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May 10, 2006

38th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

vol. A

Hansard Transcripts

vol. B

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2006-May-10 (PDF)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L'ONTARIO

Wednesday 10 May 2006 Mercredi 10 mai 2006

PRIVATE MEMBERS'

PUBLIC BUSINESS

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

(NUTRITION STANDARDS IN

SCHOOLS), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR

L'ÉDUCATION (NORMES ALIMENTAIRES

DANS LES ÉCOLES)

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

(SCHOOL WASTE REDUCTION), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR

L'ÉDUCATION (RÉDUCTION DES

DÉCHETS DANS LES ÉCOLES)

EMPLOYMENT STATUTE LAW

AMENDMENT ACT (INFORMING

STUDENTS OF THEIR EMPLOYMENT

RIGHTS), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

EN CE QUI A TRAIT À L'EMPLOI

(FOURNITURE DE RENSEIGNEMENTS

AUX ÉTUDIANTS SUR LEURS DROITS

EN MATIÈRE D'EMPLOI)

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

(NUTRITION STANDARDS IN

SCHOOLS), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR

L'ÉDUCATION (NORMES ALIMENTAIRES

DANS LES ÉCOLES)

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

(SCHOOL WASTE REDUCTION), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR

L'ÉDUCATION (RÉDUCTION DES

DÉCHETS DANS LES ÉCOLES)

EMPLOYMENT STATUTE LAW

AMENDMENT ACT (INFORMING

STUDENTS OF THEIR EMPLOYMENT

RIGHTS), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

EN CE QUI A TRAIT À L'EMPLOI

(FOURNITURE DE RENSEIGNEMENTS

AUX ÉTUDIANTS SUR LEURS DROITS

EN MATIÈRE D'EMPLOI)

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

(NUTRITION STANDARDS IN

SCHOOLS), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR

L'ÉDUCATION (NORMES ALIMENTAIRES

DANS LES ÉCOLES)

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

(SCHOOL WASTE REDUCTION), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR

L'ÉDUCATION (RÉDUCTION DES

DÉCHETS DANS LES ÉCOLES)

EMPLOYMENT STATUTE LAW

AMENDMENT ACT (INFORMING

STUDENTS OF THEIR EMPLOYMENT

RIGHTS), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

EN CE QUI A TRAIT À L'EMPLOI

(FOURNITURE DE RENSEIGNEMENTS

AUX ÉTUDIANTS SUR LEURS DROITS

EN MATIÈRE D'EMPLOI)

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

BORDER SECURITY

ASSISTANCE TO ARTISTS

BAYVIEW VILLAGE ASSOCIATION

GROWTH PLANNING

AWARD EVENT /

CÉRÉMONIE DE REMISE DES PRIX

VICTIMS OF CRIME

IMMIGRANT SERVICES

HOSPITAL SERVICES

HEARING LOSS

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND PRIVATE BILLS

VISITORS

MOTIONS

HOUSE SITTINGS

VISITORS

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

FLU PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS

COMMUNITY LIVING DAY /

JOURNÉE DE L'INTÉGRATION

COMMUNAUTAIRE

ORAL QUESTIONS

FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL

FISCAL POLICIES

MEMBER FOR PARKDALE-HIGH PARK

HEALTH CARE

LAND REGISTRATION

NATIVE LAND DISPUTE

ASSISTANCE TO ARTISTS

SERVICES FOR THE

DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED

ONTARIO DRUG BENEFIT PROGRAM

SPECIAL-NEEDS STUDENTS

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS

RENEWABLE FUELS

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES

EDUCATION

VISITORS

PETITIONS

LANDFILL

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS

IDENTITY THEFT

CAFETERIA FOOD GUIDELINES

AUTISM SERVICES

CHILD CARE

LONG-TERM CARE

GASOLINE PRICES

LONG-TERM CARE

SERVICES FOR THE DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED

BORDER SECURITY

ORDERS OF THE DAY

TRANSPARENT DRUG SYSTEM

FOR PATIENTS ACT, 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 SUR UN RÉGIME

DE MÉDICAMENTS TRANSPARENT

POUR LES PATIENTS

BUDGET MEASURES ACT, 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 SUR LES MESURES BUDGÉTAIRES

The House met at 0900.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS'

PUBLIC BUSINESS

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

(NUTRITION STANDARDS IN

SCHOOLS), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR

L'ÉDUCATION (NORMES ALIMENTAIRES

DANS LES ÉCOLES)

Mr. Klees moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 93,

An Act to amend the Education Act / Projet de loi 93, Loi modifiant la

Loi sur l'éducation.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ted Arnott): The member has 10 minutes to make his presentation.

Mr. Frank Klees (Oak Ridges): I'm very pleased to rise in support of this bill. I look forward to this debate. At the outset, I want to

acknowledge the work of Nupur Dogra, a grade 9 student from the Iroquois Ridge High School in Oakville, who is here in the gallery with us today, with her father, Rakesh, and her mother, Mukta. I

understand as well that she has with her today visitors, her aunt and uncle, as well as a cousin, and her teacher, Monique Gazan, who I want to acknowledge.

The reason I want to acknowledge Nupur and her teacher and her classmates is that this bill is before us today because of the work and the inspiration of Nupur

Dogra. It came about as a result of the initiative of the CBC's Making the Grade program, inspired by the Legislature's very own Mr. Mike Wise, who we all know in this place as someone who is

probably one of the most even-minded reporters in the media today. Through his inspiration of trying to get young people involved and giving them an opportunity to become involved in the political

process, we have before us a bill that was first introduced in the House a few weeks ago for first reading. Now we're here, and this special session of the Legislature is debating this bill.

This bill before us will do three things. First of all, it will address the issue of nutrition in our schools. The initiative that Nupur has brought to us here

is really designed to ensure that young people across the province have the opportunity to have available in their cafeterias food that is healthy and that will contribute to their long-term

health.

The first thing that this bill does is "require every pupil in every school year who attends a school under the jurisdiction of the board to receive instruction

that the board provides on nutrition standards that it considers necessary for healthy eating, which shall include instruction on Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating and Canada's Guidelines for

Healthy Eating, both published by Health Canada as they are amended from time to time."

That is

section 7.3 of this act. This is incredibly important, because what we want to do is ensure that young people, of their own choice, learn to make good

decisions in terms of the kind of food they eat and the kind of habits they develop in their own personal lives.

The second issue that is addressed in this bill, under 7.4, is the establishment of a committee within each school "composed of the persons that the board

appoints to advise the board on what nutrition standards should form part of the subject matter of the instruction described in" the previous paragraph.

Finally, the third thrust of this bill is that "if the board operates a cafeteria in a school under its jurisdiction for the use of the staff and the pupils,"

then there must be a posting in the cafeteria of Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating and Canada's Guidelines for Healthy Eating, both published by Health Canada as they are amended from time to

time. That is the essence of this bill.

I want to refer to the comment that was made by Nupur in the

preamble, in the leadup to this legislation. I want to quote Nupur in terms of her motivation: ``1.6

billion dollars is going toward treating obesity-related illnesses. This bill will help make a difference by positively affecting our society's economy by spending less money to treat these

diseases. Healthier choices mean a healthier future. This is a win-win situation. Everyone benefits from this.''

I want to especially draw attention to the fact that this bill isn't before us because the Minister for Health Promotion or the Minister of Education or any of

us as legislators decided that we want to impose on students in this province these guidelines. We know that this is a very positive initiative, but what is especially unique about this bill is

that it was initiated by a student, by someone who, by virtue of interacting with peers, had the vision and recognized that something has to be done. This is all about ensuring that our cafeterias

within our schools and our school system are first of all providing the education in terms of the standards that are necessary for healthy lives. It is then about ensuring that the food that's

provided within our cafeterias is such that it is going to promote healthy lifestyles and ensure the health of our young people.

Nupur has done an outstanding job -- I want to acknowledge her efforts again -- beyond the crafting of the bill. I had the pleasure of working with her in terms

of searching out the specifics of the legislation, and I want to acknowledge the work of legislative counsel in terms of their support as well. Beyond this, once we had the bill introduced, Nupur

went to work in her school and across the province, designing petitions that young people and adults across the province signed, and we read a number of those petitions into the record here in the

House.

I have a letter as well, addressed to Norm Miller, the member from Parry Sound-Muskoka. This came from the school nutrition action committee at Bracebridge and

Muskoka Lakes Secondary School. They write: "We are writing to encourage your support of Bill 93." They go on to enclose a petition that was signed by many individuals in their school.

I want to read into the record a letter I received from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, referring to Nupur Dogra's bill and commending her for her

initiative as well: "The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario is increasingly concerned about unhealthy eating habits among children and youth. The current lifestyle of Canadian children is

resulting in an upsurge of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke by the time they reach their 30s as it is currently estimated that one in four children (26%) are either overweight or

obese.

"The Heart and Stroke Foundation is working hard to help create a healthier society. The foundation has committed itself to take a leadership role to lobby for

health conscious public policy and to improve nutrition."

It goes on to say, "With students like Nupur, taking an active role in promoting a healthy lifestyle and more nutritious choices in the school system, it will

assist in our goal to raise awareness regarding the detrimental effects of an unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity on our children....

"The HSFO is pleased to support your bill," and they're prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure effective implementation of this legislation.

I want to encourage all members -- I'm pleased to see the Minister of Health Promotion here today; I look forward to hearing his remarks, and I trust we will

have his support and the support of all members of the House for this important legislation.

Once again, I commend Nupur for her initiative -- the entire class. It is encouraging to see young people involved in the political process. I think one of the

things this exercise has done, through the assistance of the CBC, is ensure that not only young people but everyone in this province understands that the political process is not mysterious. It

simply takes individuals who have an interest, who are prepared to put action to their initiative.

We stand here before the Legislature debating a bill, but I'm also optimistic that we have before us a bill that will be enacted by this Legislature and

implemented by the government of the day to ensure that our young people in this province eat healthy and remain healthy.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Ms. Shelley Martel (Nickel Belt): I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate, and I'd like to welcome our guests to the

Legislature today. I'd like to thank Ms. Dogra for the initiative she has shown to deal with what is a very serious problem of childhood and adolescent obesity by trying to ensure that schools

become much more healthy-eating friendly and by enabling students to make healthier choices.

I support the intent of the bill. I won't go through the details; they've already been outlined by Mr. Klees. But what I did want to put on the public record

this morning is the crisis we are facing with respect to childhood and adolescent obesity in this province and, indeed, right across Canada, and secondly, some other recommendations that have been

made by other groups and organizations to deal with this matter, which I think the government should take into account over and above the bill that we hope is going to be passed at some point

today.

Let me deal first with the problem. In her 2004 report, the chief medical officer of health, Sheela Basrur, pointed out that obesity among children ages seven to

13 tripled between 1981 and 1996. Unhealthy weights are responsible for a dramatic rise in type 2 diabetes, and contribute to heart disease, stroke, hypertension and some cancers. Obesity cost the

Canadian economy $2.7 billion and Ontario's health care system $1.6 billion in 2000-01.

Also from her report, which was released in November 2004, she made a couple of additional points that I want to put on the record. First, "According to a study

of Canadian youth, students' daily breakfast consumption declines as they moved from grade 6 to 10. For girls, the increase in `breakfast skipping' was dramatic between grades 6 to 8; at all grade

levels, fewer girls than boys reported eating breakfast every day." That's important because, "Weight is affected not only by what we eat, but by when and where we eat.... skipping breakfast is

associated with overweight and obesity."

Secondly, "Weight is also affected by how active people are. Over the past few decades, people have become more sedentary and spend more time watching television

and using the computer. According to Statistics Canada (2003), Ontarians age two and up spend almost 21 hours a week watching TV. Children ages two to 11 watch an average of 14.5 hours a week,

while youth (12 to 17 years of age) spend approximately 14 hours a week watching TV. This does not include the time spent playing video and computer games or using the Internet. The amount of time

Canadian children spend playing video games is among the highest in the world." So not only do we have a serious problem with respect to nutrition, but we've got a serious problem that our young

people are not leading active lives, and that, in fact, is contributing to their weight problems.

Let me deal with this document put out by the Ontario Medical Association in October 2005. It was a position paper entitled An Ounce of Prevention or a Ton of

Trouble: Is there an Epidemic of Obesity in Children? The OMA pointed out in the document, "Obesity during childhood increases the risk of adult obesity. 40% of obese seven-year-olds and 70% of

obese adolescents go on to become obese adults. Only 25%-40% of juvenile obesity can be linked to genetic heritability, leaving over half of childhood obesity relating to environmental factors.

Obesity in adults is linked to greater health risks, including the increased incidence of coronary disease and type 2 diabetes, although it has been found that increased activity can mitigate these

negative effects. Given the propensity for obesity to become a lifelong issue, and because treatment for childhood obesity is only variably successful, obesity prevention is key." That means much

more active young children, much more active adolescents and much-improved nutrition, which we are regrettably not seeing, either in the province or, frankly, across Canada.

Let me look at this document that came from Statistics Canada. It was done by Margot Shields. It's called Measured Obesity: Overweight Canadian Children and

Adolescents. These were the findings from the Canadian community health survey: "In 2004, 26% of children and adolescents ... were overweight or obese; 8% were obese.

"For adolescents aged 12 to 17, increases in overweight and obesity rates over the past 25 years have been notable; the overweight/obesity rate of this ... group

more than doubled, and the obesity rate tripled.

"Children and adolescents who eat fruit and vegetables five or more times a day are substantially less likely to be overweight or obese than ... those whose

fruit and vegetable consumption is less frequent.

"For children aged 6 to 11 and adolescents aged 12 to 17, the likelihood of being overweight or obese tends to rise as time spent watching TV, playing video

games or using the computer increases."

Finally, "Canadian adolescent girls are significantly less likely than American adolescent girls to be overweight/obese."

Those are some of the statistics with respect to the problem that's staring us in the face, not only in this province but right across the country. We need a

strategy that is quite broad and quite extensive to try to deal with that. Certainly the bill that is before us will go some long way to promoting health and better nutrition in our school system,

but I think there are a number of other things we can be doing at school, at home and in the community that we need to be considering if we're really going to deal with what is an epidemic, and

deal with it head-on.

On November 26, 2003, the Ontario Public Health Association wrote to the former Minister of Education, Gerard Kennedy, and made these types of suggestions to the

minister with respect to what else could be done. They said the following, and I'm quoting:

"Local public health units across the province are addressing school nutrition issues in a variety of ways:

"Many are developing handbooks and guides for schools and school boards to promote the development of policies and guidelines related to food and nutrition.

"Others are working on specific issues, such as vending machines; in Ottawa, the local public health unit is conducting a pilot of Fuel to Excel vending machines

with an assortment of nutritious snacks, including milk, yogurt and cheese. This initiative is still in its early stages, but may prove to be a viable alternative to traditional vending machine

choices of pop and chips.

"The Eat Smart! school cafeteria award program -- primarily applicable to secondary schools with food service facilities. School cafeterias can receive an award

of excellence if they meet standards related to nutrition/healthy food choices, as well as food safety. This program is administered locally by the public health units and supported provincially

through the Nutrition Resource Centre at the Ontario Public Health Association.

"The FoodShare salad bar program (Toronto) offers schools a child-sized salad bar stocked with fruits, vegetables, grain products and a daily source of protein

so kids can create a healthy lunch. So far, this project has been successful and will hopefully be offered to more schools in the next year."

So, over and above what's included in Bill 93, here are some other good suggestions that have been made by public health units -- the public health unit

association in particular -- that could be expanded to schools right across the province, which would in fact promote healthy choices, give healthy choices to students at school, and promote much

better nutrition choices as well.

There are some recommendations that were made as well in March 2004, in a document called Call to Action: Creating a Healthy School Nutrition Environment. This

was a document prepared by the Ontario Society of Nutrition Professionals in Public Health school nutrition work group steering committee. They made nine recommendations or have included nine

elements that they think are fundamental to healthy school nutrition environments, and I want to go through some of the nine elements that they have listed.

"1. Food and nutrition policies to support healthy eating:

"The development and dissemination of a coordinated school nutrition policy is fundamental to providing the framework for a healthy school nutrition

environment.

"A school nutrition policy allows for consistent healthy eating messages in the school environment. This will have a positive long-term effect on both the risk

of chronic diseases and the effect of diet on health, growth and intellectual development....

"2. Nutrition education for students:

"Nutrition education contributes to improved dietary practices that affect the health, growth and intellectual development of children and youth....

"A minimum of 50 hours of nutrition education per elementary school year is necessary to impact behaviour....

"3. Nutrition education for staff provided by registered dietitians:

"Registered dieticians have unique skills and expertise in nutrition education.

"Training in nutrition can help gain teacher support for nutrition education and increase the extent to which teachers will implement the curriculum....

"4. Healthy, reasonably priced and culturally appropriate food choices available in schools:

"Nutrition education in the classroom is undermined in schools when snack bars, school stores and vending machines promote the sale of food and beverages with

minimum nutritional value. For example, soft drink vending machines are a contradiction to any healthy eating program....

"Healthy habits are taught in the classroom, but the effect is diluted when students receive candy as rewards, or when freedom to choose means soft drinks and

sweets."

In addition to that, "When the price of fruit and vegetables was lowered in a school cafeteria, there was a significant increase in fruit and vegetable

consumption in that cafeteria."

"5. Positive role modelling of healthy eating by school staff:

"Children and youth who see teachers eating healthy foods are much more likely to eat well.

"Teachers are found to be trusted sources for nutrition" and healthy choices.

"Elementary school teachers have a potentially greater influence on a child's health than any other group outside of the home....

"6. Student, parent and community education about healthy eating:

"Students are more likely to adopt healthy eating behaviours if they receive healthy eating messages through multiple channels," including home, school,

community and the media, "and from multiple sources," including parents, peers, teachers, health professionals and the media....

"7. School nourishment programs:

"School nourishment programs improve students' cognitive performance and their educational achievement....

"8. Safe food practices and allergy-safe environment:

"Providing a safe food environment will decrease the risk of food-borne illnesses and protect students with life-threatening allergies," for example, to peanuts

or nuts.

Finally,

"9. Appropriate scheduling of nutrition breaks:

"Lunches should be scheduled so that recess is not competing with mealtimes. Research shows that children eat less if they are eager to go outside for

recess.

"Allowing students a minimum of 20 minutes to socialize with others at lunch provides a break in routine and refreshes them for afternoon classes."

Those were some of the elements that were put forward by the Ontario Society of Nutrition Professionals, and these should be included in changes that we want

to make to ensure we are really promoting nutrition in our schools.

Sheela Basrur, in her report, talked about things that school boards could be doing as well to promote healthier eating:

(1) Assess school environments -- cafeterias, vending machines, opportunities for phys-ed, fund-raising and special food days -- develop plans to create a

healthy school environment, and monitor progress.

(2) Promote healthy eating by developing guidelines for foods available in Ontario's school cafeterias, which this bill will do, including nutrition in the

curriculum and integrating new material on Canada's labelling system, and ensure teachers receive appropriate training to teach nutrition.

(3) Establish the foundation for lifelong physical activity by providing quality daily phys-ed, ensuring phys-ed classes are taught by teachers trained in

physical education, providing daily physical education opportunities through active recess and lunch programs and intramural activities, and educating children about the benefits of regular

physical activity.

(4) When building or retrofitting schools, include features that support physical activity and healthy eating, such as bicycle racks, active and safe routes to

school, adequate separate indoor facilities to support quality daily physical exercise and activity, and kitchen facilities and adequate space for students to eat lunch.

Those are some other improvements that we should be making and need to be making to support some of the initiatives in Bill 93.

Finally, do nutrition programs work? There was a great

article that was released February 2005 by CBC Health and Science. It looked at a number of schools in

Halifax where there were nutrition programs in place. In those schools where full nutrition programs were in place, in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, those schools and those students fared the

best in terms of having a nutrition program and ensuring that they were eating properly. In that particular area and those schools, students had obesity rates that were 72% lower than those of

students who attended schools without a nutrition program.

So it can be done. It should be done. The province, indeed the country, is facing a crisis with respect to both child and adolescent obesity. The

recommendations in Bill 93 would go some way in ensuring that we have adequate choices and have schools where there is a foundation for nutrition, but I hope the government would also consider some

of the other suggestions that I've made to really encourage that even more. Thank you.

The Acting Speaker: I'm pleased to recognize the Minister of Health Promotion.

Hon. Jim Watson (Minister of Health Promotion): It's my pleasure on behalf of our government and our government caucus to stand in support of

Bill 93, which has been graciously introduced by the honourable member from Oak Ridges. I want to take a moment to thank Nupur Dogra from Iroquois Ridge High School in Oakville. I had the

opportunity to meet Nupur several months ago, and I think this is an historic occasion for us in the Legislature. It's the first time that a high school student has helped to craft a piece of

legislation that is being debated on the floor of the Ontario Legislature. I think young Nupur Dogra from Oakville deserves our support, our thanks and our encouragement, because this is an

important piece of legislation, and while it falls under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Education, as Minister of Health Promotion, I am very supportive of any ideas that are brought forward

to this place that can help with the challenge that the honourable member from Nickel Belt spoke of with respect to obesity in this province and this country.

There's been a 300% increase in obesity rates amongst children in the last 25 years. It is a challenge that is not going away. I believe we have a golden

opportunity through this initiative and other initiatives that our ministry is going to be bringing forward in conjunction with the Minister of Education over the course of the next several

months.

The fact of the matter is that this legislation, Bill 93, deals with three specific aspects, one of which is to provide greater information so that students

can make informed choices when going to the school cafeteria. We've done some good work as a government. We have banned junk food in vending machines, for instance, which has been well received.

We've brought in 20 minutes of daily physical activity in elementary schools as well. We have worked with a company in Ottawa called Fuel To Xcell, which is a pilot program for vending machines to

provide healthier choices for individuals in high schools.

Just on a personal note, when I was a high school student at Thornlea Secondary School, I had a television show, a cable TV show, in Richmond Hill, and I

brought in a television camera because I was upset with the quality of food in our school cafeteria. In fact, during nutrition week, every single day of nutrition week, they were serving French

fries. I discovered through searching school records that the school cafeteria company was not following the guidelines they'd agreed to. As a result of this television show that I did as a

teenager, we made significant changes in that high school cafeteria. I believe that Nupur is following in that tradition of youth activism, of getting involved in the advocacy through CBC, and I

thank Mike Wise for his initiative in bringing this piece of legislation to the floor of the House.

I look forward to voting for it. I thank Nupur, I thank the CBC and I thank all of the students who've been involved in Making The Grade. Merci beaucoup.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr. Ted Chudleigh (Halton): Bill 93, nutritional standards in schools: That's an interesting bill. Iroquois Ridge High School -- it came from

Oakville, which is in my riding. I'm very proud of the students and teachers who brought this bill forward, especially Nupur Dogra. Thank you very much for bringing it forward. It's a great

initiative. Of course, we in Halton expect great things, so you're just following in a long tradition.

It's a very important piece of legislation and deserves to be passed. Good eating habits and nutritional standards can form a lifetime of habits. That can

result in a healthier population. Of course, a healthier population is less dependent on our health care system, which is under great stress. It also provides a much, much better quality of life.

The people who really enjoy life are people who are healthy and fit and who eat well.

There are three simple parts to this bill.

This bill, if passed, will ensure that students receive instructions on nutritional standards based on the Canada Food Guide to Healthy Eating and Canada's

Guidelines for Healthy Eating. They'll receive that instruction each and every year.

The second part of the bill establishes a committee of the board of education to advise which standards should form part of the subject matter. I think it

would be very important to ensure that there is student representation on that advisory board. After all, it was students who brought this bill forward and it is students who will be most affected

by this piece of legislation.

The third part of the bill requires schools to post copies of Canada's Food Guide and the Guidelines to Healthy Eating in the cafeteria as a constant reminder

of the learning process that students achieved through their high school careers.

This piece of legislation is a well-thought-out bill. It involves three pieces within the legislation, and those three pieces mesh together very well, much

like a three-legged stool. If you're missing a piece, if you're missing one leg off a three-legged stool, it gets very wobbly. This piece of legislation is tied together tightly and forms a very

solid three-legged stool or a very solid piece of legislation.

All too often in our society, we hear of problems of eating habits that lead to unhealthy lifestyles in young people and quite often not-so-young people, but

certainly in the middle-aged and aged of our population, those eating habits were developed in their formative years. Problems such as obesity, which we all know forms all kinds of problems with

our heart and our circulatory system and leads to strokes, is something that I think every adult is aware of, and wishes that they had had a healthier eating regime perhaps established earlier in

life so they would be able to avoid many of those problems. I myself am one of those people who seem to be constantly on a diet, although I count myself lucky, living in the world we do, that I get

up in the morning hoping that I can eat less,

whereas most of the world gets up hoping they can eat something. If we're going to have a problem, we certainly have the best of problems.

The second problem that we hear a lot about is anorexia, which, strangely, leads to the same kinds of problems -- heart disease, strokes, circulatory problems

and a much shortened life. Establishing healthy eating habits that will stay with us throughout our life is important, and the time to teach those healthy eating habits is in the formative years,

in the school years.

I'd like to congratulate the students, Nupur especially, for the research they did and for thinking this bill through. Those three pieces of this legislation

didn't just happen by accident. The first one fell into place, they thought of the second one, and they needed the third one to tie it all together. So it's a very well thought out piece of

legislation. Let me say that there are other pieces of legislation that come before this House that aren't nearly as well thought out. They don't seem to have the logical consequences of the

actions thought out as clearly as this bill does, so I congratulate you on that.

I also congratulate your teacher, Ms. Gazan, who obviously supplied some motivation in this area. She obviously supplied guidance in this area as well. For

teachers and students together, they have persevered to get this job done and to bring this bill before the Legislature: the first time in the history of this place, since 1867, that a bill such as

this has come before this place. I'm sure that this bill will be one of the highlights for the entire class, and especially Nupur, of their school days. Many years from now, she can look back and

say, "I brought a bill before the Ontario Legislature." That's something that very, very few people will ever be able to say. So congratulations to the students, to the teachers and to everyone who

brought this through, and I can assure you that I'll be here to vote for this bill.

Mr. Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): I want to congratulate Nupur Dogra as well, her teacher, parents, friends and those who helped with this

proposal, and the member who is bringing it forward. I also want to say to the member from Nickel Belt, I thought your suggestions and quality of presentation were very well done this morning.

Because of the shortness of time that I have, which is only three minutes or less, I won't get into the detail. I know there are three areas. I'd like to offer

the member a few points that he might want to clarify in his wrap-up or look at in committee.

It seems to me that there's some requirement for what kind of instruction we are talking about. How do boards implement it? Is it introduced in health and

hygiene classes? Are those elective? Are those required? At what grades do we begin this? Is it to be in classes in itself, or in conjunction with other classes?

For the advisory committees, what are the qualifications of members? Do they employ nutritionists? Do they employ others who can provide advice on this?

Are the positions of nutritional standards solely from Canada's food guide? I would suggest to you that, in the nutritional field, there's a lot of challenge

to Canada's food guide and what it lays out in its dietary balance of red meat, etc. That should be considered as not the be-all and end-all and the apex of what is the best of nutritional

diets.

So there are many questions about this.

Along the same lines as your bill, I would like to acknowledge, as has the member from Nickel Belt and the Minister of Health Promotion, the program Fuel to

Xcell. I won't go into it because it has been described twice already. Actually, I believe it started in my riding and has moved to numerous schools throughout. What has gone on is alternatives to

vending machines, while still making some money for schools that use this for certain extracurricular activities and that kind of thing. The program was piloted and currently is in over 40 schools

in the Ottawa area. In my riding of Ottawa Centre, the healthy schools plan that was implemented in 2004 eliminated junk food etc.

Nutrition plays an important role in education and so does physical education. Teaching nutrition in schools reinforces good parenting practices at home. It

also addresses the whole balance of what constitutes a healthy human being: body, mind and spirit.

My time is up. I wish I had more. Congratulations. I will be supporting the bill.

Mr. Norm Miller (Parry Sound-Muskoka): It's my pleasure to join in this special debate on the Making the Grade program and to support Bill 93,

the Education Amendment Act (Nutrition Standards in Schools), 2006.

In the past few years, we've seen a huge increase in obesity in our children. In fact, obesity rates have tripled over the past two decades. This is a huge

problem. As the member from Halton pointed out, when you have people who are obese in their youth, it tends to be something that goes on throughout their whole lives. I have a study here which was

sent to me that bears out that fact, and I'd just like to quote from it, if I can find the right spot here. I may have to come back to that.

I think the member from Halton made a very good point in that these habits that are established in our youth are very often carried out throughout our whole

life, and many other problems come from that, in particular, the cost to our health system: $1.6 billion to mend preventable obesity-related illnesses.

I want to get on the record in the short time that I have to speak to this bill today a letter I received from the school nutrition action committee of the

Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School in my riding of Parry Sound−Muskoka. They wrote an excellent letter, and it says:

"To Norm Miller:

"We are writing to encourage your support of Bill 93, the Education Amendment Act (Nutrition Standards in Schools), 2006. The Bracebridge-Muskoka Lakes school

nutrition action committee ... applauds Nupur Dogra for taking this initiative and introducing this bill to legislation.

"It is time to address the poor eating habits of Ontario children and youth. Overweight in young people due to poor nutrition and lack of physical activity is

identified as one of the greatest health challenges and risk factor for chronic disease -- one that may soon overtake tobacco as the leading cause of preventable death and disease.

"Our committee is comprised of teachers, school administrators, school board trustees, food service staff, parents, students and public health staff. We joined

"Our committee in conjunction with our food service company Aramark is working to make healthy food choices more available, more affordable and more visible in

our cafeteria and vending options. We have made great strides during this school year but we need the help of Bill 93 to make nutrition standards compulsory and consistent in schools as well as

increase the student knowledge on healthy eating.

"We invite you to visit our school cafeteria to see first-hand what we have been doing to make changes to the food choices and what obstacles are still in our

way.

"We are asking for your support of the proposed Bill 93. This bill is one step toward improving the health of Ontario students by assisting in creating a

healthy school nutrition environment."

That was sent Steve Kinnear, teacher and chair of the BMLSS school nutrition action committee. I certainly will be supporting that.

I also received an excellent petition showing support for this bill with many signatures from Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School. It was just a

copy, so we couldn't deliver it in petitions. I'm looking forward to the original petition coming in the next few days, at which point I'll read it in the Legislature. But it makes the point of how

childhood obesity rates have tripled, how we're spending $1.6 billion on preventable obesity-related diseases, how the Ontario food premises regulation currently only deals with safety policies and

not with nutrition and how we need to encourage more nutrition.

In the last 30 seconds I have to speak on this, I would also like, as the aboriginal affairs critic, to point out that this situation with obesity and with the

problems related to it, particularly diseases like diabetes, are far higher. I did have a number of studies to back that up, but unfortunately I'm running out of time.

I'd just like to congratulate Nupur and her teacher Monique Gazan on bringing this initiative forward, and I look forward to supporting it.

Mr. Dave Levac (Brant): It's a great opportunity to stand today to talk about this, but I want to make a couple of points before we get

started.

First and foremost, as I've usually done in this place during private members' hour, I will say exactly what I plan to do. To the member from Oak Ridges, I

plan to support this bill. I think it's a good bill. I think it's the right thing to do.

Let's move on to the next point, and that is this: This is history-making. The member from Halton made that point and I want to reinforce it. This is

history-making. We've got people engaged in the process that only 103 of us ever get a chance to do. We have now extended that and we have expanded our opportunity to have people participate, in a

very straight way and a very tangible way, in our democracy. I want to congratulate the CBC, Mike Wise and, in this case, Nupur and her school and teachers and everybody else. This is a great day

for this place. Again, it expresses my opinion that the private members' time is an opportunity for us to speak without the shackles of any party and that allows us to speak to what we believe the

people of the province of Ontario are talking about.

This is an important bill, and that's why I'm supporting it, not just because of the democratic movement but because this is a good bill. It talks about what

we should be talking about, and that is our health. Without health, without that opportunity for us to be better as human beings, we are going nowhere.

So let me talk about a couple of things. I am very proud of the moment that we, as legislators in private members' time, passed the anaphylaxis bill for

students. We are going to be saving lives, under the circumstances, in schools. We are using that as an opportunity to educate people. Bill 33 is on the docket, and I know the member from Oak

Ridges has a bill out there as well on organ donation. Bill 33, which I've asked for, is putting organ donation inside the education system, talking about teaching people about how to give organs

to save lives. Those are the types of bills that we as legislators should be very proud of, and I'm proud of this bill. I'm proud to look at the member and tell him that he's come up with a bill,

through the input of the people that he's expressed -- that we're talking about the health of our students.

Let me tell what you this bill isn't. This bill is not restrictive. This bill is not telling people what to eat. They're educating people about what they

should be eating. As an educator for 25 years, I can only tell you that this is the direction we should be going. This bill is not assuming the role of the official parent. This bill is not

becoming the parent. It's not doing any of the things that at one time people thought the nanny-state government was doing. That's not what this is about. This is about education. This is about

leading us to a better path and a better way.

I commend those members in the gallery and their entire team that put this together, and I would encourage us to make this the norm. Let's make this the norm.

Let's say this experiment ends up being a success and decide it should continue.

I support the CBC. My first conversations with Mr. Wise, before we even brought it to the House, were guiding him through the process of how we get the schools

involved, how we get the legislators to accept it and what process should be used to incorporate hearing more from people about private members' time.

I definitely support this bill, and I encourage the member to use his authority, his ability, to convince everybody else that we should continue down this path

for all students across the province to participate in this place, because it opens it up and it makes it a place where they want to be. Thank you very much.

Mr. Phil McNeely (Ottawa-Orléans): There is nothing more important to our caucus than the education, safety and well-being of our youth.

That's why we have the Ministry of Health Promotion, and that's why we have the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. Under Dalton McGuinty's Liberals, $146 million has been invested annually in

order to hire a total of 2,000 additional specialist teachers over the next four years, and part of that focus will be on physical education in our schools.

Under our government, school boards have been directed to provide elementary students with at least 20 minutes of sustained moderate-to-vigorous daily physical

activity, and we have allocated $10.7 million to that. The member for Mississauga East, who was an Olympian, has tried to get that up from 20 minutes to 40 minutes; he's had a private member's bill

to that effect.

We've also provided $20 million to school boards to help them open schools to non-profit community groups to use after hours year-round for fitness programs to

make our communities healthier and stronger.

In addition to physical fitness, of course we come to this bill this morning, which is so important. Nupur, you're providing leadership bringing this bill

forward, and that's a commendable thing. Good lifestyles, exercise and proper eating were very important in schools when I was young, and that goes back a few years. Fast foods and sugar-filled

drinks took over our homes and schools, and we now find that obesity and type 2 diabetes have increased dramatically.

I am particularly proud of what school kids can do. I know that in my own area of Ottawa, there is the Exposé project. High schools in Ottawa submitted

24,000 postcards to our government -- 24,000 from just one city -- to get the power walls out of retail stores. That change in the legislation was because 24,000 of our youth worked hard to get

it.

I like this bill. I'm sure the continued work by youth will lead our government, and incent us as members of Parliament, to legislate change that will improve

the lives of young Ontarians. Well done.

Mr. Kevin Daniel Flynn (Oakville): It's a pleasure to join the debate today on Bill 93. Many members talked about the content of the bill, and

I don't think I have heard anybody who has a view other than that this is very progressive legislation we should take a very serious look at.

I'll also join with my colleague from Halton in saying that a lot of the information we'll hear this morning coming out of this exercise, thanks to the

assistance of Mike Wise from CBC, has come from the region of Halton. It's a sign that the public school system and the separate school system in my community are in fine shape. They're producing

great students; they've got great teachers and great parents. Certainly I think it says something about the quality of public education, not only in Oakville and the region of Halton but throughout

Ontario. Special thanks, of course, to Nupur Dogra, a grade 9 student at Iroquois Ridge High School.

When I talk to young people before they come into the House, I try to prepare them a little bit. I tell them they're going to see a lot of men, they're going

to see a lot of grey hair, they're going to see very few women in the House, and they're going to see some balding heads, mine included, but what they won't see is a lot of young women. What we

should be particularly thankful for today is that this initiative comes from a young woman. This was started by a young woman, who, if you read Time magazine this month, is now in fine company.

Bill Clinton is saying exactly what you are saying: We need to get serious about nutrition; we need to get serious about the way we treat our bodies as young people, because that's going to pay

dividends in the future.

By supporting this bill today, we're allowing it to proceed to committee stage. Any adjustments that need to be made to it, any amendments that could be made

to improve it, could be introduced at that point in time. It's wonderful when all the parties are working together. We have to thank the students today for allowing that to happen, for bringing

forward such progressive legislation that I think is unarguably some of the best and most comprehensive we've seen in this House. My hat is off to all the students who have been involved, and

especially to Ms. Dogra, from grade 9 at Iroquois Ridge, for the wonderful leadership she has shown in this regard.

Mr. Cameron Jackson (Burlington): I'm of course very delighted, coming from Halton, as the last speaker does and my colleague Mr. Chudleigh,

to be celebrating a piece of legislation that has been presented through the hearts and minds of the youth of our province and our community. Special compliments to Nupur Dogra, the student who was

responsible for spearheading this, and to Monique Gazan, a teacher who clearly inspires a class to do better and become more involved and therefore become better citizens.

Personally, I also want to acknowledge that we have with us today from Burlington Gennaro Santoro, our legislative page from Rolling Meadows school, my

daughter Michelle Jackson, here job-shadowing her father, and her best friend Michelle Millar. We want to thank the CBC for all of what is happening today. I couldn't have picked a better day for

my daughter to be job-shadowing me. Ladies, you can stand up.

We all have agreed this is an excellent piece of legislation, and certainly our school system and our public health departments regionally across this province

are to be commended, because there is a concerted effort at doing a better job of taking greater responsibility for our own lives -- that's essentially what is at stake here. We want to teach young

people, at a much younger age, the importance of taking care of themselves so that they can continue to have strong and healthy bodies, live a full life and continue to contribute. The school

becomes a repository of this kind of thinking about good citizenship and good self-development.

When I read this, I was very, very pleased, because this wasn't coming from the top down, in effect; it was coming from the bottom up. There are so many

incidents to demonstrate over the years the accomplishments of teachers, school boards and public health officials. I know that in Halton, Dr. Bob Nosal provides tremendous leadership in our

community. We have grassroots community organizations that I've been involved in over the years that have developed breakfast programs in our schools to assist children who leave home in the

morning with no breakfast and seldom have any kind of meaningful lunch for reasons of poverty or neglect. Yet the school system, the government and regional authorities try to do work to support

that.

Again, I'm seeing clear evidence of work and thought and concern being put into this bill.

I also wanted to say that much has been said about issues of obesity leading to heart disease and to forms of diabetes and hypertension and all those other

problems. The corollary is those young men and women -- predominantly young women -- in our schools who for a variety of reasons, whether it's the bombardment of the media and images of what is

deemed to be more attractive in our society, are suffering from eating disorders and the challenges of that. These are taking the lives of our young people at a much, much younger age. I want to

make sure that that as well becomes part of the awareness and education of our young people.

I also want to put on record the important ongoing work that the teachers' federations, the departments of health and all ministries of all governments of all

stripes in making our schools safer and making them more aware of the importance of this.

I remember that many years ago I was approached by Dr. Karen Scully of Burlington, a dermatologist, who brought a program back from California called Slip!

Slap! Slop! It was to help kids put on a shirt and put on sunscreen to provide protection from skin cancer. I went to the NDP Minister of Education and presented it to him with Dr. Scully, and it

became the program for all schools in Ontario.

These things can happen when they are grassroots and supported by everyone, and I applaud Iroquois Ridge school, the CBC and all those who had a hand in this,

especially my colleague from Oak Ridges.

The Acting Chair: That concludes the hour we have for debate on this ballot item. Pardon me; I apologize. The member for Oak Ridges has two

minutes to reply.

Mr. Klees: I want to take the two minutes that I have remaining to acknowledge the contribution of my colleagues in the debate. I'm very, very

thankful for their advice. The member from Nickel Belt made some very good points regarding some existing programs through which I believe we can extend the intent of this bill. We had some

recommendations as well from the member from Ottawa Centre that we will take to heart and look forward to working through in committee.

I want to thank my colleagues as well from Halton, Parry Sound−Muskoka, and Burlington for the points they made about how historical this event today is.

More important perhaps even than the bill that's before us is the process and the fact that young people have been engaged in the political process. I believe this is an incredible signal to

students, to young people across the province, that we have in this province a political process that is open to their involvement. I believe the Legislature, by creating this special session

today, is sending a signal that we want their engagement, that we welcome their input, welcome their advice.

From that standpoint, I thank members. I have heard the expressions of support from all three political parties. We have here before us a piece of legislation

-- once again, I want to thank Nupur Dogra for her incredible initiative and the support of her family and her school for allowing her to become someone in this province who truly has made history

today. Thank you.

The Acting Speaker: Now that concludes the hour we have for debate on this ballot item. We will deal with the question on this matter at

noon.

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

(SCHOOL WASTE REDUCTION), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR

L'ÉDUCATION (RÉDUCTION DES

DÉCHETS DANS LES ÉCOLES)

Ms Wynne moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 96,

An Act to amend the Education Act / Projet de loi 96, Loi modifiant la

Loi sur l'éducation.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ted Arnott): I'm pleased to recognize the member for Don Valley West.

Ms. Kathleen O. Wynne (Don Valley West): I'm proud and happy to rise to speak to Bill 96,

an Act to amend the Education Act regarding school

waste reduction. This bill, if passed, would ensure that, first of all, every classroom in the province has a minimum of two recycling containers -- one for paper and one for plastic and aluminum

-- and secondly, that every school cafeteria has a recycling facility and that the recycling facility clearly indicates which materials are recyclable and where in the facility the recycling

materials are to be placed.

Although this bill stands in my name before this Legislature, I want to acknowledge the interesting genesis of the bill and the people whose energy and

commitment have brought it before us today.

First of all, let me recognize Mike Wise of the CBC. It was Mike's imagination that led to the development of the concept of Making the Grade and the idea that

it would be a useful exercise for students to attempt to influence the legislative process. There's Mike in the gallery. It was Mike's perseverance and that of his colleagues at the CBC who took

this project on and allowed it to flourish. I'm sure there were discussions at storyboards about this project more than once. He has created an experience for the students involved in this project,

their schools and the students and teachers around the province who have followed this journey, and he is to be commended. Just before I leave Mr. Wise, I want to say how much I value the existence

and the work of our national public broadcaster, which would see the intrinsic educational value and merit in a project like Making the Grade. But I'm not here to talk about the CBC.

Secondly, I want to recognize Laura Hudgin, the teacher from Georgetown District High School who has provided support and guidance to the students who are

members of the geography club. She intentionally called this the geography club. She was a geography student and she loves geography, so good for her. She allowed the students to talk and debate

and settle on this initiative as the one that they believed was important enough to bring to the Ontario Legislature. From my contact with these students, it's obvious that Ms. Hudgin has created

an environment that encourages debate and inquiry among her students. But most importantly, I want to acknowledge the geography club students from Georgetown High who are there in the gallery. I'm

just going to quickly read their names, because this was a team effort: Kevin Robbie, Hillary Lutes, Joanna Ho, Jenna Misener, Jessica Holburn, Jen McVicar, Calvin Halaig, Dylan Hickson, Chris

Dobson, Rob Weber -- who I heard on the radio the other day, yesterday, I think -- Justin Bravo, Jamie Gelfand, Amanda Stonebrink, Alison Corbett, Jessica Deshane, Samantha Gibson, Erin Gough,

Andrew Noble, Scott Welfare. They are all here, but Kody Lyons, Robin McDonald and Ashley Moffatt could not be here. But they've all been part of this project and deserve a lot of credit. Bravo.

These students were interested enough both in the substance of the bill and in the legislative process to meet together, settle on the idea for the bill, meet with the reporter and with me, answer

our questions and attend the Legislature -- twice now -- to track the progress of their bill. They deserve a lot of credit, and I'm reasonably certain that each of them -- each of you -- will take

away something of lasting value from this experience that you've shared.

I want to talk about the substance of the bill and then I'll come back briefly to the process. I believe there's no one in this House who can question the need

for increased recycling in our ever more consumerist, waste-producing society. The issues surrounding disposal of garbage are at the top of the list of priorities for urban centres around this

province and indeed across North America. Diversion of waste from landfill sites is no longer -- as it might have been when I was in high school -- a nice idea embraced by activist

environmentalists. It's a fundamental necessity for cities such as Toronto that have virtually no readily available landfill options.

This past February, our Minister of the Environment, Laurel Broten -- who is very supportive of this initiative and whose parliamentary assistant will be

speaking to the bill in a moment -- spoke to the municipal recycling coordinators in Orangeville. She talked about our need to learn from the natural world and compared a city to a forest. She

said, "A city is no different from a forest. It must not consume its resources too quickly. It cannot afford to simply waste what it consumes. That's just not sustainable.... Recycling is one of

the fundamental things that we do to protect our air, land and water resources, and the outstanding quality of life that we enjoy in Ontario."

Our waste diversion goal in Ontario is 60%. The realities of expanding growth and growing population create a strain on our natural resources. One of our

goals, in order to manage that strain, is to increase the rates of reuse and recycling. Part of that goal must be to expand the municipal blue box program. According to the Ministry of the

Environment, waste diversion rates have gone up in the province. More than four million households now have access to recycling. Over the past 10 years, there has been a 74% increase in the total

amount of recovered recycled material.

But our work is not done. When the Georgetown students looked at the recycling practices of schools across the province, they discovered that our practices are

uneven from school to school and from board to board. Every classroom didn't have the recycling in place and every cafeteria didn't. So they realized that there was more to be done. In fact, the

majority of the statistics available on recycling referenced households, not institutions, and the most visible and consistent use of the blue box is on the sidewalk outside single-family

dwellings. I know, even from my own riding, that it's much more challenging for people living in multi-residential housing and in institutions to recycle. That's where we need to focus. That

culture of recycling, reusing and conserving is something we all want to embrace, but the post-war generation, of which I'm a part, and our children do not have the habits of moderation and

restraint that we have to learn. Ontario's track record: We're doing well in comparison to the United States, for example, but we're well behind the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium. We still

generate in the order of 12 million tonnes of solid waste annually in Ontario, and each Canadian throws away approximately half a kilogram of packaging daily.

That's not good enough. The Georgetown students understood that, and they understand that their generation will have to push us. They were the ones who got us

started on the blue box program and they're going to have to continue the job.

I sincerely hope that this Legislature passes this legislation and it becomes law, but even if that doesn't happen, if for some reason that doesn't happen, our

awareness has been raised. This exercise has not been wasted. The profile of the issue has been raised and I really believe that everyone in this Legislature will be a more attentive advocate

because of the work that the students from Georgetown have done.

I want to come back briefly to the process that has brought us to this point. As someone who has spent most of her working adult life in schools in one

capacity or another, I believe that as a society we often and frequently underestimate the seriousness of our students. We underestimate their ability; we underestimate our children's ability to

take issues seriously and to take

part in what we might call adult debates. It's my experience that it's quite often the case that young people are the most able to take

part in those debates.

As a politician, I can tell you it's much easier for me to predict and deflect the questions that come at me from another adult or from another politician than

it is to predict the questions that grade 5 students will pose, and there's no deflecting those honest, guileless questions: Why don't we fix poverty? Why don't we deal with homelessness? Why don't

we clean our water? Those are the questions that young people ask us, and those are the questions that we have to be considering.

That has been the value of this exercise for us as legislators. Students, with the ability to take responsibility for their ideas and with the ability to see a

problem clearly and to see a gap, have said, "Why are you not doing something so obvious?" In this case we've said, "Actually, you're right. We should be doing that," so we've come together to do

that.

The British educator John Abbott talks about the development of the human brain, especially early adolescence. He maintains that we as a society miss a golden

opportunity to educate if we don't allow adolescents to take responsibility and to do real things in order to learn -- not a hollow practice, but a real exercise with consequences and inherent

rewards. I think Making the Grade has been a perfect example of that kind of exercise.

I hope there have been personal rewards for the students. I hope you have a deeper understanding of the democratic process. You've brought out the best in us

in the Legislature. We've come together to debate this issue and we're going to be voting together to support your idea. I hope that at least some of you will consider taking

part in the

legislative process yourselves, will consider politics. But for the next few years, I hope that you take seriously the issues around you, that you continue to consider seriously the issues that

affect your lives. That's what politics is about in the most local sense. That's what leads people, in the best way, to take on politics at either the municipal, the provincial or the federal

level.

I'm greatly indebted to the students of Georgetown for allowing me to be part of this exercise. Thank you for your commitment to the environment. I look

forward to support from all parties for Bill 96.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Michael Prue): Further debate?

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): I am pleased to be here today to address Bill 96 and to commend the students from Georgetown

District High School's geography and eco club who are here today, and to their teacher Laura Hudgin for being here and for initiating the process. It's a wonderful idea and we need to engage more

youth in our political process in what we'd like to move forward.

Mike Wise is here from the CBC. This was his brainchild, to make Making the Grade. I know that there were 160 submissions that had to be narrowed down to

three. That would probably be a very tough thing to accomplish, to narrow it down to three, because I think we have really bright, innovative students. It's a tremendous chance for these students

to learn more about how legislation evolves and what they can do to contribute to that. So we're all anxious to find ways to encourage young people into this political process, and this is a great

opportunity for them.

In the bill I'm debating now, the school waste reduction, it is a requirement of every classroom in Ontario to have at minimum two recycling containers -- one

for paper and the other for plastic and aluminum -- and every cafeteria in Ontario should have a recycling facility that prominently indicates materials acceptable. The classrooms that are to be

initiated for these recycling containers are required to have adequate recycling facilities that delineate materials that are acceptable. They're to be properly marked.

I think this is part of engaging and educating our youth. I hear many stories of young people in the schools who get educated and go home and help their

parents; they educate their parents on what we'd like to promote. Recycling is certainly one of them. The target is 60% waste diversion in Ontario. I know the dates keep changing for when that is

going to be accomplished, but for today this is an initiative we want to move forward on as quickly as possible, and to recognize that the students are right on the mark.

Statistics from an Ipsos Reid poll in 2005 say that "Eight in 10 Ontarians (85%) feel that managing and disposing of our non-recyclable garbage should be a

priority for the provincial government. Of those, 47% feel it should be a major priority, and 14% feel it should be a minor priority." But 84% of "Ontarians feel that we should be recycling more

than we currently are." I think the students have picked a topic that is very hot and progressive in society. They're hitting what society wants to move toward and they've learned the legislative

process. They've got petitions, which I know are posted on the CBC website under Making the Grade. They've done it properly. They have contacted names and they're getting public support. I think

those are great initiatives in finding out how this brings attention in the Legislature and how it gets to be foremost of mind.

According to the Environment Canada website, paper and paper products account for more than one third of the materials discarded into Canada's municipal waste

stream, and it's estimated that less than one quarter of the six million tonnes of paper and paperboard used annually in Canada is recycled. So it only makes sense to reduce and reuse the large

volumes of paper and paper products that are used in the school system. The recycling of paper in schools makes sense to help reduce landfill space. I know that the paper we see in our offices as

legislators is enormous, and I have great guilt feelings about all the paper we use. The fact that it is can be used in a recycling process compensates for some of that. The more waste that we

reduce, reuse and recycle, the less pressure there will be on our landfills and our precious natural resources.

Waste reduction is everyone's responsibility. The students and teachers of Georgetown District High School have recognized that. I commend them for their

efforts toward waste reduction. They set an example for all of us that we should follow and they have encouraged us to move this forward. I want to thank them today for the opportunity to speak. I

know that many of my colleagues want to participate in this debate, Mr. Speaker, so I will thank you for the opportunity and let them carry on.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The member from Hamilton West.

Ms. Andrea Horwath (Hamilton East): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and it's Hamilton East.

It's my pleasure to speak to this bill, Bill 96. You'll know that in a little while I'll be introducing a bill as well. I've had the privilege and the honour

of working with young people on this project. Members have already commented on the work of Mike Wise from the CBC in his bringing this forward, but of course I wanted to mention that as well.

I was thrilled when I found out which topics generally we would be moving forward with in terms of amplifying the voices of young people in the province. The

project does more than just bring these bills forward. I'm going to get more into that in my own remarks later on, but I think it's important to acknowledge that this bill not only brings the

issues forward, but it also engages young people in our province in the political process. Certainly I have learned a great deal from them. These young people are very interested and very concerned

about what is happening in the province they live in, the province they will one day be responsible for in a more fulsome way.

What I think this bill does particularly is show how important they think it is to be involved in the stewardship of the province at this very time, while they

are in high school, and that is extremely laudable. It's something that I think we all have to acknowledge. It's our hope for the future really when you think about our environment

specifically.

Having worked a great deal on environmental issues in my own community, coming from a heavily industrialized area of the province, I know that environmental

issues are often things that people think are just too big to tackle, that the issues are too massive, that they are too difficult to actually wrestle to the ground. What these young people are

telling us is that not only are they not too difficult, not only are they not too huge, not only are they not too unattainable, but that in fact they are prepared to get extremely involved and to

ensure that we as legislators are putting the tools in place that they need to be able to participate fully in protecting our environment.

How are they doing it? Well, by Bill 96 which basically requires, demands of school boards the necessity of putting the tools in place within the schools to

make sure students have the ability to do the right thing by the environment, to undertake recycling in the schools. I have to say that when I look at the bill, it's very clear that the students

want to make sure they are not contributing to our ongoing pressures around garbage, that in fact they are doing the opposite, that they are helping, that they are doing their part, and that they

are doing their

part in their own school and are making sure their fellow students across the province are given the same opportunity.

I commend the students for bringing this bill forward because, in my opinion, it is where we have to start. I have a son who is 13 years old and is just

finishing grade school, and although they have recycling bins in every classroom, often when I go I go to meetings at the school, not that he generates a lot of unnecessary meetings at the school,

but when I go for the open houses and things with my son's teachers, I notice a couple of different things. In some classrooms, the recycling bins are overflowing. Those classrooms are obviously

doing a great job in terms of the recycling of paper products. Other classrooms are not so effective at it. So I think that along with this kind of initiative of providing more opportunity for

recycling, not only in classrooms but in cafeterias, we need to make sure we are getting the message out there about how important it is.

It's one thing for us as adults to try to tell young people and children, to try to encourage them and get them moving in that direction in terms of recycling,

but it's quite another when their own peers, fellow students are setting the example, when the message is coming from colleagues or from other students as opposed to coming from adults. I think

that if there is one thing that is of extreme value in this particular process, whether it's about this bill in terms of recycling or whether it's the bill we've already debated in terms of foods

in cafeterias, or whether it's the next bill we're going to be debating, the bottom line is that when it's young people speaking to young people, I think the message will be received in a much more

positive way from other students who are facing these same kinds of situations in their schools.

The issue of recycling is one that everybody is aware of. In Toronto, of course, it's a heightened awareness because of the garbage that is being trucked out

of the city because the solutions still don't exist in terms of dealing with or handling Toronto's garbage. What are the solutions? As we continue to generate more waste, our solutions are basic:

landfill, or the other one that is coming down the pike, and people will know this, incineration. I can tell you that from my community's experience, we closed an incinerator not too long ago in

our city. It was the largest producer of dioxins in all of Canada, and in my community, the actual community I represent, Hamilton East, residents there have ill health effects as a result of the

dioxins that were spewing out of the smoke stacks of SWARU in Hamilton for years and years.

We have higher cancer rates in Hamilton. We have all kinds of health effects. Asthma: As everyone knows, in most communities there is a general trend of

increased asthma because of smog, and greenhouse gasses of course are the culprit there. But nonetheless, the issue of incineration is one that I know will be before us in a more full way.

If we are reducing, recycling and composting, and we have broad organics programs community across community in Ontario, then we have less pressure to

undertake solutions that are distasteful to us, like incineration and trying to site or find new landfill opportunities in Ontario. So it comes down to the management of solid waste. What these

students are saying is that they are concerned about this. They want to make sure that solid waste is dealt with, and they are going to do their part not only in their own schools, but by bringing

this legislation forward and encouraging other students to make sure they are doing it as well, and in fact to require that their school boards partner with them in that endeavour. It's a very

important piece.

I want to just end by saying that the students who got involved in this are true leaders and we look forward to the days when we are flipping the channels and

we see you in these seats debating legislation in the province of Ontario. So congratulations to everybody who has taken part. I look forward to participating in the debate for the rest of the

morning.

Ms. Jennifer F. Mossop (Stoney Creek): It is with great pleasure that I rise today to support Bill 96, an initiative, as has already been

mentioned, that came from Mike Wise at the CBC. I have to tell you, I worked for 20-odd years in journalism, in newsrooms, and it is not easy getting a story idea through assignment editors,

because you're competing with dozens of other ideas and of course all the news of the day. So congratulations to him for pitching this idea and making it a reality, and to the Georgetown High

geography club for running with the ball and coming up with something that is tremendously valuable.

I'll tell you why it's valuable, as we've heard from a number of people. I grew up in a culture of waste. When I was growing up, everything we had, every piece

of paper, every little mechanical device that we were done with, we threw in the same plastic garbage bag, and it got hauled away by the garbage man and we'd wave and it was all very nice and

pleasant. I learned about recycling and reuse through my grandparents and my aunts and uncles who had lived through depressions and wars and who truly understood the value of resources because they

went through periods of time when those resources were seriously strained and their value was really recognized and there was rationing. They were given much less to use and they had to use it in a

very creative way, and they recycled. I remember my grandmother would always have a large jar of leftover string and elastic bands on the kitchen counter. Everything was saved; everything was

reused. Extra pieces of foil were saved. I remember my grandfather -- boy, he could really stretch out a paper napkin, let me tell you. It would be there a couple of days and we'd have to tell him,

"I think it's time you threw that one out."

We have learned the value of these resources now partly because of the growing demand on them through the growing population. We now understand that our

resources are limited and the population is forever growing, so we need to treat them a little bit differently. But we still have a problem in that we have a really disposable society. You go along

the streets and you see all this litter and paper packaging all over the place. These things are still disposable. Some are recyclable, but a lot of people just toss them out when they're done. The

answer to the problem really is going to be recycling, and the time to learn it is when you're in school and when you're young. It's the time to learn the intrinsic value of recycling to the

sustainability of our society and of our species. In fact, that's what it is. What you are bringing to the table is something that's very sensible, something very real, something very basic but

very valuable to the sustainability of us as a species and as a planet.

I thank you very much and applaud all of you who have been involved in this, Ms. Wynne for bringing it forward and giving a great speech this morning, and all

the other speakers.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh (Halton): I'm pleased to rise on Bill 96, the school waste reduction program that is brought to us by the geography club of

the Georgetown District High School, another bill this morning that originated from my riding. Two out of three: That's not bad for Halton. Of course, it's what we expect from Halton; we expect the

very best. I welcome the geography club here this morning to share in this.

It's an interesting piece of legislation. It speaks to students' concerns over the environment and what we can do to lessen the effects of human habitation on

our ecosystem. This bill, if passed, will require boards of education to do two things. One, it will ensure that every classroom has two recycling containers, one for paper and one for plastic and

aluminum. This will help divert waste from landfills and also develop lifelong habits.

Personally, I can remember 20 years ago starting the recycling program -- I lived in Mississauga for a short time then -- and we had one container. Now I'm up

to three containers. One of the members from the Georgetown geography club can substantiate this. Justin Bravo is my neighbour, and I'm not sure if he checks out my recycling every other Tuesday

morning, but he could. I have three containers out there for those things, and I could easily have five if you wanted to separate out the containers for plastic bottles, metal containers and

aluminum containers.

The second thing that this bill requires is for the board to ensure each cafeteria has a recycling facility which clearly indicates which materials are

recyclable and where each is to be placed.

This bill, if passed, over time will make some of us think about the consumption culture, how we use things and how we throw them away, as the former speaker

just mentioned.

In my grandfather's day, which might be 80 or 100 years ago, there was little waste. What was disposed of often was done in a careless or haphazard way, which

could result in future pollution. They did that out of ignorance. They didn't realize or understand the consequences of what their actions were. In my father's day, say 40 or 50 years ago, the

consumption culture was beginning to take off. We were producing dioxins, PCBs, CFCs, and few people sounded any concern about what we were doing to the environment in which we were living.

The first time the warning bells rang for me was in 1961 when Rachel Carson published her famous book Silent Spring. Incidentally, that's still a good read.

From that time, more and more people in every facet of our society became aware of the habits a careless community had developed and the destructive nature of those consequences. Our grandfathers

didn't know. Our fathers began to know. But we in this society do know, and we understand very clearly the consequences of our actions. It is up to us, both the generation that sits in this

Legislature and the students in the gallery. It is up to us to begin to carry on the task of first stopping the degradation of our ecosystem and, secondly, of cleaning up the mess. This can't be

done overnight, but in this way we could leave an environment in better shape than we found it for our children and our grandchildren.

This bill, in its own way, starts that learning process at an early age, when life habits are formed. It begins the habit of recycling.

I congratulate the students of Georgetown geography club. It's a great initiative to bring forward this bill and to actually have this bill reach the

Legislature. It's the first time, I think, in Ontario's history that this has actually happened, and this is something where, when you're my age, or perhaps not quite my age, you will look back on

your high school experiences and say, "Yes, we brought a bill before the Ontario Legislature." If you have experience in Legislature activities and bills coming before the Legislature, you'll say,

"Holy mackerel, that was really something. Imagine, we did that when we were only kids." This will be an experience that you'll look back on for most of your life, and I think it will be a very

positive one, particularly if we see fit in this Legislature to pass this bill, which I will be very pleased to vote for and support in every way I can.

Ms. Shelley Martel (Nickel Belt): I too appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate this morning. I want to indicate at the

outset that I support the bill that's been put forward by Ms. Wynne. I want to recognize the work that has been done by the students who are here today and congratulate them both on their

initiative and on seeing it through in terms of the research that was necessary to bring this forward in a proper way so it could be presented here in the Legislature. I'm glad to see they could

join us in the Legislature this morning as well to see the bill debated.

I've also spoken in favour of an earlier bill, Bill 93, and will of course be supporting the next bill that's coming forward by my colleague Ms. Horwath, Bill

95, the Employment Statute Law Amendment Act, which would inform students of their employment rights, also a very important bill in terms of ensuring that young students, students who are going

into Ontario workplaces for the first time, have all the information that is necessary to allow them to make informed choices about the work they are going to do, to make sure they have the

training necessary to do the work they have to do and make sure they understand they have the right to refuse to do that work if they feel their employer is putting them into an unsafe work

situation. So I appreciate the work that's been done on all three by students from across the province and look forward to seeing these bills passed as well.

Now, this may sound a bit strange, but it does seem strange to me that a bill like this has taken so long to get here, and I say it in this respect: This is

not to undermine students. It's not to undermine teachers. It's not to undermine custodial staff, and it's not to undermine board staff. But when you think about it, schools have, for a long time

now, been at the forefront of teaching the three Rs to our students.

There certainly was a time when our grandparents -- and I can speak very vividly about my grandmother, who was at the forefront of recycling in her kitchen,

who had a composter at the bottom of her vegetable garden, who used to use her nylons to hang up the vines for the beans and the peas, who used to freeze her nylons so she could use them again, as

a matter of fact. We used to do a number of things with respect to reduce and reuse -- I see people nodding their heads. This is what I remember from my grandmother.

There was a period of time, when those who had gone through the Depression -- and she was one, and who wouldn't have thrown away anything, much less food -- to

a period of time where our parents and indeed me, as a generation, just lost all that and didn't have a respect for that and didn't practise those kinds of policies and indeed just became so used

to buying stuff and throwing material out left, right and centre, not composting, not dealing with food scraps, that we really lost a whole period of that opportunity.

Then schools really made it a focus to start to teach young people about the three Rs, about reducing, reusing and recycling. I look at my kids today, and my

kids are big promoters of three Rs. My kids are going through our blue box to make sure that everything is clean before it goes in. They are making sure that the toilet paper rolls are going in.

They are really clear about contributing their

part in this effort.

Last Saturday, my son and I were coming back from the vegetable market at the corner of Logan and the Danforth, where we buy our vegetables. There is a school

that we have to pass, and along the school there are beer bottles, because this is where some of the kids -- not the kids from the school, obviously, but some other kids in the neighbourhood --

spend some of their time on Friday nights. So there are empty beer bottles and there are empty juice bottles and pop cans and the whole -- and he decided we were going to pick them all up on our

way home. I'm already carrying two bags full of vegetables and fruits and trying to accommodate him as he's picking up all the stuff. He says, "Mom, look at all these litterbugs. Who would litter

like this?" -- my eight-year-old. By the time we reach our house we have a whole bunch of stuff for the blue bin, both for the plastics and for the bottles and other paper goods that were going

into that bin outside. So he's really into this, and this comes from us supporting that at home, but really from what he has been learning in school.

Then he's on to me yesterday about getting a composter. I'm not too excited about getting a composter, because we participate in the green box program and it's

hard enough with the green box program in the city to keep the raccoons out of the green boxes. So I'm not so interested in becoming really involved in composting because I don't want to see the

composter chewed up by the raccoons. In a previous house we lived in, that's exactly what they did, in a house that we rented. I'm trying to convince him that if we just do our bit with the food

scraps in the green box and we put that out appropriately on Friday morning, we will be doing our bit. So I'm hoping that I have him convinced of that.

I have to say, after having said all that, isn't it strange that the school environment where my kids were taught all of this, and so many other children were

taught all of this, is now in a position where we're going to mandate them to think much more seriously about recycling on school grounds and on school property? It's a bit of a contradiction when

you think about schools being a leader in teaching kids but not having the facilities in place in the school environment to actually make that happen.

I think of our school, where my kids are, on Fridays: pizza day. When you drive up to the curb on Friday afternoon, there are boxes and boxes and boxes outside

-- all of the empty pizza boxes from the Friday afternoon pizza lunch. These are things that we should be squishing and folding up and tying up, and they should be kept somewhere in the school

until the proper recycling day so we can really take them out to the curbside at that time and get rid of them. Right now, they're all over the sidewalk, and parents driving up run the risk of

driving into them sometimes. You're trying to make your way through all of the boxes to get in to pick up your child, either from the school or from the daycare, and it's a heck of a mess, through

no fault of the school but there just isn't anywhere else to put the stuff.

Hopefully, things like this, initiatives like the ones that are outlined in this bill, are going to deal with this problem, not just at our school, which is

trying to make efforts in other senses but just doesn't have the space to keep all of this and store it properly, and at other schools across the city and across the province.

So I'm supportive of this bill. I'm very glad that the students brought it forward. But I just note that it's kind of strange that it has taken so long for a

bill that is so important to come forward when, through so much of the last number of years, schools have been fundamental in promoting and ensuring education in the three Rs. For those schools

that don't have these things in place right now, I hope it will be in very short order that school boards respond positively and get the recycling facilities in place, both in the schools and in

the cafeteria, and in that way we can really say that we are doing all we can with respect to the three Rs, not just in our homes, as many of us are and as many of our kids are prompting us to do

on a daily basis, but also in the very school environments where our students are being taught all of these important things.

So I support the bill. Again, I want to thank the students from Georgetown for bringing it forward and Ms. Wynne for putting it forward as a private member's

bill today.

Ms. Monique M. Smith (Nipissing): I'm delighted to join in the debate today in support of Mrs. Wynne's amendment. I want to congratulate Mike

Wise of the CBC and the Georgetown District High School. Good for you to all be here today to celebrate your success in moving this forward. To teacher Laura Hudgin, congratulations to you and to

your entire geography club. It's great to have you here to celebrate today as we all debate your resolution.

I don't have a lot of time, because my colleagues are very excited about this and want to talk about it, so I am going to keep it brief.

I think we all understand and recognize that recycling keeps Ontario communities safe, clean and livable, and that it doesn't just save landfill space but cuts

down on air emissions, reduces the risk of potential ground and surface water pollution, saves energy and cuts down on greenhouse gases.

But recycling doesn't just happen; we have to make it happen. The amendment you bring forward today in providing containers will not only raise awareness for

students but will also make it easy for students, and that's what makes it happen.

I want to point out three examples of raising awareness and making it easy that I think are contributing to recycling in all of our communities. In my

community, in East Ferris, which is part of my riding, they recently went to curbside recycling. You used to have to take your recycling to a recycling centre. It's a rural community. Now they've

gone to curbside recycling. In the first two months they diverted more waste from the landfill than they normally would in a year. They predict that 250 tonnes of waste will be diverted from the

local landfill over the course of the first year. That's really exciting, but that's the result of making it easier for our residents. When we provide them with the resources, they are able to do

the recycling that we know is so important.

As well, in North Bay we recently had a contest in our schools to raise awareness about recycling. We challenged local schools to build something creative

using juice box containers. My local school, E.T. Carmichael Public School, won first place. They built a metre-high tree using 2,000 drink boxes that they had collected over seven days. They went

through 200 glue guns putting it all together. Our Lady of Fatima took second place, and Pinewood Park Public School took third place. This contest was hosted by the city and Tetrapak Canada, and

it raised awareness of what could go into a blue box and how we should be moving forward with our recycling.

Your resolution will make sure they can recycle those drink boxes at school, because the containers will be available.

Just recently, if anyone has paid attention around this building, you'll have noticed that our building here, Queen's Park, has adopted new recycling and

garbage containers in the hallways. They just came out this week, which may actually be a result of your amendment. I don't know; we'll have to ask the Sergeant at Arms. Suddenly this week we have

new garbage containers that allow us to recycle glass and plastic and garbage. Congratulations to you for raising awareness for everyone, including the people in this building.

I certainly support this resolution and thank you for the opportunity to speak to it today.

Mr. Ted Arnott (Waterloo-Wellington): I'm very pleased this morning to have this opportunity to speak in support of Bill 96, the Education

Amendment Act (School Waste Reduction). I want to compliment all the members who have spoken to this issue this morning, especially the member for Halton, who ably represents the town of Halton

Hills, and Georgetown high school. I thank them all for their presentations.

If passed, Bill 96 would improve recycling in every classroom in the province of Ontario. This is a policy and a principle that I would encourage every member

of this assembly to support enthusiastically. I am most grateful to the students at Georgetown District High School who worked to make their ideas a legislative reality, because this bill is really

their idea.

This morning's debate is extraordinary, for this is the first time, to the best of my recollection, that we are debating three private members' items in one

morning. Usually it's only two, and only on Thursday. With this unique Wednesday morning debate and our regular private members' session tomorrow, we will have debated five private members' ballot

items in one week. This is a good thing.

This debate is also an advancement for Ontario's young people, our students and for the Ontario Legislature as a whole. The progress that we can proudly mark

today is that all three of the bills before us have been recommended by students from high schools. For that achievement, I want to thank Mike Wise, the reporter from CBC television. He has quite

successfully promoted involvement and participation by young people in our democratic system through a CBC program called Making the Grade.

The bill we're debating right now was sponsored by the MPP for Don Valley West, a member of the Liberal caucus; the bill that preceded this debate was

sponsored by the MPP for Oak Ridges, a member of the Progressive Conservative caucus; and the next bill to be debated at 11 o'clock is sponsored by the MPP for Hamilton East, a member of the NDP. I

want to thank all three MPPs for their support and encouragement today. Having all-party involvement, I think, is good politics. The process is truly non-partisan, for your ideas and your ideas for

solutions can cut across party lines. This debate is more inclusive because we MPPs, at least on this side of the House, by our caucus tradition, usually have free votes on private members' bills

and resolutions. This means that no MPP should feel that he or she has to be guided by the party lines or whipped to vote in a certain way.

I want to draw attention to the exceptional work that is being done by Georgetown District High School. The students in the geography club made their ideas

known about how to expand recycling, and they put those ideas into Bill 96. For the efforts these students made, I want to extend my appreciation and sincere congratulations. These students are

very fortunate. They are fortunate to be learning with Laura Hudgin, the teacher and adviser for the top-notch legislative work that is being done by the geography club. These students of

Georgetown District High School are well on their way to achieving excellence with Bill 96. I'm scheduled to meet with the geography club on May 23, and I'm looking forward to having the chance to

listen to their ideas and hopefully answer some of their questions.

One of the best paths to excellence in the protection of our natural environment is to always be looking for new ways to improve the systems, our laws and how

we encourage people to make better choices. I was also fortunate to have the experience of serving as parliamentary assistant to one of Ontario's best ever Ministers of the Environment, the member

for Kitchener−Waterloo. Shortly after the Walkerton tragedy, she was appointed to serve as environment minister, and she provided strong leadership that Ontario needed for safe water, clean

air and sound waste management. For this Minister of the Environment, excellence always meant striving to improve our way of doing things.

The geography club is doing just that with their initiative to improve the four Rs of reduce, reuse, recycle and recover. They are showing leadership by

example. They propose to bring sound environmental policy from their classroom to all classrooms across the province. Bill 96 will improve our system by ensuring that each and every classroom has

at least two recycling containers, one for paper and one for plastic and aluminum. It also stipulates that school cafeterias will have recycling facilities with clear indications of what is to be

recycled and where.

This reminds me of the spirit and principle that motivated another piece of legislation that I had the opportunity to support in this House. As mentioned, I

served as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of the Environment from the spring of 2001 to the spring of 2002. One of my legislative responsibilities on behalf of the minister included helping

with Bill 90, the Waste Diversion Act.

To explain Bill 90, I'd like to quote from Hansard the statement that the Minister of the Environment of the time made as she introduced that historic piece of

legislation on this House on June 26, 2001:

"This important piece of legislation would establish a permanent, non-profit organization run by industry and municipal representatives to develop, implement

and fund waste diversion programs in Ontario. This legislation firmly establishes a partnership between industry and the municipalities and lays out the framework for a recycling system that will

serve this province for years to come."

So it's clear that our party when in government was embracing the concept of recycling and wanted to move forward to encourage greater recycling. Certainly the

spirit of what the students have proposed today follows along those lines. With that constructive advice, I want to close my remarks by thanking again the students, their teachers and all educators

at Georgetown District High School for their leadership. I wish them every success and urge all members of this House to support this bill.

Mr. Kevin Daniel Flynn (Oakville): It's a pleasure to rise today in support of Bill 96. I want to pay particular thanks to the member from Don

Valley West, Kathleen Wynne, who has worked with the young people from Georgetown high school to get the bill to the point where it is today, where it's before us for our consideration.

Once again, without bragging, the region of Halton District School Board has something to offer in showcasing the talent of its teachers and its wonderful

students. Georgetown is actually in the town of Halton Hills in the riding that is represented by Mr. Chudleigh. When you think of Halton Hills, you think of the escarpment, conservation areas and

a pristine environment, and yet quite often today the way we treat our environment, we are putting those types of areas at risk.

It's wonderful to have a fresh set of young eyes on issues like recycling, landfill sites. If you'd asked the average member around this House prior to the

introduction of this bill, "Is there a recycling bin in every classroom in Ontario?" I think most of us would have said, "Well, probably there is, or if there isn't, there should be." The fact is

nobody has done anything about it, and with a fresh set of young eyes, some young people from Georgetown have decided to do something about it, and I think they are to be commended.

If you look at any time we've changed behaviour in our society, we've done it through young people. When we were talking about drinking and driving, talking

about recycling, blue box initiatives, preventing smoking, we haven't gone to the old fuddy-duddies who can't change their minds any more; we've gone to young people who still have the ability to

take in some common sense these days and can relay that common sense back to us as parents or as older people.

We're facing some pretty serious problems with the environment in this country and on this planet. If you look at things like greenhouse gases, global warming

and climate change -- we, in this House, talk about emissions from generating plants: Should we be closing coal plants? Should we be keeping them open? Should we be burning natural gas?--there are

a variety of issues that we face as challenges on a daily basis here. Some young people from Georgetown have brought us forward a very practical solution to those. I think it's a great idea. It

goes a long way towards encouraging people not to use up the capacity in the landfill sites, to in fact use those materials over and over again.

I still don't understand why in Halton we get garbage pickup once a week and we get recycling every two weeks, when you'd think it should be the other way

around. With more initiatives such as we're hearing from Georgetown high school, that will probably be our future.

Mr. John Wilkinson (Perth-Middlesex): I also want to commend the CBC, Mike Wise and my good friend the member for Don Valley West for this

initiative and to say welcome to Georgetown District High School -- home of the Rebels is my understanding. It's wonderful to have you here, and how aptly named you are, because you are forcing us

here of our generation to deal with this issue.

There's a famous saying from the Lakota tribe, First Nations, that says we do not inherit our natural environment from our grandparents, we just borrow it from

our grandchildren, and that wisdom is something that we always have to remember in this place.

I was speaking to my son, Breen, who's in grade 6 at Jeanne Sauvé Catholic School in Stratford. I said, "I have to debate a bill about making a blue box

mandatory in the classroom." He said, "Daddy, we already do that." At their school, there's a blue box in every classroom and in the lunchroom. The question here -- and this is what's been raised

by our friends from Georgetown -- is whether it should be in every classroom. This is what the Legislature is all about.

I say to the young generation here that Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States at the beginning of the last century -- and I quote this for my

good friend the Minister of the Environment, who can't be here today and asked me to speak in support and share her support with you -- "I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop

and use" our natural resources, "but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us." What I would say is that, unfortunately, we have

not fulfilled the words of the late Theodore Roosevelt.

The 19th century was the industrial revolution. Our society rose to that challenge about how to harness our natural resources. The 20th century was the

technological revolution where we were able to embrace the microchip. We learned how to split the atom, how to vaccinate children and to have better nutrition and sanitation. We've raised

longevity, lifespan, but we're not sustainable. The challenge for your generation, I say to our friends from Georgetown, the great challenge of the next century, that I am sure you will be ready

for, is, how do we as a society become sustainable? How do we fit within our natural resources? How do we reduce our footprint? How do we get in balance with nature? Because nature is telling us

that we are not.

I want to commend you for your work and I look forward to supporting, with all the members in this House, I'm sure, Bill 96.

Mr. Khalil Ramal (London-Fanshawe): First, I want to commend the member from Don Valley West for sponsoring this bill. I think it's a very

important bill for all of us in the province of Ontario, especially when we are dealing with students. As you know, I was a teacher at one time in my life, in my career. I think it's important to

teach students how to behave, how to conduct business on a daily basis. I believe the school is the most important place to help our students to learn and to have a vision for the future. I think

this is an important task, especially when dealing with waste.

With the new technology, with the new life we live on a daily basis, all our food and all our stuff is packaged and delivered in cans, boxes, wrappers -- many

different materials. If we don't manage it, we are going to have a problem -- we have a problem today. We have to find a way to recycle this material and reuse it, rather than send it to the

garbage, rather than throw it outside in the schoolyard, rather than put it in our backyard and many different places. We cannot afford that, because we are obligated at the present time, as the

people of this province, to protect the environment and set an example for the future -- our future. I think some important lessons should be taught and learned in the schools: to create two

containers in school classrooms to help the students divert their garbage, one for cans and one for paper, so we can recycle and reuse again; and also for the cafeteria to have a recycling bin; and

to insist that our task as a government, as an environmental people, as a city, is to manage our waste.

I think it's a very important bill. Whoever thought of it, the school, sponsored by the member from Don Valley West -- it's a very good initiative and

therefore I'm going to support it. I'm looking forward to seeing all the members in this House support such an important initiative, especially when it comes from students. We should encourage many

different students to take the same steps toward helping us as a province, helping us as a community, to contain and control our waste. Because our duty for future generations is to protect them

and ensure a safe environment.

The Acting Speaker: The member from Don Valley West has two minutes for a reply.

Ms. Wynne: I just want to follow up on a comment that was made by the member for Nipissing. She checked with the Sergeant at Arms and assures

us the Legislature has been recycling for eight years but that we just got new bins. So it's even easier for us to recycle now in the Legislative Building.

I agree with the member for Perth-Middlesex that, arguably, sustainability of the environment is the number one priority for this generation going forward, the

number one issue that we need to confront. But as the member for Halton said, we know the issue but we haven't done enough. And the member from Nickel Belt identified that isn't it strange that we

have to deal with this issue, because the Georgetown students found that recycling is inconsistent across the province in our classrooms, in our boards. So it's absolutely necessary that we

confront this.

The member for Stoney Creek talked about the practices of our grandparents. I have literally boxes of linen handkerchiefs in my home. I don't think my

grandparents ever used a paper handkerchief, a paper tissue. We are having to go back to practices that were sustainable, and we can learn from that previous generation. I know that many people in

the Legislature probably have switched from paper napkins to cloth napkins. Those are the kinds of things we have to be thinking about as we reduce the amount of waste that goes into the recycle

bins and into our garbage.

I look forward to supporting this legislation. I appreciate the support from all sides of the House, but most importantly, I look forward to there being, in

every classroom in Ontario, two recycle bins at least, and in every cafeteria a receptacle for waste and waste diversion, thanks to the students of Georgetown District High School. Thank you very

much for your time this morning.

EMPLOYMENT STATUTE LAW

AMENDMENT ACT (INFORMING

STUDENTS OF THEIR EMPLOYMENT

RIGHTS), 2006 /

LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

EN CE QUI A TRAIT À L'EMPLOI

(FOURNITURE DE RENSEIGNEMENTS

AUX ÉTUDIANTS SUR LEURS DROITS

EN MATIÈRE D'EMPLOI)

Ms. Horwath moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 95,

An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act, 2000 and the Occupational Health and Safety Act with respect to providing information to student

employees about employment rights / Projet de loi 95, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2000 sur les normes d'emploi et la

Loi sur la santé et la sécurité au travail à l'égard

de la fourniture de renseignements aux étudiants salariés sur les droits en matière d'emploi.

Ms. Andrea Horwath (Hamilton East): As I was having an opportunity to speak to some of the other bills this morning, I mentioned that I was

very privileged to have participated in this project thus far. I want to say thank you to the students here today whose bill I am bringing voice to in the Legislature. I'm going to name them,

because they really deserve to be acknowledged. But before I do, I want to say that not only has this been a great learning experience for these young people, I'm sure, but they taught me a heck of

a lot too, and I want to thank them for that. They taught me not only to reconsider what I do here in the way that it affects them, but also they taught me that they have a heck of a lot to offer

and that if only I find the opportunities and make myself available to them, they will come forward and they will step up to the plate and they will have a lot of great ideas to share with us as

legislators. I want to thank them for that, and I also want to thank them for being so open and so available as I was having questions about what direction they wanted the bill to take and what

kinds of amendments and changes needed to be made to satisfy the legislative drafters, as well as to make sure that their issues were well represented in the bill.

I want to first of all say thank you to St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Secondary School in Oakville and the students there: Ha-Joon Choi, Andrew Cormier, Zach

Horcoff, Christina Lee, Katie MacFarlane, Nicholas McLeod, Alicia Medina, Erin O'Leary, Regine Robles, Ana Romero and teacher Ken Rachner. In fact, the teacher happens to be a resident of Hamilton

East. I know only some of them could come; the class was taking on this project last semester, I believe, so now, this semester, a couple of them managed to come. For those of you who got here,

thank you very much for being here and congratulations on this very exciting day.

From Cardinal Carter Catholic High School in Aurora we have Zach Brewer, Ana Romero, Karen Spilak, Stephen Stanford, Gabriela Torres, Henry Whitfield, Vanessa

Fleming, Natasha Burrow, Lauren Babic, Carly Carrigan, Kendra Stephenson, Amanda Piron -- pronounced like Barone from the TV show -- Liz Piccoli, Dante Lagrasta, Sasha Kuyumju, Stefano Longhin and

Kristina Karakolis, and the teachers are Giulia D'Agostino and Lori Lucignani. Thank you for coming again.

Last but not least, at the very top benches in the gallery we have Majd El-Samrout from Lisgar Collegiate in Ottawa. Majd actually got on a bus in Ottawa at

midnight -- the red-eye -- to come to Toronto to be here for second reading of the bill.

They all deserve a big round of applause, for sure.

Applause.

Ms. Horwath: I've used almost half my time talking about the students, but that's really what it's all about. So welcome, everybody, and thank

you for being here.

I want to commend everybody who has participated. Today's historic second reading of the first-ever bills to be written by Ontario students is extremely

important. As we have heard this morning, all three bills are certainly deserving of our support. They are thoughtful, they are practical and they're much-needed measures for the province.

I wanted to make sure that I urged the members of all three parties here to continue to co-operate to push these bills past the finish line. It would be

extremely important to actually have the legislation recommended by our youth passed and enshrined into legislation in Ontario.

Bill 95 specifically speaks to the necessity of employers to produce information for students that can be received by them in a way that is most appropriate

for them. This bill is a little bit different, because the previous two bills talked about students as they were experiencing their school life: cafeteria food and recycling. This one speaks to

students as they leave school and enter the workplace. The bill basically puts an onus or an obligation on employers to make sure that students are aware of their rights in the workplace.

Why is that important? It's important because many times students enter the workplace without a good understanding of what their rights and obligations are as

workers. What they decided to do was come up with legislation that they thought and their own experience showed them would be necessary to close that gap of knowledge and understanding as young

workers entering the workplace in Ontario. They are the ones who identified what was wrong with the current system, they are the ones who showed me where the gaps were and they put together the

draft legislation that's now in front of us as Bill 95.

The goal basically is twofold: to reduce and hopefully completely prevent the exploitation of students in the workplace, and also to ensure that they are safe

in the workplace, that their safety is protected in the workplace. We just passed April 28, the day of mourning for workers who were killed or injured on the job. Members need to know that from

2000 to 2004, an average of 15 young people were killed on the job. The average for workers generally is 300 annually killed on the job in the province of Ontario. That's just not acceptable.

This legislation gives the employer clear direction about how to communicate the rights of student workers in the workplace. The onus is on the employer. This

is done through a poster that needs to be visible and accessible to all student workers in the workplace, which will set out the various pieces of information in language that is appropriate for

the students to receive.

At this point in time, members might know that the Occupational Health and Safety Act already requires postering in the workplace. But students said to me,

"Yes, that exists. We've seen it, but it's not easy for us to understand. It doesn't really speak to us. It's not something that we find speaks our language." They want to see a poster not only

about occupational health and safety but also about other workplace rights, things like -- and I wrote a little list, because it's all set out on page 3 of the bill -- hours of work, breaks, eating

periods, overtime pay, public holidays, vacation with pay, leaves of absence and termination and severance. All of these are pieces that young people entering the workforce really don't have a good

way of knowing about. The bill says the employer has to poster and also provide a booklet to each new student entering the workplace and starting a job. There's a record that needs to be kept. The

employer needs to keep a record that the student worker has received the booklet. There's an obligation on the employer to maintain the poster in the workplace.

We spent some time talking about how specific we needed to be with the poster. The legislation does indicate a certain size of typeface to be on the poster,

and it requires a location that is accessible to the student so they know where the poster is.

Interestingly enough, the other issue that came up in discussing this with the students was the fact that they were acknowledging that many of the schools in

language in the workplace, the ministry is obligated to supply the employer with this information in the language of majority in the workplace.

I thought that was an extremely important piece. It currently doesn't exist in the way that we think it is important to exist. So not only do the poster and

and have another language as their first language, then the obligation is to make sure the ministry produces that. So it's not "if" one is available, and currently in the act that's the language,

for the Occupational Health and Safety Act anyway. It says that if there's something in that language available, it shall be provided. But we're saying no. We're saying the obligation is to make

sure the ministry produces something in the language that's needed so that it can go to the employer and then the employer can meet their obligation in the workplace.

It's an excellent bill, and I look forward to the support of all members.

Mr. Mario G. Racco (Thornhill): It's a pleasure to speak on the second reading of Bill 95, a bill that provides information to student

employees about employment rights.

Before I get into the bill, let me say how pleased I am to see 100 or more schools in the province of Ontario participating in this program, but in particular

the three schools that did deal with Bill 95, the students from St. Ignatius of Loyola in Oakville, Cardinal Carter Catholic High School in Aurora and Lisgar Collegiate Institute in Ottawa. I am

familiar to some degree with the students from Cardinal Carter Catholic High School because I read in the local media once in a while about their activities. I'm pleased that they are taking

part

in this bill. By the way, I also want to thank CBC News for being the leader in this bill.

I wa