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March 9, 2011

39th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2011-Mar-09 (PDF)

L092 - Wed 9 Mar 2011 / Mer 9 mar 2011

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Wednesday 9 March 2011 Mercredi 9 mars 2011

ORDERS OF THE DAY

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

STATUTE LAW

AMENDMENT ACT, 2011 /

LOI DE 2011 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

EN CE QUI CONCERNE LA SANTÉ

ET LA SÉCURITÉ AU TRAVAIL

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

TAXATION

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

SMART METERS

SMART METERS

SMART METERS

NUCLEAR ENERGY

MENTAL HEALTH AND ADDICTIONS STRATEGY

TAXATION

EDUCATION FUNDING

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

CURRICULUM

FOREST INDUSTRY

ABORIGINAL CHILDREN AND YOUTH

NUCLEAR ENERGY

PUBLIC SAFETY

WATER QUALITY

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK

LEADING WOMEN BUILDING

COMMUNITIES AWARDS

ALUMINUM SMELTER

JACK FREER

CANADIAN FORCES STATION ALERT

MUNICIPAL PLANNING

UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

HEART INSTITUTE

FARM SAFETY

LAKEHEAD THUNDERWOLVES

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON

FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND PRIVATE BILLS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

NOVICE DRIVER “P” PLATE ACT, 2011 /

LOI DE 2011 EXIGEANT UNE PLAQUE “P”

POUR LES CONDUCTEURS DÉBUTANTS

DIABETES AWARENESS

MONTH ACT, 2011 /

LOI DE 2011 SUR LE MOIS

DE LA SENSIBILISATION AU DIABÈTE

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AND RESPONSES

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT /

RENDEMENT SCOLAIRE

PETITIONS

GASOLINE PRICES

HOME WARRANTY PROGRAM

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

PARAMEDICS

PROTECTION FOR PEOPLE

WITH DISABILITIES

PARAMEDICS

OAK RIDGES MORAINE

PARAMEDICS

PROTECTION FOR PEOPLE

WITH DISABILITIES

PARAMEDICS

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

WIND TURBINES

OPPOSITION DAY

MENTAL HEALTH

AND ADDICTIONS STRATEGY

The House met at 0900.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Good morning. Remain standing for the Lord’s Prayer, followed by the Jewish prayer.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

STATUTE LAW

AMENDMENT ACT, 2011 /

LOI DE 2011 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

EN CE QUI CONCERNE LA SANTÉ

ET LA SÉCURITÉ AU TRAVAIL

Resuming the debate adjourned on March 8, 2011, on the motion for second reading of Bill 160,

An Act to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997 with respect to occupational health and safety and other matters / Projet de loi 160, Loi modifiant la

Loi sur la santé et la sécurité au travail et la Loi de 1997 sur la sécurité professionnelle et l’assurance contre les accidents du travail en ce qui concerne la santé et la sécurité au travail et d’autres questions.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Further debate?

Mr. Randy Hillier: I’m pleased to join the debate on Bill 160 today, the Occupational Health and Safety Act amendments. I want to just put a little context to this debate. We know the storyline, the narrative, that has been told by the Liberal government on this bill. The storyline that we’re told, of course, is that these changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act are the result of the Tony Dean panel.

The Tony Dean panel was convened due to that tragic and unfortunate accident back at Christmas 2009, where four unregistered workers fell to their death at a scaffolding accident here in Toronto. That was the motivation for the Tony Dean report and these changes. That’s what we’re told. That’s the story that we’ve been given.

Of course, to complete that story a little bit, those four individuals died that day as a result of a contractor not following the laws of this province at the time. Those employees were not registered anywhere. There was a complete breach of all the rules and the laws that were currently in place in the province.

So then we have this Tony Dean panel constructed. According to the minister, they’ve adopted all the recommendations of the Dean panel and the Dean panel came out with a consensus agreement for their recommendations. That is true; the Dean panel did come out with a consensus agreement on those recommendations.

The only problem is that this bill and the amendments in this bill do not correspond very well with the recommendations of the Dean panel. Probably the greatest dismissal of the Dean panel is that in this bill the government is going to remove and dismiss all the

section 21 occupational health and safety association committees across this province.

The

section 21 committees start off at industry or trade sector committees, and then at each region in each sector there are committees, and these roll up to provincial bodies. It’s a very effective council. It represents all trades and all industry, across all regions of the province. It’s also done completely by industry’s own funding or by the volunteers within those industries.

All these

section 21 committees are now going to be toast under this new Bill 160. All that industry expertise and regional expertise will be dismissed and no longer have any place in occupational health and safety in this province. Instead, we’re going to have a hand-picked, predetermined, selected body called a prevention council. This prevention council is going to do the work of all these other

section 21 committees. Who’s going to be on it? Well, they will be picked by the Minister of Labour and an additional layer of political patronage will replace the industry’s own voices for health and safety in this province.

Once the minister selects his patronage appointments for the prevention council, he’s going to then have that council pick a chief prevention officer for the province who will have significant and arbitrary authority under this act.

So here we have all industries across the province—regional, provincial—being replaced by a patronage panel that is answerable only to the minister. Tony Dean didn’t recommend that we do away with this industry-driven council—not at all. But that’s what’s in the bill.

I know the minister is not here today. Maybe he’s listening; maybe he’ll read the Hansard afterwards, or maybe the parliamentary assistant will respond as to why this legislation does away with all the

section 21 committees—in contravention, actually, of what the Dean panel recommended.

We know that the storyline is of course, as I said earlier, about the tragic death at Christmas 2010, but is that the real motivator behind this Bill 160? I can tell you and I can tell everybody in this House, and everybody who is watching or listening, that there is a very high level of dissatisfaction with the industry, with the Minister of Labour and with the Ministry of Labour. They’ve been very outspoken with the ministry about what the ministry is doing and not doing correctly.

I’ll share this little story with the members of this House. A couple of years ago, I was attending a home builders’ meeting. At that home builders’ meeting, there was an inspector from the Ministry of Labour also attending. That inspector got up and gave a presentation to the contractors who were there, and he told them—this is the Ministry of Labour inspector: “All you contractors here are my targets of opportunity.” “Targets of opportunity” is how he referred to them.

He went on to explain how the Ministry of Labour was also training the Chinese government on how to conduct compliance efforts in the construction industry. I find that absolutely amazing, that a civil servant, a public servant hired by the people of this province, views contractors as targets of opportunity. He was not there to assist or to facilitate or to help and to prevent workplace injuries; he was there to find a way to lay a charge.

That inspector’s name was Charles Taylor, if anybody wants to know, if anybody wants to check into it and see what Charles Taylor is doing today and how many fines he has been levying.

I think that gives a little bit of an illustration of what’s really going on here. Industry has been very vocal to the Ministry of Labour about its shortcomings, and the ministry has been silent. So for the ministry to silence that opposition, “Let’s get rid of the

section 21 committees.”

I’ll share with this House another story on another workplace injury that happened in Renfrew county just a little while ago. The company that was charged was Gulick Forest Products. Gulick Forest Products was charged by the Ministry of Labour in a workplace injury at the sawmill. During the court case—which was eventually dismissed, after extensive cost to Gulick Forest Products—a series of very serious allegations arose about misconduct and failure of due process by the Ministry of Labour inspectors and also the Ministry of Labour lawyers in that case—very serious allegations.

Once those allegations came to light, the ministry eventually dismissed and dropped the charges, but Gulick Forest Products was facing a quarter of a million dollars in fines on that injury. I know that first-hand, of course, because myself and the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke are now facing defamation charges from those same lawyers at the Ministry of Labour for raising that subject. That’s how the Ministry of Labour acts.

The member from Renfrew and myself are facing $5.5 million in defamation suits because we spoke up in support of due process and stood up and championed the rights of a business in our area. That’s what the Ministry of Labour has become: a very significant bully in the workplace. Industry is fearful of the Ministry of Labour, and the ministry is fearful of having bad press.

I’ll tell this House as well that I went to the former Minister of Labour, the one just prior to the new minister, and I raised this with him. I raised this subject about Gulick Forest Products with the Minister of Labour before my defamation suit and asked him to inquire into the actions of the Ministry of Labour inspectors and the Ministry of Labour lawyers.

After some conversation to explain the context, the Minister of Labour shrugged his shoulders and said, “The bureaucracy will do what the bureaucracy does.” That was his response to my legitimate interest and concern about these serious allegations: “The bureaucracy will do what the bureaucracy does”—absolutely amazing, absolutely incredible, that a minister of the crown would take such a cavalier interest in his ministerial responsibilities. But of course he didn’t intervene; now we face a defamation suit. But I’m sure a jury will find us not at fault for raising allegations.

Anyway,

section 21 committees are now gone. We have this little facade being built up and created, and all these volunteer committees will be replaced with a political patronage council. I’m sure everybody here can hardly wait for that council to be completed. I’m sure we’ll see that people such as Pat Dillon, the real Minister of Labour, the head of the Working Families Coalition, will be at its table collecting some additional funds from the people and the taxpayers of Ontario.

I also want to talk about—as a subset to this bill, there was a lot of talk about how we need to modify things, amend regulations to stem the underground economy, especially in construction. Of course, we know the underground economy thrives when the cost of doing business legitimately gets out of hand and where it can be more profitable to be below the radar, as they say. This bill does nothing to stem the underground economy. In fact, it does the exact opposite: It raises costs for legitimate businesses.

We’ve seen it already with the increases in the WSIB premiums, increases in HST, increases in the regulatory burden, further increases here. So this bill actually pushes people further to the underground because the legitimate businesses just won’t be able to comply with the expense of this. There’s not a new dollar in here to assist industry at all; no.

All the new training programs that will be required, the new safety manuals, whatever is going to be required by this prevention council will be shouldered strictly by the employer—not by the industry, not by the public; it will be shouldered by the individual contractor or employer, again pushing them further underground. That is something that the Tony Dean panel recommended be stemmed; they wanted this bill to have some teeth in it to stem the underground, and of course this bill does the exact opposite.

So there are two parts, so far, of the Dean panel and the recommendations that have not been included in this bill.

Then there’s training. The Dean panel recommendations stressed and emphasized the need for greater training. Significant training was really such an important element of the Dean panel report, and in this bill we have a single line item about training—one line, and that line says that the minister can set up training. There was widespread agreement in that panel on the need for training. Whatever that training’s going to be, we know that it’s going to be shouldered by the individual contractor, but it has one line.

The Dean panel also asked for a tracking system for that training, so that we would know who has been trained, so that they have some mobility and transportable recognition of their training. Well, there is absolutely nothing in this bill about tracking on that training. Now, I can understand why the Liberals might not want to get into electronic records for training, after we saw what they did with the electronic health records. They wasted $1 billion in that fiasco.

And now we have an agreement, a consensus report, saying that they need to get into tracking on workplace safety—not a mention in the bill whatsoever, not one mention of that electronic record-keeping, and no real mention of training, other than that the minister can set up training.

This bill also leaves most of its thrust unknown to everybody, because everything is left to the regulatory process. We all know that when the ministry actually gets around to creating these regulations, they never come back before the House for scrutiny. So we don’t really know what we’re getting with Bill 160, in that the details are not known here.

One of the big things in the Dean panel report: They said these changes could be cost-neutral. But there’s so little of substance in here. We know that the training is going to be shouldered by the individuals. We don’t know what the minister may do in that regard. We know that there will not be that electronic tracking, and we know that these regulations are going to add additional costs to our employers to help push them to the underground, exactly in contravention and contradiction to what the Dean panel’s recommendations were for or about.

Those are a couple of things. I’d like to see the parliamentary assistant today—he’s here in the House—maybe respond to some of those contradictions between the legislation and the recommendations. I really would be encouraged to see how the parliamentary assistant responds. But we do know that there’s much at fault in workplace safety right now. Much of it rests at the feet of the Ministry of Labour, and under this new legislation they are going to assume greater authority for workplace safety, so they say, and take it out of the hands of industry.

So we’re going to have a number of political appointments, a number of bureaucrats, lawyers and civil servants sitting around deciding what’s safe and what isn’t safe in the workplace—people who have never been on a job site; people who, if they saw a pair of work boots, would trip over them. But these are the people who are going to be creating the training and the regulations and the edicts about workplace safety, and they have never experienced any of it.

I can tell you, Minister, and members opposite, that in my days on the job site as an electrician, I saw some pretty stupid regulations that were meant to protect me from myself. If I followed them all, I probably wouldn’t be standing here today. I disregarded a number of them because they were just absolutely, incredibly stupid, but those were the edicts of Ministry of Labour inspectors who, like I said, wouldn’t know a pair of work boots if they saw them.

I would like the minister to respond to those components. I would like him to also respond why it is that industry can’t take care of itself. All these interested parties—knowledgeable, experienced people—are no longer important in the process. I also want the minister to explain—Christmas 2009, this rogue contractor broke all the rules of the day, every rule, which led to the death of four people. How is this going to prevent another rogue contractor? He’ll have difficulty answering that one because, of course, it won’t; it won’t do anything at all.

Nothing in this bill leads to a more respectful relationship, but also nothing in this bill safeguards the public interest from the new prevention council or this chief prevention officer. They have such arbitrary and complete authority under this bill. I know what I’ve experienced with the Ministry of Labour lawyers—their reckless attitude and reckless pursuit of a prosecution. How is that going to be diminished when we give them more authority, more unaccountable authority, more authority that is not really going to be looked at by anybody other than maybe Pat Dillon at the Working Families Coalition, if he gets another plum patronage job?

I think what we can see here, and what we’ve seen with the Liberals for the last number of years, is Pat Dillon and the Working Families Coalition being the true policymakers of the Liberal Party. There’s this shadow cabinet over there. Many people may not see it, but it has its hand to play—Pat Dillon and the Working Families—on this piece of legislation.

We also saw it with Monte Hummel and the Far North Act. When the Premier was asked about the Far North Act, really the only person who was consulted on that one was Monte Hummel from the World Wildlife Fund.

We also see it with the environmental legislation. When the Minister of the Environment really wants to get input from stakeholders, he goes to Rick Smith at Environmental Defence.

In labour, when the government wants to get input, they create a little panel called the Dean panel, but really, who’s driving the ship? Pat Dillon is driving that ship.

So let’s see if we get some answers. Let’s see if we get some answers about these

section 21 committees from the parliamentary assistant. I’m not even sure if he’s taking notes or if he’s awake, but I want him to explain to the people of this province why he is bringing forward legislation that actually contravenes the recommendations of the Dean panel report—actually contravenes the recommendations. Why has he left so much off the table, except greater control and greater arbitrary authority and more political patronage appointments? I know they didn’t talk about that when the minister did his leadoff the other day. There was no mention of those things.

All he spoke about was how wonderful the report was and how he had adopted all the recommendations. Well, he didn’t adopt the recommendations, and he actually contravenes very important elements of that Dean panel report. Nowhere in that panel report does it say we should have more political patronage and less industry representation—nowhere; not at all. But that’s what workplace health and safety is going to get: more political patronage, less industry involvement, and of course nothing, nothing in this bill—oh, here’s another one.

Nothing in this bill is going to fix, of course, the problems at WSIB, and I’ll tell you, as labour critic, that is a significant number of requests I get every week, every day, from people who are dealing with WSIB, and it’s not a pleasant experience for those people.

But let me tell you this: All the people who are working at WSIB on the prevention side are no longer going to be having a job, according to this piece of legislation. There are over 100 people on prevention at WSIB. What’s going to happen to them? I wonder, because prevention moves over to the Ministry of Labour now completely, and is no longer a part of WSIB—I can only think of what happened when the Liberals brought in the HST. Of course, they were going to save money with the HST, right? They were going to save us all money. They had 1,200 PST auditors at the time, retail sales tax auditors. What did they do?

They said that they fired them, that they had to pay them severance, but they never missed a day; they were hired by the federal government the same moment they were fired, but at a huge cost in severances to the taxpayers.

So I’m just wondering if the parliamentary assistant will explain that to us: Are these hundreds of people in prevention at WSIB going to get fired, collect a big, handsome severance package and then be rehired at the same moment by the Ministry of Labour, or are they going to stay at WSIB in some other role and you’re just going to hire more people? Let’s have some explanations from the ministry on that. What are they going to do with that and how is that going to save the people of Ontario money? Or is it just more smoke and mirrors like the HST?

I’d like to put on the record that those are questions to the minister and to his ministry. The people of Ontario want to have them answered. The people in industry want to have some answers, and not these smoke-and-mirrors answers—real, legitimate answers. Don’t give us this shrug of the shoulders and say, “Well, the bureaucracy does what the bureaucracy does.” We’ve already had that from the previous minister. Let’s have a minister and a ministry that stands up. Be honest with the people of Ontario. Be honest with industry. When we get that, then we can actually look at the regulations in the proper light, if and when they ever come back here.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Questions and comments?

Mr. John O’Toole: Chair, we are sharing time.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): I didn’t hear that at the outset.

Mr. John O’Toole: Yes, he said he’s splitting his time with me.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): No, the two of you stood up and kind of jostled around, and I called for further debate. But if I have the consent of the House—do we have consent to allow splitting of the time? Agreed.

Mr. John O’Toole: Thank you. Often early in the morning we’re not fully paying attention to things—on my part, I’m saying—and perhaps Hansard will tell a different story.

I first want to start by thanking our critic in Tim Hudak’s opposition party, the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington. I think he did really conceptualize our concerns. I’m privileged, because I do have a copy—in the short time I have—of the expert panel, the Dean report, with me. As you can see, I have thumbed through it carefully in a couple of parts, which I will record, because I think our critic remains fundamentally concerned about whether or not this bill does as it purports to do.

You know, even in the simplest way, when I got the report—this bill was only introduced on March 3, and the report was issued on December 10, so they are kind of putting a bit of a rush on this, I gather. It’s an election year; potentially, it’s trying to satisfy some of the demands of labour. I understand that. But let’s keep the fundamental thing in focus here. Our leader, Tim Hudak, is concerned about whether Premier McGuinty is focused on the results each day or the election in the next few days, but we’re more focused on the rights and responsibility of workers and the protection of workers.

The expert panel was asked, as a result of some controversial accidents, mostly in the construction-related industry—and actually, it’s even more fundamentally important than that, because there’s a huge issue, which I’ll go through here in the few minutes I have.

Pardon me. I might ask for a couple of glasses of water, if I could, please. Thank you. Excuse me.

The bill is

An Act to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997 with respect to occupational health and safety and other matters. Minister Sousa did a great job introducing it—a new minister. He has an excellent voice, anyway; it sounds like a radio voice. He read the notes very, very clearly, and was well understood.

If I read the

preamble, the explanation notes in the bill—it’s not really that large a bill, technically. It’s 17 pages, so really it’s about eight pages long, because it’s printed in both official languages—as it should be. But if I look at it, at first blush I’d say that I’m amazed at how much power it’s giving to the minister, or they’re taking back.

The explanation says, “Section 4.1, which specifies the minister’s responsibility for the administration of the act and sets out some of the minister’s powers and duties in administering the act, is added to

part II of the act.” It goes on to say, “The act is amended to allow the minister”—he wouldn’t know a pair of work boots from grass; that’s what the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington said— “to establish standards for training programs and to approve programs that meet the standards. The minister may also establish standards that a person must meet in order to become” approved.

It goes on. It says: “Section 6 of the act is amended to authorize a director to establish policies respecting the

interpretation, administration.…

“Section 7.6, which allows the minister to establish training and other requirements that a member of a joint health and safety”—and,

“Section 8 ... is amended to require a constructor or employer to ensure that health and safety representatives receive training....” That’s very appropriate. I think it’s much like it is today.

“Section 9 of the act is amended to allow either co-chair of a joint health and safety committee to make written recommendations....”

This is new here: “The bill adds

part II.1 (prevention council, chief prevention officer and designated entities) to the act.” It “requires the minister to establish a prevention council responsible for providing advice to the minister....” That’s a delegated authority.

This would be very, very important. It’s sort of like a LHIN, the local health integration network. The LHINs are sort of designated authorities that really make decisions for the minister, but you can’t get to the minister. The minister says, “I can’t interfere with the LHINs,” but she appoints the LHINs. It’s the same thing here. It’s a shield so that you can’t get to the minister. It sounds cynical. In fact, we’ll have to keep an eye on that.

If I look in detail at just a couple of those sections—let’s look into the bill, into the deeper marrow of the bill itself. Under “designated entities,” it says, “designation by the minister.” This is what the

preamble said and this is what it actually does:

“22.4(1) The minister may designate an entity as a safe workplace association or as a medical clinic or training centre specializing in occupational health and safety matters if the entity meets the standards....

“

(2) The minister may establish standards....” It goes on like that. What this bill does is it generally sets up a framework for allowing the minister to designate and set up certain things.

No one here would expect or accept that the minister would make things less safe, like the structure that fell down before Christmas where people were killed. It was reported somehow that perhaps these were—as our critic, Mr. Hillier, said—rogues, and you can’t regulate those people; well, they could be fined.

There were orders and powers within the existing law, and they could have prosecuted those unscrupulous contractors who were using people who perhaps weren’t trained, scaffolding that wasn’t up to the standard—that already exists. So what’s in this? There’s really not a lot in it, technically.

I looked further into the Dean report, as I mentioned, to find out if they’re actually doing some of the recommendations. Surprise, surprise; they’re not. This is a fairly comprehensive report issued on December 10. It was sent to the then minister—quite a good fellow as well; I think he’s running federally. Peter Fonseca: a nice young guy. I hope he enjoys his time there in opposition. He’ll probably be involved in the leadership because Michael Ignatieff will be thrown under the bus right after the election, probably.

This expert panel to conduct a review of occupational health submitted the following observations and recommendations. One would think, in the executive

summary—some people are chatting here, so it’s hard for me to focus on what needs to be said.

In the brief time: “A Focus on Workplaces and the Highest Value Opportunities for Change”—I really think that former Deputy Minister Tony Dean meant what he said, and he’s trying to establish some responsibility and commitment to workers who may be injured in the workplace.

“The panel’s review focused on areas of workplace health … that needed improvement. To ensure that there is real benefit to workplaces, the workplace parties must be actively engaged in”—well, I would say that there’s not a lot in the bill that actually addresses that specifically. He’s got the minister appointing these various people, who, as said earlier, were going to be—let’s be honest, pending the election—political appointments.

Everybody is sort of shaking their heads; I see that. But I want to see who exactly they are appointing, so I looked up another place. This is the 2009 WSIB annual report. How are they doing? How is that board doing?

I should make it clear, too, that I did work at General Motors for 31 years. Part of that time was in personnel. My undergraduate degree is in labour economics from the University of Toronto. I’m very genuinely interested in this and I know how important it is to have rules in the workplace for both sides, supervision as well as the employees.

I looked at this annual report, and the first thing I thought was, “Well, there’s a nice picture. Who’s the chair of that?” The chair is Steve Mahoney, who’s a former Liberal member of this House and a friend of Premier McGuinty. I’ve met him several times. I think the auditor had a few things to say about Mr. Mahoney. We’ll have to look that up too. Well, I have, and it has been recorded here. That’s just one example. I don’t impugn him personally but I think he made a few errors, errors in his ways. But you don’t have to take—it has been brought up in here by the auditor, not me. This is not something that I’ve made up.

I looked around, though, and I think one should pursue this further, so I looked at the whole board. Let’s go over that for a bit. Now, who’s on the board? Well, David Marshall is the president and CEO, January 24; Larry Barnett, health and safety. Here’s one right here: Patrick Dillon. Wait a minute. I thought—well, I’m only going from what the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington, Mr. Hillier, said. He said that Pat Dillon was the head of Working Families, the coalition against anybody but the Liberals, really, and that’s a sad state. I know Mr.

Dillon as well; I’ve known him for quite a while, actually since 1996 or 1997, when we tried to change the apprenticeship ratio issue and Mr. Dillon was very upset. In fact, we were in the middle of hearings in Sudbury when I first met him. He appeared before the committee at that time, saying, “No, no, you can’t do this.” Well, it still exists. In fact, Mr. Hillier said that he’s the adviser to the minister. He is. And he’s the head of the Working Families Coalition, which is a very overt political interventionist group. I wouldn’t use the word “terrorist”; it would be a bit inflammatory.

But actually, it does appear to me that that’s close.

The other part, too—I’m not going to impugn all these people, but I did look on there. I looked further. In fairness, this is not just a tertiary glance; this is an assessment of how good a job or poor a job Peter Fonseca and the current minister, Charles Sousa, are doing. I can’t blame it all on them. You have to look at the Premier, the consistent leader since 2003. Well, not consistent, but certainly the leader. I would say, let’s look at this. How’s the 10-year

summary? It’s a good place to start, usually. This is the 10-year

summary in the annual report. Look it up. It’s online. It’s all available. It’s public information. It tells you an audited version of the truth: not edited, but audited—pretty similar words. In 2000—let’s go back to the time of Premier Harris. In 2000, the liability at that time was $5.6 billion. Liability is the unfunded of what is liability for the future, injured workers who have received awards. How are they doing on that file? Well, I happen to be looking at it here. What is the unfunded liability today? It has doubled. It’s $11.7 billion. They haven’t done very well on that.

Another thing which workers should be frightened about, and I expect the NDP will discuss this: Let’s look at the pertinent statistics. On, by and large, the average premium—now, you’ve got to understand what WSIB is. I’m going to take one moment and give you kind of a five-minute

summary on it. WSIB is a legislative framework that allows the government to protect workers—allows. It sets up a legal framework to pay for injuries in the workplace. Now, let’s follow it carefully; it’s WSIB, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

What are injuries? Fall off ladder, break leg—that’s an injury, a broken leg injury. I thought we had a health care system that covered that. We do. But this is insurance. Wait a minute; insurance is private. They’re investing in the market, playing various derivative funds and all that. I thought our health care system was public. Wait a minute here; it’s not. This is insurance. It’s health care—go to hospital, file the injury report, there’s a claim made against WSIB and the WSIB pays through an insurance fund for the broken leg. Surprise. I bet there aren’t five people in this House who know how it works, and I’m serious. I’m not pointing to any particular names.

Where does the money come from—this liability, or lack of money? Two things: The rate of increase in injured workers is a measurement of how safe our workplace is, or is it? There are areas where it’s more dangerous than others. A roofer, for example, is more dangerous than perhaps a hairdresser so they have higher rates of insurance, the premiums.

What are the premiums? First of all, there’s not one nickel of provincial tax money in the WSIB—not one nickel. If you want to cover that liability, it’s a tax on payroll. I’m not saying that—it’s how the legislation works. The framework I talked to you about is—WSIB is funded by the employers. The employers buy coverage, called a premium, just like you do if it’s car insurance, where you have a premium, or if it’s home insurance or whatever else—insurance, insurance, insurance. They buy insurance against injuries. That insurance is a tax on payroll, basically.

Yesterday in the House the Minister of Agriculture—I couldn’t believe it. She either doesn’t know—and I won’t say more than that. But she said, “You know, we’ve added farm workers to the WSIB.” Do you know what? They’ve increased the premium on farm labour by 17% this year alone. I wish people would pay more attention to what actually goes on here. They’ve added them. Why? Why have they added them, would you think? Because there are fewer industrial workers. Remember, insurance is like a pyramid scheme: You’ve got to have more people paying than collecting.

So they’re adding groups that previously weren’t covered to make the insurance scheme work. I told you, remember, that they’ve doubled the debt from $5 billion to $11 billion. That means workers somewhere down the line aren’t covered unless we get a lot more people paying into it. The other thing is, you cut people off or you increase the rates of insurance. That’s how it works.

I’m going to tell you here in this report—look it up online or call me; I’ll send it to you. Unfunded liability in 2009 had gone from $5 billion to almost $12 billion, and the premiums have gone up as well. Not only that; the number of workers, the equivalent of full-time workers, has actually gone down. In other words, they’ve actually reduced the number of people who are entitled. If they had allowed the normal trend line to continue of not cutting people off—in my office, I hear about people being cut off or hassled. So they’re cutting people off; that cuts down their liability, because they’re no longer entitled to future entitlements.

There are two or three different types of awards you can get. You can get a FEL award, which is a future economic loss award, or a NEL award, non-economic loss, which is pain and suffering, for people that do fall off the ladder and break their leg, but they also hurt their back so they can’t really work anymore. Some of them are assigned a pension, a partial pension, cash awards—there are different methods of payout here.

I’ve looked at the framework of legislation from Tony Dean’s perspective, and I don’t think they’re doing what they said. At least, I will need a further briefing on the bill to know.

The second thing: I think the WSIB itself is in serious trouble, absolutely critical trouble. Why? Because a good number of workers in the public aren’t covered. Some work groups are covered under federal legislation. The banking industry is one case in point.

Now, I have become a little animated on this because I do want to stand up for the injured worker; I really do, having worked in an industrial workplace for 31 years, actually, at General Motors.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Don’t hold back, John. Let it all out.

Mr. John O’Toole: I’m going to let it all out.

Here’s the deal. What bothers me: We all know that large companies now are funded—it’s not some rich Mr. General Motors or Mr. Stelco; these companies are owned by shareholders, and those shareholders are basically pensioners. Pension funds are probably the biggest pools of capital, and those pension funds are to eventually generate revenue from this pool of money to pay off dividends, which are called annuities or whatever they’re called; they’re a form of a pension. It could be in several forms. It could be a LIF, a life income fund, or it could be an annuity.

The whole point here is, there are 300,000 people who have lost jobs in manufacturing, and they’re not coming back. All this talk about green jobs is absolute baloney. If you’re looking at what’s going on in Europe, in Germany—very large, successful, technical industry throwing the green energy and the FIT tariff overboard. France, Germany—Japan is now faltering on it as well. Their plan here, green energy, is another serious miscalculation, a poor plan, for industry.

They say, “Well, green energy is so important.” Yes, but actually, a report came out last week that shows that green energy loses jobs. Why? Because the cost of energy in the overall cost of production—

Mr. Phil McNeely: Bring back coal.

Mr. John O’Toole: They don’t understand. They’re complaining—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): I’m sure the member for Durham is going to get back to the bill that’s on the table.

Mr. John O’Toole: I’m trying to.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): I’m sure you are.

Mr. John O’Toole: I’m going to. What I’m trying to do is bring it back to: What are the jobs of the future? I feel so saddened, actually. What are the jobs of the future for our young children graduating from high school? Not everybody can become a doctor or a lawyer or, heaven forbid, a politician. Some of them actually have to have jobs in Stelco, General Motors, Chrysler and in mining and forestry.

There are 120,000 people in the forestry industry out of work. The member from Nickel Belt yesterday read a litany of people who have lost their jobs in northern Ontario. We’ve seen the impact of high-cost energy. Now, in the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario, they’re going to harvest the metals out of the ground and process them in Quebec because the energy is cheaper. You don’t think it’s related?

Let’s go back to the pension fund discussion. How are they going to pay off that $11 billion? It’s a tax on payroll, is what it is. That’s what they’re going to do: Right after the election, there’s going to be another tax. It’s going to be a tax on jobs. And then what happens? If they don’t make money, the pension plans—that’s all our futures, or the 30% of the population that actually has a pension. The pensions won’t make money, and I’m telling you, this is what’s happening now. That’s why every pension—and you know this, too; you’re the innovation minister. What are the jobs of the future?

In your two-minute response, you can tell me what the jobs of the future are; I mean, in Canada. If you think they’re at Research in Motion, Research in Motion has about three years left. If they’re not bought out by Microsoft, it’s finished. Apple has already taken over—

Interjection.

Mr. John O’Toole: No, they’ll buy out the patent—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): The member for Durham: If you can tie all this into the occupational safety act, I’d appreciate it.

Mr. John O’Toole: It’s actually about my concern for the jobs so that this deficit can be paid off.

In fairness, the former deputy minister, and I think he might still be the deputy minister, Tony Dean—I’ve met him several times over 15 years. In his report, I honestly believe he was asking the minister to step in and solve some of these structural problems in the WSIB. I hope Mr. Sousa is watching this morning, because I think you should be trying to fix this system and protect workers. I’m giving you the red light, the signal. This thing is in chaos. You have doubled the debt, you’ve got fewer people collecting and being entitled, and the only way you can fix it is to raise the money. How?

Raise the insurance premium or reduce coverage—and that, to me, is a dilemma that stretches right across of most of Premier McGuinty’s plans.

You were in the insurance business, or I think on that side at one time, Mr. Speaker. How’s auto insurance? They’ve allowed more tort in auto insurance, which means that if you want to get paid for your injury, get a lawyer. That’s what they did. They didn’t reduce your premiums; they reduced your entitlements, and the same thing is going to happen here. They’ve got these so-called—I think they’re called the CPO, the chief prevention officer, who they’re going to blame for the things that aren’t working instead of blaming Premier McGuinty.

I can only say that our critic, Mr. Hillier, has brought up a few points—and I’ll keep it a little simpler, in fairness, in the few minutes I have left. I may ask for more time, because it doesn’t appear that anybody else wants to say anything.

The bill does nothing to prevent employers from entering the black market and would, in fact, drive employers to the black market by creating more uncertainty and bureaucracy. If you increase the premiums, more of these home renovation people go underground; they don’t pay at all.

The bill creates yet another bureaucracy, and I think the head of that will be Pat Dillon. This fellow—nice person; this isn’t a personal thing—is on the wrong track. He’s on the wrong track, this guy. Working Families? Get over it.

The bill contains numerous new obligations and regulations for industry. “Blame industry” is what it’s about. As with the other recent Liberal bills, a substantial portion of the legislation is left to regulation, which means we really don’t know substantively what they are going to do.

So I call on the Minister of Labour to have public hearings. Let’s air the facts on the status of WSIB. The organization, the multi-billion-dollar organization, has been somewhat tainted by some of the decisions made recently, as well as Mr. Dean’s report. Let’s see that if there are 12 recommendations, then there are 12 recommendations being followed up in the report, not some kind of loosey-goosey framework that gives the minister the powers he needs and doesn’t really directly implicate what I would call ensuring safety for workers in the workplace.

That’s all Tim Hudak has asked us to ask for: demand hearings and look at some of the things that this bill exposes—both the employer, who’s going to get nailed paying it, and the employee, who’s going to perhaps be denied benefits.

These are troubling outcomes for legislation here in this last part before the budget. If there are any teeth in this at all, we’ll see something in the budget here in March, and I’m going to be looking for it. If there’s nothing in here to help the WSIB get out of the ditch, then we know the future is not very bright under Premier McGuinty.

That’s how I leave it to you today: If you want to know the future, look to the past. The past behaviour is a good indicator of future behaviour. They have pretty well ruined every file they’ve touched. They have—

Interjections.

Mr. John O’Toole: Now they’re laughing. They’ve had 10 years. They’ve doubled the debt, they’ve doubled the taxes and things are no better.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Questions and comments?

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: I listened intently to the member from Durham. He’s always entertaining, and interestingly is backed up by Dave Killham, the executive director of the Workers Health and Safety Centre, who has sent out a memo regarding this bill that is absolutely opposed to it. It basically says directly that it “could eliminate the independence of the Workers Health and Safety Centre and place it under the” sole control “of Queen’s Park.”

This is a very frightening move. This has nothing to do with the Dean report and their recommendations, and that’s very, very clear. This has nothing to do with that. This has to do with putting the minister in charge of what should be controlled by the workers in their places of work and what already has a framework that, although not working seamlessly—nothing does—certainly is better than putting it under the control of a Liberal minister.

I believe that the member from Durham is also correct. This is a government in decline; the polls show that. So, desperately, they’re trying to make appointments. Desperately, they’re trying to cling on to some degree of power in the bureaucracy by making sure that Liberals are in these places. The member from Durham went through that point by point, line item by line item, and unfortunately, he’s correct.

When you have the executive director of the Workers Health and Safety Centre coming out in opposition to the bill, when you realize that this would take away control from workers in their places of work and give it to the government, you should be very, very concerned, particularly when this is a government that just took away the right to strike from transit workers.

This is not a government that is doing anything to support workers’ rights or union rights. This is a government that is clearly in direct opposition to those very rights. This government has taken away the core right, the right to strike, from the transit workers, and now we’re going to put them in charge of workers’ health and safety? I don’t think so. I think it’s actually quite frightening; very frightening, in fact. And they should be very much aware that that kind of framework, of course, is possibly going to be taken over by another government, which makes it even more frightening.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Questions and comments?

Mr. Lorenzo Berardinetti: I only have two minutes to briefly respond to the comments that were made by today’s presenters, both the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington and the member from Durham. I thank them for their comments.

The expert advisory panel on occupational health and safety prepared a report, dated December 2010, with 46 recommendations. Our legislation is a direct response to those recommendations.

I think the most important point is that we want to integrate the system so that if there is a problem in the future, we’ll be able to handle it and the ministry will be directly responsible for things that happen in the future.

We’re committed to these recommendations and we’re going to implement all of them. It’s more than the other parties have done in the past or would do if they had the opportunity to deal with this issue in front of us today. Let’s remember: This is a good thing. It’s something about health and safety, and it’s good for our workers.

I don’t have much time, but just focusing on

section 50 of this act, the chief prevention officer is allowed to protect vulnerable workers, and vulnerable workers have new protections put in place, which I think the member who spoke earlier should look at. I also want to point out that the new chief prevention officer can better coordinate the prevention system.

We’re creating a new prevention council, with representatives from labour, employers and safety experts, to advise the chief prevention officer and the minister. We’re removing the powers from bureaucracy and placing them directly with the minister.

We’re also enabling the Minister of Labour to set new training standards, revamp the reprisal process and develop codes or practice that help business with compliance.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Questions and comments?

Mrs. Julia Munro: In the time I have, I want to concentrate a few remarks in the area of the special concerns that small business have.

The minister made reference to the fact that one of the things that came out of the process that brought us to the creation of the bill was the fact that there was a subcommittee struck to report on the special concerns of small business.

The recommendations they provided to the expert panel are three basic ones. The first is the issue of the recognition that there needs to be some vehicle that would represent the needs and interests of employers and workers in small business. I think that this particular part requires a great deal of effort on the part of the government because of the fact that, historically, and certainly in the recent past, we’ve seen that small business has been left out of the equation.

It comes down to some very practical things. Many of these people we’re talking about under that umbrella are businesses with fewer than five employees. There is no HR department. There is nobody who is assigned to those kinds of things.

So when the second recommendation they make is for the creation of focused and integrated programs, I would remind the government that these are individuals, in many cases, and certainly very small businesses, and they need something more than the issue of compliance: They need assistance. This bill must address those issues.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): The minister—the member for Trinity–Spadina.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Could have been a minister. Thank you, Speaker.

Just a couple of comments. The bill does indeed give a lot more power to the minister than ever before. In some cases this is a good thing, is an argument I make. Because we have direct connection to the minister, we’re able to question him or her on a regular basis, and that could give us the more accountability that we’re looking for.

It may not always be the case. Part of the problem around this is what the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington alluded to, and the member from Durham as well, and that is that as we move the control to the minister, the member from Lanark and all the other places said that this is absolutely bad and wrong because it gives them the power to appoint people, and to appoint who? In his mind, Liberals, who are not nice, not good, and that would be a problem because it would certainly reflect the interests of labour and not so much the contractor. I’m not sure the Liberals would do that, because the Liberals are just as close to the contractors as the Liberals.

Interjection.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: So my sense is that they would be sure to have that balance. That’s my sense. But I worry about that. I worry about not having an independent prevention council that is independent of any government, whoever is there. I worry as much about this as the member from Parkdale–High Park, who said we might be frightened of Liberal centralized control; imagine what it would be like if you had a hostile government who would not be too friendly to injured workers and workers in general. Then we’re stuck with a government that has centralized control and would be willing to hurt injured workers and workers in general. That frightens me even more.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): The member for Durham, you have up to two minutes to respond.

Mr. John O’Toole: I do want to reply to all of the members. Parkdale–High Park: She was quite insightful and on the money, I think. Scarborough Southwest, the parliamentary assistant: I appreciate him being here and taking the time. York–Simcoe, of course, is a very strong voice for small business, and Trinity–Spadina, a very strong voice for Ontario.

Here is the real issue, though: I think that the parliamentary assistant—in fact, the member from Trinity–Spadina has it right. The devil here is in the detail, and it’s a matter of trust. When public figures break trust, the public then becomes cynical and less certain and vacillates and is troubled. I think, quite honestly, with all due respect, that’s how I feel about Premier McGuinty just now. I’ve watched, and he has become less certain of our future. This is troubling, as a leader, for us to feel that way.

This bill here really sets up a framework. It’s a regulatory framework. There are 46 recommendations; we know that. Now, if you look at them, they all say, “set up this chief prevention officer.” Almost all of them start with that. Well, we’ll have to see who the appointments are. That’s what the member from Trinity–Spadina—I would say we need to have jobs in the province. We need to work with the industry and we need to protect the workers in that industry. I’m not sure—I told you where we’ve come with the WSIB; it is over the cliff. This bill doesn’t fix it.

It doesn’t put the brakes on some of the things that are going on there now. That’s troubling. This bill itself: I hope the minister will go to hearings and see if it tests out, if it road-tests, as has been talked about. We’ll be paying close attention because, you know, we’re the—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you. Pursuant to standing order 8, this House will recess until 10:30 of the clock.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The House recessed from 1014 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Hon. Christopher Bentley: We’re delighted that page Julian Dusko-Bernyck has his aunt Christina Root and cousin Claudia Root observing question period today.

Mr. Robert Bailey: It’s my great pleasure to introduce, in the members’ gallery, Liang Chen from the University of Toronto, our candidate in Scarborough–Agincourt. She’s joined by her husband, Louis Florence, from the University of Toronto as well.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): On behalf of the member from Etobicoke North and page Ira Sharma, I would like to introduce Nishtha Sharma, Rakesh Sharma and Ishani Sharma, who are in the members’ gallery. Welcome.

On behalf of the MPP for Richmond Hill, I would like to introduce Kim Gavine, executive director of the Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation. Welcome.

ORAL QUESTIONS

TAXATION

Mr. Tim Hudak: My question is to the Acting Premier. Acting Premier, tonight is your annual Liberal Party dinner in Toronto. We suspect you’ll do what you always do and leak contents of the upcoming provincial budget to Liberal insiders first, instead of the Legislative Assembly or the general public. The finance minister has received the Ontario PC caucus pre-budget submission—outstanding work by our finance critic, the member from Parry Sound–Muskoka—where the PC Party calls for you to finally give some relief and respect to Ontario families who pay the bills.

Minister, as you recall, last year your sneaky eco tax was nowhere to be found in your budget. You tried to slip it in on Canada Day, when families weren’t looking. I ask the Acting Premier: Will you at least show some respect for Ontario families this year and just be up front? What sneaky tax hike do you have up your sleeve for 2011?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: The Leader of the Opposition is implying—and I understand he said today—that he thinks there will be tax increases in the budget. I think that what he has forgotten to tell people is that we have made, consistently, tax decreases for the families of Ontario: $12 billion over three years in tax cuts and other tax relief for Ontario families. Some 93% of Ontario families will get a permanent tax cut as a result of our tax reform package, and 90,000 people will no longer pay personal income tax because of our tax reforms.

The member opposite seems to be making a comment on record. I would say, based on his record, people can expect nothing but cuts to service from that member.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: So we have the Liberals now saying that they’ve delivered tax cuts for families. You tell us that smart meters are saving families money. I’m looking for Dalton McGuinty confirming that the Leafs are going to win the cup in 2011.

Come on, Minister. Last year, you tried to sneak in the eco tax. You didn’t have the courage to actually put it in your budget. Liberal members opposite are practically salivating at their desks with ideas for new tax grabs on the backs of families. You have Liberal MPPs calling for a new school board tax and a water tax. You have members calling for a carbon tax. Please tell us: Which one will it be, or are you going to try to keep it secret until after the next election?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Finance.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: I look forward to introducing a budget later this month that will build on the Ontario child benefit to cut taxes for working Ontarians by $1.2 billion. I look forward to introducing a budget that will build on our tax cut for small businesses—18%, the largest cut to small business in history. I look forward to building on our record of lowering taxes for Ontarians of modest means—19% in the 2009 budget. But most importantly, I look forward to building on our record of education and health care, to build a better education system.

What all Ontarians want to know is: What will that leader and his party do? They are going to shut down full-day learning. They will close hospitals and lay off nurses. We’re not going back there. The people of Ontario want a vision of leadership, and that’s what Dalton McGuinty and his government are providing.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Final supplementary.

Mr. Tim Hudak: I’m waiting for him to mention the plague of locusts as well. That’s probably next in the Liberal spin.

You know what the facts are, Minister? You always say you’re not going to increase taxes, and then Dalton McGuinty’s government brings in a tax increase of some kind.

Let’s look at what your members are saying. Your Minister of Research and Innovation—how do I put this politely?—who is infinitely quotable, says, “It is time for all of us to start to get comfortable with two words: carbon tax”; your Minister of Consumer Services said, “Certainly a carbon tax is something to look at....”; and the chair of your climate change advisory committee said that he’s “a huge advocate of a carbon tax.”

Don’t you understand, Minister? Families actually need relief from the constant McGuinty tax hikes. Why are you talking so much about increasing taxes on Ontario families?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: I welcomed the support of Jim Flaherty and John Baird when we cut family taxes. They get it; they understand it.

That member and his party are talking about something that hasn’t happened. I want to talk about what has happened. They closed 39 hospitals on their watch. It wasn’t a plague of locusts; it was a plague that nearly undermined our public health care system. Twenty-six million student days of education were lost in this province because of their slash-and-burn approach at a time when the world economy was growing. We have laid out a plan to protect public education, build on our successes in public health and lower taxes for all Ontarians.

The one thing we haven’t heard from them is a plan. Why? Because they don’t want Ontarians to know that they are going back to slash and burn, closing hospitals, closing schools and harming the environment. Ontario will reject that.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Mr. Tim Hudak: Back to the Acting Premier. He did use “plague of locusts.” I could have won the pool on that one. We’ll wait for the cancellation of Christmas next.

Minister, let me tell you something. When your leader, Premier McGuinty, isn’t busy taxing, he’s busy opening the gates to runaway spending and Liberal waste. While budget season seems to be the only time that he ever actually talks about restraint, his talk is cheap.

Your last budget was a dramatic failure. You said you were going to freeze public sector wages, but your plan has gone badly off the rails with increases that are simply out of touch with the abilities of families to pay the bills. Since your public sector wage freeze has become such a disaster, how can we believe any promise you make in your budget about fiscal constraint?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Ontario has the lowest collective agreement settlement rates—lower than the private sector, lower than municipalities and, yes, lower than the federal government right now, and we will be speaking more about that.

What Ontarians want to know is: When you eliminate the health premium and cut $3 billion from health care, how are you going to continue to operate hospitals?

The Leader of the Opposition wants to cut another $3 billion from taxes. That means they will close full-day learning. Make no mistake; they are not committed to that by any stretch of the imagination.

There’s a lot of bluster from over there, a lot of information that doesn’t meet the test of accuracy, but one thing is absent: a plan—because they don’t want Ontarians to know that they’re going to close hospitals, lay off nurses, close schools and undo the great strides this province has made over the last seven years.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: I think the minister knows the reality that Ontario families have, sadly, learned the hard way, and that’s that Premier McGuinty is simply hard-wired to increase taxes and waste taxpayers’ money on bigger and bloated bureaucracies.

Premier McGuinty trying to convince us that he’s got his spending habit under control is like Charlie Sheen trying to convince us that he has finally kicked his drug habit. I’m more likely to bet on Charlie Sheen than Dalton McGuinty to cut taxes in the province of Ontario.

Last spring, Minister, you made a big show about trying to get the public spending under control. You had a phony wage freeze that has gone badly off the rails.

I ask you: Will you follow the Ontario PC recommendation to fix the broken arbitration system and ensure that at the end of the day Ontario families can actually pay the bills?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: As somebody who ran the largest addictions program in Ontario for eight years, I think it’s deplorable that the Leader of the Opposition would stoop to questions about the people in this province who are fighting addictions every day. It’s absolutely scandalous.

Let’s talk about that. So now he’s going to close addictions programs. Later today, we’re going to debate mental health issues—an important debate, but that member wants to make fun of people with addictions instead of focusing on the issues.

Instead of making fun of people with addictions, instead of undermining people who are working hard to achieve sobriety and become contributing members of society, tell us what you’re going to do. Put it on the table. Mike Harris had the courage to do that. Mike Harris laid it out a year and a half early. And do you know what he did? He closed hospitals. He closed schools. He compared nurses to hula hoops. The people of Ontario see through that—

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): We’re just going to take a minute to get our breath.

Final supplementary.

Mr. Tim Hudak: What a bunch of silly nonsense coming from the finance minister, who has no plan to get spending under control and has up his sleeve another underhanded tax grab to take more money out of the pockets of Ontario families.

You’ll remember last time, Minister; you secretly had in your 2010 budget a plan to cancel the mandatory review of these bloated health bureaucracies called LHINs. Since that time, the Ombudsman revealed that your LHINs held secret, illegal meetings where they talked about closing ERs, like in Fort Erie and Port Colborne. The number of executives on your LHIN sunshine list continues to grow. The LHIN in your own hometown wanted to spend $10,000 of health money to bring Disney’s magical kingdom to their annual conference, the kind of Mickey Mouse decision they only backed away from when we caught them.

Instead of using the back pages to cancel the LHIN review, will you put on the front page an end to this bloated health bureaucracy and put the money into front-line care for Ontarians?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: The only place he’ll be Premier of is fantasyland. Talk about secrets: He was part of a government that left a hidden $5.5-billion deficit when they left office. Talk about secrets: They are going to cut $3 billion from health care. And they’re not even being secret about full-day learning: They have said that it’s a frill; it’s not something that’s a priority. We disagree.

This government has laid out a plan that will cross a variety of issues: education, health care—

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): The question was asked, and I think all of us would like to hear the answer, particularly those on the side that it was asked by.

Minister of Finance.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: We have laid out plans that have lowered taxes for 93% of Ontarians and enacted them; they voted against that. Ontarians will turn to this government for a reasonable plan to get back to balance that builds on education and health care, preserves those values, those things that are important to the people of Ontario.

SMART METERS

Mr. Peter Tabuns: My question is to the Minister of Energy. Two studies show that smart meters are costing most people more money, but the Minister of Energy continues to insist that people are saving. Where is the minister’s proof?

Hon. Brad Duguid: In those very studies—indeed, a study from Hydro One indicates that about half of the people they have had online for some time now are seeing benefits, and about $5 a month is the range. As I’ve said, the savings are modest but they’re savings nonetheless.

The other thing that Hydro One’s work has revealed is that, indeed, in a survey of 2,000 or 3,000 of their consumers, 80% of them have indicated that they are changing their energy usage patterns. That’s a good thing.

There was a time when the NDP used to believe in standing for conservation. There was a time when the very member opposite would have supported efforts to try to encourage people to move off of peak usage. It appears those times are gone.

I ask the member to look back to what he believed in the past and maybe see if it’s somewhat reflected in where the NDP wants to go in the future.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: I believe in offshore wind power. This is a Minister of Energy who doesn’t, so I’ve had it with the lectures.

Today, the Ontario Energy Association—

Interjection.

Mr. Peter Tabuns: My, my, they are cranky, Speaker.

Today, the Ontario Energy Association called on the government to send even stronger price signals. On Monday, the minister told reporters, “At this point in time the program’s new, so we haven’t set our peak and non-peak prices at a level that is a huge differential.” Does he plan to raise those peak rates and, if so, when?

Hon. Brad Duguid: I did have a little trouble hearing the member’s question but I think he talked about the report from the Ontario Energy Association. I want to thank them for their report because, indeed, the Ontario Energy Association had a great deal of input into our long-term energy plan and has been very supportive of our long-term energy plan and the directions we’ve taken. They’ve made—and I’ve only had a chance to scan the report—about 12 recommendations to us, which we’ll certainly take seriously.

We’re going to continue to work with the energy sector and the Ontario Energy Association to build a clean, reliable and modern energy system. They’re supporting our efforts to do that, and we welcome input from all in those efforts.

Now, I did ask the Leader of the Opposition to contribute to that discussion. I sent a letter to ask her to contribute to that discussion about a month or so ago, and I got absolutely nothing back.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Final supplementary?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: I always take it as a bad sign when the minister won’t answer a question.

Because there might have been a lot of noise and he didn’t hear the question, I’m just going to go back and say: So minister, do you plan to raise the peak rates for time of use or not? And if so, if you’re going to raise them, will you tell us when?

Hon. Brad Duguid: I know that member understands how prices are set in the province of Ontario and I know that he understands that the Ontario Energy Board will come forward every six months with their regulated price plan. That’s what’s going to happen in the spring, so he’ll get those answers in the spring.

One thing I do want to share with the member—I think it’s really important because his party no longer seems to be supporting investments in the smart grid—this morning, the Minister of Economic Development and Trade and myself made an announcement in partnership with General Electric in the town of Markham: a $40-million investment in a smart grid centre. It’s going to create 146 jobs.

Ontario’s not only a leader in renewables; we’re not only a leader in building a clean energy powerhouse; we’re also a global leader in building the smart grid. That’s something that’s going to benefit us today and it’s something that’s going to benefit future—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you. New question.

SMART METERS

Mr. Peter Tabuns: I just wish you were more concerned about investing in people’s homes and businesses to help them cut their energy bills. I think that would be more welcome—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Excuse me; the question is to the Minister of Energy?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: Yes.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you.

Mr. Peter Tabuns: It seemed to continue and flow for me, Speaker.

Families in Hamilton and Niagara are being asked to pay even more for smart meters. The Ontario Energy Board approved another increase in smart meter charges in that area. Are other utilities next?

Hon. Brad Duguid: Once again, I’m getting the impression that the NDP thinks we can install four and a half million smart meters across this province and there’s no cost to it. There are costs. There are costs to building a clean, reliable, modern energy system. There’s no question about it. But the fact is, other jurisdictions around the world are following our lead, modernizing their—

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Once again, I say that those who ask the question may want to hear the answers.

Minister?

Hon. Brad Duguid: Other jurisdictions around the world are indeed following our lead: Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria, Spain, France, Italy, New Zealand, Ireland, Malta, California, Texas, Maine, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Florida and Alabama, to name a few. Why does the NDP think families in Malta and Alabama deserve a more modern energy grid than families here in Ontario? Why do you think those families deserve to have a modern—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: I’m glad that Alabama is finally catching up to us.

The Premier and his Minister of Energy said that smart meters would definitely save people money. A billion dollars—or more—is a lot of money. It could have been spent on direct conservation, like home energy retrofits. That would have made a lot of sense.

Instead of helping people conserve and save money, isn’t this more about raising rates through the back door?

Hon. Brad Duguid: His leader stood in this House and criticized the very investments we were making in the program he just talked about. You can’t have it both ways.

The investment in smart meters—and the member should know this—will accrue revenues of about $1.6 billion back to energy consumers over the course of the next 15 years. He should know that that’s a good investment. It’s modernizing our energy infrastructure.

Ontario is ahead of the rest of the world, but others are following close behind. I’ll say it again: Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria, Spain, France, Italy, New Zealand, Ireland, Malta, California, Texas, Maine, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Florida and Alabama, and those are just a few.

We’re ahead of them, but we believe that Ontario families deserve a more modern energy system than the people of Malta, the people of Alabama and the rest of the world. We’re going to make the investments we need to—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you. Final supplementary.

Mr. Peter Tabuns: A minister who is willing to shut down the home energy savings program is in no position to lecture this House about energy efficiency.

Families in Hamilton, in Niagara and across Ontario are being told to pay more: more when they turn on their lights and more for the meter that’s already costing them. There’s one way to figure out whether the $1 billion in smart meters was a worthwhile investment: New Democrats think that it’s time—and it’s long overdue—to call in the Auditor General, open the books, ask the right questions and get the answers.

Will the minister agree and support our call for the auditor to evaluate his smart meter program?

Hon. Brad Duguid: The NDP continue to try to have it both ways. On one hand, they talk about being in favour of conservation. On one hand, they talk about wanting to modernize our energy grid. But when it comes down to making the investments, they run; they hide; they don’t want anything to do with that.

Building a clean, reliable, modern energy system isn’t easy. It takes investment. It takes effort. The NDP may think you can deliver that without investment, without effort, but the people of Ontario—Ontario families—are going to see right through those guys. They know that what we’re doing here in this province to build a clean, reliable and modern energy system is worthwhile; that it’s something that’s going to benefit them in their future. It’s going to help get us out of dirty coal. It’s going to help build a cleaner, healthier future for their kids. We’re creating thousands of jobs as we’re doing it. It’s going to help create a more prosperous economy—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you. New question.

SMART METERS

Mr. Tim Hudak: My question is to the Minister of Energy. Last week, the Ontario PC caucus revealed that the cost to install your smart meter tax machines was now over $1 billion. It rivals your eHealth boondoggle in Liberal waste.

Then yesterday, on top of all that, we found out that Hamilton and Niagara families are going to get a 33% increase in the bill to pay for your smart meter tax machines. So instead of the relief that you want to give to families, you’re jacking up the rates on Niagara and Hamilton families to pay for your smart meter tax machines.

Minister, when will you get in touch with what’s happening across the province and pull the plug on your wasteful smart meter tax machine experiment?

Hon. Brad Duguid: That diatribe contains about as much credible information as the first question that he asked, when he got up with information that was totally incorrect and made accusations that, frankly, were pretty mean-spirited about our character over here and what we’re doing on a particular issue. He was dead wrong. He put out a press release, continued the incorrect information, which I’m sure he knew was incorrect, and he still has not to this day apologized.

What that does, in my view, is it tells us what kind of character this Leader of the Opposition has, when he’s wrong, when he makes accusations that impugn motives or people’s characters, and he does not have the courage or the integrity to take them back, apologize for what he said earlier—

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Stop the clock. We’re just going to take a breather.

Are you all ready to continue?

Interjection: What about withdrawing?

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): What about I decide what we’ll do up here?

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): I’m not impartial. The member for Parry Sound–Muskoka, I’d like to tell you that I’m not impartial.

Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: Obviously, the Minister of Energy is becoming unravelled here a little bit. It’s not surprising, considering this is the last person on earth who claims that smart meter tax machines are saving families money. Nobody believes this voice in the smart meter wilderness. Dalton McGuinty’s smart meter tax machines are taking more money out of Ontario families’ pockets that they can’t afford, and that’s why you should call a halt to this latest attack on the pocketbook of Ontario families.

Quite frankly, Minister, I don’t need the Premier to lecture my mom to get up at midnight to do her laundry. I don’t expect the Premier to lecture seniors in this province to get up and do the laundry on Saturdays. I don’t think it’s the role of the Premier—

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Stop the clock.

Come to order. Would the government benches come to order? The member from Thunder Bay–Atikokan. The member for Oxford. The member for Thunder Bay–Atikokan, I’m warning you.

Just to clear the record, it is “I am not partial.”

Continue your supplementary.

Mr. Tim Hudak: I don’t need the Premier lecturing families to have all the kids showered and fed and ready for school before 7 a.m., when the higher charges come in, and if they dare to disobey Premier Dad, he’s going to nail them with higher hydro rates. I think that’s wrong. Why won’t you unplug your expensive hydro meter experiment and—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you. Minister of Energy?

Hon. Brad Duguid: The member brought up his mother. One of the things that certainly my parents taught me is that when I’m wrong on something, when I accuse somebody of doing something that’s incorrect, I apologize. You come clean with people. You withdraw it, or you correct the record. That’s just common courtesy. I keep going back there, but I really think that that’s something that indicates character in people.

My parents taught me that being honest is a very, very important quality, and when I make a mistake—and I do, from time to time—I apologize. I come clean with people, and I’m very honest if I do say something to somebody that’s incorrect.

All I’m asking is that the Leader of the Opposition think of those things, because I’m sure his mother taught him many of those same qualities.

NUCLEAR ENERGY

Mr. Peter Tabuns: I have another question for the Minister of Energy, and I’m pleased that he is taking a position in support of honesty today.

Ontario Power Generation has launched an ad campaign promising to complete the refurbishment of the Darlington nuclear plant on time and on budget, which the ad says they did with their last three major nuclear projects. According to the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, every nuclear project in Ontario’s history has gone over budget.

Why is the minister allowing OPG to so blatantly mislead Ontarians?

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): I’d like you to withdraw that last comment.

Mr. Peter Tabuns: Sorry, Speaker. I withdraw.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Minister of Energy?

Hon. Brad Duguid: I know the NDP do not support nuclear power, but I think Ontario families would want to know: What are they going to replace it with? It’s half of our baseload capacity.

I know it’s a long-standing philosophical position that, for years, they have supported. I think the people of Ontario have moved on from those days. We have a very good experience with nuclear here in this province. It provides half of our baseload capacity. It supports 70,000 jobs across this country, and most of them are here in the province of Ontario—jobs one would think that the NDP would care about. Workers are working very hard to ensure that we keep the lights on in this province.

If we want to have a reliable energy system going forward into the future, if we want to have a strong economy over the course of the next 10 or 20 years, we’re going to have to keep working with our nuclear sector to, indeed, refurbish our units, which is something that needs to be done—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: The minister seems to have forgotten his response to an earlier question this morning.

OPG is trying to convince Ontarians that it can build, or rebuild, a nuclear reactor on budget by trying to rewrite Ontario’s history of nuclear delays and cost overruns. The Minister of Energy is responsible for advising and directing this government-owned corporation.

Will the minister demand that OPG pull these ads and promise Ontarians that they—Ontarians—won’t pay for the inevitable cost overruns of the Darlington rebuild?

Hon. Brad Duguid: The NDP have no idea about the contribution to this economy that the nuclear industry is making: 70,000 jobs across Canada, the majority of which are here in Ontario. We support the nuclear industry here in this province. We need to refurbish those units because we need those units for our baseload capacity to ensure we can provide a reliable source of power for Ontario families and businesses for the next 20 years.

These are important investments. Yes, they’re significant investments, investments I guess the NDP would not support, but what do they support? They seem to be moving away from wind energy. They don’t seem to be supporting investments that we’ve made in renewable power. They’re not supporting our investments to modernize our energy system. They’re not supporting our investments when it comes to conservation. They don’t support natural gas power. There’s not a lot left. We’re going to have to get out the—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you. New question.

MENTAL HEALTH AND ADDICTIONS STRATEGY

Mrs. Maria Van Bommel: My question is for the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. I had the privilege of sitting on the Select Committee on Mental Health and Addictions, where members of all parties learned and listened by travelling across the province. The issue of mental health supports for people who need them is something that means a great deal to me, and it was made even more so by the heart-wrenching stories that we heard. We heard from families, service providers and mental health consumers about their experiences with the system, and we heard about what needs to happen in order to make the system meet the needs of the consumers it serves.

Minister, can you tell us what the government is doing in response to the recommendations of the select committee, which were intended to build a better system to support Ontarians with mental health challenges?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Thank you to the member from Lambton–Kent–Middlesex for her question and for her unwavering commitment to people with mental health and addiction challenges.

The select committee’s non-partisan approach and willingness to delve into very difficult issues was unprecedented. It’s the kind of approach that an issue like this deserves, and I do want to take a moment and thank the chair, our member from Oakville, and all members of the committee for the work that they did.

In addition to the select committee, my predecessor as Minister of Health, the member from Don Valley East, established the minister’s advisory committee to advise us on the development of a 10-year strategy. Together, these reports are helping us develop our 10-year mental health and addictions strategy.

Mental health and addictions is complex. It involves many ministries, and it involves community partners as well. We are taking the time to get it right, but we are committed to releasing it this spring.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mrs. Maria Van Bommel: Thank you to the minister for the update on the status of the response to the select committee’s recommendations.

In part of my riding of Lambton–Kent–Middlesex, which is in the South West LHIN, I have been hearing concerns about changes to the way that mental health services are being delivered. It seems there are some who are interested in maintaining the status quo and ensuring that services get to people the way they always have: through institutions and in residential settings. Can the minister please provide clarity to this House about what is happening with mental health services in my communities?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I appreciate the opportunity to address this issue.

I, too, have heard concerns from people who are more interested in protecting the status quo than responding to the evidence that tells us that community-based supports are very often better for people, providing care for people in their community and close to their families. That’s why we’re investing more in community-based care; in the South West LHIN, we’ve been able to increase funding by 61% on communities.

But I do want to say that both the select committee and the minister’s advisory group identified stigmatization of vulnerable people as the most important issue that we must address, immediately and together. I find it absolutely appalling that the Leader of the Opposition would further stigmatize an already vulnerable group, especially on the day that we are debating an opposition day motion about addictions and mental health.

TAXATION

Mr. Norm Miller: My question is to the Acting Premier. We know that a carbon tax isn’t the only tax you’re looking at hitting Ontario families with: The member for Don Valley East introduced both a water tax bill and an education tax bill in this Legislature. Ontario families know there isn’t a tax you don’t like. Which of these three can we expect to read about tomorrow?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: None of them.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mr. Norm Miller: So does that mean we’ll find out about it after the next election?

Ontario families can’t afford a carbon tax, a water tax or an education tax, but then Ontario families couldn’t afford the health tax, the HST, eco taxes or your expensive energy experiments, and that didn’t stop Premier McGuinty. At the end of the day, Premier McGuinty is hard-wired to tax and will tax again. The only question is, when and where will the out-of-touch Premier strike next?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: There will be no tax increases in the budget.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): New question.

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr. Rosario Marchese: My question is to the Minister of Education. Minister, tonight the Toronto District School Board is considering TV advertising targeted at students in 74 high schools. Does the minister support the Toronto school board’s plan to commercialize education?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: I’m happy to respond because it gives me an opportunity to again remind the members of this House that we have significantly increased the support of students in the Toronto District School Board. We will continue to do that. And I’m sure that the honourable member also appreciates that we are in the process of considering how school boards can raise funds, whether through fundraising, adding fees and in fact corporate sponsorship.

We have not yet published the corporate piece. I think that parents in the Toronto District School Board are very interested and have an important role to play in having the school board understand whether or not they think this is an appropriate venue and way for the school board to raise funds. But I’m happy that I am able to remind people in the Toronto District School Board catchment that our commitment to education funding has—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: The Toronto school board is about to sign a seven-year contract to allow television ads in 74 high schools, all to raise about $1,000 per school. The McGuinty government has obstinately refused, and you have obstinately refused, to establish guidelines for school fundraising, and now Ontario’s largest school board, starved for cash, is being forced to sell access to students to marketing firms and big companies.

Why won’t the minister speak out against the introduction of television advertising in schools before it’s too late?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: I had the privilege of being the chair of a school board in the 1990s, and I can say that at that time, school boards were starved for cash; they were.

What I can say now is that our government has increased funding to school boards by 40%, and we’ve done that in the face of declining enrolment.

With respect to the guidelines for students’ fees, they have been put out for consultation. We are getting feedback. We are going to be posting guidelines for fundraising and we are also going to be dealing with corporate sponsorship.

What I think is important is that parents in the Toronto District School Board make it very clear to the people they elected—they elected them just last October—and have them know how they feel about this proposal. This is the role and responsibility of school boards, and I think they have an obligation to pay attention to what parents and people in their communities are saying about how they’re raising funds.

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Mr. Bas Balkissoon: My question is for the Minister of Education. Minister, yesterday the latest graduation rate was announced, and the Leader of the Opposition said that the increase in the graduation rate is due to the fact that our government has been watering down the curriculum and lowering the bar. He said yesterday that we’ve made it easier for students to pass standardized tests. He claims that students will be in for a rude awakening when they graduate.

Would the minister explain to my constituents what these assertions made by the Leader of the Opposition are all about? Is the increase in the graduation rate really the result of school being easier for students?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: I thank the honourable member for the question. It is an important question, and I was so disappointed when the opposition basically slapped our students’ quest yesterday, first when they said that those students who work very hard and achieve a graduation diploma over five years instead of four don’t deserve to be counted. We are not of that mind. They do deserve to be counted.

The other slap was that because there are more successful students, the curriculum must be watered down. To the members who are heckling me today, I would draw your attention to the PISA test—the international body that tests students in Ontario. What they have said is that our students in the province of Ontario are among the top five in the world. That’s an international, independent body. So they are in denial about the success of our students—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mr. Bas Balkissoon: My constituents will be pleased to know that we are supporting our students and teachers. We all know how hard our teachers work to prepare our students for the future.

Minister, I’ve been hearing from my constituents that there is some confusion about how the graduation rate is calculated. There have been assertions by some that the graduation rate has been inflated, that the government is just painting a rosy picture that is not actually the case in Ontario. What can I tell my constituents about this? Are Ontario students actually achieving better, or is the graduation rate being calculated to inflate the numbers? My constituents want an answer.

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: The answer is very simple: If students enter a high school and they graduate, they’re counted. We don’t distinguish whether they take four years or five years. They are successful. They have worked hard. Their parents are proud of their accomplishments, and we are proud to stand behind them and say, “You matter to us. We count you. You are part of the 81% of students in Ontario who have graduated.” That will be a part of our number.

One thing that we’re doing, as well, to ensure that students continue to be successful is full-day kindergarten. We know that when our youngest learners are supported, they are more than likely to graduate. The opposition are prepared to have have and have-not schools. They are not committed to full-day kindergarten. That is clear. Our commitment is that all schools, by 2014, will have full-day kindergarten.

It would be a have and have-not world if Tim Hudak were the Premier of Ontario. Families in Ontario voted the—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): New question.

CURRICULUM

Mr. Jim Wilson: My question is to the Minister of Education. This week, the McGuinty Liberals once again revealed just how out of touch they are with Ontario families. After the Minister of Research and Innovation said that parents opposed to sex ed being taught to their six-year-olds were homophobes, both the Premier and the Minister of Education refused to say that he was wrong. Will the Minister of Education finally stand up today and condemn the comments from the Minister of Research and Innovation?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: What I am prepared to condemn is any plan that will create a crisis in education. A lack of commitment to full-day kindergarten will create have and have-not schools in the province of Ontario. That is a crisis in education.

When the opposition refuses to recognize the achievements of students who have worked hard for five years to graduate, that, in my view, is a crisis.

They are absolutely intent on maintaining their policy of the past, and that is to create a crisis; that is to beat up on our students and our teachers. What I can say to the member opposite is, that is not a part of our plan. We have supported students since we’ve come to government, and that will continue.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mr. Jim Wilson: The McGuinty Liberals just don’t have any respect for Ontario families. They tell us that they have a more intelligent understanding than parents. They stand by when one of their own insults parents and communities all across this great province.

Minister, is the reason nobody over there will condemn the comments from the Minister of Research and Innovation because all Liberal MPPs agree with them?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: What we condemn is a lack of commitment to all of the students in the province of Ontario. Every student deserves the commitment of their government. Certainly, parents who have children in McNab Public School in Arnprior, Good Shepherd School in Brampton,or Mohawk Gardens Public School in Burlington are parents who want to know that their children will be treated fairly and equitably, that they will be able to access a wonderful program that will ensure student success going forward.

Their plan is for a two-tiered education system; our plan is to invest in students—

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Member for Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington: I’ve heard enough, so a warning.

Minister?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: They’re about a two-tiered system. They don’t like the response because it puts them on the spot. It requires them to—

Interjections.

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: Are you going to have full-day kindergarten for every student in Ontario or are you going to have a two-tiered system of education?

FOREST INDUSTRY

Mr. Gilles Bisson: My question is to the Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry—it’s such a

long title. Minister, a short question: Why did you not support the community of Wawa in its bid to hold on to the wood of that community and allow them to restructure the Weyerhaeuser plant?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: I think, as most of the members of the House know, we have a wood supply competition that’s going on in the province of Ontario, one where we want to see, in the short term, our wood being put back to work.

We brought forward a wood supply competition about a year ago; 115 applicants came forward with proposals. It’s certainly a complicated and long process, but one where, indeed, we are in the process now of being in a position to make some announcements. We’ve had some very good announcements all across the north, which are creating work in each of those communities and also retaining jobs. It’s a wonderful thing in that sense.

There are challenges, of course. There are applications that are out there that we’ve not yet been able to respond to.

As the member also knows, I’m not in a position to speak about applications on a specific basis. We in fact set up the system very carefully under the watchful eye of a Fairness Commissioner to make sure that the recommendations that came forward were done in an absolutely fair and transparent way.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: You say, “wonderful”? That’s not the definition that Mayor Nowicki would give. They’re not happy. They don’t think this is wonderful. In fact, you sent them a letter on February 7 saying, “No, you have lost out in the wood competition process.” That has effectively hamstrung that community from being able to figure out how to restructure that mill so they can get back up and running again.

My question to you is very simple: Why do you not allow the communities to hold on to the wood that they previously had in their communities so they can restructure and look forward to a brighter future that truly would be wonderful?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Again, the wood supply competition was set up, making available about 10 million cubic metres of wood across the province. Some 115 applications came forward. We are very pleased about the fact that, indeed, there’s a number of very successful applicants. Decisions that were being made are obviously very challenging as well, because it is a complex process.

Again, we set it up so that the minister did not make decisions based on a partisan basis. I think that was very, very important to do. We are continuing to work with all the communities, including those communities that have not been successful with their applications. We are working with them. We are offering them opportunities for a debriefing, and we are going to continue to work with them.

We recognize—as certainly I do, as an MPP for a riding that has so many operations that obviously are looking for a bright future in the forestry sector—how challenging it is, which is why we are going to continue to work with each of those communities, including the community of Wawa.

ABORIGINAL CHILDREN AND YOUTH

Mr. Bill Mauro: My question is for the Minister of Children and Youth Services. It’s clear that youth receiving support and protection from Ontario’s children’s aid societies are some of the most vulnerable kids in our province. While we acknowledge that the government is taking steps to improve and modernize our child protection system, resulting in fewer kids entering care and more youth given the chance to succeed, we also know there are unique challenges faced by aboriginal communities with respect to child welfare.

In my riding of Thunder Bay–Atikokan, Dilico Anishinabek Family Care provides a range of responsive individual, family and community programs and services for all Anishinabek people.

In addition to the work that goes on at Dilico, government has a significant role to play in supporting the needs of aboriginal children across Ontario. What is our government doing to improve the quality of life for aboriginal kids and their families?

Hon. Laurel C. Broten: Our government has made it a real priority to understand the challenges faced by aboriginal communities and to take action to support these needs. I’ve heard from chiefs and councils, teachers, foster parents, front-line workers and public health nurses that the challenges faced by aboriginal children and youth are unique and require an approach that recognizes that fact.

The appointment of John Beaucage as aboriginal adviser is part of our government’s commitment to achieve better outcomes for aboriginal children and youth in need of protection, both on and off reserve. Mr. Beaucage continues to guide discussions with aboriginal leaders and front-line service providers, and offer advice on aboriginal child welfare.

I’m currently working with John Beaucage to host a summit in April 2011 that will determine how we can work together to improve prevention approaches and the delivery of child welfare services to aboriginal children and youth right across the province.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mr. Bill Mauro: Thank you, Minister. Those investments are critical and their effects will be felt by aboriginal youth and their families in my riding and right across the province. But it’s also important to recognize the importance of designated aboriginal children’s aid societies.

Dilico embraces a holistic approach to the delivery of health, mental health, addictions and child welfare services to complement the strengths, values and traditions of Anishinabek children, families and communities. Quoting their website, “Our vision is balance and well-being for Anishinabek children, families and communities.”

Can the minister please tell the House how our government demonstrates its commitment to supporting the designation of aboriginal CASs?

Hon. Laurel C. Broten: I want to acknowledge the great work being done by Dilico and all of our aboriginal child welfare agencies.

Having aboriginal CASs is important to us, and that’s why we ended the previous government’s moratorium on new CASs and have designated two new aboriginal CASs. My ministry’s regional offices are currently working with a number of aboriginal service providers that are seeking designation as aboriginal CASs. We are providing $3 million this year to aboriginal service providers to help them with capacity-building during the designation process. In the past four years, we’ve given almost $9 million in funding support for this process. Dilico has been allocated over $25 million to support and protect vulnerable kids and families, and that is a 148% increase since 2003.

We want all of these kids, all aboriginal children across the province, to achieve their full potential. We’re working with community partners to make sure that we deliver the future for them that we aspire to for all of our kids.

NUCLEAR ENERGY

Mr. John O’Toole: My question is to the Minister of Energy. Minister, it seems that every day we add another

chapter to your government’s book on your expensive energy experiments. In January, the C.D. Howe Institute reported that you spent a billion dollars exporting Ontario power to Quebec and the United States, giving them discount power while Ontario families are paying skyrocketing prices for hydro. Next, we saw your government backtrack on a moratorium on offshore wind development. Finally, we witnessed thousands of mostly rural residents being told the microFIT project cannot be connected to the grid.

Rather than wasting your time on these failed energy experiments, why don’t you focus on the clean, reliable power offered by Darlington’s nuclear project? Nuclear energy supplies over 50% of energy in Ontario. Minister, will you make a commitment to the Darlington new-build project here today? Make that commitment.

Hon. Brad Duguid: The member’s from Durham, for crying out loud. Where have you been as we’ve been talking about our commitment to these two new units over the course of the last year? He’s from that community. He should be paying attention to the announcements after announcements, the speeches after speeches, the number of times in this Legislature that this government has committed itself to that project.

But what we’re not going to do is what his leader wants to do. His leader said earlier that we should purchase those units without regard to the price. Early on in the process, it would have cost us billions more than we will end up paying. They’re impulse nuclear shoppers. We’re going to be very responsible. We care about the prices that we pay. We’re going to be making sure we get a good deal for Ontario taxpayers, Ontario consumers. There’s no question; we’re moving forward—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. John O’Toole: It’s revealing that you make a lot of speeches and a lot of promises, but you don’t do anything. That’s the problem.

Wasting time and money on expensive energy experiments like wind and solar power isn’t being fair to the people or the consumers of Ontario. We need clean, reliable and safe power for the future, instead of your expensive energy experiments, which have driven up the price of energy to families in Ontario by over 75%. How can you expect Ontario families to take your word when your actions tell a completely different story?

Minister, all I’m asking you to do today is make a clear, unambiguous commitment to the new-build nuclear at Darlington, starting here, right now, today.

Hon. Brad Duguid: I thought I just did that, but we’ll keep doing it. We’re very committed to building these two new units.

But he really ought to be talking to his cousins in Ottawa, because we were very much along on this purchase when the federal government decided they were going to restructure AECL.

It’s very clear that while we’re working hard to make sure we get a good price for Ontario families, their priority is to try to get a good price for Stephen Harper. That’s not where we’re at; that may be where they’re at. They may be shilling for the federal government on this.

We’re standing up for Ontario consumers, to make sure we get a good deal for Ontario consumers, make sure we purchase these two new nuclear units and make sure we stand up for the 70,000 people in the nuclear industry. We may be the only government left in this country doing that, but we will purchase those new units.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Mr. Paul Miller: My question is to Minister of Consumer Services. Seniors, some wheelchair-bound, in a seven-storey Stoney Creek condo were without elevator service for three weeks. They prepared for a two-week elevator repair but never imagined a full week’s wait for a TSSA inspector. They were told that the TSSA was unavailable to inspect because they were all away at a conference.

Why would the minister—

Interjection: Over here.

Mr. Paul Miller: Well, you change ministers every day.

Why would the minister allow any agency’s entire inspection team to be shut down for several days?

Hon. John Gerretsen: I always look forward to a question from the member from Hamilton East on an issue like this or any other.

I’m not familiar with the situation. If you want to talk to me about it—what you’ve described so far sounds to me as if it’s unacceptable. Seniors in a large building should not be without elevator service for a week. I’m willing to look into it, and I’m willing to work with the member to get this issue resolved.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Supplementary?

Mr. Paul Miller: Thank you, Minister, but I have to do my supplementary.

The TSSA has just appointed its first chief safety and risk officer to review, analyze and prepare public reports on the safety activities of the TSSA. He will review and analyze any safety matters that he, the TSSA board or the Minister of Consumer Services identifies as being in the public interest.

Will the minister direct the chief safety and risk officer to investigate this loss of service for these seniors, and will she—sorry; we’ve changed ministers—will he guarantee that no one else will suffer a loss of service like this again?

Hon. John Gerretsen: As the member well knows, the TSSA is primarily concerned about safety in a number of different areas. They have a tough job; they do a good job in most circumstances.

I’m very pleased that, recently, they have employed the services of a chief safety officer. Undoubtedly, I will be asking him to look into this situation as well, and we will try to get this resolved as soon as possible.

Thank you very much for your supplementary question, but we want to make sure that our member gets a final question as well.

WATER QUALITY

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: My question is to the Minister of the Environment. Minister, source protection committees are hard at work across the province on plans to protect their local sources of drinking water.

The Trent committee in my own riding of Northumberland–Quinte West is a great example. They have engaged in the community, enlisted local assistance and outlined every step of the process.

Still, some residents are concerned about a previous comment made by the member from Simcoe North that committees are sending threatening and intimidating letters.

Minister, is it true that these plans will negatively impact rural property owners?

Hon. John Wilkinson: I want to thank my friend from Northumberland for the question, because he understands that one of the most important things we can do is to keep our sources of drinking water safe. We do that by having a plan that works from the groundwater up.

So we have, across the province of Ontario, our source water planning protection committees, which are not made up of anonymous people but are made up of citizens: very competent, very professional and very committed citizens who understand that they play a vital role in ensuring that our sources of drinking water are kept safe in the first place. So I reject the allegation from the member for Simcoe North that these people are anonymous. That is not true.

I want to thank the member for Northumberland, because I know that in his community some $333,000 has been committed by our ministry, through our stewardship funding, to early actions, to fund remediation around the Trent River and in the Trent River watershed. I want to thank the member for the work that he has done in supporting that effort from the groundwater up.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): There being no deferred votes, this House will recess until 3 of the clock.

The House recessed from 1135 to 1500.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Mrs. Julia Munro: I would like to ask all members to join me in welcoming Debbie Gordon to the Legislature today. She is wearing two hats, one as a member of the campaign to save the Maskinonge River and the other as a member of the Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation. Please welcome Debbie Gordon.

Mr. Kevin Daniel Flynn: A bit later, I will be introducing a private member’s bill that actually was originated by a gentleman who joins us in the east gallery today and who is a former page: Alex Don, who is here with his mother, Irina.

Also with us are Fernando Costa, who is his guidance counsellor at Assumption high school; David Medhurst; Ken Lewenza, the president of the Canadian Auto Workers; Nancy Kirby, president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association; Barbara Klassen, who is a trauma program coordinator at Hamilton General Hospital; Paul Cianciolo, the principal of Assumption high school; and Tony Ferguson, who is the father of Alex’s Australian friend. They have joined us today to witness the introduction of a private member’s bill that was initiated by the work of Alex, a former page here five years ago.

Mr. John O’Toole: I would like to recognize Caroline Schultz, who is the executive director for Ontario Nature. She lives in my riding of Durham and is here today with the Oak Ridges moraine/greenbelt group.

As well, I would like to recognize Liang Chen, who is the next member from the riding of Scarborough–Agincourt.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK

Mr. Peter Shurman: I rise today to once again denounce Israeli Apartheid Week. Despite our efforts last fall, we are still hearing stories of student intimidation and hatemongering under the guise of so-called educational programs in support of Israeli Apartheid Week.

Last autumn, this House unanimously passed my resolution to ban the use of this violent, prejudicial term. I was delighted to see that all MPPs of all political stripes stood together to condemn that word “apartheid” for what it really is: hate-filled. Sadly, a unanimous resolution by this assembly sends a message but has no force in law.

I stand in this House today to condemn again this vicious week that has caused students to be intimidated on their own university and college campuses and prevented peaceful and productive discussion about the issues in the Middle East, a region in turmoil. The Ontario Legislature seldom has the opportunity to comment on issues that exist in other jurisdictions, but it is clear to me that this is an issue which is spilling into our educational institutions, from the university level through college and now even at the high school level.

In my riding, I have heard from people about the harm that this annual event causes, potentially physically and certainly emotionally. I have committed to the residents of Thornhill that hatred will not be tolerated in any shape or form and that, as their elected representative, I will do my job to ensure that we stamp out hatred in all its forms.

I ask this House to support me once again in condemning the use of the term “Israeli Apartheid Week” and to join me in bringing an end to hatred in Ontario.

LEADING WOMEN BUILDING

COMMUNITIES AWARDS

Mr. Phil McNeely: On Monday, the minister responsible for women’s issues, the Honourable Laurel Broten, visited Ottawa–Orléans to join me in recognizing 18 women whose efforts have contributed to the greater well-being of their community and fellow residents.

The Leading Women/Leading Girls Building Communities Awards honour women and girls who actively demonstrate excellent leadership in areas such as athletics, international work, civic projects and school initiatives. My office received a number of nominations this year, representing a diverse group of women who share a common purpose: to make their community a better place to live. I was honoured to be able to recognize these women one day prior to the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.

On a day when we celebrate the achievements of women all over the world, it gave me great pleasure to celebrate the achievements of women in Ottawa–Orléans. I’m sure you will join me in congratulating them and thanking all the leading women and girls in our respective ridings who have been recognized through this important program.

This year’s recipients in my riding are: Geraldine Dixon; Catherine Jellett; Christine Flammer; Marie-Claude Doucet; Emily Leahy; Rachel Lalonde; Kellie Ring; Gayle Downing; Anaëlle Raffray; Julie Lizotte; Moji and Shola Agoro; Alexa Brewer; Johanne Lacombe; Mary Lou Maisonneuve; Mashooda Syed; Nathalie Lafrenière; and Debbie Orth.

Our communities and this assembly owe all of this year’s recipients our sincere gratitude.

ALUMINUM SMELTER

Mrs. Julia Munro: I welcome today an important resident of my local community: Debbie Gordon, who for many years has worked tirelessly to help clean up and preserve our local environment. She has worked hard on many issues, such as the Oak Ridges moraine and the campaign to save the Maskinonge River.

An important concern in our area for many, many years, and one that Debbie has worked on tirelessly, is the cleanup of the Thane Developments aluminum smelter site in Georgina. Cleaning up this property is a question of money, as much as possibly $4 million, and who should pay.

I don’t claim to have the answers, but I know someone who did: the Premier. A letter that Debbie wrote to our local paper in 2007 outlines his promise. She writes that in 2002, he “personally promised me, if elected, he would clean up the abandoned aluminum smelter on Georgina’s Warden Avenue. Advocate editor John Slykhuis and Carol McDermott of the South Lake Simcoe Naturalists were witnesses to that promise. That promise has not been kept.”

If the Premier doesn’t have the money to keep this promise, why did he make it in the first place?

JACK FREER

Mr. Michael Prue: I rise today to bring attention to this House and to the people of Ontario of a monumental event in the life of Jack Freer. Jack Freer, this Saturday, will be celebrating 60 years of doing barbering in East York.

He started being a barber in East York at the age of 15, when he apprenticed, and he apprenticed at the corner of Cosburn and Woodbine Avenues. He worked for someone else, but over the years, he bought out that business and set up his own.

He started being a barber in East York 60 years ago, when it was mostly rural, when there were a few houses—the first few houses that were being built after the war. He has continued until this very day and has seen a huge change in the community, from being one that was rural to one that is part of the city of Toronto urban fabric.

He has cut the hair now of four generations of East Yorkers. This coming Saturday, he will be celebrating with friends and customers as he launches year 61. Over all of those years, he has made us all look a little bit better, he has made us all look a little bit sharper and he has made sure that people in East York just have that cut above some of the others.

We salute him this coming Saturday. Anybody who has an opportunity to come to Jack’s barber shop at Cosburn and Woodbine I’m sure would be more than welcome.

CANADIAN FORCES STATION ALERT

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you and my colleagues an amazing experience I had last month. I had the opportunity to visit the Canadian Forces Station Alert, which is a unit of 8 Wing Trenton, located in my riding of Northumberland–Quinte West.

Alert is the most northerly permanently inhabited location in the world. It’s located only 817 kilometres from the North Pole, and believe me, it’s cold. February average temperatures are around minus 37 degrees Celsius—but they tell me it’s a dry cold.

Alert experiences polar nights from October to February with 24-hour darkness. I had the great fortune of being there during a full moon, which lit the scenic background to be one of the most spectacular views I’ve ever witnessed in my life.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to be more thankful for what our servicemen and women do, but after th