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December 1, 1988

34th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L114 - Thu 1 Dec 1988 / Jeu 1er déc 1988

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

REFUGEE CLAIMANTS

RURAL POSTAL SERVICES / SERVICES POSTAUX RURAUX

REFUGEE CLAIMANTS

RURAL POSTAL SERVICES

AFTERNOON SITTING

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

AMBULANCE SERVICES

CFOS/CFPS-SUN TIMES CHRISTMAS FUND

WORLD AIDS DAY

CONSERVATION AUTHORITIES

RENT REGULATION

BHOPAL DISASTER

JOHN JONES

PORTUGUESE INDEPENDENCE DAY

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

COMPUTERS-IN-EDUCATION GRANTS PROGRAM

RESPONSES

COMPUTERS-IN-EDUCATION GRANTS PROGRAM

ORAL QUESTIONS

TEMAGAMI DISTRICT RESOURCES

POLICIES ON ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

ROOMERS, BOARDERS AND LODGERS

TEMAGAMI DISTRICT RESOURCES

LABOUR-BUSINESS-GOVERNMENT RELATIONS

USE OF CONSULTANTS

NIAGARA REGIONAL POLICE

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICES

METROPOLITAN TORONTO CONVENTION CENTRE

UNDERSERVICED AREA PROGRAM

PROPOSED HOSPITAL MERGER

LITERACY PROGRAMS

PETITIONS

ANIMALS FOR RESEARCH

NATUROPATHY

SENIOR CITIZENS’ APARTMENTS

REPORT BY COMMITTEE

STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

MOTION

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF HEALTH (CONTINUED)

RETAIL SALES TAX AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

REFUGEE CLAIMANTS

Mr. Ballinger moved resolution 52;

The Deputy Speaker: The member has up to 20 minutes to make his presentation and may reserve any portion of that for the windup.

Mr. Ballinger: I am pleased to rise this morning in private members’ resolution time to put forth this resolution. The purpose of this particular resolution is a result of the tremendous pressure that Ontario is under due to the current policy of the federal government not to issue temporary work permits to refugees.

It is important for me to make the point that our purpose this morning is not to bash the federal government, but it reminds me of the story of trying to teach the donkey how to learn. The most important thing you do with a donkey is take a two-by-four and hit him over the head first, and that is primarily to get his attention. Quite frankly, with this resolution, that is precisely what we are trying to do.

The Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) has had a great amount of concern since January of this year based on the fact that Ontario is spending somewhere in the nature of $35 million this year in general welfare assistance for the refugees who are landing in Ontario.

In the greater Toronto area, there is such a great opportunity for working. No matter where you go in Toronto, there we all kinds of signs in windows, illuminated signs out in front of small factories, saying, “We are hiring this week.” With the federal government’s current policy of not issuing temporary work permits, all of these jobs go open. There are not enough people in the area to fill the positions because of the growth in the economy of Ontario.

Because of the $35 million it is costing Ontario alone, it is a tremendous drain on the other parts of our Ministry of Community and Social Services budget. We could be spending that money in a much more worthwhile area. If you include the total amount of money being spent on refugee claimants on GWA across Ontario this year, it is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $90 million.

Now, what that does to people who land here as refugees who are willing and eager to work is it takes that incentive away from them. It is an education process that we as government should not be involved in, and that is encouraging people who are eager to work to be provided by the government with a paycheque. That is not our role as government and it certainly is not what they want as refugees. They come to Canada, hopefully, to start a new life.

Just so it is apparent that it is not only Ontario which is concerned, or our government -- because one of the problems we get into is the fear of partisan politics, we versus they; that is not our concern at all. Our concern is trying to convince the federal government that it should seriously address this issue which will help all three levels of government. There is only one loser in this issue and that loser is the taxpayer. They pay the freight.

Since I started collecting information and doing my own research, it is absolutely amazing the people who have contacted me or my office with information or stories which really relate to the topic here this morning. At this time, I want to thank the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Offer) who has provided me with an abundance of information about how this particular federal policy is affecting the region of Peel and what it is doing on behalf of its community and the refugee claimants who are residing within the boundaries of the region of Peel.

The member for Mississauga North met with the regional chairman, Frank Bean, to discuss how this was playing havoc on the social service budget of the region of Peel. I am very pleased to have with me today some of the information and data that Peel has collected in relation to its concern.

Just a couple of points here: In October alone, Peel social services paid almost $400,000 to help more than 800 area refugee families. This was a 30 per cent increase over the previous month. The real issue here, from Peel’s point of view, is that Ontario and the Ministry of Community and Social Services are picking up the bulk of that $400,000 because of the percentage breakdown in contribution that the province makes to the GWA.

On October 6 of this year, the region of Peel passed the following resolution:

“That the Minister of Community and Social Services be requested to assume the 100 per cent cost of Refugee cases until the Refugee status is changed by the Senior Levels of Government;

“And further, that the Minister of Community and Social Services be supported in his efforts to seek time limited renewable work permits from the federal government since this would definitely speed up the process as well as allow able bodied Refugees to assume work as soon as possible, instead of relying on General Welfare Assistance;

“And further, that a copy of the report of the Acting Commissioner of Social Services, dated August 29, 1988 and entitled ‘Refugees,’ be sent to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association and to all area MPs and MPPs for their consideration.”

It just proves to me, as a member of the Legislature, that the region of Peel, outside of Metro, has aggressively taken a look at this issue, done the research and believes, as do we as members of this Legislature, that the inactivity of the federal government in this particular area is wrong. It is an area of concern that should be addressed immediately. The federal government, as late as November 21 of last month, got a clear mandate from the people of Canada.

An MP in my area told me that the two biggest issues he works on are unemployment and immigration. The bulk of his constituency work is spent on those two areas. The immigration issue is growing, and the federal government’s refusal to issue temporary work permits is causing all the area MPs themselves a lot of grief in trying to deal with the constituency problems that surround this particular issue.

I just want to say that with respect to the region of Peel and especially to the member for Mississauga North, who himself is involved in an area where there are many refugee claimants, he has a genuine concern --

Mr. Wildman: Why didn’t he introduce this resolution?

Mr. Offer: I wanted to.

Mr. Ballinger: I would like to respond to the honourable member that the member for Mississauga North wanted to speak to this particular issue, but unfortunately, under private member’s business, there is just not enough time in terms of the number of people who are allowed. The amount of information that I received from Peel was generated by the member for Mississauga North so that, in fact, when I was speaking, I would have an opportunity to put forth Peel’s concerns, and I am doing that. I want to thank as well the chairman of the region of Peel, Frank Bean, for providing the member with the statistical information that I could include in this morning’s presentation.

Just so that the members in the Legislature this morning understand that it is not only we as a government or the surrounding municipalities, let me just take a moment and read a few of the latest headlines that have been appearing in newspapers all across Ontario, more specifically in the dailies in the general Metropolitan Toronto area. I think this will really reinforce the importance of the issue and why it is absolutely important for us as a Legislature to get the federal government’s attention so that it will act.

Some of the headlines, “Immigration Offices Reeling Under Flood of Refugee Claims,” “Ottawa Seeks Way Out of Refugee Chaos,” “Refugee Delay Swells Welfare Costs, Metro Says,” “Welfare Termed Blow to Self-Esteem” -- that one, I believe says it all. “Refugees Caught in Welfare Trap, Advocates Charge,” “A Refugee Predicament,” “Refugees Want to Work and Pay Taxes,” “Processing Refugee Claims Shut Down Due to a Backlog.” There is an interesting one. They shut it down due to a backlog. Is that not the most ridiculous thing members have ever heard?

The normal procedure when you have a backlog is to increase the staff to help to accommodate the process. “Backlog Leaves 15,000 Without Work Permits,” “60,000 Refugees on Hold,” “No Amnesty on 60,000 Refugee Claims, the Minister Says” -- that is the federal minister. “No Decision Yet on Huge Refugee Backlog, the Federal Minister Says.”

I do not think the federal government needs any more information or evidence than that to prove our point. I guess what we are doing in Ontario when these people come, willing, able and eager for work, all we are asking from the government of Ontario’s point of view is that, in the interim, while processing these particular applications, the federal government please address the issue of temporary work permits. That is all we are asking.

If they would do that, it would give the refugees some encouragement, in landing in Canada, that they have an opportunity to work while their application for permanent status is being processed. If in fact they do not receive permanent status, then the temporary work permit would be revoked and the refugees would be asked to leave.

I think that is a fair request from Ontario’s point of view. I know for a fact that the Minister of Community and Social Services, as late as January 1988, was in touch with the Honourable Barbara McDougall, asking her to address this particular issue, so that it will free up the something like $35 million of taxpayers’ money that we are spending in this particular area, as well as the contribution from all the area municipalities that are feeling this.

I know the areas surrounding Metro are all feeling this. The member for Ottawa-Rideau (Mrs. O’Neill) will be speaking and she will be outlining the concerns they have in that area, that in fact there is tremendous need for the federal government to address this very serious problem.

The scary thing is that all this money we are spending, something in the neighbourhood of $90 million, really only represents about one third of the available refugees. What are we going to do, all three levels of government, if the other two thirds decide, for whatever reasons, that they need social assistance in the interim, that they stop living with relatives and decide the government should just take care of them while they are here?

Take that $90 million and multiply it by three, and our general welfare costs associated with this issue will then run to $270 million. We just approved what I consider to be a working budget of April 1988, and people were concerned about our raising taxes in Ontario. The reason we do that is to meet the needs of the people of Ontario.

Here we have an example where we are tunnelling good taxpayers’ money to solve a problem on behalf of refugee claimants in Ontario that is not being addressed by the federal government. When the federal government closed down the refugee determination process, that really did play havoc with this issue.

In this particular case, I hope that the members of the Legislature will support this resolution for the main reason of drawing to the federal government’s attention what it is doing and the impact its indecision is having in Ontario.

At this time I would like to reserve any future comments for the windup.

Mr. Allen: I rise to support the resolution of the member for Durham-York (Mr. Ballinger) which I think, on the whole, is well conceived, notwithstanding some problems that I would like to point out in regard to it.

It is certainly clear, as he claims, that the federal government has a responsibility to see that refugees who arrive on our shores and in our midst are able to take up productive work as early as they possibly can and that any impediment that we place in their way is obviously not only of short-term detriment to them, but also certainly does lead them to a view of this country with regard to government provision of service that is probably unhealthy if it is maintained for too long.

There is no question that most refugees do arrive here with a sense that they are arriving in a country where they will be able to take up productive lives, where they will be able to work, where they will be able to exercise their talents in a new way, free from the persecutions and difficulties that they have experienced elsewhere. It certainly is a proposal that I and our party would wish to support, that the federal government immediately undertake to issue temporary work permits for all refugee claimants in our midst.

At the same time, I think it behooves the provincial government, first, to make certain that all refugees who do come in our midst and who come out of very difficult circumstances and often may not be able immediately to adapt to working situations, have the conditions available to them which make it possible for them to begin their lives appropriately in this new country while they are waiting for the settlement of the determination of their claimant status.

In the first instance, it seems to me that it is important to clear away some roadblocks which do exist in the area of social assistance, because at present, while it is true that refugee arrivals generally are able to claim social assistance, Ontario health insurance plan benefits and access to the schools, it is not true that all refugees are in that position. It was not until recently, for example, that all out-of-status refugees were provided with access to assistance.

The Divisional Court recently made a judgement in which it determined that the immigrant status of such an arrival was not a proper barrier to access to social assistance; the barrier placed in the way of out-of-status refugees was eliminated.

But there remain in-status refugees who come, for example, as visitors, who then remain in our midst claiming refugee status, who, because they are not permanent residents, are deemed to be visitors, are deemed to be resident of another jurisdiction, do not have the ability either to claim work permits from the federal government or social assistance from this provincial administration.

It seems to me that it is important for the government to clean up its act with respect to all refugee arrivals and give them that option of availability of social assistance which, as the Thomson report reminds us, should be available in Ontario on the basis of objective need and not on the basis of some other discriminatory criteria.

Refugee claimants are not eligible, however, unless they directly pay cash for the programs offered through the community college system. Even if you did have the cash, you would have to wait probably for six months before you could get into them because the waiting list is so long due to the lack of overall, sufficient support for those programs in the community colleges.

There are a lot of problems at the level of accessing training, accessing language training courses that will enhance the ability to get into the workforce, that need to be dealt with by this provincial government and should not be skirted by the member as he seeks to change the mind of the federal government with regard to this very appropriate proposal; namely, that it should be offering temporary work permits.

Quite apart from the question of access -- I should not say quite apart from the question of access, but in the one area of access that the refugee claimant does have, namely, the community-based programs, he finds himself trying to access a program for which the funding from the Ministry of Citizenship and the Ministry of Culture and Communications has in fact not been keeping up with inflation -- three per cent, for example, in 1988-89. That has been the pattern for the last two or three years. The result, therefore, has been a declining ability to offer programs, let alone keep up with the demands that the arrival of immigrants and refugees in our midst places upon that kind of program.

Another area, for example, that the provincial government might well attend to has to do with the whole question of access to trades and professions. We all know the innumerable barriers that even well-trained nationals from other countries have when they try to move into trades and professions in Canada, and not least of all in Ontario.

This task force has reported to the provincial government, but as yet there has been no action taken upon it. Those who work with the refugees and immigrant groups in our city, in Ontario and across the province are very concerned that action must follow this report to clear up those barriers, so the member’s good intentions to seek a work status for recently arrived refugee claimants need to be responded to at a number of levels.

I salute him for the initiative he is taking, but obviously the undertaking has to have a broader dimension in a number of respects, and a number of those respects do demand that his government act in a number of directions that would facilitate the very work initiative that he is trying to secure for refugee claimants in Ontario.

I support this proposal with some reservations with regard to the undertakings that the provincial government might make.

Mr. Pollock: I would like to comment on this resolution and put some things on the record. I basically agree with the resolution. However, as the member well knows, this country has just been through a long, hard-fought election campaign and I am sure he realizes that when there is an election campaign on the go, everything basically gets put on hold. Even before the election, the minister was changed. When that takes place, it takes a certain time for that particular changeover.

I am generally surprised that there are as many unemployed people as there are. I hear on a regular basis that farmers cannot even get trained help. I have heard farm operators saying that they are going to go out of business because they cannot get skilled farm help.

I am sure it does not take a lot of time to screen those who apply for refugee status. The fact that immigration is up and there is an increased number of people wanting to come to this country will only make that backlog worse.

The resolution raises some interesting concerns that I have. I am sure all members will recall the group of people who came ashore in Newfoundland claiming to be refugees. After some investigation, however, it was disclosed that they paid a German freighter operator to take them to Canada and put them adrift in boats off the shore of Newfoundland. The same sort of situation existed when a group of Tamils came ashore in Nova Scotia. It would not be a surprise to me if there were around 900 refugees here in the greater Toronto area; however, the fact that the number is around 9,000 does raise a lot of questions about the method we use to grant these permits.

If these refugees are coming from Third World countries and they are professional people who were educated in that country, or if there are skilled labourers who are needed in that particular country, then I have some serious questions about whether we are doing those countries a disservice by allowing these individuals to claim refugee status here in Canada when their abilities could be put to use in helping to develop their own homelands. To encourage a doctor to come to Ontario, where there is approximately one doctor for every 1,000 patients, and have him or her leave a country where there is only one doctor for 10,000 to 15,000 patients just does not seem right to me.

If these refugees are coming from Cuba, for instance, should we really become involved? If they are coming from Jamaica, what direction should we take? There has been no revolution in Jamaica that they would be fleeing from. There is a basic difference between what has become known as an economic refugee and a person who is fleeing a government or a nation that is repressive. Our immigration policy must reflect this difference and must treat each of these people in a different way. However, if some of these refugees are from countries like Haiti where there is a military dictatorship, then that is a different matter.

No doubt many of these refugees are unskilled workers. We already have a problem in this country with unskilled labour, and the numbers of people who fall into that category are clearly stretching our resources in terms of what retraining programs are available,

This attitude formed the basis of the federal government’s policy between 1980 and 1984 in which, in order for a relative to come to this country, you had to prove that the job he was going to be taking could not be done by a Canadian.

The member for Durham-York should perhaps show some proof with regard to whether there is a job to be had if these refugees received a work permit. I have talked to people who have come to this country through the legitimate immigration channels and they raise the question, “Why would we not treat everyone the same?” I believe we have to face reality with these refugees and at least in some cases grant them work permits.

I have recently been in touch with the federal minister’s office. He said that after January 1 they are going to be granting work permits to people who meet the basic criteria. What is going to take place as far as the roughly 60,000 to 80,000 refugees in this country are concerned has not been decided yet.

These are a few of the things that I wanted to put on the record. It is my understanding that there are over a million people who want to come to Canada next year. Right across the world, they claim that there are 100 million people who want to move someplace. With that, Mr. Speaker, thank you for a chance to speak to this resolution.

Mrs. O’Neill: I am very pleased to speak in support of this important resolution. I congratulate my colleague from Durham-York for bringing this serious matter to the attention of the Ontario Legislature. As a member from the Ottawa-Carleton area, I know first hand of the problems of refugee claimants in this country awaiting examination under oath.

Although the majority of refugee claimants in Ontario are currently situated in the Metropolitan Toronto area, it is a situation being experienced with increasing regularity in other centres across this province, including my own, Ottawa-Carleton. Estimates place Ottawa-Carleton as the third-largest home in this province to refugee claimants awaiting processing through the federal government. As the member for Durham-York has noted, these claimants, who are ready, willing, able and indeed eager to work and to make a valuable contribution to our society, are being denied this possibility by the bureaucracy and the political decisions made by the federal government.

With no other option available, refugee claimants are being put on welfare rolls. This is increasing the burden on the system itself, a fact which has been acknowledged in the recently released comprehensive review of the Ontario social assistance system. Ontario is, fortunately, home to many settlement organizations that offer assistance not only to those whose refugee status has been determined, but also to refugee claimants awaiting processing by the federal government. I would like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of these organizations in our province.

Within Ottawa-Carleton we have the Ottawa-Carleton Immigrant Services, the Catholic Immigration Centre and the Jewish Social Service Agency. I applaud the work of the individuals who assist refugee claimants in finding food and shelter, obtaining the services of interpreters and dealing with the government and its institutions.

The provincial government has been very active in supporting these settlement and support organizations through a variety of grant programs offered by the Ministry of Citizenship. Many of these community-based support organizations have been overwhelmed by demands for services from refugee claimants. In June 1987 the ministry provided special funding for the Ontario Welcome House in Toronto, totalling $157,000, and to 13 community-based agencies, totalling $170,000, to assist them in providing services to the large backlog of refugee claimants. A survey of community agencies early this year confirmed that a continuing need still existed and the ministry has extended this special funding.

The ultimate goal of these settlement organizations is to help refugee claimants achieve a stability in their lives. All groups dealing with refugee claimants concur, however, that this stability cannot be established for these individuals until their status is determined. This determination is simply not occurring. The weight of the existing backlog of refugee cases in our country is estimated to be in excess of 60,000 people. Unfortunately, the federal government has yet to do anything to specifically address this existing backlog, and this brings us to the reason this resolution is before this House today.

In fact, the only action the federal government has taken in this area is to adopt measures that have actually worsened the situation. In the spring of 1987 the government decided to stop issuing work permits to refugee claimants, a measure that has left some 15,000 refugees without hope of obtaining such a permit. The rationale behind this move was an attempt to ensure that refugee claimants would complete the hearing process. However, this September, the federal government decided to stop processing new refugee claims, which would determine the status of refugee claimants and allow them to work.

Considering that the cancellation of work permits was done to ensure that refugee claimants would complete the hearing process, the second move of stopping the hearing of cases makes no sense to me at all.

The federal government has yet to say how they will deal with this backlog, although a new system is scheduled to come into effect on January 1, as already mentioned. A report in last Saturday’s Globe and Mail quoted a spokesman for the federal minister of immigration as stating that after January 1 they did not even know whether the current backlog of refugees would be treated under the old or the new system of determination. Experts agree, however, that either system will not be capable of dealing with this present situation.

In the face of this indecision by the federal government, the only clear option that exists is to issue these claimants work permits until a decision is finally made regarding their status.

These permits could be time-limited and renewable in order to prevent any abuse and allow for proper controls. By not issuing these work permits, the federal government is forcing willing, able people to seek social assistance.

The resolution before us this morning, along with much of the debate that has taken place, has focused on the phenomenal cost to the province in both economic and, more important, human terms. As more and more refugee claimants willing to work but denied that right are placed on the welfare rolls, the cost will continue to grow. The inaction by the federal government is creating an intolerable, situation which is totally unnecessary.

I find that it is ironic, given the fact that the people of Canada received the Nansen medal in 1986 in recognition of our nation’s outstanding service to the cause of refugees. The most tragic component is the human toll. The psychological repercussions of such inaction are incalculable.

In essence, we are witnessing the creation of a most unfortunate situation by teaching welfare dependency to a group of individuals who are anxious to settle and become an active part of our Canadian community.

I invite members to pause for a moment and realize whom we are specifically speaking about when we talk about refugee claimants. Many of these individuals have faced persecution, hardship, imprisonment and even torture in their home countries. They have fled their countries in fear, searching for a fresh start, determined to make a better life for themselves once in Canada.

Once they are here, they are not only anxious to learn new skills and understand our culture, they also seek stability and acceptance that will help them to deal with the horror of their past situations. Instead, they are denied work in a booming economy and offered social assistance as a means to support themselves. Many of the benefits of employment, in allowing individuals to achieve acceptance and stability, are ideas that are expressed clearly and succinctly in the recent report of the Social Assistance Review Committee. Its fifth recommendation urged the federal government to issue work permits to refugee claimants while the validity of their claims is being established.

As noted in the report, newcomers to Canada face a host of cultural and linguistic barriers. The report, Transitions, concludes that it is essential that income security programs show sensitivity to these additional barriers to broader social participation. It seems ironic that when the government of Ontario is seriously examining the role of social assistance in our society and the underlying philosophy of that system, we are witnessing the federal government reverting to the narrow idea of the past by indefinitely placing an entire group of people on social assistance with little option or choice.

We are all aware of the findings of the SARC report. Its findings are in complete agreement with the arguments being made here this morning in support of this resolution. The investigations of the committee clearly showed that one of the most important and effective means of establishing self-sufficiency and integration into society is through employment. Indeed, the report recognized that one of the greatest barriers to full participation in a society was when people were not given the ability to assume personal responsibility to make real choices.

I challenge anyone to demonstrate how barring individuals from working and forcing them on social assistance month after month -- in some cases, claimants are entering their second year -- I question how this is giving them the individual responsibility to make choices and work towards fully entering our society.

Another danger of this present situation is that it is reinforcing negative stereotypes of refugees. Most refugees are highly motivated individuals, in many cases possessing needed skills, who are anxious to make a valuable contribution to our society.

In closing, may I say that Canada has a long history of showing compassion to refugees. Ontario, as the final home to more than half of the refugees who settle in Canada, can take particular pride in the recognition of our willingness to offer assistance.

I have been pleased with the efforts of the Ministry of Community and Social Services in lobbying the federal government to immediately issue work permits to these individuals. Let us continue these efforts through today’s resolution, urging the federal government to issue work permits and help alleviate this tragic problem. We must urge the federal government to put compassion before politics and grant these people the right to work.

The time for action is now. I urge all members of the Legislature to support this resolution.

Mr. Wildman: I too rise in support of the resolution, and I congratulate the member for Durham-York in recommending the resolution to the House. As a matter of fact, the member indicated to me that this could be regarded by some as sort of a motherhood resolution, and I want to say that I do not see it that way at all. Rather, it deals with a very practical problem related to a very difficult matter facing our national government and its ramifications on the province and on municipalities in Ontario.

I certainly agree that refugees should not be kept in limbo for as long as we have found over the last few years, nor be in a situation where they are unable to make a contribution to the new society they have chosen, whereby they become a burden on the social assistance program in our country.

I am very much in support of the resolution, not just because it would be a saving to the taxpayers in municipalities across Ontario and in this province but because of the effects it might have on the refugees themselves and the feeling that they can be productive and start to make a new life here in Ontario.

I must take exception, though, to some comments made by my colleague the member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. Pollock). He seemed to indicate that, after all, we have just come through a federal election campaign, and everyone in this House should recognize that things are on hold during an election campaign. Surely the member is not suggesting that this refugee mess we have in this country started some time in August or September.

We have had a problem in defining what a refugee is in this country for some time. There is the question of political refugees as opposed to economic refugees. We have a large number of people in Third World countries who are living in situations that they find intolerable and from which they wish to escape. In some cases, the situation from which they seek refuge is an economic situation and not one of political persecution. When those kinds of refugees, to use the phrase that is sometimes used, jump the queue of the regular immigration process, we have problems.

Unfortunately, because of our attempts to deal with that problem in this country, we have made it more difficult for those legitimate political refugees to find refuge in this country.

I remember the horrific story a couple of years ago of the young woman from Guatemala who sought refugee status by visiting the Canadian legation in that country. She was told she could not be dealt with immediately and that she should return in three weeks. We know what happened in that three-week interval. This young woman was tortured and murdered and was unable to escape what she realized was a life-and-death situation. She lost her life simply because of the bureaucratic mess that we have in the refugee system in this country.

I am concerned, too, about the bias that there seems to have been historically in the Canadian immigration system, as well as in the system with which we deal with refugees. There has been a tendency in this country to move very quickly to admit refugees from Europe, and I applaud that. There has not been such swift action in admitting refugees from countries in Latin America or Asia. I wonder what the reason is for that. I think all of us should ponder that. It might be related to language, race or religion.

I also am concerned about the tendency, even if one looks just at European immigrants and refugees, to accept refugees from the Iron Curtain countries more easily than refugees or immigrants from countries that are seen to be right-wing countries. For instance, prior to the overthrow of the dictatorships in Portugal and Spain, I believe it was easier for someone who was a refugee from political persecution from the far left, the Communist countries, to gain refuge in this country than it was for a refugee who himself or herself might be a leftist seeking refuge from persecution from right-wing governments such as the Spanish or Portuguese dictatorships.

I think that kind of ideological bias in our system was another reason for the difficulties we face now. We have an enormous backlog: 60,000 refugees who need to be processed, 60,000 people who are claiming refugee status. The federal government has really no idea of how to catch up on that backlog. We have a new system being introduced in January which should speed up the process somewhat, but it is still going to take a tremendously long time to deal with this enormous backlog.

There are 15,000 refugees who could be supporting themselves now instead of finding themselves a burden on the taxpayers of Ontario and the municipalities in which they are now living. But because of the federal government’s attempt to revamp the system, they have been prohibited from obtaining work permits, with the cost to the Ontario taxpayers and also the cost to themselves in terms of their own self-esteem and self-respect.

This is not an easy area. Immigration has always been important in Canada. After all, most of us in this House, if not all of us in this House, are either immigrants ourselves or descendants of immigrants. I may be incorrect, but I do not think that them are any native members of the House. They are the only ones who could claim, I suppose, not to be immigrants in this country.

The fact is that we need immigration. We should be opening our doors to people who are persecuted in other countries not just for humanitarian reasons but also for the self-interest that we need immigration, we need people. We have always had a reputation for opening our doors to people who need refuge.

I hope we do not somehow sink into a kind of xenophobia which says that people coming to this country are somehow going to take jobs from Canadians who are already living and working in this country. The fact is that the population projections indicate that, by the year 2000, we are going to be short of labour in this country unless we have a concerted effort to attract more people to our shores.

Obviously, I am not suggesting that we should allow people to jump the queue and to avoid the legitimate immigration process. But where we have legitimate refugees, we should be facilitating their movement into this country and into our workplace. Where we have people who are seeking refugee status and whose refugee status is being questioned, we should be ensuring that while they are awaiting processing, they should be able to contribute to our society, contribute to their own welfare and not be a burden on our taxpayers.

I commend the member for introducing the resolution. I would hope it would lead the federal government to change its policy and to allow refugees who have the skills and the desire to work and support themselves to obtain work permits.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): The time remaining is insufficient to accommodate the member for London North (Mrs. Cunningham). The next speaker is the windup speaker, the member for Durham-York.

Mr Ballinger: Mr. Speaker, how much time is left?

The Acting Speaker: Five minutes.

Mr. Ballinger: I would be willing to share that time with the member for London North.

Mr. Mahoney: We would rather hear Dianne, anyway.

The Acting Speaker: With unanimous consent, the member for London North.

I think the real issue here today, though, is far beyond what appears on this piece of paper. I think all of us who are involved in government have some responsibilities to work very hard on behalf of the people we represent. That is why I am complementing the member today, and I would like to take this just a step further.

We here in Ontario must be working very hard for immigrants, and this is one of the issues that is of concern to them. The Multicultural Work Group on Social Assistance has a number of other issues, and they relate directly to the Social Assistance Review Committee report. I do not have the time this morning except to put this on the record and to share it with the members who are here today.

There are a number of resolutions in that report that directly relate to the quality of life of immigrants, and I think that is what we are talking about here today. We would urge the Ontario government to be moving very quickly.

Increasing ethnocultural representation at all levels of the social assistance delivery system, recommendation 140, and providing trained interpreters to assist clients applying for social assistance, recommendation 141, or appealing decisions to the Social Assistance Review Board, recommendation 166, should be acted upon immediately.

I say that because it would be unfair to mislead the public who are listening to this debate that everyone who is applying for this status would, first of all, get the work permit, and second, be able to work; and so we must work very hard to support them so that they can, in fact, work when they get the work permit.

The last recommendations that we should be dealing with, quickly, supporting multicultural community organizations as providers of opportunity planning for employment and skills training, which directly relates to this motion today, recommendations 14 and 75; and as providers of information referral, advocacy, community education and counselling, recommendation 143 should be acted upon immediately.

I will just close by saying that certainly George Thomson expected the government to react immediately to a number of recommendations. Those I have mentioned today are just some of them. In supporting the honourable member in his resolution, I urge that he go to his cabinet and try to get action on those to help the refugees we are talking about today here in Ontario.

Mr Ballinger: I want to begin by thanking the members for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen), Hastings-Peterborough, Ottawa-Rideau, Algoma (Mr. Wildman) and London North, inclusive, for supporting my resolution. I wish I had some time as well to take issue with some of the things the member for Hastings-Peterborough said, but unfortunately time does not permit.

I just want to say to each and every member of the Legislature that this resolution was not intended to make light of the issue or to make fun of the federal government. It was to try and draw to their attention the seriousness of what is happening in Ontario and what it is costing this government and the municipal governments as well, which participate in a sharing of funding as it relates to general welfare assistance.

I hope each member of this Legislature supports this resolution so that the Minister of Community and Social Services can take that to Ottawa with a more unified voice on behalf of the people of Ontario as it relates to the federal government’s inactivity in handling the refugee problems in Ontario.

RURAL POSTAL SERVICES / SERVICES POSTAUX RURAUX

Mr. Hampton moved resolution 47:

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): The member will know he has 20 minutes for his presentation and may reserve any portion thereof for a windup.

Mr. Hampton: Mr. Speaker, I would like to reserve five minutes for the windup, if that is okay.

My resolution speaks to a question that is primarily a matter for the federal government. In my view, however, it is an issue that is most important to the small towns, villages and rural areas of Ontario, and therefore it is an issue this House should consider very seriously.

The fact is that in the modern world, a world that is overwhelmingly based upon the frequent and quick exchange of information, everyone, no matter where he lives, needs access to a high-quality and reliable postal system. Whether you reside in posh Rosedale in Toronto or a northern Ontario town like Sioux Lookout or rural route 1, Peterborough, you need to have a first-rate postal system if you are to participate meaningfully in our society.

Twenty years ago, even 10 years ago, even five years ago, it used to be the case that no matter where you lived in Ontario, the postal service you received was a good one. People who lived in the rural areas of my constituency, for example, one of the farthest away from the metropolis of Toronto, benefited from a postal service that was generally equal to the postal service enjoyed by Torontonians, or for that matter Hamiltonians. Each rural hamlet had its own small post office and farm areas had frequent rural route delivery. All the services that would be available from a post office in downtown Toronto were generally available from the small rural post office as well.

Sadly, that is not the situation in Ontario today, because over the past five years Canada Post has turned much of rural Ontario and many of the small towns of Ontario into second-class and third-class communities in terms of their postal service. In effect, Canada Post has eliminated the principle of equal service and fairness and put in its place the principle of, “Let’s make a profit no matter who we hurt and what we destroy in the process.”

Let me give some examples of the kinds of situations that are occurring. Last spring, for example, the member for Markham (Mr. Cousens) introduced a resolution dealing with boxes. It is quite a serious resolution; it is a serious matter. I understand that because I visited some communities that now have to deal with supermailboxes.

But I had to smile when he addressed the difficulties some people were experiencing, having to drive two or three blocks to pick up their mail. In my communities and in other communities across northern and rural Ontario, I know of people who are now driving 35 miles one way to pick up their mail.

The sad

part is that many of these people are elderly and retired folks, many of them people who cannot afford to purchase a four-by-four or some other type of vehicle that will get you across the highway or down the country road in the middle of winter on every day you need to get there to pick up your mail or to get something in the mail. There exists out there in much of rural Ontario a serious hardship now in terms of getting access to adequate mail service.

Let me give another example. For people who are still served by a small rural post office, those who do not have to drive the 35 miles, in many cases the hours of operation of the rural post office have been cut.

At one time, if you were a farmer, a logger, a fishing guide or a commercial fisherman and you put in a long workday, you could still find some time during the day to make it to the post office to buy your money order, to pick up the kind of information that was available at your post office, perhaps in terms of tax forms or a passport application. There were all kinds of services that were freely and consistently available through the rural post office which you used to be able to access between the hours of eight in the morning and any time up to, sometimes, six in the evening.

Now many of these post offices have reduced hours. If you cannot get there during the two and a half to three hours it is open in the morning or perhaps the two and a half or three hours it is open in the afternoon -- in some cases it is not open in the afternoon at all -- then you cannot access the service. That is happening in many rural areas as well.

In addition, when you have this kind of deterioration in the service -- reduced rural routes, elimination of rural routes, reduced hours of the small rural post office in a hamlet or the elimination of the small rural post office -- you find that for many people who live in the more remote parts of our province or in the rural areas of our province, the time taken for delivery of the mail is unbelievable.

I want to give a practical example that has to do with the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) and the Workers’ Compensation Board. A contractor in my constituency was told he had to pay his assessment to cover his employees for workers’ compensation by such and such a date. The WCB said, “We must receive this by such-and-such a date.”

After watching the mail go back and forth and looking at the postmarks on some letters, we calculated that to be sure of delivery he might have to mail the thing three weeks before it was due in order to get it to the Workers’ Compensation Board on time.

When we presented that argument to the Minister of Labour, he said that in this case a penalty was assessed on the individual because he was not able to get his payment to the Workers’ Compensation Board on time. We took it to the Minister of Labour and he said: “I have to agree with you. There’s an unfair penalty here. If the fellow lived in Toronto, he could probably put it in the mailbox the day before and it would likely be assured of delivery. In your case, having to mail it three weeks in advance is a penalty that the contractor, the entrepreneur, has no control over, so we will rescind the penalty amount that has been assessed by the Workers’ Compensation Board.”

That is the situation many, many communities in rural Ontario, in small-town Ontario and in the remote parts of Ontario face because of the reduced type of postal system we have to deal with. Those facts, in terms of elimination of rural routes, reduced service on rural routes, elimination of rural post offices or reduced hours in rural post offices, are just the beginning. If you look ahead to what Canada Post is planning in the future, the repercussions may be even more serious.

One of the determinants of how quickly your mail is sorted, gets into the mainstream of the postal system and goes from one part of Ontario to another part of Ontario or from one part of Canada to another part of Canada, or is shipped internationally, is how soon your mail can get into a postal sorting facility. Only when it gets into a postal sorting facility can it then be injected in the mainstream and move very quickly.

The next order of Canada Post reforms, if you want to call them that, is to reduce many of the regional postal sorting facilities we have across Ontario.

Mr. Wildman: This is not reformist; it’s revanchist.

Mr. Hampton: I can only agree. with the member for Algoma. Because he has many rural routes and many rural areas in his riding, I know he is experiencing many of the same situations, many of the same hardships I have found.

For example, the situation I am best acquainted with is, again, the situation in northwestern Ontario where Canada Post has quietly announced -- I say quietly because it does not want this to become widely known too quickly -- that it will shut down the postal sorting facilities in main communities like Kenora -- I see the member for Kenora (Mr. Miclash) is here -- or Fort Frances and will centralize them.

They are not specific about where they are going to centralize them. Originally they said, “We’ll just move it to the next small town.” That next small town might be Dryden, for example. But if you look further ahead at their plans, they start talking about even further centralization: “Let’s move it out of northwestern Ontario altogether and move it to Winnipeg,” or, “Let’s move it to Thunder Bay,” or, “Let’s move it all the way to Sudbury.”

What that kind of situation means is that for someone who wants to receive mail in a rural area, a small hamlet or indeed a small town of 10,000 people, or someone who wants to send mail from those kinds of areas, it is going to take even longer for the mail to be picked up, get to the distribution centre, get sorted at the distribution centre and then get injected into the main postal system. What looks to be happening in the near future is that the postal situation, the postal service for much of rural Ontario and small-town Ontario is going to deteriorate even further.

I have heard some people say: “It’s only the post; it’s only the mail. Don’t worry about it. There can’t be that many repercussions if it takes two weeks or” -- as I pointed out -- “three weeks to get your mail rather than two or three days.” The point is that for many of these smaller towns and rural communities, the repercussions are very serious.

We talk a lot in this House about trying to increase economic development in eastern Ontario, in northern Ontario and in rural southwestern Ontario, but you cannot get any type of small business person or entrepreneur to move to an area if the postal service is so inadequate, if it is so slow that you are going to have problems in terms of marketing your product or exchanging information.

There is a real economic repercussion for all of these communities, and there is a social repercussion as well. I come from a postal family. My grandmother was a postmaster in rural Ontario.

Mr. Villeneuve: How did you become a lawyer?

Mr. Hampton: My grandmother instructed me that there was no future in the post office, so I had better find something else to do.

As a young child, one of the things I experienced was the fact that the small rural post office is the social centre for many small towns, for many hamlets and for many rural areas in Ontario. It is the place where people come to pick up their passport application, to ask the postmaster to explain how to fill it out. It is the place where people come to pick up their tax form if for some reason it does not arrive in the mail. It is the place where people come to inquire: “How do I apply for my pension cheque? Do you know anything about unemployment insurance? Can you direct me? Who should I talk to in these things?”

The post office in rural Ontario, in the most remote parts of Ontario and the smaller communities of Ontario provides a service that holds the community together and gives the community its livelihood, so the repercussions from these kinds of cuts are very serious.

I say to the other members in the House that if we are serious about promoting better economic development in northern Ontario or rural eastern Ontario or rural southwestern Ontario, if we are serious about a better type of social fabric in these communities and making them more stable, then this is an issue that goes to the centre of those kinds of concerns.

Just to give an illustration, when I decided to put this resolution before the House, I wrote to the communities in my constituency and asked them to support the resolution. To a one, they have written back and said, “We absolutely endorse your resolution,” whether they are small towns or rural villages.

The township of Atikokan, the town of Fort Frances, the township of Chapple, the town of Kenora, the townships of Morson, Blue, Worthington, McCrosson, Tovell, Rainy River, Atwood -- these are all rural communities or small towns that depend upon a good and consistent postal service.

I ask members of the House to consider how important it is to promote economic and social development in the rural parts of our province, in the northern parts of our province and in the, most remote parts of our province. If they think promoting a more stable economy and a more stable social fabric in those communities is important. then I ask them to support this resolution, because I think we have to use every means possible to convince Canada Post that what it is doing is not just reducing a few hours of postal service; it is cutting to the core of many of these rural communities.

M. Villeneuve: Il me fait plaisir de participer au débat sur le projet de loi proposé par le député de Rainy River (M. Hampton), projet de loi qui touche de près les gens de la circonscription que je représente et qui touche, j’en suis certain, Monsieur le Président, les gens qui demeurent dans la circonscription voisine que vous représentez.

It is a pleasure to participate and to support the motion of the member for Rainy River (Mr. Hampton) regarding problems that could be occurring within the postal system.

First, might I say that I represent a very rural area, as you do, Mr. Speaker, one that has some 40 rural post offices. We have no house-to-house mail delivery in any of our communities, the communities that are within the riding that I represent. My metropolis of Alexandria does not have house-to-house delivery, nor does my second-largest town, which is Kemptville. It does not have house-to-house delivery, and certainly Morrisburg, Winchester, Chesterville, and all of those small rural farming agricultural communities do not have house-to-house delivery.

However, we do have an excellent rural post office delivery, five days a week, and I, on the farm where I reside, am very fortunate to have the mail delivered in the mailbox at the road on a dally basis, Monday to Friday inclusive.

Hon. Mr. Mancini: Special service.

Mr. Villeneuve: No, it is not a special service at all. It is available to all within the 23 rural municipalities that I represent. But some of the small towns, many of which are in the riding that I represent, do not have house-to-house delivery, and the residents do go pick up their mail on a daily basis, including Saturday morning till noon.

I do not believe the real crux of the problem is with rural post offices, as was well explained by the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association to all caucuses in this Legislature in the last 18 months. I am a little surprised and disappointed that the member for Rainy River did not put his finger on a certain union called the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. They are quite well paid and if, indeed --

Mr Wildman: They do not run rural post offices. What a silly argument.

Mr. Villeneuve: I notice I touched a small nerve here with my colleague the member for Algoma. He somehow realizes that some of the postal problems are stemming from the fact that there is a very strong union in place. A gentleman called Jean-Claude Parrot has a great deal to do with how things happen in the post office.

I would like the member for Rainy River to comment on where we should be trying to rectify some of the problems, because I firmly believe that the post office should be a paying proposition; in other words, the expenditures incurred should be covered by the consumers who use the service. I think that is important. I am sure that if we added up the total expenditures on the 40 rural post offices that service the riding I represent, those rural post offices are not a big drain on the total budget of Canada Post.

I am quite assured that if we were to look into the ivory towers of Canada Post and into the highly paid unionized people who work at Canada Post, it would be interesting to see just how the balance sheet really comes out.

I can tell members that in the home town where I have my constituency riding, called Moose Creek, if I mail certain items of correspondence and it has to go through a central depot in Ottawa, yes, we do have quite a time lapse. If it goes directly from, say, Moose Creek to Maxville, Apple Hill, Morewood or Chesterville, then there is no problem. But quite often, and I am not sure how it happens, it has to go to Ottawa, and that is when we run into a major problem. I think we have a number of them that we should be looking at if we are going to streamline Canada Post and certainly the rural post offices are not the first place to start.

I assure members that all of the postmasters and postmistresses whom I know within the 40 post offices that service the area I represent are very dedicated people indeed. I reaffirm the fact that if the dollars in and the dollars out were considered, those rural post offices would not be the ones that are causing the red ink at Canada Post.

I cannot help but touch on the rural mail delivery. This is done by a contractor, someone who bids every three or every five years and has a total number of kilometres and a total number of stops. It is done on a contractual basis.

I suggest to you that the federal government and Canada Post should also look at that in the urban areas. I firmly believe we have contractors who could do the job with considerably more efficiency than some of the members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are doing it. Without being anti-union and without being a union-basher, I bring to the fore and I would compare what a mailman in the city earns with the salary being earned by someone who operates a small, rural post office such as the 40 that are within the riding that I represent.

In closing, I support the member for Rainy River’s private member’s motion. I believe he has brought to the fore a problem, which may or may not be corrected, with the very strong union representation that we have within Canada Post, and I think we have to address more than just what is covered in the member for Rainy River’s private motion this morning.

Mr. Miclash: Let me begin by saying that I stand to speak in favour of and support the member for Rainy River’s resolution. Being from small-town northern Ontario as well, I share the concerns of my colleague. I know what postal services mean to me and to my constituents.

As in the other small-town areas and ridings in northern Ontario, my largest community of Kenora has a population of 10,000 and the remainder of the communities run at less than that. They all depend very heavily on their local postal services. We know how important these services are to them and to us in the north.

As the member mentioned earlier, the government of Ontario at the present time knows the importance of servicing the communities of the north. We try to service the smaller communities, the small towns of the north, through our Northern Development offices, and we know what the northern communities, especially throughout the northeastern and northwestern parts of Ontario, give back to this province, and not only this province but also this nation as a whole, in terms of their mining industry, their forestry industry and their tourism.

We know that the spreading of our provincial services is very important throughout these areas and we know that the spreading of federal services such as the post is very important as well.

How can we stand by and watch the federal government erode one of the most essential services in our smaller communities of northern Ontario -- that is, the postal service?

Together we have made Canada a country where we have agreed to give ourselves certain services. I will give some examples: fire, police, defence and, more recently, health services. We do not expect these essential services to make a profit. A federal post office system for all Canadians, no matter where they live, is, I believe, one such service.

Spinoffs from the raw materials from the northern part of the province, as I have mentioned, contribute greatly to the economic contributions of the nation. In return, our federal government wants to cut back on such an essential service. This does not sit well with me or my constituents in rural Ontario.

The federal government is failing to recognize the importance of quality mail service for the rural communities and small towns of northern Ontario by refuting that rural post offices are a part of an extensive network. They help each other and their communities, offering knowledgeable, reliable services. The member for Rainy River referred to some of the services that they do offer our constituents, services that are very important and that people in our small towns in northern Ontario rely on.

They also contribute to the economic viability of our communities. They provide essential support for our businesses and are an incentive for new businesses that want to establish in the areas of small towns. As one contractor has put it, no business wants to come to a town where there is no post office.

In a country as vast in its geographical scope as Canada is, the importance of effective mail delivery cannot be underestimated. Yet again Canada Post has demonstrated a convoluted sense of purpose, putting profit before service, despite the fact that legislation creating the crown corporation provided clear instructions to post office management to place service before financial self-sufficiency.

Let me refer to a quote. “The Progressive Conservative Party feels that Canada Post’s current program of rapid debt reduction is unrealistic and is the underlying cause of the problems with regard to both declining postal services and ventures into ill-conceived schemes to generate greater revenues. I can assure you that restoring the quality of service will be our top priority with Canada Post. Our party is also committed to rebuilding the economy in rural parts of Canada.”

Yes, that is a quote from August 1984 when the then Leader of the Opposition, Brian Mulroney, was suggesting that restoring the quality of service would be a top priority for his government.

We have seen and will see this government’s operation. Is this just another lost promise of our federal government? Let me quote the opinion of the standing committee on government operations in Ottawa back in March 1987. It suggested, “Canada Post is not going to solve its physical problems by closing rural postal service.”

However, we now have a federal government that is telling us that it plans to remove mail sorting from the communities to a central facility. This promises to lead to a further erosion in the quality of services that it provides to us in northern Ontario, small-town Ontario. Canada Post justifies central sorting by saying that it will lead to more efficient service. I have to agree with the previous speakers that I do not believe so. This is the same crown corporation that told us supermailboxes would be more convenient to the customer. We know what a fiasco that turned out to be.

To add insult to injury, Canada Post is steamrolling its plan into action without listening to adequate input, without engaging in any kind of consultative process and without paying heed to our citizens’ concerns. Is this the expected behaviour of a crown corporation in a democratic society? The Conservative government’s obsession with profit-making at the expense of essential services to Canadian taxpayers, especially those in rural Canada, is totally unfair.

Mail service, as the previous members have mentioned, is a vital means of communication for us in rural Ontario and for all Canadians. But it is especially true for those of us who depend so much on it in our small communities throughout the rural ridings of this province. It is also important as an affordable and personal means of communication. We know the costs of long distance telephone charges at the present time. Most of those are unreachable for many of our citizens.

Canada Post gives a service to us that we rely on. They feel that by closing rural post offices they will save money to help reduce their deficit.

Some rural post offices, believe it or not, are profitable. But that is not the point. Canada would never work as a nation if everything were reduced to dollars and cents. Rural Canadians do not count the cost of their contribution to urban services like hospitals and transit systems, but they do expect to be treated fairly and equally with their mail service.

While it is obvious that Canada Post must act to remove its deficit, it might consider the example of postal systems that provide ways of increasing and expanding revenue through revenue-generating services. I will give the examples of both Australia and Britain where the post offices offer a great diversity of services that produce revenue. For example, the British Post Office offers 200 counter transactions. The revenues from those services make up 20 per cent of their total revenue. Australia, as well, receives considerable profits from special counter services.

Canada Post might be well advised to take a look at these systems and maybe streamline its system to help the plagued inefficiencies and delays that it presently has. Canadians are in favour of improved services before profits. Before Canada Post makes a decision that manifests the inverse of its priorities, it might take the time to think and look at the needs of the public it is serving.

The purpose of a crown corporation is to serve a role in the national interest. Service to people in urban centres and rural communities should never take second place to a bottom line. This is not to give Canada Post a blank cheque to ran a deficit, but let us look at serious ways of improving service or cutting costs, better than the quick-fix solutions it is looking at right now.

In the long run, these quick-fix solutions will fail. It seems that Canada Post not only is making it more difficult to receive mail but, as well, it is making it more difficult to send mail. Since 1984, Canada Post has cut back on the number of mailboxes, making access difficult for seniors, disabled individuals and anyone who has difficulty getting around.

Mr. Speaker, did you know that 5,221 federally operated rural post offices in Canada are slated to be closed, amalgamated or privatized over a 10-year period? This is according to Canada Post’s 1986 corporate plan. Of these, over half -- and I must stress this -- are located in the rural areas of Canada, areas of 5,000 people or less. Again, I go back to Mr. Mulroney’s promise to restore the quality of service as a top priority. This was the plan that I referred to earlier.

I thank the member for Rainy River for bringing this most important issue in his resolution to us and I definitely support him, as part of rural Ontario.

Mr. Wildman: I rise to support the resolution presented by my colleague the member for Rainy River and I want to congratulate him in his attempt here to make one of the first moves in this House to try to defend rural Ontario from the attack on it by the mandarins in Canada Post and in Ottawa serving their Tory masters. I cannot understand how a party in this country that claims to speak for rural Ontario, rural Quebec and the rural Prairies can countenance a policy which is designed to tear the hearts out of the small towns across this country.

One of the previous speakers said he believed that Canada Post was swimming in red ink and should break even. It is not acceptable to Ontario that we should be made the sacrificial lamb to some view that we should in some way be making a profit out of the post office.

When we mail a letter from my office here at Queen’s Park, it takes, on average, one week to get to Sault Ste. Marie. Then, of course, it has to be sorted and go to the rest of my constituency. Some people would attack Canada Post by saying, “How can it be that we have such a deterioration of service?” I suggest the problem is not one of the pay that people who work in the post office get, but one of the amount of junk mail that Canada Post has to deal with.

Mr. Black: Your householder.

Mr. Wildman: I have not sent out a householder this year, but I know a lot of other members do send out householders and I suppose they might be considered to be junk.

The fact is that many people will compare Canada Post service with courier services that are running in competition with Canada Post. They say, “Look, we can send a letter by courier service and it will be delivered the next day.” The question is how much you are paying to deliver a letter by courier overnight when in actual fact it takes about two days from the Sault to Toronto even though they claim overnight service. How much are you paying to get it here when you consider that a courier service not only is charging a great deal more -- 10 times as much, at least, for first-class mail -- but also does not have to carry any of the so-called junk mail?

The fact is that we have a tremendous amount of mail to be processed by Canada Post in a country that is as wide and sparsely populated as ours, and to suggest that this kind of an operation should be profit-making or, frankly, even should break even, is to misunderstand the necessity of a good postal service for our economy as a whole, and particularly for rural and small-town Ontario.

As my colleague the member for Rainy River indicated, in many rural communities the post office is the centre of the community. People congregate at the post office to pick up their mail if there is no door-to-door service, as there is not in most small towns. It is a meeting place that attracts people and serves as the head of the community. The closure of many rural post offices in these small towns in some cases will mean the end of that community as a community. Yet the Conservative government in Ottawa is intent on making rural and small-town Ontario and Canada pay for its misguided approach to the whole postal service.

In my constituency there are some ridiculous situations with regard to post office service. White River, which is at the northwest comer of Algoma riding, is approximately 60 miles from Wawa. If a person mails a letter from White River to Wawa, it does not go the 60 miles from White River to Wawa; it goes from White River, through Wawa, to Sault Ste. Marie, approximately 200 miles. It is sorted in Sault Ste. Marie and then it is sent 140 miles north, back to Wawa.

This is all done in the name of efficiency. This is done because they want to have a central sorting mechanism similar to that which the member for Rainy River is talking about in the northwest.

It used to be even worse. It did not just go from White River to Sault Ste. Marie to be sorted and then back to Wawa; the letter used to go from White River to Sudbury. They have improved it a little; they have moved it from Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie, but it is just plain silly. It means a deteriorating service for the small communities at a time when we are having to pay more for this service, even though I admit the cost of the stamp does not pay for the cost of the operation at all.

In some of the very small railroad communities in northern Algoma, we have a really serious situation with regard to the postal service. There used to be postal service six days a week at one time. Now, in Oba, for instance, which is at the junction of the Canadian National Railway line and the Algoma Central Railway line, if they are lucky they get their mail three times a week, because it comes from Sudbury or Capreol by train. Last year the post office threatened to cut it to two days a week, again all in the name of saving money. These communities are very isolated as it is. To have these kinds of cuts in service is going to isolate them even more.

I know it is tempting in this kind of debate to use the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the union that serves the large urban postal service, as a whipping boy. CUPW is not a very popular organization in this country. I suppose it was tempting for the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr, Villeneuve) to do a little union-bashing in his speech.

I submit that this resolution does not deal with CUPW, this resolution deals with a commitment on the part of the Conservative government in Ottawa to maintain postal services in rural, small-town and northern Ontario. The fact is that we do not have that commitment from the Conservative government in Ottawa. The Conservative government in Ottawa has said that it intends to consolidate the services even more, to cut the services even more and to charge more at the same time. We are getting less and less service and we are having to pay more for it.

The postal service is an essential service to the rural communities of Canada, as it is to the whole country. What I am submitting in my remarks is that it is even more essential in small, rural Ontario towns than it is in a place like Metro.

I believe that we should be supporting this resolution. I supported the resolution presented against the supermailboxes by one of the Conservative members, and I also had a resolution in Orders and Notices some time ago about preserving rural post offices, so I am obviously in favour of this resolution. I think, though, that it is not acceptable for the Conservative members or any other members in this House to try to argue that the postal service in most Ontario is suffering because of union activities in the cities. That is so ridiculous.

The point is that it is suffering because we have a government in Ottawa that is not interested in improving the postal service, that is interested only in attacking the postal service and is going to make rural Ontario, small-town Ontario and small-town Canada pay for its inability to make the postal system work in the black.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has now expired.

Mr. Wildman: It should not be forcing it to work in the black; it should be providing an essential service.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wellington, for up to nine minutes.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: First of all, I would like to express my support for the resolution, so there will not be too much heckling from the right.

Mr. Villeneuve: No, from the left.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: Nor from the left. Then I would like to point out a couple of things that concern me.

In today’s private members’ business we have two private members’ resolutions, and both of them deal with issues pertaining to the federal government. This assembly is suggesting what the federal government should be doing to improve the life of Ontario residents.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding, but I thought about a year ago there was a provincial election and there was a bunch of Liberals elected and they formed a government. I thought they had some responsibility to the citizens of Ontario to do something. Surely private members’ business should be dealing with what this government and what this assembly can be doing to help improve the services of the citizens of Ontario.

It is great to fire shots at the federal government, and before the federal election, that was quite reasonable and understandable. But since that federal election is now over, could we not concentrate and see if this Legislature could deal with issues we can handle within this assembly?

Having said that, I will now move on to the main part of the resolution and say that I do support the resolution presented by the member for Rainy River. It is a good resolution, but it could be better. The member makes mention of the fact that the mail service in communities such as Fort Frances, Kenora and many smaller rural communities of northwestern Ontario will deteriorate because of the declining mail service.

I would like to see the resolution expanded to take in all of rural Ontario, because in my part of the province, as well as that of the members from northwestern Ontario, we are concerned about any decline in mail service. Some of the urban members have spoken on different occasions about the concern they have with supermailboxes, I think they call them. In rural Ontario that is basically what we have, only we call them small post offices. People are usually quite glad to have the services of those small post offices, because it gives them an opportunity at least to pick up their mail when they do want to and not to depend on some service that may or may not materialize.

Of all the communities that I represent, only one municipality does have door-to-door mail service similar to what the urban members expect, and most of our people, as I mentioned earlier, are very pleased to accept the services provided by the small post office. One thing we do not want to see is curtailment of that service or even any decline in the services provided by those small post offices, or the rural delivery in some cases.

It has been pointed out by the member for Rainy River -- one of the main concerns I would support him on -- that if we are to attract industrial or commercial development into northern Ontario, or indeed, into rural Ontario, we need all the services that are available, certainly not any decline in the services we now have, such as the postal service.

The smaller municipalities lack a lot of the advantages they have in the cities. That is why so many of the industries end up coming to the likes of Metro Toronto, creating further problems: housing, sewage, garbage, all types of pollution, traffic. These industries would be well advised to take a look at northern Ontario, eastern Ontario and western Ontario. They could find a much better place to set up their business, a quality workforce and, one hopes, the services they need to carry on.

I would like to add one other thought, and that would be to support the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry and his reference to the fact that possibly the unions do have some say in the operation of the post office. Maybe they do not seem to feel they are directly involved, but I think they are very directly involved. I think the comments made by my colleague sitting to my right were very pertinent.

I will not repeat them except to say that in Queen’s Park, our mail service is not the best. I have raised this on occasion with the Minister of Government Services (Mr Patten). I have pointed out that sometimes it takes two weeks, three weeks and even four weeks to receive a letter from my riding, which is only 50 miles to 100 miles from Queen’s Park. In three weeks to four weeks, we could send it by pony express. In fact, many of my constituents have thought of the possibility of training pigeons.

I hope they do not have to resort to pigeons or pony express or something of this nature, but I do think there is something to be desired in the quality of mail service we are experiencing in Queen’s Park. I assume it is the same in this jurisdiction, because sometimes the ministers take two months, three months, four months to respond to a letter.

I see one of the ministers coming in now who is very prompt to respond to his letters.

Mr. Villeneuve: A very lonely minister at that.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: A very lonely minister. I think the members do have a responsibility to respond to their constituents as soon as possible. I try to respond within a day or two of receiving my mail. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, that sometimes is two weeks or three weeks. I am not sure that is quite addressing the resolution, but perhaps the resolution could be expanded to improve all mail services by whatever means.

I will close by simply saying that I do support the resolution of the member for Rainy River. I do encourage all members to support it as well, and I hope we can have a further resolution dealing with improving something in this province relating to this government.

Mr. Speaker: There is still a minute and a half. The member for Grey for a minute and a half.

Mr. Lipsett: It is a pleasure for me to have an opportunity for a brief second or two also to support this resolution this morning by the member for Rainy River.

I would like also to address the part of the resolution that states in the last couple of lines that it is applicable to all rural postal service across Ontario. Rumours of cutbacks per week of delivery, replacement of the present end-of-lane service and closing of rural post offices are all of concern to each and every one and do not enhance or improve the service.

We have adjusted to mail delivery loss on Saturdays but not without inconvenience. Any further reduction in that service would not be in our best interest, especially for subscribers to the daily newspapers. The Saturday paper is of very little use to them on Monday and even less so, if Monday is a holiday, on Tuesday. We get frustrations from the subscribers as well as from the people who produce the newspapers.

I think that today we take pride in our high-tech, instantaneous global communication system, but when it comes to rural mail delivery, it could be improved. I therefore support the resolution.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River reserved three and three quarters minutes, which he may wish to use now.

Mr. Hampton: Let me begin by thanking all members for their support on this resolution. It was very much appreciated.

Mr. Ballinger: We haven’t voted yet.

Mr. Hampton: Well, all those members who have so far spoken. As for the member for Durham-York (Mr. Ballinger), he should remember that we will be voting on his resolution as well this morning.

Let me respond to some of the comments that have been made, and first of all, to my Conservative colleagues and some of the comments they have made. The suggestion was made, in terms of the postal service, that everybody should pay his own way or that the postal service has to turn a profit. Let me say this: I think anyone can make a profit shipping mail from Toronto to Montreal, Montreal to Ottawa, Toronto to Vancouver, Edmonton to Calgary or even, for that matter, London or Windsor to Toronto. There are such volumes of mail and such large concentrations of population that there is no problem. You can make money off that.

The theory used to be that this was one community and that whether you lived in a rural area or an urban area, a metropolitan area or a remote area, there were some services that should be relatively equally available; there should be some equality of service. That is what I am asking for in this bill, the return to the equality of service. If the post office really is concerned about breaking even or reducing its debt, I suggest that it is going about it in the wrong way. What it is doing is trying to cut losses by cutting service and cutting employees, and that is going to hurt those communities that can afford it the least, small-town and rural Ontario.

What Canada Post ought to be doing -- and I thank the member for Kenora for talking about this briefly -- is trying to increase the revenue by increasing its service and the variety of service it offers across Canada, but certainly across Ontario.

The second thing I want to say is that I do not care who the employees are at Canada Post; they are only employees and they do not make the managerial decisions. I get really fed up when I hear some people say, “If we could only crack the whip on those civil servants.” I hear it all the time in my constituency. The guy who is a civil servant at the bottom of the rung does not make any managerial decisions. Somebody says to him, “You do this, you do that and you get to work on time.” I think it is the same in Canada Post.

It matters not to me if you are a member of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, you are a member of the letter carriers’ union or you are from the postmasters’ association. You do not make the orders, you do not give the marching orders and you do not make the decisions; you simply follow the rules. To blame some postal worker in CUPW who is making $35,000 a year, to say that it is because he or she is making $35,000 a year that some other part of the postal service is suffering, does not make any sense to me.

I want to say something, finally, about the relevancy of this resolution. When some of the Conservative members suggest that this is not an issue that we should be dealing with here, I want to say only this: They have not adjusted to opposition yet. One of the things you realize when you are in opposition is that you bring pressure to bear wherever you can. That is the idea behind this resolution, to bring pressure to bear on the powers that be. I think we in this province can exert some pressure.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has expired.

Mr. Hampton: I thank all members who spoke in favour of the resolution.

Mr. Speaker: That completes the allotted time for dealing with private members’ public business and particularly with ballot items 45 and 46 .

REFUGEE CLAIMANTS

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Ballinger has moved resolution 52.

Motion agreed to.

RURAL POSTAL SERVICES

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Hampton has moved resolution 47.

Motion agreed to.

The House recessed at 12:02 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

AMBULANCE SERVICES

Mr. McCague: We have had an opportunity to speak to the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) during her estimates, with very few answers. One of the main subjects being discussed is ambulance services. Most of us have all types of ambulance services in our areas.

I want to bring to the attention of the minister the situation in Wasaga Beach where the emergency services committee of council points out that the staff there are about $1 an hour behind the wage levels of other services in the province. Yet the minister refuses to acknowledge that, or at least if she does acknowledge it, refuses to fund it. It is a municipally run service where they do not charge up their administrative fees. I think the minister is getting a bargain and I would just ask you, Mr. Speaker, to pass on to her that we need a little more money in that area.

CFOS/CFPS-SUN TIMES CHRISTMAS FUND

Mr. Lipsett: I rise today to recognize the organizers and performers of and contributors to the CFOS/CFPS-Sun Times Christmas Fund broadcast. This year’s broadcast on Sunday will receive pledges from the listening audience, many accompanied by a request to have some local talent sing, play an instrument or recite an appropriate poem.

This year’s broadcast will be the 49th successive event to raise money for the Save the Children-Canada Fund, the Grey-Bruce Regional Health Centre and five county homes for seniors in the counties of Grey and Bruce. Last year, $24,606.83 was raised, of which $2,000 went to the paediatric ward of the hospital, $2,000 to the homes for seniors and the remainder to the Save the Children fund. This year’s distribution of funds will be proportionately the same.

I would like to acknowledge in this House the efforts and dedication over the years of the management and staff of the radio station and the Sun Times. I would also like to recognize and thank the people of Grey-Bruce area for their caring and generosity towards this worthy cause.

WORLD AIDS DAY

Mr. Eves: I rise today to comment on World AIDS Day. The World Health Organization has designated today as the day to publicize the worldwide fight against the acquired immune deficiency syndrome epidemic. There have been some remarkable efforts in this fight, especially with respect to stopping the spread of the disease.

Evidence from around the world shows that education programs can result in behavioural change. I am sorry to say, however, that news from the research front is not promising. It is estimated that it will be at least another five to 10 years before a vaccine against AIDS is developed. It was about seven years ago when we first started hearing about this disease, and since that time there have been 861 reported cases of AIDS in Ontario, 489 in Toronto alone. Worldwide, there have been over 124,000 cases.

The World Health Organization predicts that by 1991 there will be 100 million people with the disease. This is particularly important in light of the Queen’s University study which revealed that more and more teenagers are engaging in sexual activity without knowing the risks. It is also important that we continue to educate the public about how the disease is spread, so that we do not create fear of those people with AIDS.

The Progressive Conservative caucus encourages the government to continue and strengthen its AIDS education campaign. We also hope that this government improves its support for research for a cure and new and innovative ways to treat the disease. We would again like to remind the government and the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) with respect to a needle exchange program, and for that matter providing needles to all those in need, especially diabetics.

CONSERVATION AUTHORITIES

Mr. Offer: On June 29, 1988, the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) tabled a report entitled A Review of the Conservation Authorities Program. This report was received and accepted by the Association of Conservation Authorities of Ontario with this comment: “The report is a good start in dealing with a wide range of complex issues.”

The Credit Valley Conservation Authority is one of 38 conservation authorities across our great province which belong to ACAO. The CVCA, established in 1954, serves a number of communities, including my own, and is responsible for the watershed of the Credit River, which spans the townships of Mono, Orangeville and East Garafraxa and includes the regional municipalities of Halton and Peel to Lake Ontario.

Recently, the ACAO prepared a response to the report interested in reforming conservation authorities across our province. The Credit Valley Conservation Authority supports ACAO’s comments in their entirety. Both the CVCA and the ACAO have commended the Minister of Natural Resources for the opportunity to have real input into this very important topic which will shape the future of all conservation authorities in Ontario. The purpose of a single, united response by the ACAO on behalf of all Ontario conservation authorities is to ensure that conservation authorities receive the necessary responsibilities, funding and opportunities.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. That completes the allotted time for the member.

Mr. Offer: I compliment the CVCA, the Minister of Natural Resources and ACAO in this consultative process.

RENT REGULATION

Mr. Breaugh: At a meeting of the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations on the weekend, we had some lengthy discussions about rent review. The consensus among tenants is that rent review in Ontario is indeed a mess. If there is any one opinion that is shared by both tenants and landlords, it is the simple, unfortunate fact that the rent review system in Ontario is not working and is getting worse by the moment.

It is interesting to note some statistics on the matter. Between July 31 and October 31 there was actually a decrease in the number of cases, but the decrease is largely attributable to the fact that there were 3,767 withdrawals of applications. We now have 242,000 rental units awaiting a decision. That is almost 24 per cent. Of the available rental units in Ontario, 23.2 per cent are caught in this logjam of rent review.

I think that many tenants are now beginning to understand that, no matter what the minister says in the House, the average is over 11 per cent in terms of the awards that are given by rent review and in fact landlords are rewarded for making what in other quarters would be considered just plain bad business mistakes. To quote one tenant who wrote to the minister, “Is it good business to buy something ‘at a loss’ and ‘suffer hardships’ because your laws have made such flipovers legal and guaranteed such poor businessmen a profit at the expense of the hapless tenants?”

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has now expired.

Mr. Breaugh: The answer is yes.

BHOPAL DISASTER

Mrs. Marland: I rise today to speak about the Bhopal disaster. On December 3, 1984, a chemical leak occurred at an Indian chemical plant owned by Union Carbide. The plant, which produced potent pesticides, was located close to residential areas in the city of Bhopal. Over 2,000 people were killed by the deadly fumes.

On this day we join with Canadians of Indian descent, many of whose relatives were killed in Bhopal, in remembering a tragedy which took so many lives. This incident, like many others experienced throughout the world, serves to remind us of the need to maintain stringent safety standards in those plants which produce dangerous chemicals and in those warehouses in which hazardous materials are stored.

These global tragedies also serve to remind us all who live in freedom and a democracy that we are indeed blessed and that we should cherish our good life and use our days to always make life better for those who do not have the same opportunities or blessings.

JOHN JONES

Mr. Faubert: I stand today to pay tribute to an up-and-coming resident of Thunder Bay, Ontario, who may soon become a household name, John Jones.

John Jones has recently taken another step upward in his auto racing career by being named the number one driver for the Labatt-Protofab racing team. Mr. Jones, who is the 1988 CART/PPG Indy Car World Series rookie of the year, will now have a very competitive car in which to compete.

Many racing experts are predicting even better results for next year. As auto racing fans across the province look forward to next year’s Molson Indy, the thought of the race being won by a Canadian driver is no longer the impossible dream.

On behalf of all members of this Legislature, I congratulate John Jones for his successes to date and I wish him every success in his promising future as a star in the CART/PPG Indy Car World Series.

Mrs. Marland: I rise to request unanimous consent to commemorate the anniversary of Portuguese independence.

Agreed to.

PORTUGUESE INDEPENDENCE DAY

Mrs. Marland: I rise today to commemorate the anniversary of Portuguese independence. It was on this date in the year 1640 that the nation of Portugal was able to regain its complete independence from Spain.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal’s close proximity to Spain on the Iberian Peninsula resulted in strong ties between the two nations. This culminated in a dynastic union of the Spanish and Portuguese royal families. In 1580, Philip II of Spain claimed the Portuguese throne by marriage and the Spanish king led a successful invasion of Portugal. Eventually, Spanish wars, taxes and internal domination led to uprisings in Portugal and a revolution gripped the nation in 1640. On December 1 of that year, the last remnants of the Spanish occupation force fled Portugal and the Portuguese state was re-established.

In recent times, Portugal has been rocked by internal strife and military rule, and continual power struggles between forces of the left and right brought great instability to the nation. However, the establishment of democratic government and rule by the people in the late 1970s has meant remarkable improvements in the standard of living enjoyed by the Portuguese people.

If there is one quality I admire most about the Portuguese it is their fervent desire to remain independent, to protect their culture and their heritage. Throughout the history of this small nation there has been one common theme: the Portuguese have fought to protect and strengthen their nation despite the presence of many larger, stronger countries nearby. I think it is true that the Portuguese have succeeded.

This has not meant that the Portuguese have built up walls to the outside world. On the contrary, the Portuguese state has shown great confidence in maintaining ties with its allies and neighbours. Of course, Portugal is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance and is a firm ally of Canada. Portugal has also entered into a free trade agreement by joining the European Community. I think it is clear that the Portuguese people are not afraid to be swallowed up under free trade, and our recent federal election proved that the Canadian people are just as confident in the future of our nation.

We in the Progressive Conservative Party join with the people of Portugal in marking the anniversary of the independence of this small but courageous nation.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that close to 100,000 Ontarians are of Portuguese descent. Several large Portuguese communities have been established in such cities as Toronto, Hamilton, Brampton and Cambridge. These Ontarians came to this province seeking a better life and they have greatly enriched our cultural heritage.

Our ties with Portugal do not end there, however. In the past three years, over 220,000 Canadian tourists have ventured to Portugal. Some have gone to visit family members. Others have gone to enjoy the warmth of the Algarve. Still others just wish to explore this beautiful nation.

It is my hope that Canada and Portugal will maintain and increase our ties in trade and tourism as both nations move towards a very bright future, which I hope to a great extent will also include the province of Ontario.

Mr. Ruprecht: On behalf of the Premier (Mr. Peterson), the Minister of Citizenship (Mr. Phillips) and the government of Ontario, I rise for the purpose of recognizing an important event that dates back to 340 years ago, which has been celebrated as Portuguese National Day and Independence Day.

The celebration of the Independence Day of Portugal is special and unique in the pages of history. This date commemorates December 1, 1640, when a quick revolution in Lisbon on that day overthrew 60 years of Spanish rule and reinstated the Portuguese monarchy and the king, Don Juan IV.

On this historic occasion, we ask the people of Ontario and all those of Portuguese heritage to join us in the remembrance of this special day. We are, of course, cognizant and appreciative of the tremendous contribution that our Portuguese friends have made to the development and growth of our province and country, both in economic and cultural fields.

Yet, as important as the economic contributions are, the attention of Portuguese-Canadian children today is focused not on the prosperity and wealth that opportunities in Canada create, but on our democratic system of government, which allows all citizens in our multicultural society of Ontario to celebrate a day of national importance.

[Remarks in Portuguese]

Mr. B. Rae: I am delighted to participate in this celebration of Portuguese Independence Day. It is interesting to note that of all the countries in the world that have a connection with Canada as Canada now is, our association with Portugal probably goes back as far as with any other country.

It is worth remembering that Portuguese fishermen were on the banks of what is now Newfoundland at least 500 years ago, that Portuguese communities date back some 500 years, that there is a very strong historic connection between our two countries for that reason, as well as for the obvious reason now, that particularly since the Second World War and indeed even more immediately since the mid-1960s, there has been such a substantial immigration of people from all over Portugal as well as the islands to Canada, and to Toronto in particular.

I am delighted to join in this celebration with my colleagues the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland) and the member for Parkdale (Mr. Ruprecht), and to say to the House that we join in this celebration and look forward very much to a long and happy relationship with the people of Portugal, with the country of Portugal, as well as with the many Portuguese citizens who have done so much to build this great city of ours, who have done so much to add to the nature of Canada and the nature of Ontario and Toronto. Today is a great day and we are just delighted to be able to participate in this celebration.

[Remark in Portuguese]

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

COMPUTERS-IN-EDUCATION GRANTS PROGRAM

Hon. Mr. Ward: As members know, the Provincial Auditor’s report deals with my ministry’s computers-in-education program.

My ministry has introduced important changes in computer policy and in the administration of that policy.

First of all, we are no longer pursuing the concept of developing a single “ideal” microcomputer. The restrictive requirements for participation in my ministry’s grants program were removed earlier this year. What we are doing now is providing grants that allow school boards to purchase more widely available high-quality microcomputers and software that meet the needs of our students.

To deal with the concerns about incompatibility, I announced last summer that my ministry was undertaking a project to improve software portability. This would ensure that ministry- commissioned software would be able to run on all approved microcomputers with greater cost-effectiveness. The Provincial Auditor’s findings confirm our decision.

In addition, I announced recently in the Legislature that school boards will be allowed to use a portion of their computer grants to purchase less costly machines. This will mean that we can meet our commitment to provide every student with 30 minutes of computer time daily by 1996 at substantially less cost to the taxpayer.

We have also taken steps to address the auditor’s concerns about management and control of expenditure in the computers-in-education centre. A change in organization within the centre this past spring has resulted in efficient and effective monitoring and control of money spent on the development and licensing of software.

I agree with the auditor that more must be done to train teachers in the use of computers. That is why I recently announced a measure that will allow boards to apply a portion of their computer funding to related teacher training.

With respect to research, there are currently three regional pilot test centres that study exemplary uses of computers in the classroom. I will be asking my Advisory Council on Educational Technology to make recommendations on the establishment of more of these centres over the next year.

These steps in the renewal of the computers-in-education program address the specific findings of the Provincial Auditor. This renewal has been under way for some time and further changes are forthcoming. I believe these changes ensure that public funds are spent more effectively, providing better value for tax dollars.

RESPONSES

COMPUTERS-IN-EDUCATION GRANTS PROGRAM

Mr. B. Rae: I am delighted to respond to the statement by the Minister of Education (Mr. Ward). I can only tell him that in the educational community I deal with and talk to, there is extraordinary scepticism about the program which was introduced by an earlier government and maintained and continued by his own; that the comments by the auditor have not been fully addressed in his statement; and that, in fact, there remain some very profound problems with the system with which various boards have been saddled.

It has proven to be a very expensive mistake. I might add that the Ministry of Education is not the only public body in this province, within my knowledge, that has been saddled with a computer system which is less than adequate to the needs of those who are using it. The provision of what I would describe as Studebaker systems of computers to various public bodies seems to be a habit of mind in this province, which is very troublesome.

I am glad the minister has indicated that there is going to be more flexibility in terms of the hardware that is now able to be purchased by various boards and obviously glad that software is being developed. I think this will be looked upon as an example of how not to make an intelligent decision with respect to the use of a new technology when we look back on it.

The saddling of the whole system with a technology which was not fully worked out, which is expensive and for which it has proven until very recently very difficult to find software which is usable and readily accessible for children, when at the same time kids at home are using entirely different equipment which is being replaced all the time, which has piles of software available, is a tragic misuse of public dollars.

I hope it is one in which the minister will continue to take a leadership role in making sure we accept the fact that a mistake was made, accept the fact that we are going to have to pay for that mistake, and that we get on with a flexible, usable, accessible system, accessible for all the kids who need it and who want it and, I might add, their parents who are being educated it the same regard.

Now I have to sit down because the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale (Mr. Philip) wants to say something.

Mr. Philip: The minister’s statement clearly does not deal with the essential problems we are facing in this series of revelations by the Provincial Auditor. In the first place, there were no clear, set objectives in place for this program. If there had been, there would have been an integration of this set of programs along with the 74 per cent of all software that was not encompassed in this program. Indeed, there would have been adequate training.

The teachers in the programs are the recipients of hardware without any adequate training so that they can use it in a way that will be of benefit to the students. There was no assessment, which should surely form the basis of any expensive program. So you have no setting of objectives, no co-ordination of the program with other programs, no testing and no training of those who are responsible for implementing the program. Clearly, this is a matter that should be investigated by the standing committee on public accounts. No doubt when the ministry officials are called before us, they will be questioned very strenuously by members of all parties on that commitment.

Mr. Speaker: Further responses. Ministerial statements and responses.

Mr. B. Rae: Wait a minute. You mean nobody is going to defend Bette?

Mr. Breaugh: I can hear Bette’s boots stomping already.

Mr. Sterling: Sometimes we know when to be quiet.

Mr Speaker: Order. Could I have the members’ attention? Oral questions. The Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. B. Rae: If the members of the Conservative Party want to respond to the statement, I am quite happy to allow them to do so.

Mr. Speaker: I appreciate the offer. However, they have had the opportunity and I have called for oral questions.

ORAL QUESTIONS

Mr. B. Rae: I might give the government notice that I do have a question for the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) with respect to the tragedy yesterday. I understand that she is going to be here. I will not ask the question of the Premier (Mr. Peterson) because, frankly, I think the minister can give us a more up-to-date report than the Premier can as to what she found yesterday. So I will give the government notice that I will stand down that question. If I may turn immediately to my second question, I will ask it of the Premier.

TEMAGAMI DISTRICT RESOURCES

Mr. B. Rae: The Premier will know, I am sure, because he has been briefed on this matter by the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) -- at least I suspect that he has -- that the Temagami Wilderness Society filed its application with the Divisional Court on June 24, nearly six months ago. I wonder if he can explain why the government has not responded in any way with any documents at all to the application filed by the Temagami Wilderness Society, if he really is interested in getting on with this matter.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The Attorney General can respond to that.

Hon. Mr. Scott: My understanding is that the Wilderness society, either under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act or in the proceedings themselves, has requested certain documents. We are getting those documents together. If it has not already happened, they will in due course be filed.

Mr. B. Rae: But there is not even a response to the application. The Attorney General knows what an application for judicial review looks like. He has handled, I would think, a couple hundred of them in his role as a private practitioner. He knows full well that if you want to get on with an action before the Divisional Court, if you are interested in solving a problem before the Divisional Court, as a government you respond to them; as one of the parties to the action, you respond.

I might point out to the Attorney General that in its application and indeed in the accompanying documents that have been filed with the court, the Temagami Wilderness Society makes it clear that, in fact, there has been no environmental assessment of the entire question of logging practices, harvesting practices or any of the issues about the land around the road which was to be built.

I wonder if the Attorney General would not agree with me that if he is going to protect the environment or give the environment equal weight, as was implied in the statement made by his colleague the Minister of Northern Development (Mr. Fontaine), the very least that should be done is that there should be some kind of environmental assessment that deals not simply with the question of the narrow construction of a road, but with the broader question of what that road is to be used for and what the implications are of extensive logging practices on the future of the area as a wilderness reserve.

Hon. Mr. Scott: The first point to observe is that the government, in fact, has responded to the applications. As the honourable member knows, there is a form under which that is done and we have done it. We will attend in court to respond to the case whenever the Temagami Wilderness Society arranges to have the case called. That is the first point.

On the second point, I would direct my honourable friend to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) or the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) who will be able to provide details for him, but my understanding is that the Red Squirrel Road was subjected to a full environmental assessment and indeed the Minister of the Environment imposed some 29 conditions on the mode, the manner and the timing in which that construction might take place.

Mr. B. Rae: The minister will also know, or the Attorney General should know if he does not, that the entire question -- first of all, there has been no hearing of any kind and the minister ordered that there would be no hearing, even with respect to the narrow question of the road. I say to the Attorney General that the question of the use of the area or the land around the road, the question of harvesting practices, timber practices, logging practices and the impact those are going to have on the environment is what is troubling people.

I would like to ask the Attorney General, does he not feel that this government has badly mishandled an issue, particularly when we know that on September 18, 1987, 700 delegates to the World Wilderness Congress passed the following resolution: “The fourth World Wilderness Congress urges the Ontario government to terminate roadbuilding and resource extraction activities in the Temagami-Lady Evelyn wilderness and to implement a form of wilderness reserve bordering the existing Lady Evelyn provincial park.”

Co-signatories to the resolution were The International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club of the United States and the Sierra Club of Eastern Canada, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the Federation of Ontario Naturalists --

Mr. Speaker: I am just wondering if the member does have a supplementary.

Mr. B. Rae: Why not subject the entire area to an environmental assessment hearing and not simply the narrow question of the construction of a road, which, frankly, is far less important than the uses to which that road is being --

Mr. Speaker: I am sure there is a question somewhere there.

Hon. Mr. Scott: I am sure the honourable member will want to direct his questions respecting the environment to the Minister of the Environment when he is here. But as the honourable member will know, 80 per cent of the projects that are submitted do not require an environmental assessment because conditions can be imposed. If he is unaware of that, he will want to ask the honourable member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman), who lobbied strenuously to avoid an environmental assessment at the Magpie River project, which was a project of very considerable importance to his constituents.

POLICIES ON ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

Mr. Brandt: My question is for the Premier and it relates to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade meetings that are going to be opening this Monday in Montreal. It is my understanding that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. Kwinter) will in fact be Ontario’s representative at that particular meeting. Is it the continued position of the government of Ontario that the government will be defying the decision by GATT, which ruling was brought down in November, 1987, with respect to Ontario’s suggested discriminatory markup and pricing policies, and is that the position the minister will be taking to Montreal relative to Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: With great respect to my friend opposite, I think his facts are wrong. There has been no final determination from GATT. There have been discussions with GATT. As the member knows, representatives of the various governments were in Brussels last week, I believe. There may be another meeting before the end of the year. There has been no meeting of the GATT council on this matter. Various positions with respect to beer and wine across the nation are being discussed but there has been no GATT ruling in that regard.

The member is quite right, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology will be attending, I believe just as an observer, for the opening of that midterm review of the GATT discussions next week in Montreal.

As I understand it -- it is, as I said, a midterm review --

it is to monitor the progress and at the same time take the international temperature or an assessment of the international will to proceed with the round of GAIT discussions. As the member knows, those will proceed if there is the collective political will in the free world to generate that. So that is what I think those meetings are about. I do not think they will be getting into specifics of particular problems.

Mr. Brandt: It is interesting to note that on the same day the Premier indicated that he would be defying any GATT ruling with respect to the suggested discriminatory pricing policy, he also made a comment in connection with his interest and the interest of his government in trading with the entire world.

Now, recognizing that GATT is, in fact, the world authority with respect to trading practices, I find that somewhat contradictory in that, on the one hand, the Premier is defying a GATT ruling and, on the other hand, he is indicating that he wants to open up Ontario markets to the rest of the world and not be so closely aligned with the United States.

The point I make to the Premier is that it is quite obvious that if the GATT ruling is defied by the province of Ontario it can then follow that the European Community can retaliate not just against Ontario but against the rest of Canada as it relates to trading practices. Does the Premier not find that the position Ontario is putting Canada in, relative to retaliatory action on the part of other signatories to the GATT decisions, is an unfair position and may well cost jobs in other parts of Canada?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: No, absolutely not, and I think my honourable friend’s

preamble is incorrect. We did not talk about defying a GATT ruling. There are negotiations going on with GATT and they will go to the GATT council some time in the not-too-distant future. As the member knows, there is a preliminary rating and then it goes on to the council which, in the meantime, invites a national response. That is the way it happens with Japan, Germany or any other country.

So the question now is being negotiated before it goes to the GATT council. The question then becomes who is speaking out in our national interest, and are those negotiations being well conducted on behalf of Canada? Ontario is there, but all the other provinces are