was about $17.4. Today it's well over $27 billion and on

its way higher. It's a budget that's very difficult to hold in check. So as we reduced taxes, our revenues went up, the economy grew, revenues went up, we paid down the deficit in four years

instead of five, and we dramatically increased funding in health care. Hospitals have seen a huge increase, especially since 1997.

Increases in CCACs, community care access centres, were up dramatically. For several years in Niagara, between 1995 and 2002, it was up about 125%. We froze it

for a year when we had a problem with the CCACs. We had some auditors go out and tell us we had serious problems with the way they were being administered. So we dealt with that, we fixed them and

again we've started to put some more funding in the CCACs. But it's important that taxpayers know that these huge increases in funding we gave to the CCACs were being handled properly and that they

went into services, not administration and waste.

So we really need to get back to debating that. We need to get back to discussing, for instance, all the dollars we have put into colleges and universities.

We've made record announcements and record investments in colleges and universities. We've allowed for nearly 130,000 new spaces in colleges and universities. Down in Niagara, Brock University has

been a huge beneficiary of that with their major expansion. Niagara College built a whole new campus in my riding in Niagara-on-the-Lake. My former colleague Tom Froese was very instrumental in

ensuring that investment happened. At Niagara College they are currently doing a viticulture and tourism addition to their campus in Niagara-on-the Lake, to educate people for the booming tourism

business that's in Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake. So that's something we want to get back and talk about, and of course the increases that went along with that.

With the double cohort now moving into colleges and universities, with this huge expansion of space on all the campuses of colleges and universities throughout

Ontario, they also required more funds for more professors and instructors, and that has been there, especially to the satisfaction of the colleges and universities sector.

It's always a bit of a tussle. Everyone obviously wants a little bit more, and even when you give them more, they say thanks for a little while and then want a

little bit more again, but that's the regular to and fro of government. We need to get off this debate and on to that budget debate so we can discuss that.

There have been dramatic increases in funding in special education over the past few years. The Rozanski report came in and reviewed our funding formula, which

the members opposite panned for years -- they were right in lockstep with their union friends; they panned it for years -- but Rozanski came back after meeting with all of the unions and school

boards across the province and said resoundingly that the funding formula was good, that removing the right to tax from school boards was the right thing to do. The members opposite opposed that.

They wanted to give back to school boards the right to raise your property taxes. We said, "No more," to that and Rozanski said, resoundingly, that was correct, that moving to a per-student funding

formula was the right way to go.

He also said that we should add some funding now to education. I think he said the number was $1.8 billion over the next three years. Premier Eves has

committed to actually raising it by about $2 billion over the next three years. So we should engage in that debate. We sent out Mr Rozanski, he did his work, he did his consultations all around the

province and came back with some instructions. We said we would adopt his report, and we've done that. That's reflected in the budget and in the throne speech, and we need to get back to speaking

about that so the people of Ontario will hear about that.

So there are a lot of things we need to do. We need to wind up the debate on this. We need to have the vote on this, get past this and move on to the throne

speech and the budget. I know many of our ministers have bills they want to introduce and get debated in this Legislature.

Mr AL McDonald (Nipissing): Get on with running the province.

Mr Maves: That's right. My colleague from North Bay says, "Get on with running the province," and continuing the fantastic growth it has

experienced over the past eight years, an unparalleled growth that no jurisdiction, no G7 nation can match.

Interjections.

Mr Maves: It's funny, over the past few years when the economy is going well here, much to the chagrin of members of the NDP, they get up and

complain, "It's only because of the Americans." Well, the American economy has been struggling for pretty much three years now, but our economy has not hit the skids. We've done extremely well.

We've had an economy that has done better than anyone else in the G7 nations. Clearly our economy was resilient to any problems in the United States, and that's largely because of the actions of

this government.

I want to thank you, and I look forward to continuing the debate on the throne speech and the budget in the future.

Mr Michael Prue (Beaches-East York): I had not expected to be standing up so fast. As I was the third or fourth speaker for the NDP, I didn't

think they were going to get to me today. I don't know why my friends on both sides of the House have decided that that this debate is over and decided they don't want to speak to it. Because

really, quite importantly, what has happened here in this Legislature needs to be debated long and debated hard.

What you have ruled, Mr Speaker, and the motions, the amendment, and the amendment to the amendment before us are absolutely important to the cause of

democracy; they are absolutely important to the people of this province. They will be talked about and debated, I'm sure, for years and years after the vote is held on what we are going to do and

whether or not the government is in contempt of this House.

I cannot remember a more important debate in this Legislature in all the years, save and except perhaps the amalgamation debates going back into 1996 and those

horrible years.

I cannot remember a more important debate, and one that has captured the imagination of the people out there more than this one has. In the last couple of

weeks I have been out knocking on doors, as I do every summer, not in anticipation of an election -- because I am one of those who don't believe you have the nerve to call it -- but because I think

it's important to go out there and talk to the people about what concerns they have, right on their doorsteps, to find out what is important to them.

What we're finding is important to them would not surprise you at all. What is important to them is a lot of local circumstances. They're concerned about local

issues. They're concerned about the environment in the Beach. They're concerned about what's happening in their schools: the fact that the schools are losing teachers and vice-principals and

custodians. They are worried about the island airport. They are worried about a lot of things.

But you know, the number one issue at the door is the contempt of this Legislature. It is the number one issue as I go door to door in Beaches-East York.

People cannot understand why this government has been in contempt of this Legislature. They cannot understand why a place like Magna corporation is now the seat of government, is now the place

where decisions are made and public announcements are made. They cannot understand how their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent so foolishly. They cannot understand why a government, which

people have said -- they always thought Conservatives were people who looked to our past with some pride, who looked to our democracy with some pride, but they obviously see in this government that

that is no longer the case.

Mr Speaker, the issue before us today started with your statement from this House. We've being going -- I believe this is day six; I heard three weeks from the

previous speaker. Yes, I guess if you count Thursday as one week, and then you count the following four days as the second week and you count today as the third week, Tory math will say that it's

three weeks long. But in fact this is the sixth day of debate. They have not been full days. They have been six days, no evening sessions, and all members have not yet had an opportunity to

speak.

I would suggest, Mr Speaker, that what you said bears repeating after these six days, and there are a few paragraphs I would like to read from your own

statement which I think clearly and succinctly sets out the task before all of us. Mr Speaker, you stood up in this House and you said, "As I've already indicated, there have been occasions in the

past when a Minister of Finance or a Treasurer has neither personally presented the budget in the House nor read the budget speech in the House. In the case at hand, however, the government

indicates that the events of March 27 were motivated by a desire -- in the words of a March 12 press release issued by the Ministry of Finance -- `to have a direct conversation with the people of

Ontario.'

"To the extent that they imply that parliamentary institutions and processes in Ontario tend to interfere with the government's message to the public, such

statements tend to reflect adversely on those institutions and processes. If the government has a problem with those institutions and processes, or if it wants to improve them, why did it not ask

the House sometime during the last session to reflect on the problem and to consider appropriate changes? Traditional ways to do just that would be to introduce a bill, table a notice of motion,

enter into discussions at the level of the House leaders or ask the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly to study and report on the problem. Given the public's reaction to the

government's decision to stage a budget presentation outside the House, I think Ontarians are rather fond of their traditional parliamentary institutions and parliamentary processes, and they want

greater deference to be shown toward the traditional parliamentary forum in which public policies are proposed, debated and voted on.

"When the government or any member claims that a budget presentation is needed outside the House well before it happens inside the House in order to

communicate directly with the people or because of a perceived flaw in the parliamentary institution, there is a danger that the representative role of each and every member of this House is

undermined, that respect for the institution is diminished, and that Parliament is rendered irrelevant. Parliamentary democracy is not vindicated by the government conducting a generally one-sided

public relations event on the budget well in advance of members having an opportunity to hold the government to account for the budget in this chamber.

"I can well appreciate that parliamentary proceedings can be animated and often emotional, and they can be cumbersome. It may not be the most efficient of

political systems, but it is a process that reflects the reality that members, like the people of Ontario, may not be of one mind on matters of public policy. A mature parliamentary democracy is

not a docile, esoteric or one-way communications vehicle; it is a dynamic, interactive and representative institution that allows the government of the day to propose and defend its policies --

financial and otherwise. It also allows the opposition to scrutinize and hold the government to account for those policies. It is an open, working and relevant system of scrutiny and

accountability. If any members of this House have a problem with the concept of parliamentary democracy, then they have some serious explaining to do."

Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa West-Nepean): They changed Speakers.

Mr Prue: The Speakers have been changed but the tradition continues. I am sure that a Deputy Speaker would have come to the same ruling had he

been so charged.

The last few lines of what Speaker Carr had to say are very telling and very important. "If any members of this House" have a difficulty, then they need to

really search their souls.

I have heard almost every speaker from the government side trying to defend the indefensible, to talk about why those traditions were gone around, to say that

they were followed in some arcane way. We all sat here wondering what precisely they were talking about. Instead of standing up for democracy, you have stood up for your party. Instead of standing

up for the rights of the people and for the representatives of the people in this House, you have stood up only for yourselves.

I would suggest that you start knocking on a few doors out there, you start going into your respective ridings and go door to door to door, and ask the people

out there whether they thought holding a budget at Magna International was a good idea. While you're at it, ask them if they thought going around in a go-kart was a good idea for your party too.

They might be a little illuminated on that one as well.

It should not be a surprise. This party has shown contempt not only for this House and the reason for the debate here for these past six days, but they have

shown contempt for a great many things in their eight years as government -- years of the Mike Harris regime and the year-plus of Mr Ernie Eves -- not much has changed. Although we were all hoping

for a kinder, gentler conservatism, that is certainly not what we're seeing here today. What we are seeing is contempt upon contempt upon contempt: contempt of this House; contempt of the

traditions of this country, our people, our heritage, our British democracy; contempt of the history of this land, where there has been an uninterrupted debate on budget items -- save and except,

and I will admit, in unusual circumstances -- for 136 years. They have not looked at the history at all. They have not looked at the tradition of parliamentary democracy and budget debates

factories, and has never insulted the people of their lands in quite the same way that the Ontario government has done.

This should really come as no surprise. We have seen contemptuous actions by this government over the last eight years. The only one, as I said earlier, that I

could find as contemptuous as this one was the whole debate around amalgamation. We can remember when the people of Toronto -- of the six municipalities, as they then were -- went to a referendum.

We can remember when the populations of those six cities voted 75% no to amalgamation and had Minister Leach stand up in the House and say he was going to ignore the will of everyone who was

speaking, everyone who had voiced a vote, everyone who had tried to preserve their democracies and had tried to preserve their way of dealing with city officials. We remember the contempt with

which your government dealt with that --

Interjection.

Mr Prue: -- as you are contemptuous of it today. The honourable minister is contemptuous of it to this very day. They are contemptuous

whenever people decide something that they, in their infinite wisdom, think they know better.

I will tell you, the people in Toronto knew better. We see today the mess of a city that you have created, a city which is in decline, a city where potholes

aren't fixed, a city with garbage on the streets, a city with multiple problems, with the inability to raise taxes. You will see a city in disastrous decline, where people can no longer interface

with their politicians and where everything seems to be going wrong.

You have shown your contempt as well for the people of Ontario throughout, first of all by marginalizing the poor, those who were on welfare, those who were on

ODSP, those who were on fixed incomes and, mostly, you have shown the utmost contempt for those poor individuals, the poorest of the poor, those who live on our streets.

If anyone wants to see what contempt this government has shown to the people on our streets, one need only go out to the Eaton Centre, go out the back door and

you will find the little Church of the holy Trinity. I would invite members opposite to go there to that little church and see precisely the contempt in which you hold the poor and precisely what

your actions have resulted in since 1995. I would invite you to go there and look to the monument that is there, a little makeshift monument that gets added to weekly, of those poor unfortunate

souls who die on our streets. You will see that it goes back into the 1980s. You will see that people unfortunately died on our streets in very small numbers in the 1980s and early 1990s -- one or

two a year. Now you will go out there --

Hon Mr Stockwell: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I seek unanimous consent to conclude the current debate in light of the fact that 63,500

schoolchildren are currently not in school and the question now be put by unanimous consent.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): The government House leader has asked for unanimous consent to --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: I heard a no.

Mr Prue: As I was stating before I was so rudely interrupted --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Beaches-East York has the floor.

Mr Prue: As I said, I invite the Tory members especially to go out and look at that little church and you will see the disaster your policies

have had on the poorest of the poor. You will see how people who live on our streets no longer have the required medical care, the food or the housing in order to survive. You will see that in

1995, after years of having one or two die on the streets -- which is lamentable, I have to tell you; it's one or two too much -- you will see that it jumped to 15 in 1995, jumped to 50 in 1996 and

has been above 50 people, one a week dying on the streets of Toronto every year of your government. If you want to know the contempt --

Hon Dianne Cunningham (Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, minister responsible for women's issues): You're bragging about it.

Shame on you.

Mr Prue: If you want to know the contempt, Madam Minister, then that is contemptible. That is the same kind of contempt you are showing to the

House which you have already shown to the poor.

If they want to see more contempt, then you need only go to the cities of Ottawa, Toron