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

October 5, 2000

37th Parliament, 1st Session

< Previous sitting day

Next sitting day >

Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcript 2000-Oct-05 (PDF)

L085 - Thu 5 Oct 2000 / Jeu 5 oct 2000

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

CARE HOMES ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR LES MAISONS DE SOINS

PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEES' SEVERANCE PAY ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR L'INDEMNITÉ DE CESSATION D'EMPLOI DES EMPLOYÉS DU SECTEUR PUBLIC

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

JOURNÉE MONDIALE DES ENSEIGNANTS

POVERTY

LONDON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU

WORLD TEACHERS' DAY

CHILD POVERTY

OKTOBERFEST

WORLD TEACHERS' DAY

ONTARIO AGRICULTURE WEEK

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (DRIVING WHILE SUSPENDED), 2000 / LOI DE 2000 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (CONDUITE PENDANT UNE SUSPENSION)

WORLD TEACHERS' DAY ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR LA JOURNÉE MONDIALE DES ENSEIGNANTS

ORAL QUESTIONS

WASTE MANAGEMENT

CHILD POVERTY

WASTE MANAGEMENT INC

EDUCATION

CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

TEACHERS

MULTICULTURALISM

TRUCKING INDUSTRY

ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES LEGISLATION

PLUM POX VIRUS

HEALTH CARE REFORM

AIR QUALITY

FINANCEMENT DE L'ÉDUCATION / EDUCATION FUNDING

DOCTORS' SERVICES

FAMILY RESPONSIBILITY OFFICE

PETITIONS

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANT

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING

HOSPITAL SITE

SNOWMOBILE LEGISLATION

WATER EXTRACTION

OAK RIDGES MORAINE

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANT

EDUCATION FUNDING

MCMICHAEL CANADIAN ART COLLECTION

CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES

MCMICHAEL CANADIAN ART COLLECTION

ORDERS OF THE DAY

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PROTECTION ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR LA PROTECTION CONTRE LA VIOLENCE FAMILIALE

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

CARE HOMES ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR LES MAISONS DE SOINS

Mrs McLeod moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 53,

An Act to provide for the accreditation of care homes, to protect the rights of tenants and to amend the Tenant Protection Act, 1997 / Projet de loi 53, Loi prévoyant l'agrément de maisons de soins, protégeant les droits des locataires et modifiant la Loi de 1997 sur la protection des locataires.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): The member has 10 minutes to make a presentation.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan): I'm bringing this bill forward because we in our caucus believe that the provincial government has a responsibility to provide some guarantees of quality of care for the vulnerable seniors who are living in privately run care homes.

My work on the bill began a year ago in response to the stories of seniors who were being mistreated in a Toronto area care home, the Birch Cliff Retirement Home. It was a home that had been operating as a nursing home under government regulation. It became the only home in the last decade to have its nursing home licence suspended, but it opened again six months later as a private retirement home, and there was nothing anyone could do about that.

In reaction to this story, the city of Toronto set up a hotline to hear complaints about retirement homes. The hotline was overwhelmed with calls, calls about filthy conditions and physical neglect of residents. Other horror stories tell of more violent abuse that sometimes takes place.

Some will argue that these situations are all in violation of existing laws and regulations: health and safety regulations, the fire code and, in the worst cases, there are Criminal Code violations. In fact, as awareness of the conditions in some of these homes increases, more of the violations of existing laws and regulations are being prosecuted.

The problem is, there are no consistent provincial guidelines for the operation of these homes. There's no outline of the rights of care home residents and no body clearly responsible for investigating concerns. Because of this, many deplorable situations are never reported. People don't know what their rights are under existing regulations, and they don't know where to report any complaints. Some abuses, in fact, like physically restraining a senior, do not clearly fall under any existing regulation and many vulnerable seniors are unable or afraid to advocate for themselves.

That's why it's important for the province to provide some clear, consistent guidelines for the operation of these homes and to establish an independent body to investigate complaints and ensure that regulations are enforced.

Let me acknowledge that this is not an issue that suddenly emerged last fall. In 1993, the NDP government appointed Professor Ernie Lightman of the University of Toronto to conduct an inquiry into the state of retirement homes in the province. Professor Lightman found that things were even worse than he'd feared. He told the story of attending an inquest into the death of elderly individual living in a care home in a small town in Ontario. There were 30 to 40 frail seniors living in the home with only one teenaged staff person on duty overnight. The individual who died had wandered out of her home in her nightgown and frozen to death.

The problem is, the stories surface in the media from time to time, studies or consultations are carried out and nothing happens. The current government did respond to the concerns last fall by carrying out a consultation, led by the member from Guelph-Wellington. We haven't seen the outcome of the consultation yet, and we don't know whether there's going to be any legislation. I did send the minister a copy of my bill last spring in the hope that it could be useful in drafting a government bill.

At this point, however, the minister seems to have been convinced that the private homes don't want to be regulated, which should not come as any surprise. Her recent public statement suggests the government wants to leave this responsibility to the municipalities, which fits with the pattern of this government.

Some municipalities, Windsor, Hamilton and St Catharines, have brought in bylaws to regulate care homes. Toronto and Ottawa-Carleton are now looking at developing their own bylaws. The larger municipalities have the expertise, if not the resources, to do this. Nothing in my bill precludes a municipality from putting in place bylaws to deal with areas that fall within their jurisdiction. But that does not take away from the importance of having a consistent provincial framework for the operation of these homes. In fact, only three provinces, Quebec, Alberta and Ontario, do not have provincial regulations for retirement homes.

Both Toronto and Ottawa-Carleton, although they are working on their own bylaws, have called on the province to bring in provincial regulations and to provide the resources to enforce them.

Alex Munter, chairman of community services for the Ottawa-Carleton regional government, says, "We believe the standards should be province-wide and set by the Ontario government," and from the city of Toronto recommendation, "that the provincial government be advised that the board of health and council considers the seniors in retirement homes to be at risk and strongly recommends that the Ontario government establish province-wide mandatory standards of care and provide funding for the implementation and enforcement of such standards." It's in respect for the municipality's own belief that this kind of consistency from the province is needed that I bring forward this bill today.

It's important at the outset to clarify a couple of issues about what has proven to be quite a complex bill. The bill deals with retirement homes that offer some component of care. The residents in these homes, I want to make it absolutely clear, are tenants and they enjoy all rights under the tenants' act. But they are not just tenants, because they require a degree of care, the provision of meals and some level of personal care.

I've tried in this bill to respect the rights of these individuals as tenants but to provide a bill of rights that goes beyond what is currently in tenant protection legislation, which simply isn't adequate to meet the special needs of those who are seeking care in the care homes.

The bill does not put the provincial government into the business of licensing care homes. One of the realities is that there are too many people in unregulated care homes who really should be in nursing homes. They require care beyond what can or should be provided in a private setting. We do not want privately paid-for care homes to become a substitute for nursing home beds, and it is because of that concern that we've tried to be careful in the drafting of a bill which respects the rights of tenants who need care but does not put the province in a position of licensing what would be privately paid-for nursing home substitutes.

We want people to be aware of what's available to them outside the nursing home setting and what these homes can and cannot offer, and we want people to be able to seek redress for complaints from a body that has inspection and enforcement powers beyond what is available to a municipality.

Under this bill, a care homes review board would be set up to keep a registry of care homes and to investigate any complaints of violations of the rights set out in the legislation. The board would be given enforcement powers, including fines and the withdrawal of accreditation. We have left the accrediting of care homes, recognizing the wide range of homes that exist, in the hands of the private organizations but with recognition of their accrediting ability in the hands of the care homes review board.

That last statement suggests to you just how very complex the legislation is. I've found these are very difficult issues to deal with. The central question, as I worked through the issues around the bill, revolved around what degree of regulation is warranted and what degree of regulation is necessary if we're going to protect people who are living in a private setting, recognizing that these are vulnerable individuals, but they are individuals who, nevertheless, are making private choices about their living situations.

It's very difficult to find the balance between recognizing their vulnerability, recognizing the desperation often of families who need to have a setting where they feel their loved ones can be safe and can be cared for and yet those settings are unregulated. There are no guidelines, there's no investigative body which can give them the assurance that the care home setting which they've chosen for their loved one is indeed safe, secure, and one in which their loved one will be treated properly.

I also struggled with the issue of how legislation could be written that reflects what is a very wide range of care home accommodation, and Professor Lightman recognized this issue in his report. There are some care homes in which people are spending $4,000 to $6,000 a month for their accommodation, their meals and different levels of personal care. Not everybody can afford that kind of high-end retirement home private care. But it seems to me that people who can only afford, say, $600 a month, which would be the real low end of care home costs, should still have a right to decent care and treatment.

I've now taken this bill through 13 drafts and I still don't claim that I've answered all of those challenges in the best way. I have come to have great respect for the complexity of this issue. I am gratified that Professor Lightman, who has from time to time provided me with advice-that's one of the reasons there have been 13 drafts-considers this proposal to be what he terms "a huge step forward." I do believe that the bill can serve as a framework for a detailed consideration of what needs to be put in place.

With that in mind, it's my hope that all the members of the House will support this bill on second reading and, beyond that, will see fit to send it to committee so that this issue can receive the kind of consideration it deserves.

I've been in the Legislature now for some 13 years, through three governments. I've been increasingly concerned about this issue, which nobody yet has been able to address. I now appreciate the complexities, but I don't think we can let this be put on the back burner until more horror stories emerge.

Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph-Wellington): I am very pleased to be able to participate in the debate on this bill today.

All members of this House are committed to ensuring that our seniors can live in safety, without fear and with the best possible services available to them. I credit good motives to the member opposite for her Care Homes Act, 2000, but flawed execution. This is a bill that can be criticized on many levels: part of it is redundant; matters already discussed in the Tenant Protection Act are duplicated in the bill; and the bill also lacks clarity. For example, the definition of a "care home" does not specify the number of residents. An owner-occupied house with a rented basement apartment could potentially qualify.

Specifics aside, this bill has a much more fundamental defect. It is all about prescribing, accrediting, inspecting, registering and regulating. It is not about people. A care home review board with the usual bureaucracy and enormous powers will be created. A majority on the board will be composed of "advocates for the rights of care home tenants," or "relatives and friends" of those in care homes or people in care homes themselves.

This is not a bill that speaks to the greater public good. Turning a regulatory body over to advocates for regulation may be good politics for the Liberal Party but it is bad public policy. There was a time when the Liberal Party understood this. During its five years in government, the Liberals set up an advisory committee to look at retirement home regulation, and it rejected provincial regulation. It suggested retirement homes be a municipal responsibility, as in fact they are.

The NDP, during its time over here, also produced a report that opposed provincial regulation and inspection. Instead, the NDP advocated a consumer protection approach that included a call on the government to assist the retirement home industry in self-regulation-wise words then, wise words now, and a view this government supports.

The Ontario Residential Care Association, or ORCA, as it is commonly known, has several years' experience in accrediting member retirement homes. With the support of this government, ORCA has now created a consumer complaints and information service, a hotline for complaints: one phone number province-wide for complaints, regardless of whether or not the retirement home belongs to the association; and not just for complaints, but also for information, so that seniors will be better informed about their options.

It is noticeable that the bill before us today contains virtually no public education component. ORCA is committed to raising public awareness. They have budgeted and they have planned for it. The hotline is just one of the initiatives this government has implemented or supported in creating a comprehensive strategy to meet the needs of seniors. We come second to no government in this country in ensuring the safety and comfort of our seniors, regardless of the lifestyle options they may choose or require.

Some need long-term care in what used to be called nursing homes or homes for the aged, so this government has committed to building 20,000 new long-term-care beds and refurbishing another 13,000 by 2004. That is 33,000 more beds than the total produced by the Liberals and NDP during the 10 lost years.

Other seniors will stay at home with family, and will have a multitude of varied programs to aid them to do so. Our home care spending tops $1 billion, a 43% increase over budgets in the Liberal-NDP era. Many of our programs are firsts in Canada: innovative, flexible and with much local and professional input. An example of such a program is the $68.4-million program we are investing over five years to help people who struggle with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. This is also a program that will help caregivers.

Whether people live in a long-term-care facility, a retirement home, the family home or apartment, they deserve and should receive support from this government. To put what I am saying another way, seniors do not conform to a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach that is so evident in this simplistic bill.

Retirement homes come in a wide variety of types and sizes, offering different menus of goods and services to those who choose to live in them. Some people want meals, others don't; some want medical supervision, others don't. Retirement homes are just that: they are homes. They are places where people choose to live, where decisions on meals, medical care and other factors are made by the resident and not by the home; a home with extras and not an institution. Seniors appreciate these options, the flexibility and the freedom that comes with the wide choice. Forcing retirement homes into a single-care mould is no solution to anything.

Members are already aware that the broader public concerns are covered by police, fire, public health and building code legislation, as well as the Tenant Protection Act. Municipalities, of course, can go further. They have always had the right to bring in bylaws to cover retirement homes, a right this government encourages them to exercise when required. Five municipalities already have had bylaws in place for some time. Local options, flexibility and choice all disappear if retirement homes are provincially regulated. Red tape, bureaucracy and rigidity would only increase.

Here in Ontario, we lead all of Canada in per capita spending on long-term care and community services, and this government is committed to facilities that have a home-like atmosphere, that respect the elderly and respect their privacy. We seek to ensure that seniors who live in retirement homes can do so with confidence and with a sense of safety.

This is, as my colleague across the way acknowledged, a very complex issue. But for the many reasons I have listed, I will not be supporting this proposed piece of legislation today.

The quality of life for seniors all across this province is improving. I am proud of that; our government is proud of that. I am sure my colleagues in this House are also very proud of the achievements Ontario has made in making life better for our seniors, and that includes our mothers and our fathers, our grandmothers and our grandfathers, our elderly neighbours and our elderly friends.

Mr David Caplan (Don Valley East): I am indeed very pleased to be here to speak to this bill. It is a much-needed piece of legislation, and I would like to congratulate Lyn McLeod, the health critic for the Ontario Liberal Party, who was prepared to act when the Harris government has decided it would rather bury its head in the sand and try to point fingers at the municipalities.

There are two things I would like to discuss in my very brief remarks. First, we have a real need for amendments to the so-called Tenant Protection Act. Second, I would like to speak briefly about the situation in my community here in Toronto and what they have learned from their study and investigations.

Let me first talk about the need to amend the so-called Tenant Protection Act, because I've heard some real concerns about the eviction procedures related to care homes in the current act. Tenants in care homes are among the most vulnerable renters in our entire society. Legal clinics and other advocates have been clear that this

section of the act is very open to abuse and have raised with me cases of inappropriate and discriminatory treatment of tenants.

Part of the problem is that currently there's no real benchmark for assessing whether or not a landlord is able to provide appropriate care. Without any requirement for a professional assessment, this decision is left up to tribunal adjudicators, and there is no requirement of the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal that these adjudicators be experienced or knowledgeable in areas of providing care.

It's ironic, given the fact that when the Tenant Protection Act was at public hearings, government members of the committee, particularly then parliamentary assistant Steve Gilchrist, gave assurance after assurance that there would be a formal role for community care access centres, but when the bill was tabled this formal role was nowhere to be found.

Thankfully, Bill 53 addresses this concern very well. It provides that, by law, a formal assessment must be completed by the local CCAC. Professionals will determine the level of care needed, not adjudicators relying on the advice of home care operators. It will also provide some real guarantees about accommodation decisions that are made by professionals, and I hope the government will consider adding the role for advocates of legal representatives as part of the process when they adopt the appropriate regulations.

But this bill needs to be coupled with procedural reforms that I've been calling for, for at least 18 months. It might be interesting for members of this House to know that in the case of tenants of care homes, they're not even guaranteed the same rights as regular tenants. Unlike other tenants, care home tenants do not have to receive a notice of termination, a document which is normally the starting point of discussion and mediation. Instead, the care home operator can move immediately to serve a notice of hearing on a tenant, a notice which only gives a resident five days to respond in writing to fight an order of eviction.

What is a sick or vulnerable tenant to do when faced with these deadlines? What if they're in the hospital or there is an issue around competency? It seems unfair that they would be more vulnerable to default orders that any other tenant in Ontario. I have to insist that when the government is putting in place regulations governing this process after this bill is passed, they give special consideration to this problem.

Finally, let me deal briefly with the conditions here in Toronto, in my own riding of Don Valley East and other ridings around the city. My office has received dozens of calls about the conditions in care homes. This House would be well aware of recent reports of the board of health of the city of Toronto, which was clear. The report said that 76% of retirement homes in Toronto have problems. This is retirement homes alone, not including other forms of care homes in our city, including boarding homes and other facilities.

The city was clear in their recommendations. They said it is the role of the province to set standards, not the pass-the-buck approach the Harris government uses, trying to foist their problems off on municipalities. It is the provincial role to set standards. It is the role of the province to regulate the sector, like it does for other areas of care such as nursing homes. But again, the province has done nothing except pass the buck, pass the blame to municipalities for not doing enough and spending money on an association-the Ontario Residential Care Association-which itself has indicated it has a toothless act to work under.

The crisis in Toronto and in homes throughout Ontario should be a wake-up call for this minister and this government to act. Unfortunately, as we have seen on other issues like disability issues, and now on care homes, the Harris government is prepared to do nothing except pass the buck and pass the blame.

I congratulate my colleague from Thunder Bay-Atikokan. She has taken this excellent initiative, and I am pleased to support it here today. I encourage all members of this House to do so.

Mr Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North): It's a little confusing here this morning. It's a pleasure to rise in private members' time to make a few comments on second reading of Bill 53, and I thank the member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan for her interest in this issue. But unfortunately I cannot support it, because I see a lot of red tape and bureaucracy here.

This government is committed to doing what is necessary to ensure that Ontario's seniors live their lives in dignity and respect. I think there's no more proof of that than our commitment to 33,000 new beds by the year 2004. Bill 53 will not help them do that. Bill 53 is about the power to set standards in retirement homes. It duplicates what already exists.

Last week, the Toronto board of health issued a press release that was headlined "City Seniors Suffer from Lack of Standards in Retirement Homes." Residents in many retirement homes throughout the city are not being properly cared for and have no government protection to stop neglect, the board's chairman John Filion charged. I know that councillors like Mr Filion are involved in municipal election campaigns, and I believe that is what this is all about, something to draw some attention to him. But this has to be one of the strangest press releases ever issued about retirement homes.

The Toronto board of health has enormous powers to ensure public health and safety in retirement homes under the Health Protection and Promotion Act. If there are any health care violations, the board has not just the power to act, but the duty to act. Toronto council, in fact, on which Mr Filion sits, has a duty to act in regard to retirement homes in many other ways. Should there be violations of the building code or fire regulations, the municipality has a responsibility to act. It is the municipality's failure if it has not done so.

I can think of an example right in my own riding. Right after I was elected last year, I was called out to a retirement home. The owner was quite upset with the fire department because they had made him add some fairly expensive fire and safety security equipment to his house. I commended the fire department at that time, because there were 11 people there. This is a beautiful facility, but the fact of the matter is that he had to abide by the laws of the municipality.

But let us assume the problems discovered were of a nature that the municipality was not required to act upon: the problems violated neither health nor fire nor building codes. Perhaps it was a simple landlord-tenant dispute that the board of health stumbled over. In that case the Tenant Protection Act comes into force. Because this is a provincial responsibility, the tenant may take the complaint to the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal.

But what if the problems the board of health found fit into none of these categories? Perhaps the difficulties were more housekeeping in nature: complaints about dirty but non-health-threatening hallways, for instance, or rude behaviour by staff. Then Toronto council has a choice: it can pass bylaws setting standards for retirement homes within its own jurisdiction, tailoring the rules to fit local circumstances. It has that power and has had that power for many years.

The old city of Toronto had a bylaw with regard to retirement homes. The old city of Etobicoke had a bylaw with regard to retirement homes. Hamilton-Wentworth has a retirement home bylaw and so does the city of St Catharines. This government encourages municipalities to exercise their responsibilities and write a bylaw appropriate to their local areas. Toronto has chosen not to do so. This is the position of the amalgamated Toronto council on which John Filion sits. If he has a complaint about lack of standards for retirement homes, he should take it up with his fellow Toronto councillors.

After all, the city commissioner's December 1999 report to Toronto's community services committee supports our government's call for the city of Toronto to harmonize existing bylaws governing retirement homes in Toronto. The commissioner noted that the committee's consultation on this issue generated consensus in a number of areas, including that the amalgamated city of Toronto "harmonize the retirement and lodging homes bylaws to the standard of the former city of Etobicoke."

Toronto council has the legal authority to act. Let it act. Let it set whatever standards it deems necessary. I don't think we should have this red tape and bureaucracy across the rest of the province. I support the stance taken by previous governments, including the Liberal government, that municipalities are in the best position to enact bylaws that enforce community standards for retirement homes and the care they provide to the residents of the province of Ontario.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mrs Leona Dombrowsky (Hastings-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington): I'm very pleased today to speak on behalf of Bill 53 that's been introduced by my colleague from Thunder Bay-Atikokan. I have in the past had the opportunity to investigate and understand issues of importance for seniors, not only within my own riding but within the province of Ontario.

Certainly it came to my attention on many occasions that there was great concern within the province among family members of seniors and senior representative groups about the lack of standards and the lack of consistency of service that was offered for people who would be resident in care homes. So my colleague and I have had a number of conversations and discussions about how this very serious issue might be addressed most effectively.

The member for Simcoe North has said, "We already have the things in place. Let municipalities deal with this." The reality is that isn't happening. The reality is that there are many people in care homes in the province who are not accessing the kinds of service and the level of service they need and deserve. So my colleague from Thunder Bay-Atikokan has consulted people who are very respected within the community and consider and provide services and represent the interests of senior groups in the province, people like Ernie Lightman and Judith Wahl.

My colleague has consulted with those individuals. She has asked them, "What do you see as a reasonable solution to the issues that we've heard about in the media?" After consultation with those individuals, my colleague has brought this bill before us, this bill that will contribute to a consistent level of service for people in Ontario in care homes. This bill will establish an independent body that will investigate complaints. It will also establish penalties if there are care homes that are not providing the service that they should.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey): How much will it cost?

Mrs Dombrowsky: The member across the way, from Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey, shouts back at us, "What will it cost?" There are seniors who are being abused in homes, and these people across here are saying, "What will it cost?" What's the human cost when people are abused? What's the human cost when people have been assaulted? We should save money and allow people to continue to be abused?

I suggest that we are taking a responsible approach in saying that we need this government, in these strong economic times when there are surplus funds available, to consider directing those surplus funds to support, assist and protect the seniors of the province. My colleague the member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan is giving you an opportunity to do that. I sincerely hope that the members on the other side of the House, the members of the government, recognize the opportunity they have here to offer some comfort, protection and a consistent level of service for people who would access care home services in Ontario.

Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): The issues tackled in Bill 53 are issues that governments of all stripes have grappled with for 15 years, yet neither the Liberals nor the NDP took the route suggested by the member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan. Let me give you a bit of a history lesson, if I may.

In March 1990, former NDP critic Dave Cooke raised the issue when in opposition. Across the aisle from him was the Liberal minister responsible for seniors, Gilles Morin. Back then, the issue had to do with a retirement home where matters had suddenly gone badly and residents were left without heat or food for a period before the appropriate authorities were notified. This was under the Liberals. Five years they had been in power at that point, five years during which their party endlessly studied the issue of residential homes and rest homes.

Proposals for a legislative response were promised, yet, as the NDP critic noted, nothing had been done. The Liberal minister responded that even if there had been provincial regulations, this incident would not have been prevented. He also reminded the House-correctly, I might add-that "municipalities can license and regulate rest and retirement homes, and a number of them do." The minister also noted that he had an advisory committee studying the issue and that it had reported back with all kinds of recommendations. He said no consensus existed.

So what did the Liberal minister of the day do with this report? The answer, as you might expect, as happens these days as well: nothing was done.

Interjection: Nothing.

Mr Stewart: That's right. The same Liberal government-where the member whose bill we are discussing today sat in cabinet-took the option of doing nothing when it had the chance 10 years ago.

History continues but times change, and soon the NDP was in power and Dave Cooke was in cabinet. What do you think this spanking new government did when they had the chance to move forward?

Interjection: Nothing.

Mr Stewart: Nothing. That's right. The protests of Dave Cooke in 1990 produced nothing more now than when he was in government. In fact, he was also in cabinet.

Actually, that isn't quite fair. The NDP did labour over the issue of retirement homes and brought forth yet another commission to look into the issue. It was the Liberal response all over again. And what did the NDP commission produce? Well, it came forward with much of the same response as Morin's advisory committee did two years earlier. It spoke of division and no consensus and, perhaps most interestingly, a report in 1992 that did not support provincial regulation and inspection. Instead, it advocated a consumer protection approach which included a call on the government of the day to assist the retirement home industry in self-regulation.

That brings us to today. This government-

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Further debate?

Mr Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park): We see in the House today the unfortunate problem of a government caucus that cannot think for itself; that does not believe its main job today, in this time and in this space, is to look after vulnerable seniors. For some reason, the members opposite have dedicated almost none of their time to talking about the people they were sent here to represent: vulnerable seniors.

Instead, we have the sad, lamentable response of this government to put things only in partisan terms when they have in front of them a bill that not only is fair, reasonable, clear and in the interests of seniors, but cleans up after this government. So these partisans opposite, these people reading their speaking notes fed to them by the Premier's office, not able to think for themselves or their own communities, don't look at, don't have regard for, what is actually required for seniors.

Instead of looking at the facts, it is their government that has cut the number of hospital beds. It is their government that has gotten rid of rent control, that has put seniors in vulnerable positions in every community in this province. Instead we have the sheep opposite.

It is sad indeed if the members opposite cannot look beyond the end of their leashes from the cabinet and instead look at the merits of this bill, because the merits are many.

There are seniors who can't get into long-term care. We know how many there are-20,000 seniors. There are 20,000 seniors, probably the largest proportion of whom are parked in retirement homes. We want to be careful, as we speak about retirement homes, to recognize that there are good retirement homes; responsible businessmen who are looking after seniors in accommodation. However, those tend to be those for seniors who can afford to pay for those standards, families who can provide that support. Maybe that's why they fall off the radar of the members opposite. Maybe that's why they can't bring themselves to look to the real needs and requirements of seniors.

I would just invite the members opposite to be in the shoes, to be in the beds, to be in the wheelchairs of those seniors, to understand what it may be like to have your entire pension cheque, as small as that may be, gobbled up by someone on whom you are completely dependent and vulnerable and from whom your government offers no protection.

I am almost embarrassed to have to iterate the very simple rights which this bill would accord to those seniors; embarrassed only because it is necessary for us to articulate simple things, like not being forced to take medication, being allowed not to be locked into a room, to be fed with proper food if that's what the contract calls for.

I ask and invite the audience at home and in the Legislature to look down on this caucus of government members who are here today, flying in the face of the common sense recommendations of this bill, and think of them in their later years stuck in that predicament, having no recourse, no one to turn to, left literally unable to have the support and the succour of their families, and now not even in that situation. They could be malnourished; they could be unsafe; they could be subject to abuse; they could have bed sores because they should be in a better facility.

Without the requirement on people who would take money from those people, who would take responsibility in some way, they need to have our responsibility, which is to look after those seniors. There is no escaping that. The members opposite may hide under their pre-programmed speaking notes. They may, incredibly, hide behind some other governments. They've been in government for five years. I can't imagine what the life of a senior would be like these past five years in a badly run retirement house, and these members opposite can't find it in their hearts or in their minds or in their pocketbooks to find room for those seniors.

I find that incredible, because the very simple rights that should be accorded here are accorded to prisoners, they're accorded to people in any other kind of institution, and these members opposite would not put the onus perhaps on some of their business friends-I don't know what acquaintances or what donations or what other things could possibly get in the way of these members opposite finding in their own communities the means to provide safety and security to seniors instead of some of the incredible obstructionist bafflegab that we've heard today.

This is a bill required for now because it is now that seniors are in an enhanced vulnerable position. There are fewer government programs. There are charges for drugs that didn't used to exist. There is an absence of rent controls. Seniors in my riding have been forced out of buildings because this government wouldn't get in the way of maximum rents, because this government is allowing above-guideline rent increases. So we will find more seniors forced into unregulated communal environments, who will find themselves only able to afford some of these retirement homes.

They won't have long-term care, they won't have the care they should have; they will only have what we in this House decide to provide for them. A decent life-they deserve that.

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton West): First of all, let me begin by commending the member from Thunder Bay-Atikokan in terms of her initiative to bring this forward. I have had a fair bit of experience in this issue, particularly when I was on the Hamilton city council and on the regional council.

Let me say at the outset that all three parties, as governments, have not stepped up to the plate and dealt with this issue. There is lots of blame to go around. I don't think it serves anybody's purpose at this stage to be trying to point fingers and saying, "You should have. You had a chance. Why didn't you do it?" We've all got some serious responsibility and blame in this regard. What matters is taking a look at the future and where we're going to go with this issue.

It is a growing problem. It's a growing concern. Eventually, if things continue the way they are, there are going to be deaths and there are going to be further coroner's inquests into why. And at the end of the day, everything is going to point back to this place, because if we take a look at how this evolved, it starts here. It's got to end here.

Let me just take a moment to reflect on the history and the experience in Hamilton, which, let me say to members, I know is shared by at least the communities of Windsor and Ottawa, because like my hometown of Hamilton, they have initiated bylaws that I understand have been referred to earlier by the government, blaming the municipalities, I believe. If that's incorrect, somebody tell me, but I understand that the government members earlier in the debate were saying that the municipalities haven't done their job or somehow that they are responsible, and, boy, nothing could be further from the truth.

Hamilton, Windsor and Ottawa, in particular, showed great courage and a great deal of compassion for their citizens when they stepped in and provided at least some rudimentary legal framework for defending the rights of a lot of vulnerable people.

In the 1960s and 1970s in particular, members of the House will know and many of the public will know that deinstitutionalization began in our psychiatric hospitals. That is to say, suddenly the light was cast upon what was called the back wards of psychiatric hospitals, where people were sort of shunted out of the way. They were no longer out in the community; they were in institutions. The institutions were doing the best they could to cope, but it certainly wasn't progressive.

So there was an initiative by the government of the day, which was applauded virtually across the board, to start releasing a lot of people who, yes, had some serious impairment and some problems but who with a little bit of help could exist in the community and could live close to what we would call a normal life.

The problem was that when the doors were flung open and people were released, because they really shouldn't have been kept under 24-hour lock and key-you lost all your civil rights because you had a health problem, in this case a mental illness. It seems hard to believe that that was just a few short decades ago, but that was Ontario. When the back wards of the psychiatric hospitals were opened up and people were released into the community, it was a good thing in terms of returning them their civil rights. But that's where the government's role in all of this ended. People were just virtually released: "That's it. Take care. Have a nice day. See you."

Communities like mine that had regional psychiatric hospitals began to realize where a lot of these folks were ending up. I just want to say parenthetically to my colleague the previous speaker that yes, seniors are a large part of this, but there's a significant component-my colleague from Hamilton Mountain is a doctor in this area and understands it from that end far better than I-there are a lot of people involved in this who aren't, just because they're aged, having to need supports. A lot of them are young people, people with acquired brain injuries. I see a crowd of young people here today.

There are a lot of young people who are in motorcycle accidents, car accidents, sports accidents who have permanent brain damage and have the same kinds of needs as someone who is maybe 82 or 83 years old and for different reasons need supports in terms of what's called the activities of daily living.

A lot of folks ended up in Windsor, Ottawa and Hamilton, and I've got to believe, in other communities. Let me say that we don't know exactly what's happening in the other communities that don't at least have a local bylaw, because it's not being addressed. We don't know the degree to which the problem may be worse or better than in the so-called regulated communities.

Eventually people drifted toward just ordinary rooming houses. They didn't have enough money to afford anything else. They tended to be low-end rooming houses, and the owners of these facilities found that their new tenants had some special needs. I won't get into what happens when you've got a good landlord versus bad-I think we can all well imagine-but let's for the sake of this debate here in this short time available talk about good landlords who cared. You had people who are totally untrained in any kind of health care profession providing medication to people-a horrible situation. But if that landlord wasn't doing it, they weren't getting their meds.

Eventually it became such a problem in Hamilton and Windsor and Ottawa that the municipality, in the absence of the government of Ontario stepping in and saying, "We will regulate, we will provide standards, we will provide inspection and we will provide penalties for those who don't meet the requirements"-we have had in Hamilton a council of the day, and I give them so much credit, who said, "We've got to do something. If the province is going to do nothing at all and stand back, we've got to do something." So they stepped in with what we call in Hamilton the second-level lodging home bylaw.

Let me tell you right at the outset that it went way beyond what a bylaw was meant to do. I see my colleague the new member from Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot nodding his agreement, and of course the member from Hamilton Mountain is here, and also the member from Stoney Creek. There are four of us here today.

The fact of the matter is that if these bylaws were challenged, I'd be willing to bet they wouldn't stand up. But nobody has challenged it because at least it's something. Why hasn't the provincial government stepped in and done something? It comes down at the end of the day to money, because once the province steps in and starts to regulate in any way, shape or form, the provincial government then assumes legal responsibility. Given that this is something that has gotten totally out of control, nobody wants to take the first step, because just putting your toe in the water doesn't solve the problem but it gives you all the legal responsibilities.

That's why as much as possible I would like to see this turned into a positive discussion. I think that's the way the member from Thunder Bay-Atikokan is framing it because, I say to colleagues in the House, irrespective of party membership, this is an area we should be stepping into. In the absence of doing something, at best we have bylaws that are regulating health care. Bylaws aren't meant to regulate health care. Bylaws are for street signs, parking regulations and other types of legal requirements at the municipal level. They certainly aren't meant to do the sorts of things that our law in Hamilton is doing.

We have situations in Hamilton-good and bad. The good we're managing, but it needs more money and more attention. The bad is a nightmare. You've got vulnerable people who are being exploited, who are being warehoused. Yes, as a society we're no longer warehousing them in psychiatric hospitals, but we're warehousing them in private warehouses. We have to do something.

I know that Alderman Caplan and Alderman Andrea Horwath in Hamilton are part of a task force now. I think they just completed their work where they reviewed once again, picked up where my task force had left off in the late 1980s, what we had put forward. I met with the previous Liberal minister. Yes, he was very sympathetic, but I understood much better years later the dilemmas facing that minister.

There are possibilities. Hamilton is offering itself as a pilot project. I would say that this is maybe an offer that could go hand in hand with the bill that's in front of us, Bill 53, and a desire, if it existed, on the part of the government to do something about this. This is huge. This is a huge issue affecting probably tens of thousands, and as time goes on and we, all the boomers, get older, hundreds of thousands of people. It's totally unregulated.

Do I agree with every provision as I see it in this bill? No. But I had a chance to talk to the honourable member from Thunder Bay-Atikokan beforehand. She isn't suggesting that all the details prescribed here are all the answers, and I think that shows the seasoning of that veteran member. It is a focal point for us. On a personal level, given the work I've done, I want to say that I think the fact that she was prepared to use her valuable limited time in this House to bring attention to this issue says a lot about her and why she's in this place. Obviously, she cares.

It would be nice, rather than having the government stand up and say, "Here's why this bill is lousy. Here's why the municipality's at fault. Oh, the NDP didn't do this during their time and the Liberals didn't do that"-look, that's not what's needed right now. All that kind of debate means nothing to the people in our communities who need our help. Only we can do it; only this place can do it.

Is it going to happen? Probably not. But miracles do happen; I suppose it's possible. We could get a minister who decides that this is going to be their issue-and I'm not putting down the current minister. We may find somebody who comes along and says, "Yes, this happens to be something I care about passionately. I'm going to move the yardsticks. I'm going to do something." That's not necessarily the bent of what we hear from this cabinet. Even if we had such a minister, they would face tremendous resistance from the cabinet of today.

At some point, I say to colleagues, this Legislature and whatever party is in power are going to have to do something. If you don't do it, if we don't do it voluntarily because we care and recognize that we have responsibilities to these very vulnerable people, then we're going to be forced into it either by law, because of a court challenge, or because there are enough dead bodies that the public pressure is such that we have to do something. That's not etched in stone. That doesn't have to be the future. There is a chance to do something here, something progressive, something important.

For those of you who don't have any bylaws, talk to your public health unit and ask them what's out there. Think about it. You've got landlords, good and bad, who are basically running care homes with no regulations, no standards, no inspections.

I know how inadequate the second-level bylaw is in Hamilton, and yet I also know that it's a shining example of pioneering and blazing a path in the darkness. I shudder when I think of what's happening in the rest of the communities that have nothing. How many people are being improperly medicated, improperly fed, abused, ignored? We don't know. We don't even know the exact numbers. But it's there and maybe in some of the richer communities you'd think, "We don't have that sort of thing." Yes, you do, you just don't know how many.

My time is up. There's so much to be said about this issue. It's incredibly complex, as I know the honourable member from Thunder Bay-Atikokan has said, and I understand the reluctance on the part of some members of the government to take up this challenge, but somebody has to. Collectively we have let down very vulnerable people and we can't afford to do that any more. It's wrong. We need to do something. Passing this at least sends a message that we care. Don't we care?

The Acting Speaker: In response, the member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan.

Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the contributions of my colleagues. I do want to express my dismay, my frustration, at the obvious opposition of the government to even allowing this issue to go forward to committee for consideration. I would have preferred to have had the government bring in legislation of its own last spring and have that in committee for debate. That's why I submitted my bill to the minister last spring in the hopes that it could be part of a government consideration, a genuine consultation on this issue.

I'm struck by the fact that the member for Guelph-Wellington, representing the government, says that the bill is not about people. Seven hundred and nineteen calls from desperately concerned individuals to a hotline in seven months tells you that this is an issue that speaks very clearly to the vital concerns of a great many vulnerable seniors in that community, as is true in communities across this province.

It's apparent that the government has made a decision that it's going to leave the regulation, the setting of standards, in the hands of the Ontario Residential Care Association, which the member for Guelph-Wellington defended so ably. The government has given them $1 million to set up a hotline to take concerns and ORCA is the association that represents the private operators of the care homes. I think it can do a fine job of accreditation; I acknowledge that.

But, as my colleague from High Park-Parkdale has said, this bill isn't speaking to the concerns of people who are in the high-end retirement homes who can pay the $4,000 or the $5,000 or the $6,000 a month to meet the standards that ORCA has set to get that high level of care. This bill is probably speaking primarily to those who can only afford the lower-end care homes, where the quality of care is not assured and where all too often we are hearing the horror stories emerge.

The member for Simcoe North said that the municipalities have failed. Again, it's clear that this is the direction the government is going to go: put the blame on the municipalities, require the municipalities to do any of the enforcement of any violations of existing laws, and for that to happen, the municipalities have to set up their laws. It is time for this to go forward.

The Acting Speaker: This question will be decided at 12 noon.

PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEES' SEVERANCE PAY ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR L'INDEMNITÉ DE CESSATION D'EMPLOI DES EMPLOYÉS DU SECTEUR PUBLIC

Mrs Bountrogianni moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 104,

An Act respecting the payment of Severance Pay to Public Sector Employees / Projet de loi 104, Loi concernant le versement d'indemnités de cessation d'emploi aux employés du secteur public.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): The member for Hamilton Mountain has ten minutes.

Mrs Marie Bountrogianni (Hamilton Mountain): The incentive for this bill came from some outlandish golden handshakes in the Hamilton area in the last decade which led, quite legitimately, to public mistrust.

In researching this bill, however, I discovered that these golden handshakes are quite common across the province. At a time when we are asking so much from everyone in the public sector, this is really demoralizing for the public. In fact, the accountability to the public in this area is astounding.

I'll give the House some background examples on this in a few moments, but I'd like to go over very quickly what Bill 104 is all about.

"This bill provides that a public sector employee who is not subject to a collective agreement is, upon termination of employment, entitled to a severance pay of no more than an amount equal to 24 months worth of wages."

Given that most of these executives make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, this is still quite generous-because one of the criticisms of this idea or bill that has come to my attention is that you can't attract good people if you introduce this. If they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars and they still can get 24 months' wages for severance, it's still a very attractive package, very generous. Let the others go work for IBM and Coca Cola, as far as I'm concerned.

"In the case of a severance payment in an amount of $100,000 or more, the employer is required to obtain the approval of the minister before the amount is paid to the employee." That's the finance minister or delegate of the minister.

This bill also establishes the Public Sector Employees' Severance Pay Council to review all such agreements by public sector employees and determine whether they comply with the act and the regulations.

"The bill also provides that if a public sector employee who receives a severance pay finds other employment in the public sector after his or her termination, he or she will have to reimburse a part of the severance pay determined by regulation to the employer....

"Finally, the bill requires that if a public sector employee is to receive a severance pay of $100,000 or more, the employer must make available for inspection a written record," basically making those severance packages public, which is essentially an extension of the government's Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act of 1996, the sunshine law.

Let me give you some examples of some of the situations that are quite disgusting and quite demoralizing to the public.

In Hamilton a few years ago, the former head of the Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals, Dr Jennifer Jackman, was offered $1.8 million in severance when she left that job. Public sector employees, when they voluntarily leave a job, are not entitled to severance. But with weasel words, with very clever lawyering, whether you leave on your own volition or are asked to leave, you get a hefty severance package when you're in this elite group. That amount of Dr Jackman's was eventually capped at $818,000 and payments have since been stopped, pending litigation.

This litigation, by the way, is also paid for by taxpayers' dollars. It also left a very bitter taste in the mouths of taxpayers in the Hamilton region.

Mr Scott Rowand was brought in after Dr Jackman as CEO to oversee efficient and effective programming, as well as to be the chief financial steward. He departed, leaving the organization in financial chaos, and still received a $500,000 golden handshake. He also left on his own volition. This too is in the courts at taxpayers' expense.

Just before Mr Rowand, Dave Watts, the chief financial officer of the Hamilton Health Sciences Corp, resigned and received $300,000 in severance pay. Again, let me remind you, typically an employee who quits doesn't get a dime in compensation other than the wages they get until the day they leave.

Here's where it gets very significant with the timing of amalgamation and the hiring of new upper executive positions. Doug Lychuk, the city manager in Hamilton, was just rehired as city manager for the new amalgamated city of Hamilton. The new council will have to pay between $172,000 and $278,000 in severance if it decides to

part company with him. This information, by they way, was not publicly disclosed; it was-

Mr Brad Clark (Stoney Creek): -ferreted out.

Mrs Bountrogianni: -yes, ferreted out-thank you, member for Stoney Creek-with the freedom of information act, by a reporter in Hamilton.

We're paying these severance packages and we don't have the right, as the public, to call up and ask city hall, "What is the severance package of the new city manager?"

Lychak's contract also contains a clause that requires the new council to keep any termination a secret until he gets a new job, or until his contract expires in 2003. Where is the accountability here? What incentive does this new city manager have to be accountable to the public, to the council, to pestering MPPs when they're advocating for their constituents? It's not a wonder that many of these people don't answer calls.

The severance package in Lychak's contract is more generous than that available for most unionized employees with the present city and region. Only those with a decade or more of service would get packages that approach what Lychak would receive. Howard Levitt, a prominent Toronto labour lawyer, says up to 18 months of severance is generous for an employee who has just been hired. It usually doesn't occur unless you've been hired for six or seven years.

A few more examples:

Bill Piliotis, the former superintendent of human resources at the Greater Essex County District School Board, earned a staggering $227,736 as a result of a rich retirement package in December 1999. He was then rehired by the public board as a negotiations consultant at $700 a day. This is double-dipping and shouldn't be allowed. At the very least, we should know about it with out going to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Al Collins, the former executive of Grand River Hospital, was paid more than $125,000 in 1998. He resigned abruptly in June 1997 in the wake of a provincial investigation into the hospital's burgeoning deficit. Shortly after he left, the report blamed poor management for many of the hospital's troubles. The reward: $125,000. What incentive is there for accountability?

Allan Kupcis, the former Hydro CEO who left in August 1997 after a consultant diagnosed mismanagement at the giant utility, was paid $942,959-I can't even say these big numbers; anyway, close to $1 million in 1998 as part of his severance package. This is after a consultant diagnosed mismanagement.

Lloyd Preston, the former CEO of Windsor Regional Hospital, left the hospital three weeks into 1998 but still earned more than $675,000 as part of a golden handshake

The only criticism I've heard so far is-well, one of two criticisms-"We can't attract good people if we make severances public and we have this accountability." I'd like to believe there are people out there who are willing to work for the public for a few hundred thousand dollars a year and 24 months' severance. I can't believe that we don't have people like that.

The other criticism is red tape. Well, please send this to committee and amend it so that the red tape isn't cumbersome. Don't let that serve as an excuse not to look at this seriously. This is simply an extension of the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, your sunshine law passed in 1996. The cost of lawsuits to the public is enormous. The public mistrust is growing. If the provincial government wants to be wise and responsible, it needs to put province-wide guidelines in place to oversee executive severances in the public sector.

This is a time when amalgamations are occurring-of boards, of cities-when new contracts are being drawn up, and we as taxpayers, the shareholders here, cannot even know what we are paying in severance packages. Some outlandish, unaccountable deals are being made behind closed doors, under the guise that we want to keep the best. I'd like to believe, and I'm optimistic enough to believe, that there are good people out there who are quite willing to be open and accountable to the public, to their employer and to the taxpayers of this province.

I hope you consider supporting this bill. I can't see how you wouldn't support this bill, and I look forward to hearing your comments on all sides of the House.

Mr Raminder Gill (Bramalea-Gore-Malton-Springdale): I will be sharing my time with two of my colleagues, the members for Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford and for Stoney Creek.

I am very pleased this morning to join the debate on Bill 104,

An Act respecting the payment of Severance Pay to Public Sector Employees. I think this bill, introduced by the member for Hamilton Mountain, is a good start for discussion on a very important issue. I compliment the member for all the hard work she has done to bring this bill forward.

The bill does not amend or repeal any existing provisions in Ontario's labour laws. It contains no definition of severance pay, which would really fall under two provisions of the Employment Standards Act. These are severance pay and pay in lieu of notice of termination. From my reading of Bill 104, it would seem that both provisions are meant to be covered.

As members may know, the Ministry of Labour and the government recently completed a process of consultation with Ontarians on the Employment Standards Act, a worthwhile and healthy discussion of views, held in five Ontario cities. A lot of good input was received from unions, businesses and ordinary citizens about the standards that should exist in Ontario's labour market.

Bill 104 would establish a public sector employees' severance pay council, chaired by the Minister of Finance. While this may sound like a good idea in theory, I think some questions about its usefulness need to be asked. This bill could set up a situation where every major severance payment made by the government, a municipality or other government-funded body is no longer a staffing decision but a political one. If Hamilton, Toronto or Kingston dismissed a senior staff member with a large severance, this would have to be reviewed by the finance minister.

We could be faced with all sorts of agencies, hospitals, cities or others having many of their staffing decisions go all the way to Queen's Park.

If a former municipal employee is laid off in, say, Windsor, and they are denied the severance they feel they are entitled to by some future minister, will they end up suing the province over it? I understand the problems the member is aiming to correct, but I wonder if this bill goes too far.

The bill exempts from all its provisions public sector employees who are covered by collective agreements. If we were to pass this bill, wouldn't it be fairer to include everybody? Should there really be one standard for union members and another standard for non-unionized em ployees? I firmly believe that every government employee should be bound by the same rules in this matter.

This government committed in its Blueprint to increase freedom of choice for workers, to strengthen their right to decide whether they wish to be in a union, through a clear and fair secret ballot. I am committed to fighting for the rights of every worker in Ontario to be able to choose and enjoy the same rights before the law. If this bill passes, it should not place obligations on non-unionized employees that it does not give to union members.

I also note in this bill that the member for Hamilton Mountain is proposing that any severance package over $100,000 must be made public. The member is surely being guided in this proposal by the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, an excellent piece of legislation passed in the government's last term.

Bill 104's provisions in this area are obviously modelled on the PSSDA, which allows the public to see a list of all government employees making over $100,000 a year. In the same vein, I hope the honourable member will support our government's Blueprint commitment to pass a sunshine law for union bosses requiring them to disclose their salaries, benefits and expenses to union members. Perhaps she may even wish to propose an amendment to this bill to extend the restrictions on public sector severance to include public sector union leaders.

All in all, this bill raises a number of issues that are important for this House to consider.

I would like to again commend the honourable member for Hamilton Mountain for presenting this bill to the House. It contains a number of ideas that I believe are worthy of further study. I intend to support this bill in principle and look forward to seeing it move forward to committee. As the Ministry of Labour moves ahead on its changes to employment standards, it is possible that the member may find her concerns taken into account to such an extent that she could even withdraw her bill. Either way, I will be pleased to work together with the member for Hamilton Mountain on this issue in the future.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Ms Caroline Di Cocco (Sarnia-Lambton): It's with great pleasure that I stand in support of Bill 104. I applaud the member for Hamilton Mountain for bringing it to this chamber.

The reason I speak to this is because of some very significant experiences in Sarnia-Lambton with regard to some huge payouts-actually, it had to do with a director of education. Again, one of the issues here is that there is no open process about severance pay for individuals who are making way over $100,000. When it comes to their severance packages, for whatever reason they leave, first of all it's very difficult to find out what exactly is being paid to them. There is also the fact that the money that was paid out to this individual was way in excess of $600,000. This is a person who is in the middle of his career, who will go on and is going on to work again for the public sector.

There's such a great need in the education system for money that is not available, and yet we're paying huge amounts. This individual, this director of education-this happened in 1998-99. We had a judicial inquiry because of the tremendous amount of corruption that was involved, and this individual played a huge role in wasting millions of dollars of taxpayers' money in the community. As I said, the findings of the judicial inquiry reinforced his role in this corrupt scam.

One of the problems that happened, though, is that in his termination, if they wanted him to leave, he got the golden handshake. So not only did he, in his position, not do his job and abuse his position, but he was given this huge golden handshake. I and a number of my constituents actually brought this-this was before I got into politics at the provincial level-to the attention of the ministry of the day, and we tried to get some accountability. We said, "These are public funds. Can you not somehow intervene and address this $600,000-plus?" There was other money involved as well. But at that time the ministry said, "No, we can't get involved. There's nothing we can do."

I think it's appropriate that we support-and I'm pleased to see that the government members are going to support-this bill, because it is about responsibility of government to properly manage an abuse that's in the system. Just because they're at an administrative level, it doesn't give anyone the right to abuse the system because it's hidden or because they're able to make the decisions behind closed doors.

I want to conclude by saying that this bill is a real way to get fiscal accountability, because millions of taxpayers' dollars have been paid out for severance to high-priced administrators. The member from Hamilton Mountain certainly gave a number of examples whereby-again, if we added it all up, it would be an obscene amount. The savings that would be incurred should be directed into the programs and not just to an individual who is getting a golden handshake.

It is a bill about responsibility. I want to applaud the member from Hamilton Mountain for bringing this one forward. It has been on my mind from the minute I came here, because probably one of the reasons I'm in public office is that I try to get accountability in my area. I spearheaded the quest for the inquiry locally on this issue. It involved this director of education.

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford): I'm very pleased to join in the debate. I certainly understand the intent of what the member from Hamilton Mountain is trying to achieve. Unfortunately, this is the type of act that you can get around quite easily. What she's focusing on, and legitimately so, are agreements that are made between the employer and the employee that are negotiated agreements. That's what the act would cover.

Unfortunately, you can get around that quite easily, as any sharp lawyer could figure out. You could have the settlement that is reached by the individual especially if you've initiated court action. If you initiate the court action, you can get a court order with respect to endorsing that particular settlement. It would be a decision of the court.

If it's a decision of the court, whether it's resulting from the court making the decision at the end of a full-scale trial, which might be the preferred option to get around this act, or just having the agreement or whatever settlement they come up with being endorsed by the court as a court order, this act will have no impact, none whatsoever. That's a loophole that you can find to skirt around this act.

What she's trying to impose are severance controls, and obviously she could with respect to saying the cap is going to be at 24 months. At common law you very rarely find an award for non-union employees that would exceed that cap. I don't think I've seen maybe more than one or two awards that would exceed 24 months. That's usually in a situation where you have a lengthy service and you have an individual who is in their 50s to 60s and in a very high-profile position within the organization.

The problem here-and I'm just playing the devil's advocate because I understand the intent and I understand the anger that's happening out at Hamilton; we haven't had those situations in my riding that I'm aware of-is that there are ways to get around this act. I suggest very strongly that when you also look at a situation where a person who gets severance pay and takes another job in the public sector has to reimburse a portion of that severance pay to the employer-obviously they want to regulate that, but that's something that's going to be looked at as a way to get around this. You won't go the agreement route; you'll go the litigious route.

I will say that obviously the public has a right to know about the transparency of these severance arrangements and certainly to make sure that they're fair and in the public interest, and I think that's the intent of what the member's trying to accomplish here: fairness to the public, accountability, transparency. I think we all want that with respect to the public sector, but she's focusing on a very narrow area with respect to agreements. What she may be encouraging-and she'll have to look at this a little closer if it gets to committee-is to make sure that all the loopholes are closed.

I'll say in closing that I think there are a lot of loopholes here, though the intent is proper. So I'll relinquish my time and the member for Stoney Creek can take it up later.

Mr Ernie Parsons (Prince Edward-Hastings): I'm also pleased to rise to support Bill 104.

I have some knowledge of the public sector work environment. I spent some six years with what at that time was called the Department of Highways. We went through a number of name changes, to Ministry of Transportation and Communications and Ministry of Transportation, which they presently retain, though they are somewhat a shell of the former organization.

Just as an aside, I would like to suggest that it may be time to go back to "Department of Highways" because this government has clearly indicated very little interest in supporting trains or mass transit, even though they have proven to be highly effective in the rest of the world. This government seems to be interested in automobiles and gasoline taxes and parking cars on the highways around Toronto.

Nevertheless, in my experience with the Department of Highways, I worked with people who drove snowplows and who did construction inspection during the summer and who worked incredibly hard. I also worked with people who were senior bureaucrats. It is popular to make fun of civil servants. I will quite frankly say that, as a former civil servant, I'm proud of my experience. I believe I can be proud of what I did with them.

The bureaucrats that I worked with in the Department of Highways and the Ministry of Transportation were extremely dedicated individuals who worked very hard to better Ontario. But I noted with them, as the government has gone through the privatization of highway maintenance and a lot of the highway design and construction, that there's been a profoundly different treatment for the low-wage earners and the high-wage earners.

The low-wage earners were initially ensured that they could in fact get together and bid to do the maintenance and then never were given the opportunity because the guidelines simply wouldn't permit them to do it. They left with relatively little money. Senior people left with a considerable amount of money. That seems somewhat ironic to me, because a 45-year-old labourer will have a challenge finding other employment. A 45-year-old senior bureaucrat is probably in the prime of her or his life and is able to find other employment much easier.

In fact, so often we've seen with public sector organizations in this province that when they've had budget restraints, it has meant doing massive cuts to staffing at the low-income level, the low-wage level, while the higher-wage earners are in a position generally to do much better for themselves.

What I like particularly about this bill-and I will say that it has not been a problem in my area that I am aware of. I certainly have read the media and seen that in some parts of Ontario there appears to be a clear abuse of the process, with people receiving large severances, leaving on a Friday and then appearing at another job paying perhaps as well or even better the following Monday while taking half a million dollars with them. I don't believe that's been the situation in my riding; I'm certainly not aware of it.

But I am aware that there is continued dialogue from the government side that they're spending more money on this and more money on that and yet the number of individuals delivering the services continues to decrease. I hope that this is in a sense a sunshine law that will allow us to see what of these increased expenditures are accounted for by severance payments. When we see more money spent on health and yet we know that there have been severance payments with hospital amalgamations-a reduction in senior people there-I don't truly believe that should be counted as health dollars.

I've had some difficulty finding out how much of the new, increased health budget simply went to pay off bureaucrats. I was hoping the government would react more to the auditor's report, when the Provincial Auditor actually said this government's books are very difficult to analyze. It's extremely hard to find what expenditure went to each area. So I am suspicious that there is more than one instance of $500,000 or $600,000 in termination benefits being paid to an individual, and yet that appears as more money for education or health or roads.

This bill means the numbers will be published, and we will be able to get some sense of money that says, "Yes, maybe there are cost savings with amalgamation, but this is the price that has been paid in taxpayers' dollars for that cost saving." So it is indeed my pleasure to support it. Although I think bureaucrats work equally hard whether in private industry or in public life, the reality is that in public life it is a different environment and there needs to be a recognition that their dollars come from the taxpayer and need to be reported and accounted for publicly.

Mr Clark: Just a moment ago, the member for Prince Edward-Hastings said this bill is basically a sunshine bill. In reality, that's what it is. Our side, our government brought in public disclosure acts to deal with public salaries, the $100,000. The public clearly desired to know the salaries for public sector employees. This, in my view, is an extension of that. This, in my view, is something that is desperately needed.

The member for Sarnia-Lambton said earlier she would be curious to know what the grand total was in Hamilton: $2,850,000 in severance packages, $2.8 million in golden handshakes that the taxpayers knew nothing about until it was ferreted out. If you think there's anger in my community, that's an understatement. That's a complete understatement. There's frustration, there's exasperation. This has been going on for years.

I congratulate the member for Hamilton Mountain for bringing forth this item, because we clearly need to know where the money is going. They call them golden handshakes. The only people I've spoken to who don't like your bill are bureaucrats and lawyers. Those are the only people who have said, "This bill doesn't make sense. You shouldn't be doing this." You've got to wonder whether there might be some vested interest in that, considering that the bureaucrats would like to see these wonderful golden handshakes maintained, and lawyers, when they're in litigation, also like to see golden handshakes because that helps them too.

At the end of the day, what we're talking about is an unfair situation where in Hamilton, for example, mismanagement, misgovernance were brought forth. All of a sudden there was a decision that the CEO was going to leave. You have to wonder what happened behind closed doors: "If you don't pay me this amount of money, I'm going to sue. We'll go to court. We'll drag it out, and it will all be out there for everyone to see." So then they sit down, and it's kind of like being held for ransom.

All of a sudden you get a $1.8-million offer and she wanders away into the sunset, except the public finds out about it and there's outrage. Then there's reshuffling and backpedalling really quickly to fix it. At some point, the government of Ontario has to say enough is enough.

There are some things in the bill-and the member for Hamilton Mountain and I have spoken about it. I don't support everything in the bill. There are some things that need tweaking, in my opinion. It's not a perfect bill. To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a perfect bill. They all need tweaking at some point. I've encouraged my caucus colleagues to support the bill and send it to committee so that we can have real debate on it, review it, improve it and fix the situation.

As part of our Blueprint, we're talking about another sunshine law we'd like to see, and that's with union employees, the union leaders and their salaries. Union members are curious: "Well, what exactly are they getting paid?" We don't know. Here's an opportunity to take one step further that sunshine mantra, if you will, that we've started.

I think it's great that the member has brought it forth. I know for a fact, and I assume that all the members from Hamilton-Wentworth would agree, that the constituents in our communities want this. They're angry about it, they want it to stop and they're looking for help. It has to stop here. I look forward to continued public debate on it as it moves forward to committee, and I encourage my colleagues here to support the bill.

Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East): I want to congratulate my colleague from Hamilton Mountain for bringing forward this bill. It's a piece of legislation that's long overdue, and frankly it's something the government should have done three or four years ago. Let me read a quote:

"`I don't care if it's a hospital board, a school board or a local municipality, these people are representatives of our community. They are also responsible ... to their constituents and I think it is incumbent upon them to come clean, if you will, with the public at large.'

"Last week, health minister Jim Wilson described the size of the payout as `disturbing.' Mr Eves, while not commenting on the controversy, said he wants better accountability when taxpayer dollars are used....

"Mr Eves said he'd like to see changes but doesn't know whether it's best to make amendments to the disclosure act or give the provincial auditor more authority to look at the financial records."

That's October 9, 1996, on the fallout of the Dr Jackman controversy at the Hamilton Health Sciences Corp.

It has been four years since that legislation was put in place, and four years that that loophole has been left open. I think the time has come, first of all, to close that loophole in regard to disclosure. It makes all the sense in the world. It makes sense clearly from a taxpayer perspective to put a cap on severance packages. It is taxpayers' dollars we're talking about. It is not a question of a private corporation. An IBM or Bell Canada can do whatever they want; they're responsible to their shareholders. If they want to pay $10-million payouts, that's their choice.

Publicly-funded corporations and organizations are accountable to taxpayers, and frankly there's been a history of golden handshakes right across this province that are not too short of obscene. The people who get ripped off, of course, are the taxpayers.

In credit, to some degree, some organizations have the made changes, for example, the Hamilton Health Sciences Corp. With the Jackman deal, there was no provision in the original contract as to what the severance package would be. In reference to Mr Scott Rowan, they signed a provision right up front when he signed the contract as to what the severance package was going to be, and disclosed that up front. So some progress has occurred, but not enough across Ontario and not in a consistent way.

If you look at some of these deals, and I was quite involved in the Jackman deal-the frustration of getting that information out or of trying to get that information, stonewalled by the board, by the administration for almost a year, bits and pieces coming out. It took over a year to find out there had been almost a million-dollar payout to a CEO who had not been fired but who simply chose not to apply for the position at the merging of the two corporations.

I think that triggered a lot anger. At a time when hospitals were hurting and funding was an issue, there were these golden handshakes of a million dollars to CEOs. It's not just Hamilton; it's unfortunately too common across this province.

This piece of legislation is long overdue and I think what's important here is how serious the government is going to be about bringing forward real change with this legislation. It's going to be easy to sit here today and say, "Wonderful, I'll support it."

I appreciate my colleague from Stoney Creek saying this should go to committee, and I hope it does. Because if it's just killed and sent to committee of the whole, we're not going anywhere. I hope you are sincere about sending it to a standing committee. There may be some amendments or some need to fix or change what's in there to make it a little tighter, and I have no problem with that. I think it's a very good piece of legislation, and I think my colleague, who spoke out very strongly in Hamilton-Wentworth and locally on this issue, has brought forward a piece of legislation that is long overdue and badly needed.

I find it bizarre that we had the sunshine law, that everything else was in there-salaries and benefits were in there-but somehow severance packages were left out, and that's a pretty simple amendment. It's not rocket science; it's not that difficult. The same way that information is filed now through the ministry, the information regarding severance packages should automatically be filed at the point the severance package is paid out.

I urge all members of the House to support this. I congratulate my colleague for this progressive piece of legislation, one that makes a great deal of sense, one that is going to ensure there's a transparent process here, one that's going to ensure that public accountability is there, accountability to the board of directors, to the corporations that are involved, and one that's going to ensure, most of all, that taxpayers in this province, whether it's municipalities, hospitals or school boards, don't get hosed every time a golden handshake is given out to someone who leaves.

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton West): It's my pleasure to join in the debate. I'd like to join with my colleagues and compliment the member for Hamilton Mountain for Bill 104, because I think it does respond obviously to an issue that originated for us in Hamilton but, as we're hearing, affects virtually every riding across the province.

I was somewhat dismayed to hear the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour, the member from Bramalea-Gore-Malton-Springdale-we've really got to do something about these names; they're getting so long-throw into what was otherwise pretty much an agreeable debate their changes to the Employment Standards Act. I don't know why he would inject that into this. This is a proposal by the government to increase the workweek to 60 hours and create a formula that will deny people overtime rates they now get.

Why you would inject that into this is probably more symptomatic of where your attitudes are, that you see that as a good thing, "Yes, let's make people work longer hours and let's try and do what we can to deny overtime pay," because that's the effect your changes to the Employment Standards Act will have.

Specifically to Bill 104: Like many of my colleagues, there are details of the proposal that I think need a lot of work, but the direction we're hearing from all quarters here today suggests it has support and should be taken to the next step.

I understand the government this time is not going to play the game you played last week with Marilyn Churley's clean water act, that indeed in giving your vote of support on the first go-round, this time you're actually going to vote to send it to committee, which means it has life, unlike Marilyn's bill, which was sent to committee of the whole, which for those of us in this place means it's never ever going to see the light of day. That was your game plan, and you got called on it, by the way. It was nice to see that there was a little media coverage on the fact that that's what you were up to.

But I understand today that's not the game plan, that this really will go to committee and be in the lineup to be considered, hopefully in a non-partisan way, because at this point it's not a partisan issue.

Let me express a couple of thoughts, though, that are not purely on the populist line. One of the things we've got to be careful of is-and I don't mean this is in any way to be a criticism of my colleague from Hamilton Mountain; this is my own experience that I'm putting on the record here-we need to accept the fact that this government in many ways creates a climate where it's OK to go after anybody who's in the public sector. You're a little gentler today because it's sort of senior level.

I would say to government members, for many of you it's more you see it as equals rather than those others who do all that other stuff, those other public sector people whom you claim are a waste. That's why the only thing that matters to you is to be able to stand up and say, "We got rid of 10,000 public sector workers," or "We got rid of 20,000 public sector workers." The fact that hundreds of those workers used to be in the Ministry of the Environment analyzing water is not something you want to talk about.

But I do worry that there's this climate-and I don't think we ought to be allowing ourselves inadvertently to feed into that-of going after people who work for the public. I would include in that elected representatives. It's not healthy for a democracy, and so I think we need to be careful. There are senior civil servants who are grossly underpaid by comparison to what they could get in the public sector.

Rather than just saying, if that's what they want to do, "Go," it would be nice if we started talking about some of those abuses that are putting pressure on us who have to manage tens of thousands of people in a workforce.

The fact is that you've got bank presidents earning not just their golden handshake but $5 million, $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, $100 million a year, with stock options, and you wonder why there is upward pressure on the wages of senior bureaucrats? Let me tell you, somebody who runs major corporations in this province-a hospital corporation-it's no different in terms of the work that's in front of them than it is for a CEO of a private corporation or a publicly traded private corporation that has 20,000 or 30,000 employees.

There is a certain set of skills that you want in people who are going to be responsible for budgets of tens of millions of dollars and the size of workforce I've just mentioned.

I don't think it's particularly healthy for the people of Ontario to have senior bureaucrats who see going into the public sector as just a stepping stone, purely and simply. That is going to happen sometimes, but I wouldn't want that to be routine. I wouldn't want that to be the usual process, where they just want to get in here somewhere within government so they can make contacts and step out and make three or four times more, because it's important for us to have continuity, where we can, in leadership positions.

I'm reflecting now on my time in cabinet, where you are responsible at the cabinet table. There is at least one cabinet minister here-a second one just came in-who knows exactly what I'm talking about. When you're dealing with deputy ministers and when you're dealing with commissioners and heads of boards and commissions, you're dealing with serious wage levels.

We ought to recognize that just going after people who work in the public sector, whether it's somebody who collects the garbage, plows the snow off our roads or manages a huge public corporation like a hospital, like the Hamilton Health Sciences Corp, are all in the same universe.

I just want to say, let's just be careful that we aren't inadvertently doing some damage here, because there are people-

Hon Margaret Marland (Minister without Portfolio [Children]): Where did David Agnew go?

Mr Christopherson: Pardon me, Margaret?

Hon Mrs Marland: Where did David Agnew go?

Mr Christopherson: I don't know, Margaret. Would you like us to adjourn the House and I'll find out for you? Margaret, I want you to worry about the desks, OK? You haven't solved that one yet-100 years old, remember?

Back to the point: I think the member for Sarnia-Lambton tied into one of the biggest issues that we're dealing with right here, and that's the whole issue of accountability. We need to make sure that we shed some light on this. Until you get inside the issue and find out exactly what dynamics are at play, seeing a dollar figure doesn't offer up a guarantee that something wrong is going on. But in the absence of some information, that's going to be the conclusion, especially when most people are making a fraction of the money that we're talking about.

If you're earning $40,000 a year and you see somebody who walks away with $300,000, no matter what you might be told, unless somebody assures you that this has been looked at with your interests in mind, you're going to think they were overpaid, and that may very well be. Certainly the one instance raised in Hamilton clearly was, and by the time it went back to the board and was analyzed, they had to make some changes fast.

To me, accountability is a big part of this. Whether or not it should go to a committee-was it of deputy ministers? That may be a bit much in terms of the other responsibilities they have, but certainly the notion that there's accountability and that the people who are paying these severances through their taxes have some assurance that that accountability is taking place I think is a significant step.

While we're at it, if we're going to be imposing things on the public sector, maybe we ought to be taking a look at what we should be doing in the private sector. You can't separate the two at the end of the day, when we draw our managers from the same pool. So the idea that we are just going to go after people who work in the public sector and do nothing on the private sector side I find somewhat problematic.

I understand the legal implications involved there, but I would hope that if it gets in front of a committee, they would take the time to look at that and say, "If it's fair here, is there something over here correspondingly on the private sector end of things that we should be doing also in the interest of fairness?"

I raise that because the member for Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford talked about the courts and how you could get around this just by taking legal action, finding yourself in a court and winning a court judgment that takes you beyond what the law is or what the guidelines are. You know, he works for employers advising on labour law. I understand he still does some of that even while he's here. That's perfectly legal; I'm not suggesting it's not. I went down that road once.

Nonetheless, that's his role and he does that, so he does know of what he speaks in terms of the arguments he makes, and when it comes to finding loopholes and what sharpie lawyers can do, well, you figure it out yourself. But I think the fact that he points this out as a loophole means it's one that we ought to take seriously. Again, to me that speaks to the fact that we ought not to think we can deal with this in seclusion; we've got to deal with it in the broader sense.

I think one of the important components of any kind of accountability and review is that people have a sense that there are in some fashion public representatives there: ordinary folks, particularly from a local community, some opportunity for them to be a part of that. Again, why? Because if all we do is build in an internal review that is in and of itself non-transparent, we're still going to have the same problem.

People, the general population, will still not believe there has been true accountability; this is just one more step in a quiet little club in the background sharing up the spoils of their tax money. Certainly I believe the intent of the member from Hamilton Mountain on Bill 104 was completely the opposite.

So again, the accountability is key: who's on there, what's the process, making sure that we're not doing things in isolation as if the people we hire are somehow bred from birth to work in the public sector. We need to recognize that there is a private side of it, and it is driving in large part much of what is happening.

So I think it ought to be totally broader in its review, and I think we ought to be doing it in a climate that talks supportively of the fact that the overwhelming majority of people who work for the public do a good job, just like the vast majority of the people in this place are here for the right reason and they do their job conscientiously and they care. We may disagree about different aspects and different directions, but the notion that most people are here because they care, to me, is true.

It's equally true of people who work in the public sector, whether they're directing traffic, putting out fires, operating on us in our hospitals or managing these entities.

The government's notion of throwing in this business about union bosses and, "Wouldn't it be nice; I'm sure union members want to know" is more of your propaganda. The fact of the matter is that virtually every constitution I've ever seen in the labour movement points out very clearly what people are making. I don't think this is going to upset anyone. If we want to start going into that arena, though, because that's not taxpayers' money, then maybe the sunshine law ought to apply across the board, virtually to everyone.

Then we will all spend time pointing fingers at each other, saying, "You get this; that's too much," and maybe that's what you want. But this idea that you're going to point out some kind of evil within the labour movement, you're going to put the light on it and let people see, that's just nonsense. It's already there. In fact, you could learn a lot about democracy from the way the labour movement operates, let me tell you-a lot you could learn.

In wrapping up, I compliment my colleague. I think this was one of her first initiatives that she grabbed on to early on. I want to say again, because we can never say it enough, she did a fantastic job in being, certainly, the public leader in terms of us as elected representatives in saving the Henderson. This issue was a part of that. I think this bill deserves the attention it's getting today. I do hope it goes to committee and I do hope we take a look at it in a non-partisan way and fix something that clearly is broken.

The Acting Speaker: I would remind members that private conversations more appropriately take place outside.

Mrs Bountrogianni: I'd like to thank the members on all sides of the House for their comments, their constructive criticism and their support. I'd like to thank the member from Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford for catching the typo and for alerting me to the loopholes. I'm not a lawyer, so I appreciate that advice. I did have a conversation with your Minister of Labour over the summer and he alerted me to those loopholes. It is my hope that this bill passes and goes to committee, where those can be looked at closely.

My intent is not for more litigation; my intent is the opposite, to bring public accountability, to bring some fairness to a process which is tremendously unfair and to reduce litigation costs, because most of these outlandish golden handshakes are actually in the courts right now and we're paying for those litigation costs. It would certainly be ironic if this bill did the same. I don't want that.

The most important part of this bill, in my personal opinion, is the public disclosure part, which is an extension of your act of a few years ago. I think nothing angers the public more than deals behind closed doors on money that they are paying. We are the shareholders of the public purse and we just want to know, as taxpayers, what we're paying.

The criticism of the red tape hopefully will be dealt with in the general government committee. That, hopefully, is where the bill will go if passed. The other criticism was that we won't be able to attract good people if we do this; I've heard that. I didn't hear it today, though, and I was pleased. That obviously means that serving the public should be the utmost objective in getting any of these positions, rather than making millions of dollars. A lot of us here took massive pay cuts to be here and-I can speak for myself-don't regret for a minute the decision because there isn't anything like serving the public.

I am optimistic. I think we will continue to attract excellent executives and keep the public satisfied that we are being accountable. I thank you for supporting this bill.

The Acting Speaker: The time allocated for this ballot item has now expired.

CARE HOMES ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR LES MAISONS DE SOINS

The Acting Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): We will now deal with ballot item number 37. Mrs McLeod has moved second reading of Bill 53,

An Act to provide for the accreditation of care homes, to protect the rights of tenants and to amend the Tenant Protection Act, 1997. Shall the motion carry?

All those in favour will say "aye."

All those opposed will say "nay."

In my opinion, the nays have it.

We'll call in the members, but first we'll deal with ballot item number 38.

PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEES' SEVERANCE PAY ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR L'INDEMNITÉ DE CESSATION D'EMPLOI DES EMPLOYÉS DU SECTEUR PUBLIC

The Acting Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): Mrs Bountrogianni has moved second reading of Bill 104,

An Act respecting the payment of Severance Pay to Public Sector Employees. Shall the motion carry? Carried.

Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Was anyone opposed on the previous bill?

The Acting Speaker: It carried. I didn't hear any noes.

Mrs Marie Bountrogianni (Hamilton Mountain): I'd ask the members of the House to agree to send this bill to general government committee.

The Acting Speaker: Shall the bill be sent to general government? Agreed.

CARE HOMES ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR LES MAISONS DE SOINS

The Acting Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): Call in the members for the vote on second reading of Bill 53; it will be a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1159 to 1204.

The Acting Speaker: Mrs McLeod has moved second reading of Bill 53. All those in favour will please stand and remain standing until their name is called.

Ayes

Agostino, Dominic

Bartolucci, Rick

Bountrogianni, Marie

Boyer, Claudette

Bradley, James J.

Bryant, Michael

Caplan, David

Christopherson, David

Cleary, John C.

Colle, Mike

Di Cocco, Caroline

Dombrowsky, Leona

Duncan, Dwight

Gerretsen, John

Gravelle, Michael

Kennedy, Gerard

Kwinter, Monte

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

McLeod, Lyn

McMeekin, Ted

Parsons, Ernie

Patten, Richard

Peters, Steve

Phillips, Gerry

Ruprecht, Tony

Smitherman, George

The Acting Speaker: All those opposed will please stand and remain standing until your name is called.

Nays

Baird, John R.

Barrett, Toby

Beaubien, Marcel

Chudleigh, Ted

Clark, Brad

Coburn, Brian

DeFaria, Carl

Dunlop, Garfield

Ecker, Janet

Elliott, Brenda

Flaherty, Jim

Gilchrist, Steve

Gill, Raminder

Guzzo, Garry J.

Hardeman, Ernie

Hastings, John

Hodgson, Chris

Hudak, Tim

Jackson, Cameron

Johns, Helen

Johnson, Bert

Klees, Frank

Marland, Margaret

Martiniuk, Gerry

Maves, Bart

Mazzilli, Frank

Molinari, Tina R.

Munro, Julia

Mushinski, Marilyn

Newman, Dan

O'Toole, John

Ouellette, Jerry J.

Palladini, Al

Runciman, Robert W.

Sampson, Rob

Snobelen, John

Spina, Joseph

Sterling, Norman W.

Stewart, R. Gary

Tascona, Joseph N.

Tilson, David

Tsubouchi, David H.

Wettlaufer, Wayne

Wilson, Jim

Witmer, Elizabeth

Wood, Bob

Young, David

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 26; the nays are 47.

The Acting Speaker: I declare the motion lost.

All business relating to private members is now completed. The House will adjourn and return at 1:30 pm.

The House recessed from 1208 to 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

JOURNÉE MONDIALE DES ENSEIGNANTS

M me Claudette Boyer (Ottawa-Vanier) : Il y a deux semaines, j'ai accepté le défi de notre chef, Dalton McGuinty, demandant à chaque membre de l'Assemblée législative de passer une journée entière dans une école de notre comté. À mon grand étonnement, j'ai affronté des classes nombreuses et un manque de ressources essentielles, surtout pour les jeunes avec des besoins spéciaux.

Par contre, ce qui m'a touché le plus, c'est la passion avec laquelle nos enseignantes et nos enseignants accomplissent leur travail. Le gouvernement Harris tente de faire croire par ses annonces partisanes que le travail des enseignants et des enseignantes se limite au temps passé en salle de classe. Erreur. Une enquête menée pour le compte de l'association des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario dévoile que les enseignantes et les enseignants consacrent, en moyenne, 51 heures par semaine à l'exercice de leur profession, soit l'équivalent de 51 semaines de 40 heures par année.

Nous avons d'excellents enseignantes et enseignants. On se doit de reconnaître leur comportement professionnel, leur habileté d'évoluer et leur capacité d'innover. On se doit de les remercier aussi pour leur dévouement absolu et les remercier de partager avec nos élèves leur don de talent d'enseignant.

Nos enseignantes et nos enseignants n'ont pas besoin d'un gouvernement qui leur rend la vie dure. Ils n'ont pas besoin d'un gouvernement qui les surveille comme s'ils étaient des incompétents. En cette journée mondiale des enseignants et des enseignantes, je vous offre, au nom de mes collègues, mes voeux les plus sincères. Salut les professionnels.

POVERTY

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I want to take this opportunity today to wish everybody here and across the province a happy Thanksgiving. It's Thanksgiving weekend coming up. They tell me that we may have some snow. For some that will be a happy occasion; for others it won't be so happy.

I also remind people, as I'm sure you remind those around your table when you gather as family and friends to celebrate, whether it's Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter or a birthday or some other occasion, to be mindful of those in our communities who don't have what we have, who are living in poverty. The snow, if it comes, will make it doubly difficult for those folks this particular weekend.

It's actually quite alarming, and indeed some would say scandalous, in a province that has so much, where there is so much wealth and wealth is being generated in such a rapid fashion each day that goes by, that we have so many among us who don't have the basic necessities of life at a level that makes them feel comfortable, makes them feel safe, and gives them a dignity that I think accrues with their humanity.

I suggest as well that people take the opportunity to contribute to those organizations in your community that are gathering food and other stuff this weekend for the poor. You might also consider giving that cheque that you're getting from the government, or at least a portion of it, to some organization that is looking after the poor among us on this Thanksgiving weekend.

LONDON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Mr Bob Wood (London West): I rise today to ask the House to recognize the contribution to our province of the members of the London Chamber of Commerce, some of whom are visiting with us today.

The London Chamber of Commerce has been active in the business community of London since 1857. Through a well-developed committee network, members volunteer their expertise to the chamber, which in turn uses that talent to develop social, political and economic policies that enhance the quality of life in London.

Their vision is to be recognized as London's leading business organization, providing maximum value to its membership by recognizing and encouraging the private sector's role as a driving force in our economy. The chamber envisages an environment where governments work in partnership with business to improve our quality of life and provide an environment for economic growth where public and private sectors share the same goals for a clean, safe and healthy community while striving to improve London's competitiveness nationally and around the globe. The London Chamber of Commerce has a proud history of accomplishments in London.

I ask that all members of the House join with me in welcoming a delegation of the London Chamber of Commerce to the Ontario Legislature.

PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU

Mr George Smitherman (Toronto Centre-Rosedale): I want to stand today and pay my own personal tribute in this House to the recently deceased Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. I was not able to be in the House for the official tribute earlier this week because, with friends, I went to Montreal and paid respects to Mr Trudeau there, both by walking past the casket at Montreal city hall and also at the ceremony the next day.

Pierre Trudeau had an extraordinary influence on me as a budding politician; he sparked my interest in politics. I believe that the riding I represent, Toronto Centre-Rosedale, which most people recognize as a place of extraordinary diversity, is in fact a living monument to the ideals and values that Pierre Trudeau helped to bring to this country, the work that he shaped to moved forward with a view that is compassionate and tolerant toward others and to work hard to have a just society where the economic opportunities for all were seen as something important and a goal for government to pursue in terms of trying to assist those people.

Yesterday the federal government moved to rename a mountain in honour of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. I believe that the Ontario government should be considering some similar recognition for this extraordinary Canadian, the most extraordinary Canadian of our generation.

Here in the city of Toronto a debate is already begun about how to appropriately recognize the important role that Pierre Trudeau played in the lives of Canadians and Torontonians. Whether they rename Queen's Quay, or they name the new Yonge Dundas Square in his honour, or perhaps the suggestion that they rename University Avenue, which would be fitting given that it is also home to a park, G7 Park. Pierre Trudeau put us on that national stage and I would encourage the Ontario government to play a role in recognizing that.

WORLD TEACHERS' DAY

Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): I rise today to offer our government's support to Ontario's teachers during World Teachers' Day. We all recognize that teaching is a challenging profession. Teachers ensure that our young people are getting the best education possible and that students develop the skills and knowledge they need to be successful.

We are fortunate that in Ontario we have many excellent teachers who motivate and challenge our students on a daily basis. We all know what a difference a good teacher can make. Every one of us can remember certain teachers who inspired us to see the true meaning of a particular novel or poem or to understand the significance of historical events.

Teachers help our young people understand the different regions that make up this great country. They help us understand the other parts of the world and the galaxy beyond. Some teachers take on the exceptional task of actually helping us understand algebra.

Our government will continue to work to provide resources and support to our teachers so that they may continue the excellent work they are doing in schools throughout this province.

I'd also like today to welcome Mr Roger Régimbal, who is in the gallery and who is the new president of the Ontario Teachers' Federation. Welcome, sir.

CHILD POVERTY

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): Today the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres released a report entitled Urban Aboriginal Child Poverty. It is a report that reminds us of something about which we should all feel a collective shame. Thousands and thousands of young people, young children, live in poverty and every day go hungry. Today may be an appropriate day for the friendship centres to release the report as we all head home to celebrate Thanksgiving.

The $200 tax rebate cheques I gather will be mailed out. I listened on the radio today to how people plan to spend it. One person said, "I'm going out to shop for shoes, lots and lots of shoes." Another said, "I'm going to go down to Florida on this." But at the same time, thousands of young children have nothing to eat.

All of us should read this report. There are many quotations in it but one of many that caught my eye was, "I am out of food right now. I am out of food. I have no bread. I have no milk. I don't even have any cereal."

Two years ago my leader, Dalton McGuinty, did a major study called First Steps. We found the same problem then and proposed a number of solutions.

I hope the government will take this opportunity to read this report, read the thoughtful recommendations in this report, and do some concrete action to solve the problem of which we all must be ashamed.

OKTOBERFEST

Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener Centre): Nearly 200 years ago, the crown prince of Bavaria, who later became King Ludwig I, married his beautiful Princess Theresa. Horse races were held as the finale of five days of wedding festivities on October 17, 1810. This was the unlikely beginning of Oktoberfest.

In 1969, the founding fathers of K-W Oktoberfest saw this Bavarian tradition celebrated at the famous Concordia Club in Kitchener. Since 1969, K-W Oktoberfest has developed its own traditions, becoming the largest Bavarian festival in North America, with the greatest Thanksgiving Day parade in Canada. Hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world celebrate annually in over 20 festhallen and by attending one or more of our 45 family and cultural events.

Through the celebration of this spirit of gemütlichkeit, the local economy is stimulated and over 70 charities and not-for-profit organizations raise funds to support the high quality of life enjoyed in Kitchener-Waterloo.

Three new attractions have been added to Oktoberfest celebrations this year. One exciting new addition is Ontario Timeship 2000, a high-tech, interactive, intriguing and highly educational exhibition about the mysteries of time. A second attraction is Millennium Thumbprints, which will result in a bronze monument constructed of 2,000 thumbprints, 1,000 of those from Kitchener residents and 1,000 from residents of Berlin, Germany, as a symbol of the linking of our cultures.

Thirdly, for the first time, Oktoberfest will be the setting for the first day of official recognition of German Pioneers Day, which will be celebrated on the first day after Thanksgiving, Tuesday October 10.

Many of my colleagues in this place will join me in this year's Oktoberfest celebrations. Gemütlichkeit!

WORLD TEACHERS' DAY

Mr Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park): It is with great pleasure that I rise today on the occasion of World Teachers' Day to be able, in this particular jurisdiction, to draw attention and bring praise and credit to the teaching profession in this province-in this jurisdiction, a jurisdiction that is determined to use teachers as a source of propaganda rather than nourishment and support for the children of this province.

Those children are our children. They're children that we want to grow into good citizens. The only opportunity we have as a society to be involved in that essentially private development is through our schools and by our teachers.

The teaching profession that I have encountered as education critic over the last year is a profession that is dedicated to sacrificing themselves, their personal health and their personal wealth to see the development of that citizenship occur. They do so under tremendous situations of duress.

I would like to dedicate and introduce the names of some of the teachers I've seen: Rose and Stephanie and Mel, teachers at Humberside Collegiate, who were there at 6:30 in the morning, starting at 7:45, doing their own photocopying; who spend two to three hours at night preparing their own curriculum; making up for, covering up for, accommodating the deficiencies that are often there from a government that has cut an average of $918 per student away from the resources they had to deal with.

If we have a hope for our future, for the future of children in this province receiving a good education, it's because that education rests in good hands: the professionalism, the dedication and the caring of Ontario's teachers.

ONTARIO AGRICULTURE WEEK

Mrs Julia Munro (York North): I rise today to honour our agricultural community, particularly the farmers in my riding of York North. Since 1998, we have celebrated Ontario Agriculture Week to honour our agricultural community. All Ontarians have the opportunity this week to say thank you and to celebrate the contributions of the province's farmers, farm families and all of those individuals who work in the agri-food industry.

In August I attended the York plowing match in Belhaven. It was a pleasure to see how many young people have shown an interest in the 4H plowing club. It allowed grandparents, sons, daughters and grandchildren to participate together in the match. Farming has a future in York North.

The farmers in my riding of York North are an integral part of the community. These men and women are dedicated to making this province a better place to live. Farmers like Don Chapman and John Holtrope, Jack Ruptke in the Holland Marsh, Peter VanderKooj in the Keswick Marsh-all of these people contribute to the well-being. There are many farm families in my riding, like Alvin Brooks, Adrian Van Lutk, and my neighbours the Thompsons, the Lockies, the Johnsons and the Winches.

Our farmers give us so much. I am proud