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June 11, 1990

34th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

EDUCATION OF HEARING-IMPAIRED

CYCLING SAFETY

ROAD SIGNAGE

WATER QUALITY

NIPISSING AREA TEACHERS

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS

PROTECTION FOR WORKERS AND TENANTS

JUMP ROPE FOR HEART

DENTAL HYGIENIST PROGRAM

SUZANNE SCHWENGER

VISITOR

CONSTITUTIONAL ACCORD / ACCORD CONSTITUTIONNEL

ORAL QUESTIONS

CONSTITUTIONAL ACCORD

ROOMING HOUSES

PATRICIA STARR

NORTHERN HEALTH SERVICES

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION SAFETY

PLANT CLOSURES

GARSON MANOR NURSING HOME

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

RETAIL SALES TAX

REGULATION OF ZOOS

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

LAYOFFS

FUNDING OF AIDS DRUG

ABANDONED RAIL LINES

PLANT CLOSURES

MOTION

CONSTITUTIONAL ACCORD

The House met at 1330.

Prayers.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

EDUCATION OF HEARING-IMPAIRED

Mr R. F. Johnston: The deaf in Ontario have been waiting for some time for an indication from this government about whether or not it is going to act and bring forward Bill 112, which I introduced as a private member’s initiative to make American sign language the language of instruction in school systems.

To this end, they decided they would make some protest at a recent event this week around access awareness week and got some strange phone calls from senior bureaucrats advising them not to do so, that this fact might impinge on a government announcement coming through this Wednesday by the Minister of Education. I wonder if that is in fact the role we should be putting our senior bureaucrats to, to be telling groups that have been advocating for some time for major changes that they should not exercise their democratic rights because they would not want this to upstage a minister who may be coming forward.

Today I get a confirmation in writing, as of 8 June, from David McKee, the director of special ed., that in fact the minister will be making a statement on 13 June. It seems to me that it is his right to do so; it is also the right of the government to inform these people that this is going to happen. But to say to them that they should no longer put on pressure is an inappropriate action.

I say this in conjunction with the fact that now one of the major proponents for education for the hearing-impaired has proposed some amendments to my piece of legislation which I think all of us could readily accept in the principle of our discussion that we had that day, which I am willing to present to this House or to give to the government to provide to this House if it wants this legislation to come forward. But to interfere with the democratic process in this seems to be inappropriate.

CYCLING SAFETY

Mr Cousens: This is Bike-to-Work Week in the city of Toronto. I would like to congratulate the Toronto City Cycling Committee for all the work it is doing to promote cycling as an alternative form of transportation in the city. Cycling reduces air pollution and helps relieve the congestion on city streets because of gridlock.

It is encouraging to see the enthusiasm of Toronto cyclists; they want to do their

part in keeping our environment clean. I was saddened, however, to hear of a serious cycling accident this morning. If we are going to promote this kind of alternative transportation on our streets, we must make it safe for cyclists, drivers and pedestrians.

The provincial government has an important role to play. In its driver education courses it should include training on sharing the road with cyclists, with other drivers and with public transit vehicles. Likewise, cyclists who use their bikes for commercial purposes or to commute to work should undergo training and be licensed.

Bike paths on busy city streets should be a key component of road improvements funded by the province. The House has before it a private member’s bill from the member for London North that was passed by this House to make helmets mandatory for cyclists. The Liberals should pass this bill immediately.

The province must work in tandem with municipalities to encourage cycling. This is the only way to ensure the roads are safe for cyclists, pedestrians and drivers.

ROAD SIGNAGE

Mr Reycraft: I want to take this opportunity to publicly congratulate Reeve John Groenewegen and the members of township council in Caradoc in my riding of Middlesex. I believe councillors there have made an extremely wise decision in moving to replace all yield signs in the township with stop signs.

Yield signs do very little to enhance the safety of our rural roads. In fact, they can do a great deal to undermine it because yield signs create a false sense of security. At times, drivers may think a yield sign to be unnecessary and they ignore it, or they may move so far into the intersection without stopping that they create a very real hazard while trying to see if there is traffic coming. At the same time, drivers on the crossroad proceed, assuming they have the right of way and also assuming traffic coming in the other direction is required to stop. The result can be deadly.

But with a stop sign, there is a definite advantage. One slows down and actually stops, looks both ways and then proceeds. It sounds simple. It is simple. It is also effective and safe.

For Caradoc township, the cost of replacing its yield signs with stop signs is minimal compared to the safety that is being added. We cannot legislate common sense, but we can certainly promote it.

From the very age our children begin to walk, we tell them to stop and look both ways before crossing the street. It is a principle we should not abandon as drivers.

I ask all members of the assembly to join me in congratulating Caradoc township for sending its yield signs the way of the horse and buggy.

WATER QUALITY

Mr Farnan: Clean, safe water is vital to human existence and Ontario’s future. However, this Liberal government has not provided any significant leadership in protecting and maintaining the quality of our drinking water.

It is common knowledge that the province has been in a state of rapid growth for some time, but it seems that when it comes to water, the Premier has abandoned ship as well as his responsibility to the residents of Ontario.

The water and sewer infrastructure of this province need immediate attention if we are to maintain any reasonable level of water quality.

For the record, Waterloo region, of which my riding is a part, is the largest community in Canada that depends on ground water to provide its safe drinking water. The regional government has recently been in the spotlight for the manner in which it has been dealing with our water crisis, but I have to say that our local representatives have taken far more decisive steps in dealing with the issues of contamination, resource development and planning for the future than this government.

At a recent public meeting on water, one thing was abundantly clear: There needs to be long-term planning of water supply and infrastructure maintenance and development for all of southwestern Ontario. When will the Premier stop talking about projections and studies and start providing some planning guidelines and directions to the municipalities of this province?

NIPISSING AREA TEACHERS

Mr Jackson: I rise today on behalf of my caucus and my leader, the member for Nipissing. The Department of National Defence has announced the transfer of its school responsibilities at CFB North Bay effective 30 June 1990. Currently, there is an impasse involving the Ontario Teachers Federation, the Department of National Defence, the Nipissing Board of Education and the Nipissing District Roman Catholic Separate School Board over the transfer and the security of the Department of National Defence teachers in Nipissing.

When responsibility for the schools at CFB Ottawa and CFB Kingston was transferred to the coterminous boards last year, the Minister of Education and the Ministry of Education were actively involved in assisting the Department of National Defence boards and the school boards involved in arriving at an agreeable disposition of students and staff.

Only one year later, the ministry is strangely absent from the North Bay negotiations and discussions. We urge the Minister of Education to reconsider his decision to withdraw and hide from the Nipissing situation and to immediately address the concerns by bringing all parties together to resolve this matter under the Ministry of Education’s direction.

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS

Mr Keyes: I am happy to report that the story which unfolded in the media and in this House last week concerning the dismissal of an employee at the Holiday Inn in Kingston had a happy ending. The members will recall that Che Zong, a student employed by Holiday Inn as part of the immigration assistance program for the summer, had requested a day off from work to attend a memorial demonstration of the Tiananmen Square massacre, of which she herself was a survivor. Having her request denied on the basis of her lack of seniority, she took time off to attend and, upon her return to work, was informed she was no longer employed by Holiday Inn.

I am pleased to say that, after a meeting of Holiday Inn executives on Friday 8 June, Che Zong accepted an offer to return to work on condition that Mr Weary, who had resigned as a result of the public outcry, would also be reinstated. In response, Mr Weary withdrew his resignation, which withdrawal was accepted by the company. We should all remember the fitting end to this event.

PROTECTION FOR WORKERS AND TENANTS

Mr D. S. Cooke: Last Thursday afternoon, while the first ministers of the nation were discussing the constitutional future of Canada, people in my home community were rallying in protest at the lack of action by this government to protect their jobs.

Over 2,000 people got together to protest plant closures and the fact that the Liberal government has still not lived up to its commitments and promises to bring in a thorough package of plant closure legislation which would guarantee public justification for plant closures, universal severance pay and adequate notice so that workers in our community and across Ontario would be properly protected.

Also, on that same day, in the evening there was another demonstration in Windsor, where nearly 500 tenants showed up to demonstrate and protest against the lack of protection for ordinary people in the private sector in apartment buildings in Ontario and the fact that landlords are given everything under the rent review legislation and that tenants are not protected with any adequate and thorough protection by the Liberal rent review legislation.

Very clearly, the message coming out of the Windsor community last Thursday was that they were asking themselves whose side the Liberal Party was on. They have discovered very clearly that they are on the side of developers, landlords and large corporations and that workers, if they want protection for their jobs, cannot rely on the Liberals, and that tenants, if they want protection to keep their rents affordable, cannot look to the Liberals for support either.

JUMP ROPE FOR HEART

Mr Sterling: Today I would like to draw my fellow members’ attention to Stittsville Public School, an elementary school in the riding of Carleton, which participated in the Jump Rope for Heart fund-raising event for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. I am sure all members of the Ontario Legislature will join me in congratulating Stittsville Public School on its great success.

Stittsville Public School students from grades 3, 4 and 5 raised $19,364.66 through the pledges they collected by jumping rope. It is the largest amount of money raised by an individual school this year to date. Over the last five years, Stittsville Public School has raised $57,000 for the project. This school is number 1 in Canada.

Jump Rope for Heart is a national program that has been in effect for almost 10 years. There are 1,200 schools in Ontario which participate, and last year they raised $3.2 million, over half of the nation’s total.

I would like to thank all the students who participated in Jump Rope for Heart, with a special mention to faculty member Gerald Hancock, who organized the event on behalf of the school. This ingenious event has proved that learning can be fun, healthy and educational. It is my hope that this type of participation will increase awareness of living healthier and happier lives. My congratulations to Stittsville Public School.

DENTAL HYGIENIST PROGRAM

Thus it was with great pleasure that I was able to announce last week, on behalf of the Minister of Northern Development, a $150,000 provincial grant to Cambrian for the purchase of eight dental chairs and equipment. The commitment of this government will assist Cambrian to increase the number of places from 17 to 25 and will ensure the viability of the program.

The college also plans to continue its French-language dental hygiene program. In addition, the Sudbury and District Dental Society has made a commitment to donate funds to cover the costs of supervising the clinical sessions.

This announcement is the culmination of many months of negotiations by Cambrian College, the dental society, the ministries of Colleges and Universities. Northern Development and Mines. I wish to commend all participants for their co-operative effort.

SUZANNE SCHWENGER

Mr R. F. Johnston: Mr Speaker, seeing that we have a number of historic statements coming today, there is another moment of history that has taken place. Suzanne Schwenger, who is a parliamentary intern to the member for Kingston and The Islands and myself, is the first intern in our history to have a child while serving as an intern. On Sunday morning, Charlotte was born, eight pounds, four ounces -- a whole new standard for productivity among interns.

The Speaker: Thank you for that point of information.

VISITOR

The Speaker: I would like to inform members that we have a special guest in the Speaker’s gallery, a neighbour from the state of Michigan, the Governor of that state, Governor James Blanchard. Please join me in welcoming him.

Hon Mr Peterson: May I join in welcoming Governor Blanchard and Mrs Blanchard to the Legislature today. Many of us know of the very strong relationship between Ontario and Michigan. Indeed, it is larger than the relationships between most countries in this world. We are very proud to have him sitting with us today.

Hon Mr Ward: Mr Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent so that we may have statements from all three parties with regard to the constitutional accord.

The Speaker: Is there unanimous consent?

Agreed to.

CONSTITUTIONAL ACCORD / ACCORD CONSTITUTIONNEL

Hon Mr Peterson: It gives me great pleasure to provide the members of this Legislature with details of an agreement signed by Canada’s first ministers on Saturday 9 June 1990. All 11 first ministers signed an agreement which will permit the ratification of the Meech Lake accord along with a companion resolution containing improvements to the original accord.

There are three parts to the agreement signed by the first ministers. In the first part, the premiers of New Brunswick, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador undertake to submit the constitutional amendment 1987 for appropriate legislative or public consideration and to use every possible effort to achieve a decision prior to 23 June 1990. The second part of the agreement sets out a companion resolution containing additions that will build on the accord.

The add-ons and the companion resolution reflect many of the concerns which were noted during the select committee hearings in the province of Ontario. There was extensive discussion of the concerns that had been raised regarding the impact of the “distinct society” clause on the Charter of Rights. The Prime Minister commissioned a legal opinion from a number of Canada’s most distinguished constitutional authorities confirming that the “distinct society” clause does not infringe on or deny the Charter of Rights. It was agreed that the legal opinion be attached to the final conference communiqué.

In addition, a number of changes were agreed to.

It was agreed that sexual equality rights should be protected by adding

section 28 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to

section 16 of the accord.

The accord will also be amended to permit the territories to submit lists of names for appointment to the Senate and the Supreme Court of Canada.

A permanent process for discussion of aboriginal constitutional issues will be entrenched in the Constitution to resolve the outstanding issue of aboriginal self-government.

Finally, minority language rights will be added to the agenda of future constitutional conferences.

The third part of the agreement sets out an agenda for a second round of constitutional discussions. This future agenda is a direct response to the concerns that have emerged during the public hearings regarding the Meech Lake accord which have occurred over the past three years. All governments have agreed to draft a clause providing a more complete recognition of the Canadian reality -- the so-called Canada clause -- such as our multicultural heritage, the role of aboriginal peoples and our commitment to the equality of all Canadians.

There has been an agreement on the process leading to Senate reform and on the principles that will guide that process. A national commission with equal representation from all provinces and the federal government will be established immediately to report on Senate reform to the first ministers’ conference to be held later this year.

It has been agreed that the objectives which should guide the commission are (1) that the Senate should be elected, (2) that it should provide more equitable representation of the less populous provinces and territories and (3) that it should have effective powers to ensure that the interests of the residents of the less populous provinces and territories figure more prominently in national decision-making.

It has also been agreed that the goal of Senate reform should be to strengthen the capacity of the national government to govern on behalf of all citizens.

Further, the agreement provides that the principle of the responsibility of the government to the House of Commons shall be preserved.

We expect to achieve meaningful Senate reform over the next five years. In the event that reform has not been achieved over that time frame, the governments of Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have agreed that, in the interest of fairness, there will be a redistribution of Senate seats in favour of the western provinces and Newfoundland.

Finally, all governments agreed that reforming the process of constitutional change is a very high priority. We must ensure in the future that there is full partnership with the public in pursuing constitutional change.

Today I am pleased to table the agreement including the motion for constitutional resolution containing the improvements to Meech Lake which I have outlined. Later today the Legislature will be asked to refer this package to the select committee on constitutional and intergovernmental affairs to begin immediate public hearings.

The agreement that I have just outlined represents a major step forward in building a stronger, more united Canada. The goal is, I believe, supported by most Ontarians, and all Ontarians will benefit by its achievement. Ontarians want a strong Ontario in a strong and united Canada.

The passage of the Meech Lake accord will secure the signature of the province of Quebec on Canada’s Constitution. The absence of that signature has served as a missing link in the evolution of our process of nation-building. Quebec can now be a full partner at the constitutional table and share in the process of shaping a stronger Canada.

The time has also come to build national institutions that reflect the aspirations of all Canadians. The agreement reached this weekend will also provide us with a constructive framework for addressing a number of other issues of national concern, such as sexual equality, minority language rights and aboriginal self-government.

All members of this House can take great pride in the agreement that was achieved over the weekend. Ontario has been a vocal and enthusiastic supporter of the passage of the Meech Lake accord, a goal which we have pursued together with a united, non-partisan voice. In this regard, I would like to thank the leader of the official opposition and the leader of the Conservative Party for attending the conference and offering their advice.

I also want to thank the members of the Ontario delegation, led by our esteemed Attorney General.

We went to Ottawa with a very strong team of public servants, ministerial and Premier’s staff and external advisers, including Robert Prichard, the dean of the University of Toronto law school and president-designate of the University of Toronto; Jim MacPherson, dean of the Osgoode Hall law school; Professor Peter Hogg of Osgoode Hall law school, one of Canada’s leading constitutional experts; Professor Kathy Swinton of the University of Toronto law school; Professors Ron Watts and Richard Simeon of Queen’s University; Professor Jamie Cameron of Osgoode Hall law school, and Professor Peter Russel of the University of Toronto.

If I may add, personally, I am also very grateful for the strong support that the people of Ontario have shown over the last week. At the same time as we celebrate our achievement, we must also remember that we confront a number of practical realities. The first is the fact that we must devise a better process for constitutional reform. In the past few years, we have been dealing with a process that was imposed upon us by the 1982 Constitution. We have learned a great deal from this process, and we are committed to developing a more open, participatory process for the future. We must create a process that allows for much broader and more involved public consultation and sharing.

There is a second area of concern that we must address as well. Over the past couple of years we have learned a number of things about ourselves as Canadians, not all of them terribly flattering. We have discovered that we have an enormous potential for self-injury; sometimes we as Canadians only see the dark side of the moon. We must not allow this self-discovery to lead to self-destruction. I hope this is the beginning of a process of national healing.

A constitution cannot in and of itself promote healing. Constitutions can only provide a framework for understanding and accommodation; people must fill in the goodwill. The Meech Lake accord is not a magic instrument. Colons, commas and subjunctive clauses cannot eliminate intolerance, prejudice and mistrust; only Canadians can do that. Only Canadians can recreate a spirit of understanding and respect for diversity and trust among all people. We must now focus our energies on achieving that end. We must reach out and build new relationships and new bridges of understanding among all Canadians.

Canada will only be as strong as the ties that bind its people together; and I know that all my colleagues in this House will act in the way to strengthen those bonds.

M. B. Rae : Ceci est un événement important dans la vie du pays, du Canada. C’est avec plaisir que je participe à cette discussion et que nous allons participer, comme parti, aux discussions qui viendront dans les jours à venir et, naturellement, dans les semaines et les mois à venir.

We are in the middle of an extraordinary debate and discussion in our country. I do not think any of us realized, when the Premier first came back from the discussions that he had at Meech Lake, that this accord would arouse the kind of debate and discussion among the people of Canada that it has aroused, and I must say I include myself in that group.

Subject to the criticism and friendly, constructive advice from some of my colleagues, always I felt that it was so important for us as Canadians to say yes to Quebec, that it was important for us to simply get on, frankly, with as much speed as possible, with what had appeared to be an agreement that had wide consensus in the country and that we should simply proceed.

I must say the events over the last three years have opened my eyes to the sense of frustration that is felt by many Canadians in the fact that the Constitution, which after all took 115 years to become a truly Canadian document, took 115 years to patriate and make it our own. There is now, I believe, a profound sense among Canadians that the Constitution belongs to them. It does not belong to the premiers. It does not belong to the Prime Minister. It belongs to all the people of Canada.

I think that is what has made this last week an event of such bittersweet proportions, because I believe that most of us in the country -- even those who are very profoundly opposed to the accord for whatever reason -- I think all Canadians who saw the events unfold and the roller-coaster every night on television, and then saw the speeches and the signing on Saturday evening felt a sense of relief, relief because we share a patriotism across this country which is very profound and which as Canadians, because we are not the kind of people who often show our emotion on our sleeves, we sometimes take for granted.

Yet we have seen over the last few weeks particularly that Canada is not something we can take for granted. It is something we must strive to make our own and rebuild and refashion every day.

I say bittersweet because, although there was a sense of relief, I believe -- and I had cause to say this during the week when perhaps the advice which was offered was not always welcome -- that there was a growing frustration among Canadians about the process, a sense that they were being kept out, a sense that decisions were being made about their future in which they had not been consulted, in which there was no real participation by them and indeed no way in which they could effectively participate.

So I think that at the end of the day none of us who was not in that room knew at any given moment exactly what would be in the document. I do not say this to be critical of the Attorney General, because he was very frank in his briefings of me on two occasions when he set out what he thought were the elements that were going to be involved. I can say to him that at the end of the day there were slight variations and differences in what appeared to be the final package from what even appeared to be the case as of Friday evening.

I say this because I think it was clear, from the process of information gathering one had to engage in if you were not at the table, that it was almost impossible to find out exactly what was being discussed, how it was being discussed and what was being conceded in order to gain the goal of the approval of the accord with the willing acceptance of all the premiers there.

Having said that one was not in the room, we do know that the Premier of the province -- because I heard him describe it this morning on television -- did make a very substantial concession with respect to the Senate which appeared to, and by all accounts did, have an effect on keeping Mr Wells in the room at a critical moment when he seemed to be ready to leave it and at least got us to the stage of having a tentative signing, if I can put it this way, to the agreement by Premier Wells.

It literally is impossible for anyone who was not in that room to make a judgement as to whether that concession was necessary or whether it was the right or wrong thing to do. I can tell you I was not at any of the discussions which took place in the Ontario delegation which led to that decision. My advice was not sought, nor I think was the advice of the leader of the Conservative Party. I do not say that with any sense of surprise. I only say it to note that it was a personal decision, as I see it, made by the Premier in response to what he saw as a negotiating need in order to get an agreement.

Surely that shows all of us what is wrong with this entire process. We can all make jokes about the Senate with respect to who is likely not to be appointed in four or five years if we are down to 18 as opposed to 24. I suppose there will be a number of fund-raisers for the old-line parties who will feel disappointed that their chances of getting into the Senate have now been reduced by 25%. But there is an issue that is more important than this. Let’s follow this one through, Mr Speaker. I want to just take you through this line of argument.

We are being presented this afternoon with a resolution which incorporates essentially the concession made by the Premier in a very short space of time on a Friday afternoon. We are also told that the commission will be set up and that for the next five years that commission will be discussing Senate reform and will propose Senate reform along the lines set out in the agreement with respect to its being elected, equitable and effective.

Whatever proposals come from that national commission will have to be approved by all the provinces, with each one of the provinces having a veto. We also know that under the terms of the Meech Lake accord, in future -- as of 24 June, if the Meech Lake accord is passed -- in the existing Senate as it is now constituted it is the provinces that will provide the names which will form the Senate. We know that Alberta, as recently as a while ago, held an election for Mr Waters, who was elected to the Senate and is still waiting to be named there by the Prime Minister of Canada.

I would suggest that it is going to be very difficult for the province of Alberta or indeed some other provinces to name a senator on a basis that is other than an elected basis.

What you have is the possibility, first of all, of it being very difficult to get an agreement among all the provinces with respect to the Senate that is being discussed by the national commission. We then have an evolution of our existing Senate, based on lists that are provided by various provinces, with at least some of those provinces deciding that, in order to make the membership of the Senate more legitimate in their jurisdictions, those senators will all be elected.

Those who say that the Premier’s concession is of no real significance because it is only talking about what may or may not happen in five years in a patronage-ridden body have missed the point of changing opinion in Canada with respect to the existence and the legitimacy of the Senate.

It is quite possible that by 1995 we will have an elected Senate whose powers will be those powers set out in the Constitution as of today, because you cannot change them without unanimous consent of all the provinces, and a Senate in which the principle of equality between the regions has already been conceded by the Premier of the province and the makeup of the Senate has been determined in a very short space of time, in a very short concessionary way by the Premier.

We are in this party, and indeed I think the members of all parties, now being asked to pass in as short a space of time as possible -- and indeed in my conversations with the Premier he indicated that he would like to see this passed, although I notice he did not say it in his statement, but he did indicate to me that he would like to see this resolution passed before 23 June. I want to say to the members of this House, I understand the implications full well of our slowing down the process in terms of what is also going on in Manitoba and Newfoundland.

I hope the members of this House know me and our party well enough to know that we are not going to play games with this process and we understand the implications of what we are being asked to do.

But I want to say to all the members of the House, this is not the way to make the Constitution of this country. Members should not go out for four days or five days of public hearings on the basis of an agreement which is already set in stone and pretend that they are consulting with the people. Maybe it is a way of having a dialogue, maybe it is a way and a necessary way of showing that the government is at least willing to listen, but members should not pretend that this is a process of genuine consultation.

We have heard from the Premier before and we have heard from other governments before that they regard this as an inadequate process and that they will not make us go through it again. But we are being asked in the space of nine or 10 days to pass a resolution that has implications for the balance between the regions of this country, and we are being asked to do so because of a necessary concession, or a concession that was felt to be necessary by the Premier at that time in a closed, private bargaining session that took place on the evening of a Friday in the sixth day of a long, gruelling, private bargaining session.

Let us not pretend that this is the way a 125-year-old mature democracy should be changing its fundamental law, its foundation law, its framework law with respect to its Constitution. I am not saying for a moment that this party is going to start throwing roadblocks in the way. But I want to make it very clear that this process is not going to work to bring the people of Canada together, a process by which we are told that things have to be done in four days or seven days or nine days, a process in which we are told that this is what has to be done because one or three or five or seven or 11 people say, “This is the way it must be.”

This cannot be the way to build Canada. It may have effected some kind of reconciliation among 10 or 11 premiers. Do not confuse that for a moment with the kind of work and process that is necessary to reconcile all Canadians to building a Constitution.

We face now, I believe, a crisis of legitimacy with respect to constitutional reform. I put it that strongly because I believe it to be true. We cannot kid ourselves that by having hearings for four or five days we are truly involving the people of this country in reforming their Constitution. So while I regard the Meech Lake accord and the companion resolutions, for the most part, as areas that have been discussed and have been discussed broadly by the members of this House, I say to the Premier that with respect to the Senate there have been no such discussions. None. There has been no such debate. None.

Let us not pretend that there has been and let us not pretend that the people of this province have indeed reached certain conclusions with respect to the implications of Senate reform.

I want to conclude by saying that I think the people of this country deserve a better process. I think the people of Canada deserve a process that will allow change at the same time as it respects the rights of people to participate and the rights of people to listen and to be heard, and which respects openness.

It was Woodrow Wilson who towards the end of the First World War, issued a famous declaration with respect to what post-First-World-War Europe should look like. One of the things he railed against was the world of secret diplomacy, whereby agreements were arrived at secretly that bound their governments when no one knew how they had been reached or how they had been arrived at. He referred to the importance of having open treaties, openly arrived at.

That was an important statement of the way in which countries should treat one another with respect to their treaties. I say we should ask nothing less of our governments in this country, that we have open agreements, openly arrived at, that the people of Canada can legitimately call their own.

Mr Harris: I want to start by going back a long way to when Sir John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier, George Brown and others inspired Canada into existence. It required endless hard work, proselytizing, negotiation, concessions and above all working almost town to town to build trust and to build understanding. It was hard work. It was hard work then and it is hard work now. It has never been easy. It is not easy now and it is not going to be easy in the next 10 years.

I want to join today with the Premier and with the Leader of the Opposition in making a few comments on this most frantic and historic past seven days, seven days during which many felt, rightly or wrongly, that the fate of Canada came very close to the edge. I report to the House in all honesty that I shared some of those concerns: seven days during which the process was severely criticized, seven days during which our premiers debated, fought, cried, negotiated, tackled, shouted, but finally came out to report.

I would like to make some comments on those seven days. I would like to make some comments as a Canadian first, then I would like to make some comments as a parliamentarian and a democrat second and then I would like to make some comments as an Ontarian third.

As a Canadian, I am relieved. I hope in a few weeks I will be more relieved. The sense of relief I felt on Saturday in Ottawa has obviously been tempered somewhat by events, particularly in Newfoundland and Labrador and, perhaps to a lesser extent, in Manitoba. Certainly as a parliamentarian and a democrat I would agree with the leader of the New Democratic Party that I am sorely disappointed and frustrated by the process, and as an Ontarian I have some concerns.

Let me first, as a Canadian, say that I voted for the Meech Lake accord in this Legislature almost two years ago. Like every member of this Legislature, I thought long and hard about the Meech Lake accord and about how best to welcome Quebec back into the constitutional family with dignity, with a feeling of trust that would allow this country and its provinces to move forward constructively. How could we best do that while maintaining all that we all hold very dear as a nation? I made those reflections and made that determination and, uncomfortable with the process as I was then and as I am now, I supported the accord.

I was proud to be one of our party’s representatives on the select committee on constitutional reform. I was pleased to listen to the concerns of many Canadians, primarily from Ontario but some from across the country, who came before our committee some two and a half years ago to express their concerns about Meech Lake and about all that it implied. As a representative on that committee I co-authored, along with my House leader, the member for Parry Sound, a minority opinion on how to address some of those very legitimate concerns that we heard then, which of course became even more legitimate and more widespread as they were not addressed and as time went by over the past couple of years.

We were told by all the first ministers two years ago that Meech Lake was a seamless web, that it could not be changed and that in fact we should not be talking in any meaningful way about the concerns we heard as a committee. I worked with my colleague the member for Parry Sound when that viewpoint was expressed to us. It was accepted by the majority of the committee and we drafted a minority opinion. We stated that “it is our belief that the Legislature should adopt specific companion resolutions which at least remove some of the legal concerns. Our companion resolutions call upon the government of Ontario to take specific action to achieve specific goals.”

The minority report went on to state:

“We recognize the importance of Quebec returning to the constitutional fold. The accord will allow that province to finally become a signatory to the Canadian Constitution. It has provided a truly significant moment in our national history and one which we truly welcome.

“However, having addressed the constitutional concerns of Quebec, we believe it is now incumbent upon the government of Ontario and the first ministers to actively address the concerns of many members of our society which were so eloquently voiced before this committee. While a constitution will always be open to judicial

interpretation, all the people of Ontario and Canada deserve to have a constitution in which they believe they are included as full and equal partners.”

I wrote those words two years ago as part of the select committee on constitutional reform and I still hold true to those words. I believe in my heart that if the Premier and the other first ministers -- I think the Premier and we in Ontario could have taken the lead role much sooner than at the 11th and a half hour. We could have taken it two years ago. Had we done that, we might have avoided some of the pressure-cooker, last-minute decisions that all the premiers and our Premier had to make. We might not have had nearly as difficult a seven days as we had.

Canada is so young in dealing with our Constitution here in this country. In 1981-82 our Constitution came home under a process that was begun by Pierre Trudeau. It was a process and a document that he believed strongly in, but he left it uncompleted, so Mr Mulroney and the first ministers from that time forward were left with this challenge of an uncompleted Constitution, a very imperfect process and a challenge as to what to do about it.

Everybody has been critical of the process after these past seven days. My own view is that some of that process was inevitable, because we were dealing with the first ministers and a deal that at least 10 of the first ministers had made and one had not, and that was not acceptable to Canadians, it was not acceptable to Quebec and it was not acceptable to me. As young as we are in this country at reforming our Constitution, I find it a shame that we got started on this track, obviously totally the wrong direction.

I wish that before these past seven days the first ministers of the country and the first minister of Ontario would have got a sense from the people of this province, from those hearings we held, that it is unacceptable. They will not look kindly on first ministers who go through it again in that way.

We did not begin striking the committee, as was unanimously agreed by all members of this House two years ago, that that committee should be struck right away, that that committee should begin discussing those concerns right away, should be opening dialogue with the other legislatures and with the House of Commons, putting forward these issues that ultimately became the issues that had to be decided in the seven-day pressure cooker.

It was in that context that new suggestions, new ideas came forward. Surely distinct society stands on its own and should be debated and accepted on its own. Surely Senate reform stands on its own and should be debated and accepted on its own. In discussing each of the very important issues -- minority rights, sex equality rights, the concerns of women, the concerns of natives, of multiculturalism -- surely they all stand on their own. To end up in a process where 11 people horse-trade them all is what got us into the mess in the first place. I am not sure we are out of the mess.

I plead passionately that while we were not listened to two years ago, we accept at face value the words of all the first ministers on Saturday night that this process cannot, must not ever be repeated again and that we must quickly get into a more productive, direct process to deal with it more openly, more honestly and to reflect not just 11 persons’ views. I say that figuratively. Of course it was more than that, but it was a long way from 26 million Canadians’ views on our Constitution.

The first ministers spent seven days behind closed doors discussing some of the points we raised in our minority report, and as I said, as a Canadian I have that sense of relief that there were 11 signatures on Saturday night.

I also want to thank the Premier for inviting me to be part of the Ontario delegation. Having been in attendance at that historic signing ceremony on Saturday night, I hope and pray that two or two and a half weeks from now it will be as historic as I thought it was going to be at that time.

I have stated as a parliamentarian and as a democrat my great discomfort with the process. I believe the Constitution must be a document shared in and believed in by all Canadians. Saturday night, after the signing and the speeches, the Premier and I chatted briefly. We talked about the suggestion that we should have public hearings here in Ontario as soon as possible. I respect the view of the Leader of the Opposition that those hearings will not be the hearings that I had hoped for, that they will not be nearly as meaningful because the decision has been made.

There have been some decisions made by premiers -- some put forward by our Premier -- that will not have been discussed by the people of Ontario, by this Legislature or indeed by the cabinet, I would suggest, unless there is a lot greater cabinet secrecy than I have sensed in the 10 years that I have been here, and I doubt there is.

Interjection.

Mr Harris: It is worse, as the Premier has said.

I am pleased that the Premier has adopted the suggestion. We will have those hearings and our caucus will do everything it can to facilitate a meaningful and timely process that, as a Canadian, I believe we must do.

I have spoken as a Canadian, I have spoken as a parliamentarian and finally I want to speak as an Ontarian. I have said, as a fierce Canadian who loves the country, I am somewhat relieved and hope I will be more relieved. As a democrat, I do not like the process and, as an Ontarian, I have some concerns.

I was not in the negotiating room and I do not know what deals were struck. I know most of the deals that were struck did not fly and only the ones that stuck, I guess, are the ones that we know about now. I do not know how the discussions evolved. However, I do know that at one point the Premier of Ontario offered a quarter of our Senate seats to help get a deal.

I have been asked by many people in the media and by a number of Ontarians what I think about this, as they should ask me. I do not know all the details: I do not know what the long-term impact on the province will be. I want us to review it very seriously and I hope the Premier will share with us any of the expert opinion he has as to the significance of that.

How does that affect us in the next stages of negotiations throughout the five years? I do not want to suggest and be at all misleading that if there is true Senate reform, the deal means nothing; if there is not in five years, the deal means something. What I am most concerned about is what it means in the five years of negotiating.

The Premier would know, as an individual, that if all provinces gave up virtually all their Senate seats, I would not suggest this country would in any way come to an end. I have said that on occasion in the past. When I was in Ottawa, I was privy to some of the federal officials as well when they were looking for this great kicker to make sure we negotiated fairly in central Canada for the Senate. I said my first kicker would be to kick it all out, but I understand that was not seriously on the table.

I do not know all the details but I want us to review it. I hope in the hearings we can get some expert opinion not only on that but on the areas of concern that were addressed. Many of the areas of concern, by this companion resolution, were the ones we asked two years ago to be addressed by a companion resolution.

The Premier would know that the distinct society was the one that goes to the heart and soul of Quebec coming into the constitutional fold. We felt that could have been dealt with two years ago and we had Morris Manning draft us a reference. We were willing to accept all constitutional expertise on the reference that would have --

Hon Mr Scott: Have you paid Manning for that?

Mr Harris: The Attorney General interrupts me. Mr Manning in the spirit of his love and concern for this country did it for free.

Mr Eves: Unlike the Attorney General.

Mr Harris: Unlike the Attorney General, I am told, when he was in private practice.

Hon Mr Scott: I never did anything for the Conservatives when I was in private practice.

Mr Harris: The Attorney General says he did not do anything for the Conservatives. Mr Manning did it for the country.

Surely two years of hearing from the people themselves, the Supreme Court, what they thought of the distinct society and how it impacted on the charter, is far more meaningful and productive than what we ultimately agreed to, which was the opinion of some lawyers like the Attorney General. As good as the Attorney General may be, he is not the one who will be making those determinations and those decisions. So I hope we can hear from the public, even though it is not in as meaningful a way as it could have been for the past two years.

In conclusion, I want to thank the Premier for inviting me to Ottawa. He and I share a love for the country, and I respect that. I admire that in parliamentarians. I suggest the leader of the New Democratic Party shares that love for the country as passionately as does the Premier and as do I.

We will watch the situation in Newfoundland very closely. We will pray that we will continue as a nation, from sea to sea, and after 23 June, there will be a much-needed healing process.

To this chamber, to the Premier and to my 129 colleagues, I pledge my support and my caucus’s support. We were able to have one brief meeting today. We will have an extensive one tomorrow. I know that I have their confidence in pledging our support to Canada and to the healing process that must flow, whatever happens on 23 June.

ORAL QUESTIONS

CONSTITUTIONAL ACCORD

Mr B. Rae: I would like to ask the Premier if he can tell us what commitments, either informal or other, he has made with respect to the date by which this Legislature must pass the resolution which is being put before us today.

Hon Mr Peterson: We did discuss that matter. There is nothing on paper, as my honourable friend knows. A number of us discussed that matter and I said that I would try to introduce this in the House as quickly as possible and try to do it by 23 June. Some of the other ones will make the same attempt, but obviously we are not in the position to do that without the help of the members opposite. If there is an agreement in the House that this is the appropriate course of action, that is what I would ideally like. But if it does not happen, then, as I said, it is not the end of the world.

Mr B. Rae: Let me pursue the point. The Premier will understand that the resolution that is being put before us contains a three-page schedule. He will also understand that some of the schedule, some of what is being proposed are things that we have considered as a House and that the select committee has considered for a long time. I have no objection to those being dealt with expeditiously. Indeed, we have discussed that this morning and we are prepared to move very quickly on that.

Is the Premier prepared at least to agree to the simple fact that there has been no discussion in this House with respect to Senate reform for, as far as I am concerned, several years? Would the Premier not agree with that?

Hon Mr Peterson: Indeed, I do agree with that. Mindful of that situation and mindful of the pressures, as my honourable friend is and was, we created the select committee on Senate reform some time ago. It has already started its discussions in anticipation of knowing that we wanted to broaden out the process and discuss these matter ahead of time and knowing that the process, as it was, was flawed.

My honourable friend is quite right. I cannot bind him to do this by 23 June. There are lots of ways he could prevent that from happening, and I am quite mindful of that. There is nothing to prevent anybody from doing anything. My honourable friend is quite right. There are a number of things we have discussed in this House and there probably will be general agreement on those, but I recognize that this one may be a little more controversial.

Mr B. Rae: I must say to the Premier that I really do regret the tone of that answer. I will tell the Premier why. I have asked him, in a very straightforward way, the nature of the commitment he has made with respect to the date prior to 23 June. It is not a question of any one of us wanting to hold anything up or anything of that kind whatsoever. He knows that. He knows what we have been through as a province over the past three years. He knows the discussions that have taken place in this province.

I am just wondering, and I am wondering genuinely in a sense of wanting to get the answer out on the table, whether the Premier has made any commitments or feels compromised or bound by any commitments with respect to the process in Manitoba or Newfoundland or anywhere else in regard to the proposal on the Senate.

I am asking that in a straightforward way. If the answer is yes, we will have to deal with that. We are not going to be obstructionist in this matter at all. To be honest with the Premier and to be direct with him, we have not been obstructionist at all on this matter with respect to the Constitution, which I am sure he would agree with. I am asking him with regard to the Senate whether any embarrassment would be caused to the province by our saying we would like to have the opportunity to consider perhaps a little longer than simply four or five days the question of Senate reform.

Hon Mr Peterson: The answer is no, and I thought I laid out that commitment in response to the member’s first question. I said that in a perfect world I would like to do that, but he is under no obligation to do that. I would prefer it. I think it is a sign of faith to some of the other provinces. I think they understand the legislative process, as do we. I can understand my honourable friend’s question.

Really, the whole reason for this discussion with respect to Senate reform, as the member knows, was because it was on the agenda of Mr Wells, Mr Filmon and others, who had their own difficult political situations. I say as candidly as I can to my honourable friend, other leaders said that they would try to deal with this as quickly as possible, and it would be a good sign of faith from this province that we are committed to the processes we undertook, but it would not be the end of the world if it did not happen. I repeat, if at all possible, I would appreciate very much the co-operation of my friends opposite to do this.

Mr B. Rae: If that is the Premier’s attitude, I wonder whether he can tell us why it is that there was absolutely no discussion or consultation with regard to the decision of the Premier to give up the six Senate seats before he made that decision in the conference.

Hon Mr Peterson: It was on Friday last, a very, very critical time in the discussions. As the member knows, that agenda had been pushed very strongly by Mr Wells and Mr Filmon. The member will be aware as well that going into the conference, those were the two biggest sticky points. In a sense, many of the issues had been narrowed down to those two things, and those were the major topics of discussions over the week.

It is an idea, as I said, that developed on Friday, and its author was Jim MacPherson, the dean of Osgoode law school, to try to be helpful, to salvage what we thought was an extremely difficult situation. I discussed it in great depth with my colleagues, with the experts who were there, and they gave me the benefit of their advice. There was no prior consultation with any other government, but we were looking at ways to save a very, very difficult situation.

I say as honestly as I can to my friend opposite, it is a judgement I had to make, as the member has to make judgements that are extremely difficult some days, as we all do. There are pros and there are cons, and I have to be a big enough person to take whatever criticism I get for personally taking that judgement. The Attorney General assisted me, as did all our experts, and a judgement was made.

I think, as the member heard my colleagues say in conclusion -- not me but the other first ministers -- had it not been done, the whole thing probably would have collapsed. That is why I did what I did, and I have to take the responsibility for doing that.

Mr B.

Rae: Would the Premier then not agree that, given that this idea came up in the course, as I understand it -- because I was not at any of these discussions, as the Premier will know -- given that this proposal came, in a sense, very quickly, was submitted by the Premier very quickly in what he in all accounts describes as a crisis situation, in which Mr Wells was heading towards the door and it looked as if the discussions were all over -- and talk about his wanting our co-operation -- I wonder, in terms of the problems or the credibility of the whole process, would the Premier not agree that it now makes sense to have a genuine consultation with the people of the province and an explanation as to its implications, rather than something which takes place over a four- or five-day period?

We are told we have to have this before 23 June. Would it not make sense to really consult widely with the people on it?

Hon Mr Peterson: I do not think I said we had to have it by 23 June. I told the member my preference as candidly as I could. If that is possible, I would prefer that because I think it is a sign of good faith from Ontario to its colleagues and responds to the cry of many of the regions for a greater say at the centre in decision-making.

Mr R. F. Johnston: Why not seven? Why not eight? Why six? Why not five? I don’t understand.

Hon Mr Peterson: My honourable friend the member for Scarborough West is making some noise. He says: “Why not seven? Why not eight? Why six? Why not five?” All combinations of that were assessed, from our point of view. He is quite free to disagree with our assessment on that if he so chooses.

But I said to my honourable friend, if possible, I would like to proceed with that. If we cannot see our way to getting unanimous consent to do that, then I certainly understand the strictures on the legislative process. It is not my intention to try to force anybody to do anything. I am explaining to the member as best as I can, and we did along the way, the dilemmas, the difficulties, the decisions that had to be made. If the member can live with it, I would obviously be grateful.

Mr B. Rae: Could I ask the Premier, would he consider separating out

part 1 and

part 2 of the schedule? Would he consider the possibility at least, which is a reasonable suggestion, that the House deal quickly and expeditiously, indeed immediately, with those matters which have been fully discussed in the House, but that we table the matter of the Senate, that it be submitted to and discussed by the House, but at least recognize that it is going to take the Legislature of Ontario and the people of the province more than six days to accept a possible 25% reduction in our Senate representation in five years? Is it not reasonable to give us a little bit of time as a province to consider whether this has any implications or not? What is unreasonable about that?

Hon Mr Peterson: I will certainly take the honourable leader’s advice under advisement. It may be possible, it may not be possible or it may be impractical. As I said, the essential point to know here, I think, is this possibly may kick in five years from now, failing other achievements or advances with respect to Senate reform. It was, shall we say, the hand of good faith of Ontario going forward to Mr Wells and to the western provinces as well who, during the discussions, were far less aggressive than Mr Wells on this particular point, but that was the atmosphere in which we were dealing.

There may be possibilities of severing that off. On the other hand, I think we would have to reflect on whether it would be a sign of lack of faith and complicate the discussions in other provinces. I cannot speak for that right now. My honourable friend knows the difficulties in Manitoba as well as anyone in this House. He was dealing with that and providing a very constructive role. It is not our intention, as I said, to try to do anything peremptorily, or any other type. I think we could start the discussion. We will take the member’s idea under advisement. It may be possible, but the Attorney General tells me, at the face of it, it might be an extremely difficult thing to do.

ROOMING HOUSES

Mrs Cunningham: Two weeks ago the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing met with the London North Community Association and advised that the city of London consider introducing a new rooming house bylaw based on the Guelph model. The Guelph bylaw classifies homes with more than three tenants as lodging houses rather than private homes. The commercial designation would assist the city in enforcing its property standards bylaw. Would the minister state for the record that this is his position on the exclusionary bylaw?

Hon Mr Sweeney: No, it was not intended to be that at all. As a matter of fact, I made very clear when I met with the delegation from London that the exclusionary bylaw stood alone, that there were a number of things that they and their municipal council could do. They could have a bylaw for rooming houses, they could enforce their bylaws for parking and for noise and for building maintenance, but the exclusionary bylaw was one that was put into the Legislature of the province because of the requirements of the Human Rights Code and the Charter of Rights and had to stand alone.

Mrs Cunningham: I am certainly pleased that the minister has made the statement that he would support a bylaw for rooming houses; I am sure he said that. Unfortunately, now we are getting some mixed signals from his ministry, and we are looking for clarification today.

Sue Corke, a member of his ministry’s housing advocacy task force, was recently quoted in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record as stating that the Ministry of Housing is considering assisting the Guelph access to permanent housing committee in an appeal of the new Guelph bylaw before the Ontario Municipal Board, the one that the minister suggested would be a good model. In order to clarify the situation for all municipalities that are facing this tremendous challenge across the province, will he or will he not be proceeding with that appeal?

Hon Mr Sweeney: I recently wrote to the Guelph city council and complimented it on the fact that it has a boarding house bylaw. As a matter of fact, we have advised a number of municipalities across the province, not just Guelph and not just London, that it would be appropriate for them to move ahead in this way. However, there is a sense within my ministry that the Guelph bylaw is unduly restrictive in two areas. We have suggested to Guelph that we would much prefer if it would sit down with the ministry, moderate those two areas where we feel they are unduly restrictive, and that would resolve the problem.

In the meantime, we got a request from the access to permanent housing committee in Guelph, which, as the member knows, is a creature of the Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Community and Social Services. We felt obligated to act on their behalf to recognize the concern that they had and indicated that if we could not resolve the issue through negotiation and dialogue, we would be prepared to support going before the municipal board and to get it to deal with those discriminatory parts.

Mrs Cunningham: I am not certain what those two parts would be, but would it be appropriate for the minister to assure the people of London that his Ministry of Housing would assist them in the drafting and implementation of a new bylaw based on that Guelph model? I am asking him today if that is the kind of support the ministry will give to any municipality across the province of Ontario that is looking at this rooming house bylaw to support the concerns that the minister knows and citizens across Ontario know are real problems in their community.

Hon Mr Sweeney: I thank my honourable colleague for making that observation, because I thought I had left that message very clear when I was in London. In fact, I even allocated right at that meeting a staff of my ministry who would be prepared to work with not just the municipal council of London but also the ratepayers’ group that had expressed some genuine and very credible concerns. Therefore, the answer was clearly yes then, and the answer is clearly yes today.

If I can go back to what I just said with respect to Guelph, we are quite prepared to use the good offices of our ministry staff to help it make those changes, and hopefully for other communities that have the same problem, we are quite prepared to assist them. We want them to have the bylaw, but we want them to have a good bylaw and we do not want it to be, as the access committee in Guelph has said, even more discriminatory than what is there now. We want to avoid the potential negative impacts and enhance the potential positive impacts, and my staff is quite prepared to assist in that.

PATRICIA STARR

Mrs Cunningham: My question is for the Premier. This government is again the target of some very serious allegations about the conduct of its members. I am sure the members opposite will appreciate why, given the record of cabinet resignations for reasons of conflict of interest and bad judgement which they set over the last five years, unfortunately, we assign some degree of credibility to Ms Starr’s charge that a major, senior member of the Peterson cabinet coached her on ways of manipulating the Election Finances Act.

I remember last June when the Premier assured this House of his personal assurance that those whose performance had been found wanting will be discovered and those who have erred will be punished, and we all appreciate some of the steps he has taken. I know that he will be anxious to affirm his confidence in his personal word and would ask him what steps his government is taking to investigate this charge and to identify Ms Starr’s coach.

Hon Mr Peterson: It is in the hands of the courts and will be dealt with appropriately there, and I have great confidence in the courts.

Mrs Cunningham: I would think that the Premier would be very concerned about those kinds of remarks. I would also think that he and every member of this House will recall that about this time last year -- and that is why I am raising it; it has been over a year -- he was telling us how important it was to have all the facts, how the so-called Starr scandal happened was beyond him and that, to the best of the Premier’s knowledge, no one knew where the cheques came from.

Ms Starr’s comments suggested that it happened because very senior members of the Liberal Party and government were involved in making it happen and further suggest that if the Premier did not know, then someone in his cabinet knew where those cheques were coming from. We are all facing it again.

So my question is: Would the Premier not agree that this latest allegation simply confirms that a full public inquiry into this mess is still needed and that he and his colleagues have a responsibility to ensure that one is held, particularly since it is now alleged that a member of the cabinet may be involved?

Hon Mr Peterson: We have gone through this on many occasions. I know my honourable friend knows that legal judgement from the Supreme Court of Canada, and it is in the courts and I am sure that all the facts will come out.

The Speaker: Final supplementary?

Mrs Cunningham: I do have a final supplementary. I hate to keep pushing this, but we on this side have always found that the government’s

interpretation of the Supreme Court decision -- question 2 -- on the Houlden inquiry to be too convenient by half. That certainly is the feeling of many members of the public and it is certainly the feeling of this side of the House.

That court’s decision precluded inquiry into specific individuals subject to criminal prosecution. There must be some way, and I think we are somewhat amazed that the Attorney General, given his own personal esteem and his ability to get so many things done, it is just amazing that he cannot write terms of reference for an inquiry which would not violate the Constitution.

The Speaker: And the question?

Mrs Cunningham: We are amazed that he cannot find time to write terms of reference for an inquiry which would not violate the Constitution.

The Speaker: And the question?

Mrs Cunningham: Therefore, to the Premier: Does he not have this kind of confidence and does he not think it is necessary, and what will we have to do to get a public hearing so that this matter can be cleared up?

Hon Mr Peterson: I know where my honourable friend has been for the last little while, but I think it is all there. The processes are unfolding and all the facts will be there for my honourable friend to make her own judgements about.

NORTHERN HEALTH SERVICES

Mr Pouliot: To the Minister of Health: The minister will be aware of the acute lack of mental health care professionals to service northern Ontario. At present, if you take the area from Sudbury west to the Manitoba border, you have a total of some six psychiatrists to address the needs of 250,000 people. In contrast, the minister will also be aware that in the city of Ottawa, with a population of approximately 500,000, the number of psychiatrists rises to 200.

What specific plans does the minister have? What will she say to assure the House of her immediate plans to address the discrepancy, and more important, to address the acute shortage of psychiatrists to service the good people of Ontario?

Hon Mrs Caplan: I have answered this question in the House on a number of occasions. I have said to the member opposite that northern Ontario poses very special challenges in the delivery of health services because of the fact that it is so vast and sparsely populated. I can tell him that human resource planning across the province of Ontario is a priority. The Premier’s Council on Health Strategy is addressing it in a comprehensive way. We have established the Northern Health Human Resources Committee in the north, and I have met with it.

I will say to him that we have a number of programs, the underserviced area program, northern residency programs and so forth, which I believe will go a long way to addressing the challenges we face.

Mr Pouliot: With respect and as a person, and it will be our secret between you and me, I really like what you are saying, but for the last five years we have been holding hands. It is time to come across.

I have a suggestion for you, Mr Speaker, by way of a question: I cannot remedy the problem; Elinor and I will do it together. Will the minister --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Perhaps the member might like to rephrase.

Mr Pouliot: Indeed thank you for your leadership, Mr Speaker. Under your tutelage I will indeed -- and thank you again -- reconsider.

The opposition is offering the simple remedy to address the acute shortage. Now that I have the minister’s attention, will she not fund a program to attract foreign doctors so that, at least on a short-term basis, people will be given the same treatment that people in southern Ontario take for granted?

Hon Mrs Caplan: As the member opposite knows, we have a program for graduates of foreign medical schools in this province which I believe offers opportunities for those people who have been trained outside of Ontario and outside of Canada. I believe that program is appropriate.

Overall, physician supply in the province of Ontario is adequate. There are, I admit quite openly, areas where we have difficulty attracting, particularly in northern and rural communities.

I would say to him, however, I believe there is the opportunity for young Ontarians to have the chance to become doctors and nurses and other personnel in our schools here and that I would support, first, the kind of northern residency program which we have just announced for northern Ontario to give young Ontarians that opportunity to learn to love the north as part of their medical training and experience.

As far as the specific issue that he addresses is concerned, I will tell him that the 10 Ontario psychiatric hospitals are developing the kind of network and working together to ensure that in the short term, while these medium- and longer-term initiatives come into force, we will have the opportunity to support the different regions that are experiencing temporary difficulties.

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION SAFETY

Mr Cousens: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation. The minister will be aware that the coroner’s inquest is now over for the Toronto Transit Commission accident that resulted in the death of John James Morrison. The coroner’s inquest has come forward with a series of recommendations dealing with improving safety measures on the Toronto Transit Commission. Many of these measures are absolutely necessary if we are to prevent further deaths and near-tragic incidents, as heard by the jury. Will the minister advise this House what assistance his ministry will provide to the TTC in order to implement these recommendations?

Hon Mr Wrye: I have not had a chance to go over with my officials the recommendations of the coroner’s jury in depth, but from what I have been told and the press reports that I have read, I am very pleased to see that the commission is moving expeditiously and in a very positive light to try to deal with these very, very important issues. I note particularly that some of the work was under way even while the inquest was proceeding and that the general manager of the TTC indicated following the report of the coroner’s jury that additional work would go forward as quickly as possible.

We met with the TTC leadership on some other matters last week and discussed this in passing, because the coroner’s jury had not yet reported, but I expect my officials will work very closely and certainly will work co-operatively, as we always do, with the TTC in making these very important changes.

Mr Cousens: I appreciate that the minister would be interested and I really hope that he personally will have a look at the recommendations and have a good understanding of just what has happened, because the testimony that came out of the hearings and the statistics that have emerged are really quite horrifying. According to some of the statistics, on average, one person is injured in the subway train doors every four days. I myself have heard of other instances where accidents or near accidents have happened.

I think really what I want to have the minister commit to today as much as anything is that he will do everything possible from within his ministry to ensure that the TTC carries out the recommendations, thereby ensuring that we can do everything possible to prevent any more unnecessary deaths.

Hon Mr Wrye: Certainly one of the areas that the coroner’s jury discussed in its recommendations was the area of the present two-whistle system and moving to a different kind of audible system. It is my understanding that the commission has already begun its review and expects to move forward to a different kind of system.

We certainly stand ready to co-operate at all stages in ensuring that we not only have, as I have said to my good friend numerous times in the House, the finest public transit system in terms of the distances to be travelled and having up-to-date and modern equipment, but also, as I know he desires and as all of us desire in the House, the safest system. That is our goal and that is what we will be working co-operatively with the TTC on in the months ahead to ensure that goal is met.

PLANT CLOSURES

Mr M. C. Ray: I have a question for the Minister of Labour and it concerns the issue of plant closings and the kinds of consultation that occur between the government and the private sector prior to a corporate decision to close down operations in Ontario. The Legislature is familiar with the notice requirements and the labour adjustments which occur after closure, but my concern is with the prior consultation. Could the minister describe what he and his ministry do to attempt to avert a plant closure and whether the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology is in any way involved in the consultation process undertaken by the Ministry of Labour?

Hon Mr Phillips: As the member would appreciate, the Ministry of Labour primarily is involved in assisting the workers who are affected by closures. Having said that, of course the best thing is to have an economic climate in the province that avoids closures, and where we have a possible closure, to involve particularly the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology to see if there are not some alternatives to that. Certainly on a regular basis the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology is involved, using the funds from the Ontario Development Corp, the Eastern Ontario Development Corp or the Northern Ontario Development Corp.

Having said all that, it tends to be on a somewhat informal basis. In many cases it does happen, and in some cases the closure is averted. Again, the Ministry of Labour’s role tends to be most heavily involved in helping the workers who are affected by it, but in most cases the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology is apprised of the situation. Where they can be of help, they are of help, and they have a series of funds that are available for such cases.

Mr M. C. Ray: What I would like to know is whether or not we can expect any formal statutory consultation process to be established, and further, whether or not the Premier’s Council on the economy is in fact looking at legislative amendments that could be brought forward with respect to the whole issue of plant closure and worker protection.

Hon Mr Phillips: Again, I remind ourselves that our Premier had a vision several years ago and saw the need for ensuring that we consider these challenges and established the Premier’s Council. We had one report that advised the government to invest in helping to develop industries that were adding value to products. We invested about $1 billion in that.

The second part of that is the human side of it, because I think most members are aware the Premier’s Council is preparing its second major report to deal with the human side of it. It is the expectation that over the next few weeks, I believe, the Premier’s Council is nearing completion on that second major report. Again, I think the Premier should be commended for anticipating the challenges brought on, among other things, by free trade, setting the Premier’s Council up, and now we will have a report very shortly outlining some of the things that the government can do to assist workers during this transition period.

The first part of the question was, are we considering a more formal mechanism, and yes, we are. As I said in my earlier answer, we have an informal mechanism that tends to work, but there may be an opportunity for a more formal structure that we are considering.

GARSON MANOR NURSING HOME

Miss Martel: I have a question for the Minister of Health regarding Garson Manor, which is a private nursing home in my riding. Late Friday afternoon, staff of the manor went to cash their paycheques and discovered that they could not, as the manor had gone into receivership.

At an emergency meeting which was held with the staff on Saturday morning, the administrator made several allegations: First of all, that the owner, Carl Bennett, had recently received some $55,000 from the Ministry of Health to meet his payroll needs and that now both he and the money have disappeared; second, that Mr Bennett has a number of outstanding bills with food distributors, in particular in the Sudbury area, and many of these are now over five months overdue; third, that as administrator he did not know what would happen to either the staff or to the residents at the manor.

I would like to ask the minister what she is doing to assure the community and the residents that the manor is going to continue to operate and to assure the staff that the terms of the collective agreement will be honoured.

Hon Mrs Caplan: I will say to the member opposite that I am not familiar with the issue that she raises and that I will be pleased to look into it.

Miss Martel: While she looks into that, may the minister keep this in mind. First, this is not the first time the manor has been in trouble. In fact, in the last 8 to 10 years, there has been a resale and sale on at least three different occasions. With the last two employers in particular, there have been constant problems with, first, receipt of cheques on time and, second, receipt of proper amounts due to staff. There have been major concerns raised by the union regarding the poor physical condition of the manor and there have been no improvements each time that a new owner took over.

I would like to ask the minister what guarantees she will provide on behalf of the residents, guardians and staff that in fact this manor will not again fall into the hands of some fly-by-night operator who does not care about staff and does not care about patients and should not be operating a nursing home in Ontario.

Hon Mrs Caplan: I would appreciate it if the member opposite would provide me with whatever information she has and I undertake to look into this matter.

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

Mr Villeneuve: To the Minister of Agriculture and Food:

By now, I am sure the minister has had time to examine this proposal made by the national Grains and Oilseeds Safety Net Committee. A committee in which the government as well as producers participated, it recommended that gross revenue insurance and net income stabilization be in place by 1991-92. Does the government of Ontario intend to participate, and when will the minister announce that participation if it does?

Hon Mr Ramsay: I am in constant contact, as the member knows, with my fellow ministers across the country. I am very excited by many of the ideas that have been brought forward here by the safety net task force. Yes, the government of Ontario and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food are quite prepared to enter into discussions to make sure that we get good grain stabilization programs nationally for the farmers of Ontario.

Mr Villeneuve: Farmers have noticed that this government and this minister are quite prepared to announce short-term, ad hoc announcements close to election time, but really there is no long-term planning so that farmers can make those long-term decisions which they have to make. Farmers need more time, not just a little amount of money for an upcoming election.

The minister does not have to wait until he drafts his final report and whatever. When does he intend to announce that he will be participating and that we as a province will be participating in the recommendations of the ad hoc committee?

Hon Mr Ramsay: I would like to say to the honourable member that I agree with him about the ad hoc programs. I would rather not have to bring in ad hoc programs. He is right; it is because the federal government, in the last six years, has not got its act together that we have had to bring in short-term programs. That includes Mr Mazankowski. I appreciate his short-term program, but the member is right: The root of the problem is that we need long-term, national farm income stabilization programs across this country.

I am quite prepared and committed to making sure that we get these programs off the ground and that Ontario is going to be there with the other provinces in entering these discussions with the federal government.

RETAIL SALES TAX

Mr Fleet: My question is of the Treasurer and it is based on a personal experience which many of my constituents also face. This is my daughter’s first pair of walking shoes at nine months of age. She will outgrow them in three months. They are sturdy and hard-soled Canadian-made shoes, but they are not fancy ones. I was shocked that these shoes, including provincial sales tax, cost $43.19. Certainly many of my constituents cannot cope with such prices. Although shoes are available for under $30, this typical advertising brochure for shoes demonstrates that reasonable-quality shoes for children of all ages routinely run from $40 to $60 or more.

Many years ago, for administrative simplicity, Ontario replaced sales tax exemption for children’s footwear with an across-the-board exemption on all shoes costing less than $30. My question for the Treasurer is, since the purpose of this exemption is no longer being met, is it not time to help Ontario families and either return to the original exemption or raise the current exemption?

Hon R. F. Nixon: Knowing my honourable friend’s enthusiasm, he may be buying quite a lot of those in the future.

I want to respond as carefully as I can because it just seems like last year when those shoes were $5 a pair. I guess times change.

I would like to point out to the honourable member, however, that the $30 exemption has not changed, as he pointed out, and instead of that, we have implemented a tax reduction program for people on low incomes. This year we added an extra $200 reduction from actual tax payable for people on relatively low incomes. I know the honourable member, being a member of this House, is not in that low-income category, so the advantage is not as apparent to him as it otherwise would be.

This additional commitment of about $30 million, as I recall, is $200 per child for low-income families.

It could well be that we should raise the exemption the honourable member is referring to, in addition, and I will certainly give that the careful consideration it merits.

Mr Fleet: The federal goods and services tax is particularly harsh for families. If a parent can manage to find a shoe priced at $29.99, he not only pays the 7% sales tax beginning in the new year, but because the GST raises the cost of shoes, he is unable to claim the under-$30 exemption and therefore also has to pay provincial sales tax. The GST will penalize all children’s clothing from head to toe. It is 7% directly out of the pockets of every single family for every single item.

Last week the federal government announced changes in the administration of the GST to help businesses. Is there any indication that the tax-happy Mulroney government will change the GST to help families?

Hon R. F. Nixon: I certainly am not in the situation where I am defending the federal government on this new tax and I do not intend to do so. I know of no direct assistance to families other than the quarterly payments that will be given to low-income families, which according to the Minister of Finance will make people who are earning $30,000 a year or less really exempt from the net effect.

I am interested to know that the honourable member is able to find, when pressed to it, shoes that are under $30 which will be over $30 when you add 7% to them. We will look into that aspect too.

REGULATION OF ZOOS

Mr Philip: I have a question of the Solicitor General. The minister will be aware that in 1988 my private member’s bill passed. This bill regulated private zoos. During that debate, the Minister of Natural Resources washed his hands of it and said that the Solicitor General would be bringing in legislation to regulate zoos in this province.

We have now seen the tragedy of a young man losing his arm at the zoo in Gananoque. Now that two years have passed, where is the legislation that will protect the public from this kind of tragedy?

Hon Mr Offer: I think the honourable member will recognize that there was a bill proposed, as he has alluded to, dealing with the licensing scheme for zoos and other animal exhibits. He will also be aware that his bill excluded circuses and pet stores. When this bill came up in second reading, I think the member will be well aware that though we certainly agreed with the direction of the bill, there were some concerns raised dealing with the necessity to deal with the whole question of animal welfare on a holistic basis as opposed to a fragmented basis.

We have, as a result, created an interministerial committee which looks at a wide variety of issues dealing with the whole question of animal welfare. It does not exclude any one particular aspect.

We believe that is the best way to approach this very important issue. We believe this is the way in which the issue can be addressed in a comprehensive fashion. Currently, that particular committee has not only addressed those particular issues but has received consultation from outside, receiving the opinions and concerns --

The Speaker: Thank you.

Mr Philip: The Liberal members on the committee blocked any kind of hearings on that bill. The Solicitor General will be aware of that. I am sure the Solicitor General will agree that for at least two years he has been receiving presentations from zoologists, humane societies, veterinarians and members of the public stating that it was just a matter of time before we would have a tragic accident in the private zoos in this province. We have now had this tragic accident.

A young man has lost his arm, and I ask the Solicitor General how much longer we are going to wait until he brings in legislation to ensure the public is protected and that we have zoos that are operated in a humane and safe way in this province.

Hon Mr Offer: I think, in dealing with this particular issue, we have acknowledged that there are issues that must be addressed. We have gone further. We have stated that in order to address these issues, it can only be done in a comprehensive fashion dealing with a wide range of animal welfare issues. We should not, in any consultative effort which we have undertaken, exclude any one particular issue. We have looked at all of the issues.

That interministerial committee has dealt with a wide variety of issues and has asked for and received a great deal of outside consultation to deal with what we believe is a matter which must be dealt with. That committee is on the basis of reporting in the very near future. I am looking forward to receiving the report to deal with the issues on the basis of a consultative, comprehensive approach to animal welfare.

Mr Philip: Irresponsible. How many tragedies does he want before he acts?

The Speaker: Order. The member had a question and a supplementary. Now I will recognize the member for Mississauga South.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

Mrs Marland: My question is for the Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet. The minister knows an appeal is before the cabinet of the joint board’s decision against a landfill site which is being proposed by the North Simcoe Waste Management Association. The joint board turned down the application, based on methodology, and to quote briefly from the decision, “The proponent’s environmental assessment lacks the basic combination of reasonableness, consistency and a systematic approach.”

Sound methodology, including planning and the consideration and evaluation of alternatives, is integral to the Environmental Assessment Act. Can the minister assure this House that, when reviewing the joint board’s decision, cabinet will uphold the intent and requirements of the Environmental Assessment Act?

Hon Mr Elston: I am not sure in which capacity the question is addressed to me. I am the Chairman of Management Board, I am the chairman of cabinet, and I can tell the honourable member that when cabinet reviews material coming before it, it of course holds in place the intent of the legislation. But if the member wishes more specifics with respect to the Environmental Assessment Act or whatever, I can ask that the Minister of the Environment reply directly to her. Other than confirming that we are a law-abiding cabinet and will take into consideration the terms that are required by an appeal before us, I cannot give her any further information.

Mrs Marland: I am not suggesting that the cabinet is not law-abiding; I am just saying that its respect for the environmental assessment process begs a lot of questions in this province today. We can look at Project X last year that was going to throw out the environmental assessment process in favour of the development industry. We have lots of examples, unfortunately.

The minister’s government exempts the landfill sites from the full environmental assessment now in the greater Toronto area. This is why the question is so significant and this is why I am asking him, and I will ask him again, if he will guarantee that his cabinet colleagues will uphold the methodology requirements of the Environmental Assessment Act when they deal with the appeal for the North Simcoe Waste Management Association.

Hon Mr Elston: I am not prepared to release the decision of the cabinet before a decision has been rendered. I think that is really what the member is asking me for, and I am not in a position to be able to do that.

I would just like to advise the honourable member, however, that from time to time, people do things differently. Her party, when it was in power, used to exempt everything. In fact, it would not even implement the Environmental Assessment Act. They would not even move forward, as I recall, to actually give the Environmental Assessment Act any teeth. They would not actually stand up and deal with the issues in a very sensitive fashion. We are left with a whole series of environmental problems.

As I recall, there was one minister of the crown, the Minister of Transportation, and his deputy, who were prosecuted under the Environmental Protection Act because he refused to take it into account.

I can tell the House that we in the Liberal Party have gone forward with environmental assessment and the Environmental Protection Act protections in a way which has moved us into the forefront, not just by the legislation we have but by a practical demonstration of consideration for environmental concerns. We will continue in that tradition.

LAYOFFS

Mr Tatham: My question is for the Minister without Portfolio responsible for women’s issues. Recently the Harvey Woods plant in Woodstock closed. This plant was part of the Tag Apparel Group Inc, which has been placed in receivership. The plant employed about 600 workers, a great percentage of whom are women, loyal and hard-working people. Can the minister tell us what the government is doing to assist women who lose their jobs as a result of bankruptcy?

Hon Mrs Wilson: I have great sympathy for the workers who have lost their jobs as a result of this plant closure, and this government is committed to minimizing the effects on workers who lose their jobs as a result of plant closures.

In this case, the Ministry of Labour’s employment adjustment branch is there and working with the workers. Job adjustment committees have been formed and all employees are eligible to receive a full week of job search counselling.

My ministry is funding the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union to research the experience of older workers who have been laid off in the garment industry. We intend to use the data from this research to develop future policies. The importance of balanced economic development cannot be emphasized enough. Balanced economic growth ensures that there are quality jobs within a community for people to move to once there is a plant closure.

Finally, women in this province are benefiting from this government’s sound management of our economy and our social programs.

Mr Tatham: Some of the women who lost their jobs as a result of the Harvey Woods closure are immigrant and visible-minority women. Can the minister also tell this House what the government of Ontario is doing to enhance the participation of immigrant and visible-minority women in our economy?

Hon Mrs Wilson: If we are to remain competitive in this global economy, we are going to have to use all our human resources effectively. In this regard, my ministry, the Ontario women’s directorate, has targeted as a priority the needs of immigrant and visible-minority women in the province.

For example, my ministry is sponsoring a pilot labour adjustment program for immigrant women. The aim of the project is to develop a comprehensive labour adjustment package for women who are facing a plant closure or downsizing. My ministry is working with the Ministry of Labour and also with the Ministry of Skills Development in this project. In addition, my ministry has a community grants program. Each year we will send out some $160,000 for projects for immigrant and visible-minority women.

These examples, I believe, show very strongly our government’s commitment to meeting the needs of immigrant and visible-minority women in our workforce.

FUNDING OF AIDS DRUG

Mr Reville: My question is for the Minister of Health. As the minister knows, AZT, the primary treatment for AIDS, is a drug which is in the final stage of approval as a regular prescription drug. When that approval is given, the cost of such drugs will fall on the users of those drugs. The cost is substantial, up to about $5,000 per year. That is why the various AIDS committees around the province are calling on the government to commit itself to funding AZT regardless of whether people who use it are eligible for the drug benefit plan or not. Could the minister commit her government to doing that?

Hon Mrs Caplan: The ministry wants to ensure access to effective, high-quality care for all patients with AIDS and HIV infection. We have been seeking expert guidance from the Ontario Advisory Committee on AIDS. The medical subcommittee is reviewing advice and literature, as well as the federal guidelines in the context of all available literature, as well as in consultation with HIV primary care physicians. As he knows, at the present time these matters are all under review. Patients receive AZT through the network of outpatient clinics in the province.

Mr Reville: I am sure the minister will agree that persons living with AIDS and HIV are already terribly anxious. They are particularly anxious because many of them do not know how on earth they will be able to afford the $400 a month it costs to have this drug available. While we do not at all deny the value of seeking expert advice, the fact remains that unless this drug is provided, many of the people who use it will be forced to go on welfare or they will not be able to have it. I think it should be an easy political decision for the minister to make to commit her government now to making sure that no one goes without this drug because he cannot afford it.

Hon Mrs Caplan: I would say to the member opposite that I am particularly proud of the record of the Ontario Ministry of Health and the leadership role that we have played in developing a program for both AIDS and HIV that is a model in this country. It has involved both professionals as well as community-based groups and public education, and appropriate access, I believe, to drugs such as AZT and aerosolized pentamidine in a way that I think reflects our commitment to ensuring that people have access to effective and high-quality care.

I take very seriously the issue he raises and I want him to know that the AIDS co-ordinator in the ministry is keeping in touch with the actions of the federal government, as well as ensuring that we gather all of the best available information that is possible. AZT is highly toxic and we want to make sure that we seek advice from experts. I am looking forward to the time when in fact there is a breakthrough in research so that those with HIV infection will perhaps have a better and brighter future than the one that exists today.

ABANDONED RAIL LINES

Mr Pollock: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation. About two years ago an interministry committee was appointed to study abandoned railroads in the province. The Ministry of Transportation was supposed to be the lead ministry. I understand that particular report was supposed to be released in June. Can the minister tell me if that report is going to be released before too long?

Hon Mr Wrye: I would have to check for the honourable member as to the exact release date. We have done a great deal of work, working with our colleagues in a number of other ministries within government, on the issue of abandoned railways. It is an issue that is extremely troubling to the honourable member and to a number of the members of his caucus, I am sure, as both of the railway companies seek to walk away from commitments they have had through the years. We have to try to address that problem in a useful way. I cannot give the honourable member an exact date for the release of that report, but it should be shortly.

Mr Pollock: Actually, it is not totally troubling to me. I actually want one particular railroad taken over by the province and run as a recreation trail. The people have been waiting, as I mentioned, for approximately two years and I just wondered when that report was really going to be released and basically what it was really going to say.

Hon Mr Wrye: I would look forward to discussing privately with the honourable member the railway line in question that presumably runs through the great riding of Hastings-Peterborough. I look forward to that discussion. I must say it is of some regret, in some of these cases, that such lines are being abandoned. As the honourable member knows, quite often the province has been taking a role in front of the commission in opposition to proposals to abandon rail lines, and we intend to continue to do so where we think the best interests of the province are at stake.

PLANT CLOSURES

Mr D. S. Cooke: I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Labour. The minister will be aware that last Thursday afternoon in Windsor there were 2,000 people demonstrating against his government because of the lack of proper plant closure legislation. I would like to ask the minister a very simple question. The frustration and anger at this demonstration was very clear. As the minister will know, in my community there have been over a dozen plant closures in the last few months.

Does the minister not realize that if he does not bring in up-to-date, modern plant closure legislation that provides for public justification, adequate notice and a more comprehensive form of severance pay, that if this kind of legislation is not brought in, communities like Windsor will revolt and there will be the breaking of laws by the occupation of plants and other activities so that workers can at least protect themselves if he is not prepared to protect them?

Hon Mr Phillips: I dealt partially with the same subject earlier today in question period. Again I go back to the full appreciation that for laid-off workers, the fact that we have seen jobs created in the province -- I think 720,000 jobs in the past five years -- and the fact that we have seen the unemployment rate drop significantly in the past five years, I realize is not of importance to an individual who is laid off. We have been fortunate in the province to have a strong economy.

For those particular workers, I would provide the assurance that we have the best severance program of any province in this country. We have the longest notice of any province in this country. We ensure that where there is a layoff we are notified and that we set up an industrial restructuring group where both labour and management want it. We work with the employees to help in that situation.

As I said earlier, we are looking at other things we might do, but I would not want any member of the House to not recognize that we have, as I say, the best severance package in Canada. We have good notice provisions. We ensure that we set up a joint committee made up of the workers and the employer to work as closely as we can with the affected parties. Having said all that, as I said earlier today, we are looking at things that we can do to also improve that.

MOTION

CONSTITUTIONAL ACCORD

Mr Scott moved that the select committee on constitutional and intergovernmental affairs be authorized to consider the 1990 constitutional agreement signed at Ottawa on 9 June 1990 (sessional paper number 400) and to report to the House no later than Wednesday, 20 June 1990; and that for the purpose of this motion, the committee be authorized to meet concurrently with the House and during any adjournment of the House, subject to the agreement of the House leader and the chief whip of each recognized party.

Hon Mr Scott: It has been an honour to move the reference of the agreement made by the 11 first ministers of the Canadian Confederation at Ottawa last Saturday into committee for consideration by the committee and by this House. Honourable members are aware that the issue that will be considered by the committee and ultimately by the House raises fundamental and very important questions about the nature of our federation.

The concerns that were expressed in statements today naturally focus on the agreement and its history and take two forms. There is concern about process and there is concern and has been concern about substance. I would propose, with your permission, Mr Speaker, to address each of these subjects in turn.

First, the process: I do not think there can be anybody in the country who would not be distressed by observing the process and the pressures of time under which it was in one sense conducted. On the other hand, it bears saying that in some respects those pressures are a function of the 1982 Constitution itself.

Honourable members will recall that before 1982 there was no way at all to amend the British North America Act within Canada. The practice before 1982 had been to amend it by the House of Commons and the Senate of Canada, with or without the approval of others, and submitting a resolution to the British House of Commons and the House of Lords for enactment. Members will know that all amendments to the British North America Act from Confederation in 1867 until 1982 took that form. There was no other form.

Indeed, honourable members will recall that in the great debates and conferences that were associated with the repatriation effort in the early l980s and the enactment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, when Mr Trudeau, after consulting with his provincial colleagues, contemplated that there would be resistance to his proposals he simply indicated, as in law he was or thought he was perfectly entitled to do, that if they would not agree with him he would go to the House of Commons in London to see that his charter was enacted. He was challenged on that.

The Supreme Court of Canada determined that he could do that, but only if there was some general concurrence among the provinces as to the proposal that was being made.

Therefore it was critical in 1982 to build into the Constitution, which we were repatriating, an amendment formula. That was done after considerable consideration. The amending formula of the Constitution of 1982 essentially establishes who will enact amendments. The enacting authority for amendments is of course the people of Canada, not by referendum but the people of Canada as represented by the legislatures of the provinces and the House of Commons and Senate of the Parliament of Canada. So the Constitution provides that the enacting authority is not some constitutional convention or some referendum, but is precisely the resolutions of the legislatures and the Parliament.

The Constitution of Canada also provides the method by which enactment will take place in terms of numbers. It provides unanimity with respect to legislative enactment in some respects, and provides that certain other amendments may be undertaken upon the resolution of seven of the provinces representing 50% of the population.

The formula that was evident last week, which required unanimity, was not a formula that the first ministers took on themselves or that was imposed by the Prime Minister; it was a formula dictated by the Constitution of Canada, 1982.

As well, the time frame within which the issue is said to be required to be decided -- that is, by 23 June -- is not a time frame that has been fixed by first ministers or by the whim of any politicians or statesmen in the country; it is a time frame fixed precisely by the Constitution of Canada.

I say to honourable members that it is fair comment to say that this process can be better, but one must recognize that the bare bones of the process are dictated not by first ministers or indeed by members of this Legislature but by the terms of the Constitution themselves. If any amendments were undertaken that did not comply with those guidelines, that act would itself be unconstitutional.

Thus when I hear some of my friends say, “Well, we shouldn’t rush. June 23 is too soon. We should let it go six months or six weeks,” I want them to understand that the Constitution does not permit that to happen. Much as one would like to do it, it would itself require a constitutional amendment for that to take place.

That having been said, there is plenty of room for consideration about whether a new constitutional method should be devised, or whether within the existing framework there are not modifications we can make. I have heard a lot of people say that we must never do this again and that we must make changes about the way we do it. With that I entirely agree. I have heard many fewer people describe precisely, except in the most generalized terms -- more listening -- what those changes might be.

I was fascinated to hear the Leader of the Opposition, whose views on this matter I take very seriously, assert that a significant part of the negotiation process between the governments that will lead to enactment in the Legislature should take place in public. I was fascinated to hear that, not only because he made a convincing case but because last night on television -- the only entertainment I felt capable myself of participating in yesterday -- his former leader, Ed Broadbent, made exactly the opposite case with equal conviction, that if people thought this kind of exercise under our Constitution could be undertaken in public, they did not know anything about meaningful negotiations.

For the moment, I opt not for one proposition or the other. I stand somewhere between the Leader of the Opposition --

Mr Breaugh: One leg on both sides; yes, we know.

Hon Mr Scott: I am glad to have the Leader of the Opposition on the left of me and Ed Broadbent on the right of me.

I simply give that example to say that when we talk about process, we must talk about specifics.

I saw, as perhaps honourable members did, and this is on the subject of process again, a fascinating television account on the CBC in which the CBC brought eight or nine Canadians from places as far apart as Newfoundland and British Columbia together to discuss in straightforward terms issues of constitutionalism, as it struck then. The CBC filmed the enterprise over a weekend at a resort not far from the residence of the honourable member for Oshawa, and then put it on television. Of course it was fascinating. You saw these eight people coming into the lodge, introducing themselves to each other.

One was from Newfoundland, another from Quebec, one from the Yukon, one in fact from Oshawa -- not perhaps in every respect typical of that community, but none the less a Canadian representative of certain views.

You saw them at their first meal, when they discussed where they came from and what their general views were. Then you saw them begin to talk about the issues of what it meant to be a Canadian and how we should organize our national affairs. By Saturday at noon one of them proposed: “It’s the politicians who have got us into this trouble. If we ordinary Canadians sat down to talk about the problems of duality, of multiculturalism, of equality in our community, we could make a solution. Why?

Because we are reasonable people and the politicians are not.” So one of them got out a pencil and a piece of paper, “Let’s list the things that we think are important in the way we govern ourselves.” They did their best, because they were intelligent, well-intended Canadians.

The following clip is the next day. They are arguing bitterly. They are at each other’s throats. They cannot agree. The representative from Ontario cannot accept the views of the young woman who came from Montreal. The chap from Newfoundland rejected the ideas of the woman who came from the Yukon. They had to pronounce failure. In the last scene, on Sunday night they are leaving the lodge and they have become great friends -- and they did become great friends, as far as one can tell -- but they cannot agree on how or on what principles our country is to be governed and, as they part, they burst into tears at that reality.

The process about which we are all concerned is established by the Constitution and is in many respects unsatisfactory in principle and in its application. This is the first time we have ever attempted to apply that process, and as the Premier said today, we have learned much about the strengths and weaknesses of that process. As I hope that example makes plain in another context, we have also learned much about ourselves as Canadians as we tried to work that process.

So I know that honourable members will be particularly pleased with the part of the accord that recommends that serious consideration be given to modifying, either within the existing framework or otherwise, a new process for Canadians.

The governments of the day, and I say this carefully, I think were wise to reject that ultimatum, but it created a major obstacle because, while in a technical sense Quebec remained bound by the terms of the Constitution, it had, as it was entitled to do, wholly opted out of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and had not made the moral commitment to our new Confederation of 1982, upon which our ability to live together effectively in this country was going to be almost totally dependent.

It was apparent -- it must have been apparent the day Mr Trudeau put down his pen -- that within a year or two steps would have to be taken to accommodate the legitimate needs of Quebec, in so far as they could be properly accommodated, and to bring Quebec within the constitutional family of Canada.

This was important for a second reason. It was apparent that until that was done, the governments of Quebec would not participate in further constitutional amendments. I remember the aboriginal round which took place in 1986-87. It failed for a number of reasons, but one of the reasons high on the list that led to its failure, in my opinion, was the absence of Quebec from that constitutional negotiating round.

But an important thing happened with the election of the Liberal Party in the province of Quebec in December 1985, because that party had campaigned and had won the election on a program of constitutionalism that rejected the demands that the Péquistes and René Lévesque had presented. It was within six months of their election at a conference, sponsored, interestingly enough, by Queen’s University at Mont-Gabriel, Quebec, that the Attorney General of the Quebec, M. Rémillard, in a speech advanced the five points which Quebec sought to accommodate in order to participate in the Canadian Constitutional family.

Canadians were startled at the Rémillard speech because, while it had been predicted in policy papers of the party, it was the first public representation in a formal way that the new government of Quebec was prepared to deal reasonably and in modest proportion with its own constitutional needs and the constitutional needs of the country.

Canada had said no to Quebec in 1982, and for reasons I understand. At Mont-Gabriel, the new government of Quebec said yes to Canada for the first time. Following that announcement, the government of Quebec and its representatives travelled across Canada to Ottawa and the provincial capitals to determine the extent to which there could be an accommodation around their five points.

In August 1986, at Edmonton, the first ministers of Canada, having reviewed the five points and the extent to which there was provincial and federal support for an accommodation around those five points, declared that they would initiate a constitutional round called the Quebec round, which would be designed to repair the omission of Quebec in 1982 around those five points. All the first ministers of Canada at that time unanimously directed that other important issues should be put for a time to one side so that this historic omission could be corrected.

Following the Edmonton declaration in August 1986, which was public, there were negotiations, there were debates, there was a series of articles in the press -- none of this was going on in secret -- about the five Quebec proposals. In April 1987, at Meech Lake, the first ministers unanimously established an agreement in principle which set out what was later to become known as the Meech Lake accord. That agreement was released to the public, greeted with very considerable approval at the time, was circulated widely and was the subject of editorial and news comment.

In the meantime, of course, three governments that had not participated in the negotiations which their predecessors had participated in were elected in Manitoba, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. Each of those governments expressed reservations, either about parts of the accord that their predecessor government had approved or about the agenda that should be adopted by the governments following the enactment of the accord or about the extent to which that subsequent agenda should be made contemporaneous with the accord itself.

The honourable members will know that for three years we have had in this country, on television, on radio, at public meetings and in schools, the most protracted and elaborate discussion of a constitutional accord that has probably ever taken place in the country. As we approached the deadline, constitutionally imposed, to approve the Meech Lake accord, a conference was called -- a dinner actually -- by the Prime Minister.

There was very great fear that the three governments which had not yet ratified the accord through legislative action might be unwilling to do so. That, as honourable members will know, set up the agenda for the meeting that took place last week.

The government of Ontario, reflecting, I think, the attitude of this Legislature and the bipartisan nature of the process in which we have here been engaged, took the view that while there were a series of important and modest corrections that could be made to the Meech Lake test, our primary obligation must be, if it could be, to legislatively enact the constitutional amendment that was entitled the Meech Lake accord and, to whatever extent was necessary or appropriate, to establish the post-Meech Lake constitutional amendment.

That was the exercise in which we were involved last week. I am happy to say, though options are not entirely foreclosed, that a favourable result was achieved. The parties to the agreement agreed to introduce the Meech Lake accord for enactment in those