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February 20, 1997

36th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

L166 - Thu 20 Feb 1997 / Jeu 20 Fév 1997

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

GASOLINE PRICES

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

GASOLINE PRICES

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

INTERNATIONAL TOURIST GUIDE DAY

NIAGARA DETENTION CENTRE

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

SCHOOL BOARDS

EDUCATION FINANCING

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY ADVERTISING

REPORT, INFORMATION AND PRIVACY COMMISSIONER

ORAL QUESTIONS

SPECIAL EDUCATION

HOSPITAL FINANCING

DISCLOSURE OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION

COMMUNITY CARE

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

CHILD POVERTY

FOODLAND ONTARIO

DISCLOSURE OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION

TRUCKING SAFETY

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

GASOLINE PRICES

NIAGARA DETENTION CENTRE

TRUCKING SAFETY

MOTIONS

STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

PETITIONS

NORTH YORK BRANSON HOSPITAL

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

ADOPTION

EDUCATION

FIRE SAFETY

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

CHILD CARE

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

BIBLIOTHÈQUES PUBLIQUES

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

FIRE SAFETY

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

WORKERS' COMPENSATION

ORDERS OF THE DAY

WATER AND SEWAGE SERVICES IMPROVEMENT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR L'AMÉLIORATION DES SERVICES D'EAU ET D'ÉGOUT

The House met at 1002.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I move private member's notice of motion number 43:

Whereas the Harris government is closing hospitals in communities across Ontario, and thereby threatening patients' access to care when and where they need it; and

Whereas the new hospital bed standard that is being imposed by the government's restructuring commission is overly aggressive and unrealistic, especially in rural and northern Ontario; and

Whereas the downloading of responsibility for long-term care on to municipalities will put additional pressure on the hospital sector;

Therefore,

be it resolved that in the opinion of this House the Ontario Ministry of Health must develop a hospital restructuring policy that properly addresses such factors as the need for core hospital services, the availability of non-hospital alternative care and the geographic realities of rural and northern Ontario.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Mr Conway has 10 minutes.

Mr Conway: I come before the House this morning as a member of the Legislature for an eastern Ontario constituency that in very recent weeks has faced severe cuts to its hospital sector.

I have raised on previous occasions the decision of the hospital restructuring commission made on December 3, 1996, which will close the Pembroke Civic Hospital. In so doing, with that decision, the Harris government will take out of our community, a small city in eastern Ontario, $14 million of annual hospital budget. We are going to lose not just a century-old facility, we're not just going to lose $14 million annually in terms of hospital budgets in Pembroke, but we're going to lose 300 jobs.

The report of the restructuring commission in respect of Pembroke also calls for dramatic cuts in areas like chronic care. The Pembroke report of the hospital restructuring commission recommends that the city of Pembroke, which now has 70 chronic beds, go down to 18 chronic beds. This is a huge cut in an area where we've already got unmet pressures.

The government's commission has been through not just Pembroke but Sudbury, Thunder Bay, it's been to Sarnia and into Petrolia, and I hear this morning it will very shortly be in Ottawa, Toronto and London. People increasingly across the province are becoming concerned about the range and depth of the Harris government's cuts to the hospital sector. It is a matter of record that this provincial government led by Mr Harris has cut more deeply into hospital budgets than any other provincial government across Canada.

Just a few weeks after the Pembroke Civic Hospital was closed, hospitals in Arnprior, Renfrew, Barry's Bay and Deep River in my eastern county of Renfrew were told that they would lose another $1.6 million -- that on top of the $14 million net loss to Pembroke. That means that just in the last few weeks in my county of less than 100,000 people, we've been told by this government to get ready to lose $16 million-plus on an annual basis. There is no doubt, as people are now starting to observe, that this is cutting into patient care.

We have on the record in just the last few weeks the tragic testimony of Paul Kaihla, a distinguished Maclean's reporter, about the circumstances of his father at the Sault Ste Marie Plummer. We had last week the testimony of several of the Peterborough medical society, which doctors wrote in the public domain that the cuts in Peterborough are now serious and threatening patient care. Just a few days after that letter, we have the tragic story of an 82-year-old man who was found by his family dead on a hospital cot in the corridors of the Peterborough Civic Hospital.

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): It's outrageous.

Mr Conway: It is outrageous, and it is deeply worrisome to families and caregivers across the province. The Kaihla story in the Sault at the Plummer, the case of the 82-year-old man in Peterborough are but two examples of evidence to support the claim made in recent days by the president of the Ontario Hospital Association, Mr David MacKinnon, who strongly urges the current government to stop, look and listen in terms of its hospital cutting and its restructuring policy.

David MacKinnon is no wild-eyed radical. He's a long-serving Ontario public servant just recently made president of the Ontario Hospital Association. He said to a legislative committee just in the last few days, "The Harris government's current policy towards restructuring of hospitals and the health system as a whole is seriously flawed and must be fundamentally changed before irreparable damage is done." He goes on, does the president of the Ontario Hospital Association, "Unless changes are made, the people of this province will face reduced access to care and the quality of that care may decline significantly."

We have a commission that is travelling around and about the province, the so-called Health Services Restructuring Commission, that is acting as the government's agent. These are good people, well intentioned to be sure, but they are using as one of their principal planning tools a new hospital bed standard. I repeat today what I've asked the Minister of Health on a number of occasions earlier this month.

I want the government of Ontario to tell me today which Ontario hospitals are today meeting that new hospital bed planning standard they are using to restructure Ontario hospitals, to shut down hospitals in Pembroke and Sudbury and Thunder Bay and to substantially reorganize hospitals in Sarnia and Lambton.

Give me and the people of Ontario the hard copy, the list of those health care institutions, those hospitals that are today meeting your standard. I don't think you can because I don't think there are any hospitals that as entire facilities today are meeting that standard, but I'm quite prepared to be proven wrong and incorrect. I say again to the parliamentary assistant, give this House the list of those hospitals meeting that standard.

All of this cutting to the hospital sector -- $1.3 billion to be taken out of the hospital sector in just three years -- comes before we have the downloading of long-term care and home care and ambulance services on to the land tax, the property tax. As the chair of the Health Services Restructuring Commission, Dr Sinclair, said, that is wrong-headed policy and is going to make the ambition of an integrated health delivery system very much more difficult to achieve.

But these billion-dollar cuts to the hospital sector that are causing such angst in places like Pembroke and Sudbury and Peterborough and Chatham and Thunder Bay and soon Ottawa, London and Toronto, are coming before the downloading of home care and long-term care to the land tax, to the property tax.

I met recently in my community with all the administrators of the homes for the aged and nursing homes and they are apoplectic at what they are going to do. In Pembroke we are told we have to give up 70% of our chronic hospital beds at a time when we're having very real difficulties meeting the needs of the long-term-care patients. My constituents with elderly relatives are asking me now, "Where are we going to take our grandparents, our parents?" It's bad now; you reduce by 65% the chronic care capacity in the Pembroke hospital centre and these caregivers tell me a bad situation is quickly going to get much worse.

I say most sincerely to the House and to the parliamentary assistant, stop, look and listen to what doctors in Peterborough, constituents in Pembroke and the president of the Ontario Hospital Association are telling you.

A final observation, as a member from rural Ontario: I firmly believe that the health ministry's current planning standard fails to adequately address the particular health care and cultural needs and realities of rural and northern Ontario. I look at the Pembroke report and I look at the comparison of utilization rates. Yes, it's very clear what the standard is. It's a standard that's currently being met in -- where? -- Toronto, Ottawa, London and Hamilton. The larger the urban community with the greater collection of existing institutional services, the better the communities perform.

You get out into the rural Ottawa Valley, you get up into northern Ontario, and you notice that the utilization rates are substantially higher. I believe that one of the reasons for that is that the current planning standards just do not adequately address the rural and northern needs of Ontario. I represent people in places like Palmer Rapids and Rolphton and Whitney where now it's a one to one-and-a-half-hour drive to Pembroke; it's a two to two-and-a-half or three-hour drive to Ottawa. These people are terrified that this new planning standard is going to undermine their access to quality health care, particularly in the hospital sector.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The Chair recognizes the member for York South.

Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): It is at once a pleasure and problematic to take

part in this debate. I want to thank my colleague from Renfrew North for raising this matter, but at the same time of, course, my colleague from Renfrew North is trying to make sense of the unfathomable: the hospital policy of this government. The assumption that there might be a germ somewhere, a scintilla of sense to the approach that this government is taking is what underlines the good faith of the motion we have before us today; that somewhere within the government's approach to hospitals is logic; that somewhere within it might be some evidence-based practice, some idea of what actually could be done for the betterment of health care.

As the Liberal health critic, I've had opportunity to look in detail at what the hospital restructuring commission is doing, what premises it's based on, and what we have is a hugely academic exercise using models. Some of the answers that my colleague may get from the success of this motion would show him, I believe, standards that are completely unrealistic and completely unsuited to the Ontario experience.

Let's go back a bit and look at the genesis of the Harris hospital mess in Ontario, generated exclusively by this government, an atmosphere of fear and concern generated by decisions made by this government: the passage of Bill 26; the suspension of normal rights of appeal, of democratic intercourse with their government for the towns and the cities affected by the hospital restructuring's attentions -- totally wiped out by the new acquisition of powers by the Minister of Health to go around this House, to go around the normal channels of democracy, and instead to give those powers to unelected officials appointed to carry the bag for this government, unwilling to state its opinion on the most important issue of the day, which is, what the standards are going to be for health care in this province, a government bereft of its own ideas of what that responsibility is.

In even reducing health care down to these little methodologies -- and I'll say in a minute where those little methodologies came from -- but to make it an academic exercise shows a profound lack of understanding on the part of this government of what health care is all about.

Certainly, it takes the "care" completely out of health care. That's what the Conservative government has done with the appointment of a hospital restructuring commission that sees no emotional connection on the part of small towns, on the part of patients with the care they're supposed to be getting in these institutions. Instead, the government cannot move off an

interpretation of hospitals as lines on a budget, as moneys to be extracted.

And what does this government hope to obtain?

The other decision this government made, uniquely, was to cut $1.3 billion from hospitals over the course of three years, a historical slashing of health institutions in this province, done, one would hope, after some level of deliberation, some level of study, some level of comprehension; but no, instead done by a government desperate for cash, a government that wants to tithe -- more than tithe; decimate, literally and beyond -- the function of hospitals to pay for new needs in the health care sector, to pay for the cash flow they require for a $5-billion-a-year tax cut, a sad and sorry sacrificing of the wellbeing and the health of people in this province.

The consistency, of course, is there in terms of the genesis of this. We see this government again abrogating its own responsibility, deciding it can't stand up and doesn't have the courage to tell Ontarians where it is coming from in health care. Does it believe people should still get services in hospitals, or does it want it to be in the community? Does it want those to be one monolithic, integrated institution, or does it have some regard for competition and flexibility and service responsiveness? None of those things is this government prepared to tell us.

Instead, as it has done in other areas, as it proposes to do with the megacity in Toronto, as it proposes to do with the education system, it hands off the responsibility that we're paid to do in this House to handle and find political solutions to the problems of the day. This government has abandoned its responsibilities and gotten rid of those difficult problems, it believes.

It has handed it off to an academically based -- we say that; we'll give them some due; some people who have some background certainly in terms of the field of health, but it's handed them a dirty assignment. It has not said to them, "What's in the best interests of patients, of the people of Ontario in terms of the health care system?" It has said to this restructuring commission: "We're cutting 18%, $1.3 billion across the board, and you're the executioner. You've got to go out there and do this according to these guidelines." We've seen time and time again that this restructuring commission has been willing to do that.

Out of Thunder Bay it's taken a profit of $41 million for this government in excess cuts over any so-called reinvestment. That's $41 million worth of health care that those residents of Thunder Bay won't have, and we're going to find that repeated over and over again.

The formula has come not from an academic, detached entity but rather from the Ministry of Health itself. What people don't realize is that even though the health restructuring commission hasn't yet made it to their town or city, the district health councils have been working in anticipation. Those district health councils have been handed off formulas. Health care is now reduced to formulas: 70% day surgery; all kinds of allocations based on notional ideas of what things could be.

What I would recommend to anybody listening to this important debate raised by the member for Renfrew North is to sit down and talk to your hospital administrator and ask your hospital administrator a couple of questions. Ask them whether they're experimenting with your health, because the formulas engaged by the Ministry of Health, even though it tries to skirt around it, the Ministry of Health and the district health councils, those formulas are causing the people responsible -- the boards and the administrators of hospitals -- to experiment with people's health.

I spoke with one administrator who used the ministry formula for releasing pregnant mothers and who found instead, a year later, that not only was it harmful to their health to put them out of hospital that soon, but the readmission rates were so high it cost money.

That's what happens when a government won't take its responsibility, when a government runs away from the tough decisions, when a government won't stand up for health care in this province in a most fundamental way. We've heard this week and last week the cost that lack of gumption on the part of this government has, the price that having no courage when it comes to health care exacts.

We've heard of an 82-year-old man who died in the hallway in Peterborough, a hallway cluttered with stretchers because of the millions of dollars in cuts that have taken place, because the cuts are taking place completely out of sync, without even the pretence of hospital restructuring. There's no connection between them.

Now we know, as of yesterday, that the association representing all the hospitals in the province, whose initial judgement was to go along with the government -- which I'm sure many citizens out there would like to do as well, would like to believe that when the government embarks on this kind of hazardous activity, changing systems that have been around for 15 and 20 years on the turn of a dime, they have a plan. We now have the association representing the institutions most affected saying yesterday that this plan is flawed, it's haphazard and second rate.

We know now that the minister, Dave Johnson, the part-time health minister, wears no clothes. We know now that the Tory caucus, who across the province have been making noises about hospitals, who have been saying, "We'd like to keep these hospitals," that that's just noise. Instead, every single member of the Tory caucus has proved unwilling to stand up for decent health care. They must be aware. In fact, I happen to know they're aware.

I have here a speech given by the head of the OHA to the Health Policy Advisory Council of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. This was a speech given to the members opposite to give them a chance to realize that health restructuring based on formulas that don't have any application to reality is wrong, that it's bad for the people they represent, that it's hazardous to the health of the people they represent. They were told this, in confidence, in privacy. They were given a chance to do something different.

On January 20, the members opposite were told that this can't be done. A significant price is going to be paid. The changes that hospitals are making "will impair the system," and "For the third year...all bets are off," because "the third year targets" cannot be achieved without "reductions in services."

This government knows. It's not even a question of whether they've got the best formulas; they know it's impossible. It can't be done. Yet on February 1 of this year, they persisted.

The Acting Speaker: Let me express to the member for Nickel Belt, I'm sorry for the lack of protocol accorded to him before the last speaker. Now the Chair recognizes the member for Nickel Belt.

Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt): Thank you, Mr Speaker. If that's the worst you ever do to me, I will not be concerned.

I wanted to take a few minutes of the time allocated to our caucus to talk about hospital restructuring and to commend the member for Renfrew North for bringing this before the House.

Basically, what it's doing, for those who tuned in late, is calling upon the Ministry of Health as it goes about hospital restructuring to think about special factors, such as core hospital services that are required, non-hospital alternative care, which I gather means community-based care, and some of the realities of rural and northern Ontario.

I can tell you that I have no problem with the need for hospital restructuring in this province, and I doubt very much if the member for Renfrew North does either, although I don't want to put words in his mouth. As a matter of fact, it was our government that started the whole hospital restructuring process, so I don't have any problem with the need for that.

But I do recall, when we started the process, the enormous pressure put on us by the opposition at that point, the Tories in opposition and, quite frankly, the Liberals as well, for us to make sure that every dime saved in a community was reinvested in that community, reinvested in community-based care or in capital or whatever; whatever savings were achieved in a community, they'd have to be reinvested in that community. We thought long and hard about that and finally we agreed to do that.

This government refuses to do that. They say they're not cutting health care, but they will not reinvest savings in the local community. If that's the case, where are those savings going? They're going to one of two areas: They're going to go into places like Toronto or Ottawa, and I don't believe that either. Therefore, it's going to meet their fiscal bottom line, namely, the tax cut. That's what it's for. That's what this is all about.

I would not be upset with hospital restructuring. I might have problems with some of the specifics, but I would be more supportive if I thought this hospital restructuring was being done for the right reasons. But this hospital restructuring is being done, plain and simply, for that tax cut which you seem determined to believe that your well-heeled friends need more than people in the community need good health care.

Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau): Why did you close the beds? How many beds did you close? Who did you give the money to? What did you do with the money?

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Order.

Mr Laughren: I think the judge should crawl back under his bench.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Laughren: Crawl back underneath your bench, Judge. We don't need your heckling. Wait until the restructuring commission comes to Ottawa and see what your reaction will be then.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Laughren: I can tell you, I am not opposed to hospital restructuring. Even in Sudbury, where they've closed two out of the three hospitals and they're going to replace them with one large hospital, I have not been critical of that. I think that needs to be done. It'll be interesting to see how the Tory backbenchers, like the ones from Ottawa, react when the hospital commission leaves town after having made its decision there.

There are some areas where I think the Ministry of Health needs to get it back together. They have given the Health Services Restructuring Commission certain responsibilities but other responsibilities they've kept unto themselves, such as labour adjustment when hospitals are closed and layoffs occur, such as the capital sharing. They said it was 70-30 in one community; they did not say it was 70-30 in every community. I haven't heard them say that and they need to make it clear that the capital sharing will be at least 70-30 in all communities.

Also, they need to tell us what's going on with community-based care that's in this resolution by the member for Renfrew North. There has been no commitment in my community that any savings will be put back into community-based care. All they're doing is closing hospitals. It makes no sense whatsoever. The restructuring commission is doing its job, given its mandate, but the Ministry of Health isn't looking after the other half of the equation and saying, "What about capital, what about reinvestment, what about community-based care?" They have refused to do that. We shouldn't be surprised --

Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): We continually said that.

Mr Laughren: Well, come to my community and say it. We shouldn't be surprised when the head of the Ontario Hospital Association, Mr MacKinnon -- whom I know and respect; I think he has served this province very well over the years and he's hardly anybody's political pawn, I can tell you that -- comes out and says that what the government is doing is wrongheaded and too fast. They've got to slow down and think about it and do it properly. He said that before a legislative committee.

I can tell you that I am for hospital rationalization. That's clear from public comments I've made in my own community and elsewhere. But I am very, very suspicious of exactly what it is that's motivating this government when it closes hospitals and restructures the health care system. Nobody believes that it is being done so we get a better bang for our buck in the health care system. If that was what was motivating this bunch of Tories, then I would be supporting them. But that's not what's motivating them. What's motivating these Tories is simply the bottom line so they can give the tax cut to the most prosperous citizens in this province. Nothing more, nothing less.

You should not be surprised, my friends, when there's resistance in the community, because it's so transparent that what you're doing has nothing to do with better or more rational health care; it has to do with paying for the tax cut. That tax cut is going to cost about $5 billion a year in revenue and you have to make that up somewhere as you try and reduce the deficit, and guess where the biggest spending occurs. It's in health care and it's in education. You can trim all the other programs and you won't get to the dollars you need to provide that tax cut.

You have to go after health care and you have to go after education, so no one should be surprised that those are the two areas where you're spending most of your time in cutting programs.

In conclusion -- I want to save some time for my colleague from Cochrane South -- I simply say that I will be supporting and we will be supporting this resolution from the member for Renfrew North, not because of the need for rationalization but because of the motivation that lies behind what this government is doing.

Mrs Helen Johns (Huron): It's a pleasure to join in the debate today. I first would like to say that this government is listening to the people of Ontario and we care incredibly about the quality of health care in the province of Ontario.

The OHA and a number of different organizations have agreed that restructuring has to happen. As we all know, hospital beds have been closed throughout the province over the past eight to 10 years. In fact I have the numbers now that say that in the Liberal time frame 1,200 beds were closed across the province, but with the NDP 8,800 beds were closed. So I'm not surprised that the member for Nickel Belt agrees that something had to be done. They didn't have the nerve to take the final step to be able to do something.

They closed beds all across Ontario but never turned out the lights, never stopped paying taxes, heat, light, hydro on the buildings. It's outrageous that we continue to do those things.

Money has to be focused on the patient. The patient is the most important issue when it comes to quality of care and health care in Ontario. I know after I finish speaking today the member for Nickel Belt will be supporting me in my opposition to this resolution because he will see that we truly are reinvesting money back into health care. I know the member for Nickel Belt is a very informed and well-versed and long-standing member here and will know that when he looks at the financial statements of this place he sees that more money has been invested in health care from this government than was when he was elected and a member of the ruling party, I guess would be the way to say it.

In June 1995 the government was spending $17.4 billion in health care, and at the end of our first fiscal year it was $17.7 billion. So even though we have made some reinvestments, we continue to have a strong and ever-growing commitment to health care.

Along the line, though, we all recognize that technologies have changed, that the world is a different place than when we built these hospitals in the 1950s and the 1960s and we have to change the way health care is funded in the province. Even the Ontario Hospital Association recognizes this. I have a statement that the member for Renfrew North started to speak about but he never finished the comments. It says:

"OHA and its members have been, and continue to be, supportive of restructuring in the hospital sector. Restructuring has been made possible by the successes of hospitals in introducing new technology, drug therapies and innovations in the delivery of patient care. These have led to reductions in lengths of stay, a significant shift to outpatient and ambulatory care, which in turn reduces the need for facilities, beds and resources for acute inpatient care."

If we listen to the Liberal members today, they would have us believing we're kicking people out of hospitals before they're ready to come out. This truly says, as doctors and the Ontario Hospital Association are saying, that technologies have changed, our ability to treat people more quickly has changed, and we need to change the way that hospitals work in the province.

It's very important to recognize that we have no cookie-cutter approach to restructuring in Ontario. What we say is that the district health council must come forward and tell us what makes sense locally in their community. The district health council comes to us. It presents from the community what should happen in their community to meet the ever-changing needs. Then the restructuring commission comes in.

If we were to listen to what they said across the way, I could make the decision just sitting here in the back row at Queen's Park and everybody would have exactly the same hospital system, but we don't do that. The restructuring commission goes in, talks to people in the community, talks to the district health council, looks to see what the community needs, and with that comes a report. This is very locally driven, something that I, as a representative of rural Ontario, feel very strongly about. My decisions should not be Toronto-based, nor will they be.

The members seem to be talking about us taking this money and siphoning it into some unknown place other than health care. It's really important for everyone today to recognize that the reinvestments in health care are substantial. We have had to make reinvestments to be able to make the health care system work better for all of us. If we left everything as the status quo, as the honourable opposition would like me to do, then we would have no new technologies, no ability to deal with some of the doctors' concerns in Ontario, no ability to have emergency services for my people.

Since this government has come to power we have given $70 an hour for evenings and weekends to allow my emergency room in rural Ontario to stay open. We have made some substantial changes to help rural Ontario meet the needs of its people, and this has to happen as we continue to evolve health care so that it meets every one of our needs.

I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the investments that are important for us. I've talked about the $70 an hour, and 90% of the rural hospitals in Ontario have tapped into and are using this fund to keep their emergency rooms open and available to people. One of the things I felt quite strongly about as a rural member was that people could not go to the emergency room at night with their little children and not wonder if there was going to be somebody there to help them. We've rectified this situation and we continue to do that.

We have made reinvestments in paramedic training. In my riding and other areas about rural Ontario all across the province we have put defibrillators in ambulances. We can save people's lives with defibrillators; we can move them. We need to have these reinvestments.

We've reinvested $14 million back into northern hospitals. We've put $10 million into community-sponsored contracts, which allow hospitals that have never had the opportunity to get a doctor, or have been without a doctor for a substantially long time, to have doctors. In Vernon, for example, we have a doctor who came to them as a result of one of these community-sponsored programs. What happens in these cases is that they come into the community and they provide services for a fixed fee. In this particular case, the gentleman's fiancée came to a town close by, so we got two doctors into two areas which had always had trouble with doctors and physicians' services.

The recent agreement with the physicians has made a substantial difference to rural Ontario, another reinvestment to rural Ontario, because it has allowed us to move doctors from areas where we have too many doctors to areas where they need to be. That has to be, in many cases, rural northern Ontario. It's definitely outside five core areas where we're overserviced at this particular point.

We're making many changes because we believe this is the right way to go. We have a strategy that will integrate health care in Ontario and allow us to bring services to people where they need them, when they need them and at the time they need them.

Today's resolution suggests we don't care about rural Ontario and I'd like to say that rural Ontario is the basis for many of our reinvestments in health care. We are not doing a cookie-cutter approach across Ontario; we are working hard to find solutions that meet the needs of rural Ontario.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I want to commend the member for Renfrew North for bringing this resolution forward. If there's one issue that is worrying the people in this province and indeed in many parts of this country, it's the issue of health care.

In the Niagara region we are already underfunded by approximately $25 million, according to authoritative sources, for all the services we require, yet we have a local hospital restructuring commission, faced with another $44-million cut in funding for hospitals, recommending now that certain hospitals close or have their role changed drastically.

That report was entitled Made in Niagara. It was made anywhere but in Niagara. It was developed by a consulting company from Toronto which has used its same pattern in many other areas, but also the policy is developed here in Toronto. If you're going to take $44 million out of hospital funding in the Niagara region, that means the local commission has no alternative but to recommend the closing of hospitals.

If you didn't have that hammer hanging over the head of the local hospital restructuring commission, my guess would be that the report would be drastically different. They have called for the closing of the Hotel Dieu Hospital in St Catharines, which has an oncology division that is second to none and a kidney dialysis division and several other important services of a specialized nature. That is destined to be closed by this government's policies.

In Port Colborne thousands of people showed up for a public meeting; in Fort Erie they showed up for Douglas Memorial Hospital; in Niagara-on-the-Lake there was a large delegation out; in Grimsby, the largest gathering of people ever. I understand that today in Kitchener-Waterloo they're announcing that they're going to lay off hundreds of hospital workers, 350, something of that magnitude.

We have an aging population in the province, particularly in the Niagara Peninsula, where people on average are older than in other areas and where older people, it's a fact of life, will need hospital services more than others. This government has lots of money to give to a tax cut for rich people in this province, lots of money for that. Make no mistake about it: That's what these cuts are motivated by. I'm sure that many people in the government caucus never realized how much was going to be cut to feed this tax cut which benefits the wealthy people to the greatest extent.

Dr Ron Casselman, who is a urologist in St Catharines, made I thought an excellent point before the commission when he quoted a special report from an expert in the field, who said: "You can't rush into the closing of these hospitals. You've got to take your time and do your restructuring right." Instead the government is just using the bulldozer, moving quickly, drastically, not looking at the consequences of their actions.

The intimidation factor is out there. District health councils, local commissions, even hospital boards are afraid of the government. They think if they keep quiet, somehow they will avoid the bullet that's being fired. When the commission report comes down, of course those who have dodged the bullet are either going to be supportive or very silent of that recommendation because they dodged the bullet.

When you have all these hospitals closing, when you have hospital workers being fired left and right, when you have nurses who are now out of the hospitals, you have a lower standard of care, not because the people who are there don't care; they do. You don't have the people any more. That's why in Peterborough you had them stacked up in the hallways. Yesterday an individual passed away very tragically in a hallway. In all the hospitals they're lined up in the hallways for beds. The emergency services are backed up.

You people want to take more away. I don't understand it. I can understand some of your other initiatives, but if there's one thing that unites people of all political affiliations, of all backgrounds, it's good quality health care. Instead what you're moving to is an American system, a two-tier system. That is what is going to develop in this particular case.

I hope the members of this assembly will support the resolution by the member for Renfrew North and I hope the government will reconsider its ill-advised position on hospital closings.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I stand today as the representative of the riding of Cochrane South to report back to this House, especially to the government on the other side, that there seems to be quite a bit of discrepancy between what was said in the last election in the Common Sense Revolution and what is happening now, and further and more important, between what was said by the then leader of the third party and the now Premier of the province.

I think it's good that every now and then we turn back to the Common Sense Revolution to make sure that as members of this Legislature we keep the government accountable to its promises. I remember that particular document and I remember promises in the last election. One of the promises made by the Tories in the last election read something like this: "We will not cut health care spending. It's far too important, and frankly, as we get older, we're all going to need it more and more. Under this plan, health care spending will be guaranteed."

I'm here to tell you that we've lost health care dollars in Cochrane South; we've lost health care dollars in Cochrane North. We are seeing amounts of money being withdrawn out of our hospitals this year, over $1 million out of the Timmins and District Hospital. That means the good citizens of the city of Timmins and the people within the district, because we have a district hospital, have that many fewer services to rely on from the Timmins and District Hospital.

What's worse is that south of us, 300 miles down Highway 144, lies the community of Sudbury, which is a very important regional health care centre for northeastern Ontario. When I call the three hospitals down there and others in the health care field, I find there have been cuts to health care budgets in the city of Sudbury. What that means to the citizens of northeastern Ontario and particularly to the citizens of Cochrane South is that we now have to wait longer and longer on waiting lists to be admitted to places like Sudbury Memorial for cardiac surgery and Laurentian for cancer treatment.

I turn back to the Common Sense Revolution. I want to show it. I want people to remember what the government, the then third party, said during the election and what they are doing now, because they like to pride themselves in being a party which sticks to its word and follows like the gospel the words it spoke in the last election. I want to remind members that they talked about a couple of things here, specifically in the Common Sense Revolution, "For many who need care" -- I'll read it from the beginning. It talks about patient-based budgeting and about waiting lists and how it's a terrible thing that patients are having to wait for services. It goes on to say:

"For many who need care, this should mean an end to rationing and waiting lists. The fact that cancer patients can be trapped on waiting lists for months is a crime. The fact that pregnant women can't get epidurals is a scandal. The fact that people needing kidney dialysis have to wait in line is unacceptable."

It goes on to talk about how the government is going to put an end to those waiting lists and make sure that people are going to get into those much-needed services almost immediately.

I recognize that you can't do it immediately, but certainly the government, the third party, in the last election promised that it would lower waiting lists for cardiac surgery and for cancer treatment. I raised cases in this House where people have been waiting for eight months, nine months to get into Sudbury Memorial for cardiac surgery. I raised the case where a woman literally had to threaten to commit suicide to get into the Sudbury Memorial for valve replacement.

I've been called by others within the community of Timmins now waiting for valve surgery who can't now get in themselves and wonder: "Am I going to be able to get in in time? Do I have to live in fear because this government is cutting health care budgets?"

I thought that in the last election the Tories were quite clear. I thought they said that if they stood for anything other than fiscal conservatism, they had a belief in our health care system. They said they would maintain hospitals and maintain those budgets.

It is not happening. The government has gone against what it said in the Common Sense Revolution. They have cut health care dollars, something they said they would not do. They're not reinvesting whatever dollars they're cutting back into the communities. As the member for Nickel Belt said, that's something we had committed to as a government. We said that wherever we restructure within the hospital system, those dollars would be reinvested directly back into the communities from which the dollars came.

This government is taking money out of health care and putting it into the coffers of Ernie Eves so he can afford to pay for his tax cut and give people who have the most amount of money the biggest of tax breaks.

The biggest promise that -- you know, you don't even hear about this one any more. That really strikes me because I thought the Tories were on to something in that last election when they talked about the fair share health care levy. How many Conservatives remember that one, where the Conservative government, then the third party, said that if the Tories were elected they would give Ontario citizens a 30% tax break, but in order to make it fair they would put in a health care levy for those income earners with a wage of over $50,000 per year? Where is that? I don't see that happening. No, it's not happening.

What you're doing is giving people a tax cut and we're not getting anything back into the health care system in return.

They talked in the Common Sense Revolution about how that was going to result in $400 million being brought back into the coffers of the province of Ontario to offset some of their tax cut. Well, it ain't happening to the degree that the government said it was going to happen; in fact, they're falling far short of the mark. For a government that prides itself on holding itself to its promises and doing what it says, it turns out in health care, as in many other areas, the government is actually going in the opposite direction and breaking those promises.

I see on committees, as groups come to present to the government on various bills, there are many other people who are starting to recognize this. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is starting to recognize that the government broke its promise when it came to what it would do around municipal downsizing and what it was going to do with municipal government. We're seeing Tory members of the past come to committees and speak out against this government. I say to those watching, it's important that you come in and tell your story, because it does have an effect.

The last thing I'd like to say in the last two minutes I've got is that it is unbelievable in this House during question period when we listen to the answers of cabinet ministers. There was a question in this House this week some time, or late last week, where a question was asked on the part of the opposition to the Minister of Health around hospital closures. The minister stood at his bench in this House and said, "We have not closed any hospitals in the province of Ontario and neither do we plan to close any hospitals." I sit here and I say, what planet are these people living on?

Are they living in the province of Ontario or do they shuttle out of Ontario at night, whenever they're finished work here at Queen's Park, and go and live somewhere in the Cayman Islands?

I go around the province and I see hospital closures happening at a fairly alarming rate. In the community of Timmins, specifically South Porcupine, as a result of the decisions of this government to reduce funding to hospitals, the Porcupine Continuing Care Centre, which is one of the hospitals in Timmins, was shut down. The people in South Porcupine are still reeling from the effects of what that means to that part of the community.

So when I listen to the Minister of Health across the way stand in this House and say, "We're not going to shut any hospitals down, and neither have we," I sit here in disbelief. I know that I couldn't say something unparliamentary, but I'll tell you, I'm awful tempted, because when the citizens of South Porcupine talk to me on weekends and when I'm in the community on other days, they always remind me about what happened to South Porcupine, and I say it was a direct result of what this government did. The minister has a lot of nerve to stand in this House saying, "I've never closed a hospital and neither will I," because I can give you a list that's not very proud for the Conservatives.

Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): I'm certainly very pleased to be able to address the resolution put forward by the member for Renfrew North. Certainly hospital and health care restructuring is a topic that's very important to everyone here in the province of Ontario. I found it quite interesting, in some of the polling that was carried out by the federal government recently prior to its budget coming out, that the top two issues were health care and education. That should come as no surprise to us, but both of these two happen to be within the provincial jurisdiction, so the information really wasn't of too much use to them.

Health care systems across Canada are indeed changing, and here in Ontario we have been lagging behind the pack for almost a decade. Under the two former governments health care issues were allowed to slide. Even as health care providers were moving forward with innovative medical solutions, new technologies and shorter hospital stays, government bureaucracy and its attachment to bricks and mortar were indeed holding them back.

The member for Renfrew North should realize that the closure of beds started with the Liberal government when some 1,200 beds were closed, followed by the NDP with another 8,800-plus beds, so we're now well over 10,000 beds that have been closed by those two governments. That's equivalent to more than 33 mid-sized hospitals. But did they close any hospitals? No. Instead of putting money directly into patient care, hospitals were forced to put it into administration, operating empty rooms where the money was doing the least good.

Our government has recognized that that was the wrong approach and as a result hospital restructuring is urgently needed. We need to improve efficiency, eliminate waste and put health care dollars back where they're needed most: caring for patients. We're also committed to ensuring that quality patient care continues to be available to all Ontarians.

That is why the Health Services Restructuring Commission was set up in early January 1996. It is charged with moving the Ontario hospital system from one with high administrative costs and needless infrastructure to one that is focused on providing front-line patient services in a continuum of quality care. If in the course of its mandate the commission finds it beneficial to close redundant hospitals in Ontario, then it has the power to do that.

I point this out only because the member's resolution states that the government is closing hospitals and threatening patient access to care. I respectfully submit that the resolution is wrong on both counts. While the commission keeps the minister informed of its activities, it operates at arm's length from the government. That is as it should be.

I'd also like to point out that we're doing more than either of the two previous governments to improve the health care system in the province. We're finding efficiencies across the system, eliminating waste and reinvesting in front-line medicine. That's what is important in this discussion here today and I think it needs to be emphasized.

Why, in the member's own area of eastern Ontario we've reinvested some $1.6 million in expanded mental health care programs alone. That's just part of the $23.5-million reinvestment program provided under the community investment fund established by this government. I'd also point out that home care in eastern Ontario has increased by approximately $15 million from two years ago to now.

That is just the tip of the iceberg. In December 1995, we provided some $390,000 base funding in the Ottawa Civic Hospital for expanded cardiac surgery, and in May last year the Royal Ottawa Hospital rehabilitation centre received $1.1 million to improve rehab services in Ottawa. They're just some of the examples from the member's own area.

Across Ontario, we've reinvested millions more, starting with $170 million in long-term community care. That of course is another area of concern in this resolution before us today.

We've announced $14 million in growth funding for northern Ontario hospitals this year. Then there's the $45 million we're reinvesting in community programs to attract doctors to underserviced areas, the $7.1 million for long-term-care capital projects, the $45 million for the Trillium drug plan expansion for 140,000 more Ontarians and the $15.5 million for paramedical training programs.

The list goes on and on, for a $683-million total reinvestment to date. All of these reinvestments point to a health care system that is getting better, not one that is threatening patient care. I believe we're now on the leading edge of health care reform in this country, redefining just what it means to be responsive and responsible.

That is what this restructuring exercise is all about. We're moving from being a passive payor to an active manager of Ontario's health care system. We're building an integrated health care system based on medical advances and community care, and we're doing everything possible to reverse the downward slide that began under the previous two governments. Our aim is quality health care, and changes now under way will lead to a seamless and accountable health care system for all Ontarians.

I would point out that the member for Renfrew North and the member for Nickel Belt did not offer any alternative suggestions. They seem to be still in the same old mode of, "Let's just spend and tax and borrow." That status quo doesn't work. We were looking for some alternative suggestions from you, but all you had was the status quo, and that just doesn't fly any more. Maybe the member for Renfrew North could turn to our Liberal friends in Ottawa and ask where did the $2.1 billion go in transfer payments that they cut off to the province of Ontario.

The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. The member for Renfrew North.

Mr Conway: I say to the member for Northumberland, how dare you make some of those assertions? Let me just tell you: In my county of Renfrew, looking at the government's own data before the cuts, before any of these cuts, before you took $14 million out of the Pembroke hospital centre and before you slammed the door shut on the century-old Civic Hospital and before you took $1.6 million out of the budgets of the Arnprior, Renfrew, Deep River and Barry's Bay hospitals, let me tell you what your own government data say about Renfrew county.

Looking at key indicators in terms of per capita health expenditure, before any of this, Renfrew county is at 80% of the provincial average. On hospital and related facilities, before any of the recent cuts, Renfrew county is at about 83% of the provincial average. On OHIP expenditures, we are at about 70% of the provincial average. On mental health services, before any of these cuts, according to your own data, we are at about 40% of the provincial average. On key indicators, before any of the cuts, we are well below the provincial average.

How dare you tell the old people of Pembroke and area that they should just take it as part of some kind of seamless new web that you're going to weave. I just find that extraordinary. You are right, some of you over there, to say that hospitals weren't closed to any great extent in the period from 1976 through to 1992. Do you know why? Because when Frank Miller tried to do it in the early 1970s, with the best of intentions and all kinds of fancy data, he botched it and we had messes in Toronto and in the western peninsula, in communities like Huron and Bruce -- botched it big time.

No government of whatever stripe could ever go back to those communities and try to undo those mistakes. I simply ask for the government to stop, look and listen, and particularly to listen to the needs of rural and northern Ontario which are not being recognized in this current madness based on these gossamer criteria that you've developed someplace.

Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would like to ask for unanimous consent to amend the resolution, adding after the first paragraph, "We demand that the Chrétien government immediately stop its multibillion dollar cuts to health care and that fiscal savings derived from hospital restructuring should come from the" --

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Nepean, order. That is not a point of order.

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): I move private member's notice of motion number 66:

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): The member for Quinte has 10 minutes.

Mr Rollins: In my opinion, a fair and competitive marketplace is essential to ensure that Ontario customers have the right to choose where they purchase gasoline, at the best service and at the best price.

The retail gasoline marketplace involves small independent suppliers as well as outlets representing large oil companies, many of which can exert significant influence over the retail price of their own outlets and those of independent retailers. Price rivalry is a major factor in ensuring that consumers have true purchasing power and the presence of viable independent retailers in the marketplace is important in ensuring price rivalry and healthy competition.

Consumers and small retailers in Ontario and other parts of Canada are concerned that predatory pricing practices may be exercised by some large suppliers, such as artificially depressing a retail price temporarily to drive down price and small retailers out of business. Under the federal Competition Act, the competition bureau and Industry Canada have a clear national responsibility to investigate uncompetitive practices, including abuse of dominant position in the marketplace, price-fixing and other activities adversely affecting competition and consumers.

I do not propose that the government should set gasoline prices. However, I believe that government should follow through on the practices and make sure that the independents have the opportunity to buy petroleum product at the same price as the other people who are buying from large companies that are in the same competition market.

A little bit of background about Doug Rollins: I started with Shell Oil back in 1962. I'm one of the first persons to have driven a pup truck in Ontario. It was in 1963 or 1964 that this Legislature passed legislation to allow vehicles of over 47 feet in length. Shell had bought a truck from British Columbia and parked it at the Lakehead. It was the first pup truck. When that legislation was passed and became law, they put the licence plates in my suitcase, flew me up to the Lakehead, and I brought back that truck. That was the very first one to my knowledge that was driven in the province of Ontario, particularly with licence plates on it.

Interjections.

Mr Rollins: Well, there are some farm wagons running around with the same practical thing.

After working for Shell for five years, I took over a service station, and as of May 15 of this year I will have been in that station for 30 years.

In my city of Belleville, when I opened a service station, there were 65 small outlets in Belleville. Today there are 15. Of those 65 outlets that we had in the city of Belleville, each one of them had one or two mechanics; each one of them had one or two and maybe three part-time people after school, on weekends and nights.

With the institution of allowing the large companies to come in and use their dealers at a different rate and in a different way than the operators that paid the rent, with the deal with them, it was free enterprise, but the big oil companies pushed down hard on the independents. So at the present time you're down to 15 or 16 outlets and the only major competition is the large corporate giants in the oil industry. We know there are four of them and we know there are lots of regulations they have to meet. They have to meet the regulations of supply and security and things of that nature.

But one of the biggest factors in the oil business and the gasoline business today is that the price of the product for the independent is paid for when a load of gas comes to his or her place of business. The problem is, with the major oil companies, when they bring that product to their suppliers, we've got to have some people who want to be able to sell that product the next day that oil company bills that station for what the product costs them. It puts those customers who have to pay for that load of gas when it comes to their place at a very great disadvantage. They cannot compete. There's a margin of profit in there.

I know the oil companies stand there and say they are certainly good corporate citizens, which in most cases they are, but the biggest thing they want to do is to make sure they have the biggest part of the supply. If they can crowd out another one -- in the last three years they've closed out over 1,500 independent stations in Canada. Has that done away with a lot of jobs? I think it has certainly done away with an awful pile of jobs.

The Bureau of Competition Policy, if they would look at the business properly, adjust it properly and go into how the dollars -- we don't need to change the regulations. They're already there. All we want to do is make sure that those regulations are adhered to. Is it right that a person from Sarnia, Ontario, where most of the gas is produced through the refineries, should be paying 61.9 cents a litre for gasoline, yet here in Toronto or in other places they are paying 53 or 54 cents? I don't think so. I think we should have the price of gasoline very competitive across the whole.

I don't think as a government we need to regulate the price, but we need to regulate the selling practice, because the selling practice is what needs to be looked after.

Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt): Get a wishing wand.

Mr Rollins: No, we won't need one of those.

We've got about four different operations that the companies work under. The operations they work under are company-owned and -operated and they control the price. You've got your commission retailer, where the company guarantees the price of that product, so when I am a commissioned operator or retailer, I am guaranteed by Imperial, Shell, Sunoco, Ultramar, one of the biggies, that regardless of what the price is, I am given my guaranteed margin. I don't have to pay for the load of gas when it comes in, there are no taxes collected.

You and I do not see the tax cheque until after the next day, when the product is sold. I feel that's a very unfair practical way of putting small independent businesses very much at a disadvantage. We've got to look after them.

You've got your leased operators. The leased operators are people who lease from the oil company, they pay their rent, they pay their head costs on to it, the load of gas comes, they pay for it. They are close to being in the same position as the independent. But when the unbranded dealer's truck goes to the refinery, the gasoline is paid for at that time. Just remember that the gasoline is a byproduct of the refinery business. The oil companies won't always offer you that.

But how many times have you driven this province of ours and seen the price of diesel change? It changes very little. How much are the heating oil changes over the course of a year? It changes very little. But it upsets me, it upsets a lot of people when you see fluctuations in the price of gasoline of six or seven cents in a matter of a few hours, yet they're allowed to do that when they have no dollar cost tied into it.

Years ago, we used to have consignment. The government, in its wisdom, took away consignment. They said that was illegal. Now we have competition where the seller does not own the gasoline until the day after he sells it. So the day after he sells it, he runs down to the bank, puts the money in the bank and puts the taxes up. The taxes are collected for Ottawa, the taxes that the oil company pays, which is the second-biggest tax collector that the government has -- second only to tobacco. They put together some $9 billion in tax revenues.

In the share of market today Shell has approximately 13% of the market; Esso, 20%; Petro Canada, 20%; Sunoco, about 9%; Ultramar, 2%. Independents in 1993 had 29% of the market. Today they're down to 26%. They have rack pricing in Toronto and they tell you that rack pricing is the ultimate in being able to control the price. I want to inform you that Imperial Oil told me it has 113 different pricing zones in Ontario. If you think this kind of legislation can help to nullify those 113 different pricing zones and make this market a little bit fairer, I ask for your support.

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): I am privileged and feel it an honour to get up to support the member for Quinte's resolution. I thought that perhaps the Tories had forgotten their roots. At least we have one who understands that the small business person in Ontario is important and is important to competition. I'm certainly glad we have at least one Tory who doesn't believe that bigger is better. This government believes that bigger government, bigger companies, bigger banks and bigger oil companies are better. I'm certainly happy to see that the member is putting this resolution before us.

I have in my constituency a large number of independent gas dealers. I think of Charlie at Charlie's Shell in Gore Bay or Danny Forest in Gore Bay, Dave Montgomery in Kagawong, Bob Melis in Spanish. They tell me the same things the member's telling me today. They understand that they are always at the whim of the big oil company. The big oil company controls their destiny; it controls their profits; it controls what the consumer price will be.

They have great difficulty but, more than that, my constituents cannot understand why we pay prices that are absolutely outrageous. We pay prices on Manitoulin Island and in Elliott Lake along the North Shore that are in no way competitive with the rest of the province. The fact is, in my constituency driving is not a choice. You cannot get on the TTC; you cannot take public transportation.

What you have to do if you want to get from A to B, if you want to get to the hospital, if you want to get to the doctor's appointment, if you want to go to the grocery store, you have to get in your car and you have to use gasoline. That means we have to do something. We've talked about this for 30 years in this province, about having real competition in the gasoline retail business.

The only problem I have with the resolution that the member's putting forward -- and I agree we should ask the federal competition bureau to do something about this, investigate and see that things are fair, but there is something we can do. There is something his own government can do -- and it's been done. It's been done in Quebec and in New Brunswick and in 22 states in the home of free enterprise, the land of the free and the brave. Some 22 states have legislation which prohibits some of the practices that he is talking about here today.

Why don't you go talk to Dave Tsubouchi and Norm Sterling, the Minister of Energy and the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations? They can do something; they can do something right now. We don't have to wait for a bunch of bureaucrats in the federal government to run around and have an investigation which will decide all is well and good, I'm sure. You can do something. I'm asking on behalf of those independents in my constituency, some of whom can tell you some very interesting stories about what big oil companies can do to them -- and when they do it to them, they do it to the consumer because choice in the marketplace is reduced.

I'm just suggesting to the member what he should do. What would be far more productive is to ask the minister. Maybe he could get up this afternoon and ask the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations if he will move today to do what 22 states and two provinces in this nation have done and bring in laws that protect the independent from the kind of price manipulation and unfair competition practices that have put people in my constituency out of business.

It means you don't have choice. It means higher prices. It means all those things. So I ask the member -- this is nice but the real answer lies right here in the Legislature of Ontario -- to stand up and ask the minister this afternoon if he'll get on with his job.

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): I was happy to see this on the order paper for the two hours we spend on Thursday morning when private members bring up issues. I appreciate the member has some extensive personal background in the industry and brings some of those insights to it, but this isn't novel. Look at the history of what's happened.

The member may well understand small business because he's been involved in it, but I'm convinced this government doesn't understand small business. This government, like its friend Catherine Swift, who I'm convinced from time to time isn't that swift, believes that small business is 100 or so non-union, low-wage, preferably minimum-wage employees. Small business is exactly what the member is talking about: small, owner-operated businesses where one works with one's partner, and if their kids are old enough, their kids get brought into the business -- the sort of culture I grew up in. I know what he's speaking of.

Look what the oil companies have been doing over the course of the last 20, 25 and even 30 years. Look how they sold the gas bar. They promised lower prices, didn't they? In the course of selling us on the gas bar, they put out of business dozens and dozens, in every given community, of small service stations that provided service, that provided repair service for people who had an emergency, and that were able to support their families and send their kids to college and university, which is going to become increasingly difficult now as this government raises college and university tuitions and as small business people are increasingly under attack.

The oil industry is surely predatory. I have no quarrel with the member in describing it as such. Among its prey have been the small independent operators. I tell you, and the member speaks of this, the small lease operators are as much a victim of the predatory nature of these big oil companies as are the independents.

I think one of the things we can do, and I try to do it as often as I can, is to make sure I buy gas from family-operated service stations, sometimes independents, people like Chris Shoemaker's Welland gas station over at Thorold Road in Welland, sometimes admittedly from the chains, like Fralick over on Niagara Street, but again owner-operated. They've got the service bays and they're the sort of people who, if you need an emergency repair or some quick assistance, are as likely to do it no charge as not because they're going to give you what Shell and the others aren't.

Look at the insurance industry. Talk about a predatory industry. Talk about an industry that's going to gang up on its own brokers, because they're putting the boots to brokers just as the big gasoline industries are putting the boots to their own lease operators and to the independents and again to consumers.

We've got classrooms of young people up here who are going to ill afford to be able to drive a car at their age because they simply can't afford the insurance premiums because we've got an insurance industry in this province that can run roughshod over drivers, especially young drivers, and gouge them and grind them to the point where they're inevitably going to be forced to pay more in insurance than they're going to pay for that first car.

This government has failed to rein in the insurance industry and is allowing the insurance industry to continue to run roughshod over drivers in this province. The insurance industry is just like the oil industry: short arms and deep pockets. If they can pick your pocket, they will, quick as a boo, in a New York minute. Look at the other victims of this predatory corporate, multinational fuel industry, the gasoline and oil industry. Look at the other victims.

I appreciate the member's courage in bringing forward this resolution because, by and large, the front benches of this government have a special affinity for big, multinational corporations. They're the ones who hired Andersen Consulting out of Chicago, which stands to earn up to $180 million. This government would rather work with an American-based multinational and pay them $180 million to attack the poorest here in Ontario than look to made-in-Ontario expertise.

These guys don't understand that it's Ontarians who need jobs and that there's a whole lot of expertise available in the province that could fix their computer system, if indeed it needs fixing, in the Ministry of Community and Social Services. They didn't have to go to Chicago to make a deal. Some slick deal: a firm that just had to pay out $82 million in a settlement for their negligent audits in the savings and loan industry, which cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. These are the kinds of corporate multinationals that this government likes to do business with.

I applaud this member's courage in taking on the same multinationals that his front benches want to get in bed with. It demonstrates some insight. It demonstrates some compassion for consumers, because the other victims of these oil companies are the consumers.

Just as the member talks about these big oil companies being able to artificially lower their prices to put the boots to the independent operator to put him or her out of business so they can take over the whole industry, we've also seen the price increases on weekends, especially long weekends, vacation weekends, when that same oil industry, I am convinced, and so are thousands and thousands of drivers and consumers, will artificially escalate its prices to gouge people who want to use the roadways when they have the leisure time to do so.

So I'm going to support Mr Rollins's proposition and I'm going to applaud his courage for breaking with his government and their pattern of crawling into bed with the largest and the biggest and the most vicious of multinational corporations. Now, Mr Rollins may find himself in the position where he's never invited in the cabinet door, other than perhaps to pick up a file from an aide or so, and I think that's okay, because Mr Rollins is sticking up for the little guy, something that his government is disinclined to do.

I say to Mr Rollins, God bless you, sir. I say on behalf of the independent operators, and most of them are members -- they have an organization, the Independent Retail Gasoline Marketers Association. No doubt Mr Rollins has been in touch with them. No doubt he knows those people well. These are the little people. These are the real small business people, not Catherine Swift's small business people: as I say, 100 non-union employees making minimum wage and big profits for their bosses, the sort of people Frank Stronach would want to force to work for him, the kind of people Frank Stronach would exploit and abuse when they try to organize a labour union, a trade union, within their workplace.

These little independent retail gasoline marketers, they're real small business. I know who they are; the folks in Welland-Thorold know who they are. I say we should be encouraging people to shop at owner-operated stores and business places and we should be encouraging people to buy the gasoline and use the services of owner-operated service stations.

Mr Jim Flaherty (Durham Centre): I'm pleased to rise and address the resolution proposed by my colleague the honourable member for Quinte. I support the resolution. A fair, competitive marketplace is essential in ensuring that Ontario consumers have the right to buy gas where they want based on price and service. A fair, competitive marketplace is also the best way of ensuring that small independent gasoline retailers continue to play an important role in the marketplace, ensuring healthy competition, including price competition.

The plain fact is that the more competition there is, the better the price for the consumer. This government certainly supports these priorities, but it is Ottawa's responsibility constitutionally, the federal government's responsibility, not Ontario's, to ensure a competitive market under the federal Competition Act. In response to the resolution before us, Ontario wants Ottawa to exercise those powers.

Gasoline prices are much like other commodities; they are best set in a competitive marketplace, drastically reducing the potential for so-called predatory pricing. Under the Competition Act, the federal government has the power to protect consumers from anti-competitive pricing in the retail gasoline business. Our government has written to the federal industry minister about this matter. When he was the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, the Honourable Norm Sterling clearly expressed in writing our province's concern about gasoline prices in this province.

We are aware that several other provinces have expressed similar concerns. I understand the government of Quebec has introduced legislation establishing a formula for minimum pricing of gasoline and diesel fuel. That legislation does not give the government the power to set prices. Quebec's legislation was a response to gasoline price wars in Montreal and elsewhere between August and October 1996. Independent retailers complained that large retailers were selling gasoline below cost and using that practice to try to force independent retailers out of business.

What we truly need is for Ottawa to foster this kind of competition in every part of this country. The resolution we are considering today asks Ottawa to move on this important issue in the interests of all Canadians. Anti-competitive practices such as those which this resolution asks Ottawa to redress do not help anyone. They are bad for the consumer, they are bad for the marketplace, and ultimately they are bad for business.

Our government is committed to providing consumers with a fair, competitive marketplace, whether it's at the gas pump or at the front door of their homes. We're not asking Ottawa to regulate gasoline prices. That would not be in the interests of the consumer or the industry and it would be very much at odds with our own commitment to promoting the free market system.

With this resolution the federal government is being told to do two things: first of all, to ensure fair pricing in the retail gasoline market; and secondly, to help keep viable, independent retailers in business as a way of ensuring competition. It is important to do both. They are connected. One cannot occur effectively without the other.

May I congratulate the honourable member for Quinte on his initiative in bringing this important resolution before the House. I support his resolution.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): This is a significant issue which is being dealt with today. We in the opposition have directed many questions to the Minister of Energy and the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations regarding this matter. Each time, they bail out and refuse to take any significant action against the gouging of consumers by the major gas companies in this province, the oil companies which produce gasoline for automobiles.

I would have a lot more sympathy for this resolution if it were directed to the provincial government, but the government members are past masters at pointing the finger somewhere else. The solution lies with the provincial government. I will support the resolution and I have no reason to doubt my friend from Quinte's sincerity in this. He's spoken out on this in the House, he's voted for opposition initiatives in this regard, and I'll be supporting his resolution. I simply want to say to his colleagues, particularly the cabinet members, that they should be taking initiatives themselves.

We have in at least two provinces and 22 states a law which says that the major oil companies can't undercut the independents. In other words, they can't sell gasoline for 54 cents a litre to an independent and then turn around and sell it in the same community for 52 cents to undercut them and put them out of business, because while there's a short-term benefit to the consumer in that regard, once you wipe out the competition, once you wipe out the independents, then you can be sure prices will rise considerably. That's what the member's trying to get at: keeping the independents in business.

This is, however, contrary to the thrust of this government in terms of deregulation. I see my good friend Frank Sheehan, the member for Lincoln, sitting with the powers that be behind the Speaker's seat. He came out with a report which called for all kinds of deregulation, and I don't know whether he's going to be able to support this now. I'll be watching that carefully. So this flies in the face of the general thrust of this government.

All of us can't stand the up and down to the prices. You watch them change at one gas station and they're up and down, and the only difference is about a tenth of a cent per litre or a couple of tenths of a cent per litre, so there's no real competition there and that annoys all of us who are consumers.

We can't see these independents wiped out, because they try to keep the big companies honest. I would have thought that with a government that has so many friends in big business, the Premier would have gone to the major oil companies and said: "This is unfair practice. You know I'm your friend, so why don't you do something to protect the consumers and the independents in this province?"

You have those contacts. Large as life, they troop out to support you on so many occasions.

The other problem my friend the member for Quinte also notes, as I do, is the long weekends, where more often than not up goes the gas price. It's now way up around 60 cents; no more do you see under 50 cents a litre any more.

There was another initiative before the House, the bill by the member for Ottawa West, Bob Chiarelli, which, if the government wanted to proceed with that bill, would address some of this problem, but they usually bury it somewhere so that it doesn't proceed any more.

I've heard this provincial government say it wants more power for the provinces. Well, here's a good opportunity. All the province has to do is pass a law which says that the major oil companies cannot undercut the independents. That would be a major initiative. I'll tell you, it would get three readings in one day in this House if that law were brought forward. I'd be here to support it strongly; I'd recommend it to my colleagues.

I say to my friend from Quinte, I am pleased to see this matter addressed. I know it's a matter of great interest to him. He has as much expertise in this field as anybody I know and has shared that with many of us who've had concerns about this matter.

I'll support this resolution and I'll also support the provincial government taking immediate action within its jurisdiction to save independents in this province.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The Chair recognizes the member for Nickel Belt.

Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt): I shall be supporting the member for Quinte's resolution because I do think there is a problem.

I agree with the member for St Catharines that it is a bit wearisome to have Tory members standing up in private members' hour and directing their initiatives towards the federal government when they have a government of their own here that could be doing some things. I find that passing strange, but nevertheless I am going to support this.

I am concerned, though, about the member for Quinte. Despite what the member for Durham Centre says, that this is not a bill that regulates, I am concerned that the member for Quinte, a long-standing member of the Conservative community in this province, would launch this vicious attack on free enterprise in Ontario. I find this appalling. Here we have a party; you think you know what they stand for; you think they stand for free enterprise and deregulation.

And then the member for Quinte stands in his place and says, "We've got to regulate the oil companies so that they stop beating out the competition." My goodness, Mr Speaker, I must tell you that I really am shocked and appalled that this member would launch this kind of attack on his friends in the free enterprise system.

I can only imagine that the phone calls from the Fraser Institute and the National Citizens' Coalition will be pouring into this member's office this very day. If they're not, they're not doing their job. I hope they understand how subversive this resolution is towards the free enterprise system. You could bring the free enterprise system to its knees if you were to launch this kind of program to stop people from selling at a price they think will attract business, because that's what you're doing.

I support you. I hasten to add that I support the member for Quinte because I don't like the pricing practices of the oil companies either.

I have a community in my own constituency, a little community called Chapleau, where I've seen the price of gasoline at over 70 cents a litre, more than 10 cents a litre above just a few miles away; well, 100 miles away. In that part of the country that's not a long way. Ten cents a litre before we went to metric would be over 40 cents a gallon more. Do you think the consumers would have put up with a 40-cent difference in gasoline? They live with a 10-cent litre difference because they have no choice, but they're angry. They're always angry. So I hate the pricing practices of the oil companies myself.

Nobody will ever believe that it has to do with transportation costs -- absolutely not. That's been proven. There were studies done in this province that showed that kind of difference has absolutely nothing to do with delivery costs; it has only to do with what the market will bear, how much the market will pay because there is not enough competition in that community. Everybody understands that.

But I must say, at the end of the day, even though I'm going to support this, I really don't know about Tories any more. I was absolutely convinced that this bunch of neo-conservative reformers had their act together when it came to the marketplace and that they would never intervene in the marketplace this way. This is intervention on a massive scale. I can't imagine what the oil companies would do if you were to pass this and convince the federal government that it should do this. Can you imagine the chaos in the marketplace, in the oil patch? I can just imagine.

At the end of the day, I am going to support this resolution, but I must say that my faith in the ideology of the Tory party has been shaken to the core. I thought I knew who they were, where they came from, what they believed in, that they were at least consistent. Even though I am adamantly opposed to virtually everything you people stand for, at least I felt it was consistent.

I sometimes had problems with my friends in the Liberal Party about consistency and where they stand on various issues, but I never before had that problem with the Tories. Now I must say I'm perplexed. I am going to have to go back to school and study what it means to be a Tory again, because I'm worried. Now this is just one private member's resolution. I appreciate that and I don't want to read too much into it. I don't want to say that this was drafted by Tom Long, because I don't believe Tom Long would draft this.

I'll bet you that when Tom Long sees this, he goes on medication for a week, because I really believe he will be as shocked and appalled as I am with the inconsistency in what the Tory party now apparently stands for.

We'll see. Maybe the Tories will all vote against the member for Quinte. This is going to be a fascinating thing to watch. I hope that people are watching this debate very closely, not because I'm speaking but because of what the resolution by the member for Quinte says. It'll be interesting to see how many cabinet ministers support the member for Quinte on this resolution and how many of the Reform-minded members of the Tory Party, like the member for Nepean, will actually support the member for Quinte in his resolution.

If the Tories pass this resolution, you will have set in place a force that you may not be able to cope with, because you will have undermined very fundamentally the entire free enterprise system in this country. Therefore, I am going to support it. For that reason alone, I'm going to support it. I commend the member for Quinte for bringing this forward and I wish him well.

Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): I am pleased to rise today to speak on the private member's resolution from the member for Quinte, Doug Rollins, and also to listen to the comments made by, most recently, the member for Nickel Belt. I'd like anyone listening to the debate to recognize that there is an element of risk here when he's so wildly supportive of this. But I think if you look at what we're trying to attempt here, it is to look at the individual case before us.

Each person who has put gas in the car realizes that there is a wild fluctuation in price, depending on if it is a long weekend or we're entering into the summer driving season. Why is it? Why is there such a wild fluctuation in price?

The background to the member's resolution this morning comes from a very sincere knowledge of the business he speaks of. Mr Rollins is, of course, well-known in his riding as being a long-time independent, a person who's operated in a competitive environment by his own will and his own fortitude.

I might add that there are other members in the House -- the member for Peterborough, Gary Stewart, and his brothers are long-time members of the business community, but first started as independents in the fuel business, so in this caucus there's a lot of information on small business.

I think, in the research on this, the small business community is under siege and under threat in this particular environment. When you look at the recent statistics, the decline in the membership of the independent producers from some 22% to some 12%, there needs to be some action taken to ensure we have competition. It's a case of a David-and-Goliath kind of scenario.

We are still friends of small business and always will be. That's the very thrust of much of what we're doing. There were some comments made about Catherine Swift. I think they are the sole supporters. If you listen to the member for Nickel Belt, obviously there was no support from him for small business. That's what I heard him say.

Our government is clearly on record as in support of small business and competition. There are three key elements to this resolution, in my view: It's small business or the independent versus the multinational; second, it's competition versus monopoly; third, it's an appeal to Ottawa to exercise the authority it currently has, whether it comes to the federal Competition Act or the competition bureau's function.

As we approach the long weekend, as I said, each one of us has a vested interest in making sure there's fair pricing and competition. I compliment the honourable member for Quinte for standing up for small business and the consumers of Ontario.

I will be supporting this resolution. Thank you for allowing me to speak on it.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I want to join the debate and say to my friend from Belleville that I will be pleased to support his resolution. Where I come from the name Rollins is synonymous with gasoline distribution, in north Hastings, Hastings and Renfrew. Clarke must have been a relative -- that's right, he was a relative. So I've got a long association with the Rollins name in this business. I think he makes a very good point. There is no question that there are a lot of people out there who I represent who are extremely upset at what they see as manipulation in the marketplace.

There are a lot of small retailers who quite frankly don't believe there is any kind of marketplace and it is hard not to agree with them. I want to say to my friend from Belleville that we have known that big oil has behaved this way since the days of John D. Rockefeller. Why should we be surprised that it's any different today? Oh, yes, there's some kind of a regulatory framework and there is a different kind of mood out there, but big oil has just got one interest: maximizing big profits.

I find it interesting, as do my colleagues here, that it is the intent of this resolution that the federal competition branch should get more active. I have no problem with that at all. I'm waiting for the day, by the way, when my friends on the treasury bench or somebody in the government caucus brings forward a motion to encourage the federal competition branch to get more active with the Black press, but I suspect that's not going to happen, I say to my friend from Nickel Belt.

The provincial governments, like the state governments in the United States, have an opportunity, and I would argue as my friend from St Catharines and my colleague from Manitoulin did, we too have some responsibilities. I have no difficulty in supporting the intention, because a lot of people, a lot of consumers and a lot of small retailers really have said to me in recent times, in places like Griffith and Chalk River and Barry's Bay that they feel they are getting manipulated, to use the polite phrase. They are, I think. I don't doubt for a moment they are.

They're not just angry, by the way, about big oil. They're pretty upset with the provincial government and its partnership with big oil. I'm sure my friend from Quinte hears what I hear. All of these little retailers up Highway 62, up Highway 41, out Highway 60 are not very happy, many of them, with the constant changes and pressures from the provincial government around retailing gasoline.

Every two or three years we seem to be telling them as a provincial government -- Liberal, Tory and NDP -- that they've got to dig up the tanks and spend $10,000 or $5,000 they don't have to meet some new standard that may not be necessary to meet their particular situation. All of us want a good environmental standard, but I'll tell you, if you're Gary Burchat running BB's Lunch Bar near Wilno, you're not very happy about the provincial government coming in every couple of years and saying, "Dig them up and spend $5,000, $6,000, $7,000" to meet some new changed standard, notwithstanding the fact there is no evidence that there has been any problem; none whatsoever.

I was in the little hamlet of Griffith in the southwestern part of my constituency the other day and the owner of the Pineview Restaurant and Gas Bar was very upset because he was going to have to spend money he didn't have to meet a standard he just didn't understand on the basis of his situation. When the margins are as small as they are -- nobody knows that better than the sponsor of this resolution -- we as a provincial government have got to understand that our regulations are imposing real cost on these small independents.

I don't know whether anybody has mentioned it, but I was looking at some files earlier this morning. The market share of the independents in Ontario has dropped from something like 22% to 12% in just the last couple of years. There's a sense among these small players, these small retailers, that there is perhaps even an unintended collusion between big oil and big government, whether it's national or provincial, to squeeze these little people out.

I want to say on behalf of the Gary Burchats and others, the Etmanskies, a good Shell retailer up there in Barry's Bay, that they want not just action from the federal competition bureau but they want action from the provincial Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations and others.

I just want to say, in conclusion, it's good to see a Tory like my friend Rollins; it's good to know that the Harry Stevens tradition in Conservative politics has not died; that there are some small business people still in the Tory party who are not slavish acolytes like that Horatio Alger, like David Frum and his hard-put-upon friend Tom Long who just would have us all believe that, "Give us a pure, unadulterated marketplace and big oil and big banks and big corporate agriculture will provide a nirvana of social peace and economic prosperity."

Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): I should explain, for those who don't know, that my injury did not result from arm-twisting by the member for Quinte to support his resolution, although I will be supporting it today. Neither did it result from a visit by the big oil companies last night; it resulted from a hockey injury. I was warned that when I got into this business, I might get beaten up in the media but I didn't know I might get beaten up by the media.

However, I am happy to speak to this resolution today. I want to say how pleased I am to see that there seems to be general acceptance of the need for stronger action by the federal Competition Act people to make sure that a free marketplace exists.

I couldn't help but notice the amusing remarks from the member for Nickel Belt. He has had the opportunity over the time he's been here to develop quite a good sense of humour, and I know he's having some fun with our party on this particular resolution. I think it's still possible for a person who has been as schooled in economics as the member for Nickel Belt to go back to school, perhaps lose some of that school economics and pick up a little commonsense economics, which many members of the Tory party have from their own experience in small business.

While we've heard some disparaging remarks about how our party supports big business, most of the members of our party are very experienced in small business and have operated in a very small business way, and that is really the concern we all have in addressing this resolution.

In my riding of Muskoka-Georgian Bay there are numerous operators, some of them independents, but the majority of them are in a leasing situation with large oil companies. I've had the opportunity as a small-town lawyer to advise people who enter into agreements with large oil companies, and the size and density of the contracts the large oil companies use when they enter into a leasing situation has astounded me. It is difficult to determine exactly whether or not it is a leasing situation when you're going through the contracts.

It is certainly a worthwhile step to direct the federal government to pay attention to the particulars in the Competition Act and also to recall the early years when the Combines Investigation Act was first developed, very much in an attempt not to overregulate small business but to allow the marketplace to operate in a truly free way.

I take issue with some of the comments that were made by members who said that the provincial government would be free to enter this field and impose legislation. While there may be legislation in New Brunswick and Quebec which prevents or attempts to prevent the imposition of prices that are below the retail price in order to eliminate competitors, I think it's very questionable whether that legislation is enforceable.

When you look at some of the legislation that has been interpreted by courts over the years under sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act, in most cases, when the federal government is occupying the field, the provincial legislation is deemed to be ultra vires and has no effect.

I want to make it very clear from the outset that I am a believer in the marketplace and that I believe the consumer is the greatest beneficiary of a free market, provided that marketplace is in fact free.

In my riding I've had the opportunity to talk to a number of constituents who are very concerned, like the member for St Catharines, about the continuous up-and-down character of gasoline prices. Some of the prices that have been used today are similar in my riding and it seems that the prices fluctuate wildly, especially on long weekends. For most of my constituents, it's a matter of great concern. They also, as the member for Renfrew North has said, feel manipulated. They feel like there is a force out there that is operating to control these prices. It's not a matter of the marketplace that is controlling the prices.

The number of operators in the independent category has been reducing over the years. I too had the opportunity to look up some information supplied by the association for independent operators and indeed the number is down in the 12% range now.

In the riding I represent, people absolutely are dependent on gasoline. Most of the people who visit Muskoka-Georgian Bay as tourists do so in automobiles, and the issue of gasoline prices is very significant. We do not have a large public transit system. It is a matter of free enterprise. You either have a car and drive around or you walk.

Quite simply, I think the resolution should be implemented and we should pressure the federal government to fully implement the Competition Act and make sure that all retail gasoline marketers are on a level playing field.

For many of us the fluctuating pump prices are a bittersweet situation. When these prices fluctuate wildly, they force smaller operators from the field and the consumers do not benefit with the lowest possible price.

The federal Competition Act bans certain kinds of activities in the market, and among those activities are collusion and price fixing and predatory pricing. It's predatory pricing that we're really fixing on in this resolution, pricing that's designed specifically with the purpose of driving a competitor out of business so that prices subsequently can be raised.

Under the act wholesale suppliers are not allowed to apply pressure to their dealers to maintain prices at a given level. That is something I think is worth looking into as well. Having represented many independent operators who were in leasing situations with large companies, it certainly seems to me that there is not a great deal of pricing freedom in that relationship.

These are the elements of the act which, when enforced to their fullest extent, provide a level playing field for retailers in the industry, and those are the elements which will ensure fair prices for Ontario and Canadian consumers. I'm pleased to support the resolution today.

Mr Rollins: I first of all want to thank everybody who has spoken in favour of it. I also want to thank the member for Nickel Belt for changing his lifestyle today, or giving a little bit of hope for it, because I think the way he expressed himself, that he might have to do something tonight after dark, I'm not sure what that is, but I hope that it is something a little bit different than he has in the past.

I also want to bring to your attention that when we have and allow companies to have 110-plus pricing zones in the province of Ontario, we are allowing those people to fluctuate those prices. I know a lot of people say that's not an easy solution, that won't solve all the problem. I haven't had anybody tell me personally that it won't help the problem if we at least price the product when it leaves the refinery, not allow the oil company to deliver the product with no bill of lading other than the weight and the load and then price it the day after it sells. That is not fair.

It puts an awful lot of strain on the independents because the independent people have to pay the price when it arrives on their ground and goes in the ground and is pumped back out.

It's very easy for the majors and the person who's running on commission to not worry about the price. They are the individuals who want us to put the price down because they are paid strictly on volume. If the price is down and of course if I'm the lowest guy in town, I will get the biggest amount of traffic and I'll sell the most gas and I'll make the most money. That puts the pressure back on an independent sitting there. What is he supposed to do?

Quite often the independents and quite often a lot of the gas stations today, over the time when I started into it, have another business. They have a car-wash business, they have a small grocery store, they have a lunch bar and a few things like that. It's a lot of mom-and-pop operations out of the greater Metro Toronto area. It's out in the communities like Renfrew and my community of Quinte and Belleville, the outlying parts of Ontario.

Those places supply an awful lot of first-time jobs for people out of high school, their first job to go and help, and that's the kind of impact that we need to look at. Those people who have those small jobs -- I know they're only part-time jobs, lots of them -- at least have a chance, and today those chances are being missed.

I want to encourage the support -- and by the sound of it I'm going to have it -- that we can push on to Ottawa to make them take a look at it and make sure it's -- they said they went and looked at it in 1994. I'll tell you one thing: If they would ask Doug Rollins to go with them when they go to take a look at it, I'll point out some of the places where they maybe should be looking and make the thing a little bit stronger and more supportive.

Once again, I thank all the members who have supported me in speaking for it.

The Acting Speaker: The time for private members' public business has expired.

I would like to take just a moment, if I could, to express some admiration for the deportment of the class in the west gallery. My compliments to the teachers and the class members.

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): We will deal first with ballot item number 65. If there are any members who are against taking a vote on this at this time, would they please rise?

Is it the pleasure of the House that this motion carry?

All those in favour, please say "aye."

All those opposed, please say "nay."

In my opinion, the nays have it.

The vote will be deferred.

GASOLINE PRICES

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): We will deal now with ballot item number 66, standing in the name of Mr Rollins. If there are any members who are opposed to taking a vote at this time, would they please rise.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I declare it carried.

Call in the members; there will be a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1203 to 1208.

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Would the members please take their seats. Mr Conway has moved private member's notice of motion number 43.

All those in favour, please rise and remain standing.

Ayes

Bisson, Gilles

Grandmaître, Bernard

Martin, Tony

Bradley, James J.

Kennedy, Gerard

McLeod, Lyn

Brown, Michael A.

Kormos, Peter

Phillips, Gerry

Churley, Marilyn

Kwinter, Monte

Pupatello, Sandra

Conway, Sean G.

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

Shea, Derwyn

Crozier, Bruce

Laughren, Floyd

Wildman, Bud

Gerretsen, John

Marchese, Rosario

The Acting Speaker: All those opposed please rise and remain standing.

Nays

Arnott, Ted

Froese, Tom

Munro, Julia

Baird, John R.

Galt, Doug

O'Toole, John

Barrett, Toby

Grimmett, Bill

Preston, Peter

Brown, Jim

Guzzo, Garry J.

Rollins, E.J. Douglas

Carroll, Jack

Hardeman, Ernie

Ross, Lillian

Chudleigh, Ted

Hastings, John

Sheehan, Frank

Doyle, Ed

Johns, Helen

Skarica, Toni

Ecker, Janet

Johnson, Ron

Smith, Bruce

Flaherty, Jim

Jordan, W. Leo

Spina, Joseph

Ford, Douglas B.

Leadston, Gary L.

Vankoughnet, Bill

Fox, Gary

Martiniuk, Gerry

Wood, Bob

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 20; the nays are 33.

The Acting Speaker: I declare the motion lost.

It being after 12 of the clock, this chamber stands recessed until 1:30 o'clock this afternoon.

The House recessed from 1210 to 1331.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): My statement today is addressed to the Minister of Housing. He consistently keeps saying he does not believe the government should be involved in providing affordable housing, that he, including his government, should not be in the bricks-and-mortar business, as he calls it.

Minister, let me remind you that in Metro we have 33% of the non-profit housing and 45% of public housing. I also remind the minister that Metro has a huge, disproportionate number of seniors and needy people, urgently needing affordable housing. There is a long list of some 25,000 people with a waiting period of some six years. I wonder if you have forgotten about it or if it's an issue you would like to forget about.

Let me remind the minister that as the list of people gets longer, the waiting period gets wider. I'm talking of needy people. Let me just give you an example: In my own area I have a family of seven kids and two parents -- that's nine people -- living in a one-bedroom apartment, and the living conditions of that particular family are not very pleasant.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): The users, the patrons, the readers at the Welland Public Library, at the Thorold library, at the Pelham library, along with communities across this province and the people in those communities, as often as not seniors and young people who use their public libraries, are shocked and outraged at this government's abandonment of public libraries, at this government's refusal to recognize that public libraries in small-town and, yes, big-city Ontario form an important part of what makes a city a community and of what makes a city healthy for the people living in that community.

They're concerned, and rightly so, because this legislation from this government that doesn't give a tinker's dam about public libraries and a whole lot of other public institutions is going to destroy the equity of access across the province that had developed over the course of years with the provincial involvement in the maintenance of libraries.

They're concerned because the downloading that's been imposed, along with the abdication of this government's responsibility to assist in the funding of libraries, simply is going to mean that many of those libraries are going to shut down. Those that aren't forced into simply shutting down are going to be required to impose user fee after user fee, so that the very people who most need public libraries are going to be denied access to them. The doors to public libraries are going to be locked, bolted and barred to our seniors, our young people and --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you.

INTERNATIONAL TOURIST GUIDE DAY

Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): Before entering the House today, I had the pleasure to participate in a ceremony acknowledging tomorrow, February 21, as International Tourist Guide Day. The ceremony today in this building was hosted by the Canadian Tour Guide Association of Toronto and it was attended by many members of that association.

Awards were presented to Minister Saunderson of the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism, which I accepted on his behalf, along with tour bus companies Trentway-Wagar, Pacific Western, Can-Am and Penetang-Midland Coach Lines. Representatives of the tour guide association and the bus tour companies are present today in the west gallery. I'd like to acknowledge their existence.

February 21, International Tourist Guide Day, has given me the opportunity to reflect on and appreciate the tourist guide operators of Ontario and their determination in promoting tourism in our province. I would like to ask all members of the House to join with me today in thanking the Canadian Tour Guide Association, who are resplendent in their scarves, and the tourist guides in their own ridings on International Tourist Guide Day. They do a tremendous job in Ontario to promote tourism and make sure people feel welcome in our province.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I will note that the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay -- I am sorry to see about your shoulder. It happened last night when the legislators thumped the press gallery 7-1 at the game.

NIAGARA DETENTION CENTRE

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Up to 130 well-paid jobs could disappear in Niagara when the region's only provincial jail is shut down. The Ontario government has announced that it will be closing the Niagara Detention Centre in Thorold, one of 14 facilities being shut down around the province, in favour of the so-called superjails.

To the people in the Niagara region it means the following: The closure means Niagara prisoners will be sent to Hamilton to serve their time. Scores of corrections officers, supervisors, cooks, counsellors and other jail staff will be looking for other jobs. This is indeed having a bad economic impact on our community as well as not being good for the corrections system.

Many believed the jail, a maximum security facility built to hold up to 256 inmates, would be spared because it's relatively new, only 22 years old. Brock University economics professor Lou Soroka said that on top of the initial loss of 130 jobs, another 65 jobs may be lost in negative spinoff from so many better-paid workers losing their purchasing power.

Jim Wells, who's with the John Howard Society in Niagara as executive director, said that the new superjails, which would have fewer guards and rely more on video surveillance, would be harder to control, that there would likely be more incidents such as prisoners beating each other. Wells said many people end up in provincial jails who have mental problems and wouldn't be able to protect themselves in such situations.

There seems to be another consensus developing that the Niagara regional detention centre should be kept open and the government should reconsider its position. I agree with that.

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt): I have risen in this House numerous times about hospital restructuring in the Sudbury area and I rise on the same issue today.

I'll be meeting with the Minister of Health later today to discuss the restructuring issues that are the mandate of the ministry, not the commission. No matter how much this government says otherwise, ultimately the health care decisions in this province are made by the Minister of Health. I am pleased that the minister is taking the time to meet with us to discuss the remaining issues.

The Minister of Health makes the final decisions regarding money and restructuring. We still don't know how much money will be reinvested in the community as a result of hospital restructuring.

The community leaders would also like to know how much money the province will contribute to the capital costs associated with hospital restructuring. The workers are still waiting to hear about a comprehensive labour adjustment strategy. No restructuring should take place until this strategy is fully developed.

As well, the community wants to know what will happen regarding community-based services needed as a result of hospital closures. We must know how these community-based services are going to be funded and ultimately delivered. I look forward to continuing this valuable dialogue with the minister about the health needs of the people of the Sudbury area.

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): I rise today to speak about democracy. The opposition has been screaming about democracy for weeks now, calling on our government to be democratic and hold a referendum on the issue of Metropolitan Toronto amalgamation.

Let me inform the opposition about the total and blatant disregard of democracy that is taking place in Scarborough. I challenge the opposition not to support a vote where residents must place their name, their address and their signature directly on their ballot. Where has the secret vote gone in Scarborough?

The Scarborough referendum may go down in history as one of the most undemocratic votes in the history of the western world. My constituency office has been flooded with calls from many constituents who are refusing to vote, refusing to be part of this affront to their democratic rights, and I have many constituents who have come to Scarborough from parts of the world where political persecution is a way of life. Many came here as refugees trying to escape from undemocratic governments. What do I tell them about Scarborough's government? I challenge the opposition to stand up today and speak out against the Scarborough ballot. I challenge them to demand democracy from Scarborough council.

SCHOOL BOARDS

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): The social development committee has been literally flooded with requests from worried parents and teachers who want to speak on Bill 104, the Fewer School Boards Act. So great is the demand for people to have their democratic say that we may only hear from 10% of those who want to present.

This government was elected on a populist wave and claimed to be committed to listening to the people, but actions speak louder than words. Both the process of this legislation and its content are profoundly undemocratic. This legislation will result in a dramatic overhauling of our education system. Local autonomy will be gutted in favour of even bigger bureaucracies.

This government claims to want to streamline administration, but its plan will only backfire, resulting in more spending on bureaucrats and less on kids. The Education Improvement Commission, handpicked by the minister, will have unprecedented and sweeping powers to impose decisions on our schools and communities.

The minister has waged a relentless attack on dedicated educators and trustees, who are key stakeholders in our education system. Instead of creating a crisis, the minister should have been creating cooperation between the stakeholders and focusing his energies on what really counts: the future of our young people.

Considering the dramatic impact that this legislation will have, we must have an extension in the time allocation motion to fully consider Bill 104's impact. I call on the government to stop this reckless abuse of its power in the name of democracy and for the wellbeing of our kids. That would be democracy.

EDUCATION FINANCING

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): I attended a meeting today at Harbord Collegiate in my riding. I understand that M. Snobelen was invited to come, but unfortunately he's a busy man and he couldn't come to the debate that we had today. He missed it. He's obviously busy.

People in this community, students and teachers, are very worried, and they're concerned about the rhetoric of this government talking about education being a great equalizer. It can be, but if you look at the rhetoric of this government versus the facts, it belies it.

They've already taken $800 million away from secondary schools and post-secondary education. They have effectively eliminated junior kindergarten, which can be an important equalizer in the education system for a lot of people. They have, through Bill 104, effectively exterminated local boards, exterminating an important voice for public education. They are silencing those voices that would keep governments accountable. That's why they're getting rid of the trustees by doing what they're doing. And they are increasing tuition fees yet again, twice in a row, last year and this year.

People are worried because they can't afford the kind of cutbacks this government is inflicting on students and parents of our communities. They urge this government to reconsider those cutbacks, and I --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you.

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): A true chorus of opinion and questions on the "one Toronto" proposal were heard all across Metro Toronto last night. Just over 2,000 people participated in a night of dialogue with Progressive Conservative MPPs and cabinet ministers in 18 town-hall-style meetings.

The goal of these meetings was for all sides of the amalgamation