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November 6, 1991

35th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

The House met at 1330.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

GATEWAY PROJECT

Mr Ramsay: It is a pleasure to stand in my place today and to salute a group of hardworking women and men in my riding of Timiskaming. On Monday of this week I attended the official opening of the Gateway project in the town of Haileybury. This is a skills training initiative that is both imaginative and I believe will prove to be truly effective.

First, Gateway is a partnership of a broad cross-section of organizations in Timiskaming: the Canadian Steel Trades Employment Congress, commonly known as CSTEC, which is a partnership between the United Steelworkers of America and the steel companies of this country; the Sherman Mine Adjustment Committee; the Timiskaming Board of Education; Employment and Immigration Canada; the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, and the town of Haileybury.

The group has developed a hands-on work project of building a home that will provide employment and job training. At the same time, the workers are going to be going to an adult training facility in Haileybury to upgrade their academic qualifications. The beauty of this project is that the proceeds of the sale of the house will allow the project to continue so that we in Timiskaming can continue to train unemployed workers.

I urge the Minister of Skills Development to take a look at this project as a model. I believe it is important to develop the skills of workers in Ontario so that we can stay competitive in a changing global economy. I salute the men and women and the organizations for their work and creativity and I wish all the participants well.

H. GORDON GREEN

Mr Arnott: On Sunday, November 3, Ontario lost one of its most renowned literary figures. H. Gordon Green -- broadcaster, newspaper columnist, editor, novelist, teacher, farm leader, politician and homespun philosopher -- died at the age of 79.

Raised in Arthur in the county of Wellington, in an area that was known as "stumptown" at the time, he received his early education at Arthur public and high schools. Very much a renaissance man, Gordon Green contributed greatly to promoting among the urban population of this province, and indeed throughout Ontario, a fundamental understanding of rural Ontario, its character and its people. In his death, rural Ontario has lost one of its best friends and strongest allies.

His political ambitions, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on one's perspective, were not realized when he ran for the New Democratic Party in the 1962 federal general election in the riding of Wellington-Huron, which was ably represented for many years by yet another Arthur resident, Mr Marvin Howe.

In conversation yesterday with my friend Jim Hamilton, our local historian in Arthur, who was a lifelong friend of Gordon Green, Jim recalled his last visit with Gordon back in May 1990 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary reunion of Arthur District High School. Gordon felt it might be his last visit to his home town.

H. Gordon Green will be sadly missed by his family, his friends and his faithful readers. Those of us in rural Ontario who have a special place for him in our hearts mourn his passing.

HAZARDOUS WASTE

Mr Hansen: I rise today to inform the House of a very important ongoing activity in my riding of Lincoln.

With Lincoln being made up of five municipalities and being mainly rural, it is difficult to implement an effective waste management program. In 1971, four of the municipalities, Grimsby, Lincoln, Pelham and West Lincoln, got together to form a board of management committee to jointly administer one municipal landfill to serve all four communities. However, their collective efforts have not stopped there. Since 1987 they have been operating special household hazardous waste days to allow their residents the opportunity to rid themselves of old paint, oil and so on, instead of having to go directly into the landfill.

This year the group opened a permanent facility for household hazardous waste in Grimsby. Now residents from all four communities have a place to bring their hazardous waste on a regular basis. On Saturday I visited the depot to congratulate the staff who help collect the waste and to thank the people for taking the time to separate their waste to help protect the environment.

The four communities have shown that politicians and people can work together to help solve the problems Ontario is facing. The board of management should be commended on its fine effort in dealing with its own waste problem and for getting the residents so actively involved. Even though the board is busy preparing an environmental assessment document for a new landfill, it has taken it upon itself to initiate new waste management programs.

LEGAL AID

Mr Callahan: I rise today to address the flip-flop by the Attorney General. He was reported recently in the Law Times as proposing that legal aid should be phased out in favour of a public defender system.

I am old enough to remember when the legal aid program was brought into this province and the decision was made that the public defender system was of less quality and would be more costly in the long run. In addition to that, it sets up a two-tier system of justice in this province. It provides very efficient paid-for justice for those who can afford it and it actually dumps on those people who are not able to afford it.

Legal aid has provided megaservice to this province over the years it has been in existence and I suggest it is the way we should go. I ask the Attorney General to make a decision quickly, because there are people out there who cannot afford to retain their own lawyers and are being served very well through the legal aid system. If he intends to dump on the very people the New Democratic Party professes to protect and preserve, then that is what he will in fact do by setting up a public defender system. If any review is taken of New York or any other jurisdiction that has a public defender system, it is less than desirable; it is in many cases a sham.

I suggest to the Attorney General and to the Treasurer, please do not eliminate legal aid. It is the best-quality system; it is the best program in existence and our justice system will be served well.

ORANGEVILLE SWEET ADELINES

Mr Tilson: Today I would like to offer my congratulations to the Orangeville

chapter of the Sweet Adelines on the occasion of their 10th anniversary, to be celebrated on November 16, 1991.

For those who are not familiar with this great-sounding group, the Sweet Adelines International is an organization of 30,000 women in more than 700 chapters across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan, the Republic of Panama, Finland, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. This group's mandate is to develop and promote a public awareness and appreciation of the art form of barbershop harmony and to teach its members to sing and perform four-part harmony in barbershop style.

The Orangeville

chapter of the Sweet Adelines was established in October 1979 with nine members, and by the time the group received its charter in November 1981 the membership had grown to 40.

They have experienced great success over the past 10 years. They can be heard performing throughout the community at dances, seniors' homes, hospitals and of course their own very popular concerts. The Orangeville Sweet Adelines also encourage new recruits and welcome women who love to sing, are energetic and interested in being the best they can be.

I wish the Orangeville Sweet Adelines best wishes and continued success on their 10th anniversary. I have had the pleasure of enjoying many of their performances and I encourage all Ontarians to support their local

chapter of the Sweet Adelines.

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

Mr Hayes: As all the members will recall, the Minister of Agriculture and Food asked me to chair a task force across this province last fall. As a result of that, we were able to come up with a financial assistance program that helped some farmers in the long term.

We spoke and listened to many of the individual farmers across this province, and the message we got was that they are tired of ad hoc programs. They have asked us to look at the long-term solutions dealing with agriculture and also other sectors in the rural community.

I am very pleased to say today that we have been able to bring together a large group of people representing agriculture in this province, and having them all in the same room is really an accomplishment of this government. We have had the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the National Farmers' Union, the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, the Catholic Rural Life Conference, the Union des cultivateurs franco-ontariens, the Farm Women's Network, the Ontario Commodity Council, representatives of supply-managed marketing boards and also representatives from the financial institutions.

I am very pleased we were able to do this, and I can tell the members that it is a very good working group. I ask the members from all sides of this House to help and assist us in reaching our goal of protecting the family farm in Ontario.

METHANE GAS LEAK

Mr McClelland: The city of North York received a letter not too long ago from the Minister of Housing. That letter was dated August 27, 1991, and was in response to communications about the possibility of an existing hazard on a parcel of land previously used as a landfill site being proposed for a high-rise development. The Minister of Housing responded that the Ministry of the Environment had decided that a review of the hazard was not needed since there were only trace amounts of methane present.

The Finch-Ardwick community is very concerned that the investigation by the Ministry of the Environment -- or might I say the lack of investigation -- was not rigorous enough and did not really look at any of the details and that a greater hazard exists than the government is willing to acknowledge. It is important to note it has said there were trace amounts. I remind the ministers involved that Bluehaven public school, which is very close to the building site, was closed and remains closed because of methane gas seepage.

I want to caution the ministers involved and the local member, the member for Yorkview, that the issue here involves public safety and requires a close, hard second look. I hope the relevant ministers will re-examine their files on this very important issue so that a serious mistake is not made. We have to remember that people's health and safety is being put in jeopardy here. I remind them that their answer was, "There were only trace amounts." A school has been closed because of seepage. I ask the minister to please review this and exercise caution.

GEORGE TOTTENHAM

Mr B. Murdoch: Today I would like to congratulate my constituent George Edward Tottenham, who has been made a serving brother of the Order of St John. He received his award from the Governor General of Canada at a ceremony in Ottawa last month.

Mr Tottenham, for many years an elected municipal official, has served his community in many capacities, but his selfless volunteering of more than 7,500 hours to the St John Ambulance cannot go unnoticed.

As most members know, St John Ambulance is an organization committed to improving the health, safety and quality of life of Canadians, partly through the work of people like Edward Tottenham who are trained in the care of the sick and the injured and who volunteer their time to help their fellow man.

St John volunteers have distinguished themselves throughout the 20th century in Canadian history by serving overseas in both world wars and by assisting victims and their families in tragic situations at home such as the Springhill, Nova Scotia, mine disasters, the Mississauga train derailment and the Barrie tornado devastation.

I am very proud that Edward Tottenham has devoted so much of his time to as vital an organization as St John Ambulance. I am sure all members join with me in applauding his achievement, thanking him for his commitment and wishing him well in the future.

ROBERT CARLIN

Ms S. Murdock: A little bit of the Sudbury basin's history has been brought to mind. I rise today to honour a distinguished former member of this House, not only a great Canadian but a committed builder of the labour movement and of social democracy in Ontario. On Tuesday, October 22, Robert Hugh Carlin, who sat in this House between 1943 and 1948 as MPP for Sudbury, passed away at the age of 90.

Bob's life was a history in miniature of the labour movement and of social democracy in this province. At age 15, he went to work in the mining camps of northern Ontario where he soon became a life-long, dedicated trade unionist. He eventually held executive positions in the one big union, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers and the United Steelworkers of America. He served as a delegate to the International Labour Office of the United Nations.

In his two terms as MPP, he was a forceful and committed advocate for working people and for the city of Sudbury. In his years in the Legislature, he pushed for many measures to help working people, including a 40-hour workweek and a mandatory two weeks' vacation with pay. He was at the forefront of the fight for a university in Sudbury, a fight that was ultimately won. He received an honorary doctorate in 1978 from Laurentian for all his work on behalf of the city.

On behalf of the government and my party, I offer my condolences to his family and friends. I did not know Bob Carlin personally; I wish I had. But I must say that I hope to live up to the example and the high standards set by the first Co-operative Commonwealth Federation MPP for Sudbury.

VISITORS

Mr O'Connor: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would like to bring to the attention of this House a delegation of senior Czechoslovakian representatives sitting in the members' gallery east.

The Speaker: The member does not have a point of order. To the guests, welcome.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

ONTARIO INVESTMENT AND WORKER OWNERSHIP PROGRAM

Hon Mr Laughren: Our government is very pleased to announce today an important piece of legislation.

The Ontario investment and worker ownership program is an important step on the road to rebuilding the economy. It will provide businesses in this province with a new source of much-needed capital. It will provide our workers with an opportunity for greater participation and increased decision-making in the places they work.

It is well known that employee participation in the workplace helps to increase productivity. It also fosters better understanding between business and labour as each becomes more aware of the other's needs and challenges. Finally, worker ownership helps save jobs by supporting viable companies that would otherwise close.

We are proud to say that this program is the product of a successful consultation process with the various stakeholders -- business, labour and investment groups. As a result of our extensive consultations, the government has altered the draft legislation somewhat. For example, one of the suggestions we incorporated was to move from a majority control position by employees alone to a significant participation position with outside investors, thus allowing outside investors to join with employees in acquiring control of their companies. This will broaden the program's appeal and better meet its objectives.

Another change is the institution of payroll deduction systems to facilitate share purchases. These changes to the draft legislation confirm the government's commitment to a process which not only listens to the people of Ontario, but which also responds to their needs and concerns.

We all know the economy of Ontario is undergoing enormous change. The role of this government is to help the people of Ontario respond to those changes, and to respond in a way that includes all the players in the economy.

As I said before, both employer and employee will benefit from the Ontario investment and worker ownership program. Small and medium-sized business will now have access to a new source of capital. This capital will help businesses grow and modernize, and employees will have more opportunities to be participants in the economy.

All the results of the program -- new sources of capital, increased productivity, better labour-management relations and saving jobs -- will contribute to rebuilding the economy, and rebuilding the economy is the most profound challenge facing Ontario today and one which this legislation will help address.

RESPONSES

ONTARIO INVESTMENT AND WORKER OWNERSHIP PROGRAM

Mr Phillips: To respond to the minister's statement, I think his last sentence was most appropriate. Indeed we are facing a very difficult economic time.

There are several aspects of this that we will want to study in some depth. The statement today is fairly bare bones -- I think the minister will agree -- because for everyone's information, we are talking about a lot of money here. I think the Treasurer at one time said there may be as much as $100 million a year of taxpayers' money involved in this program, so it is not a small program that we are talking about.

One of the aspects we will want to get into in some detail -- and there is another level of consultation that has to take place, and that is with the Legislature -- is the protection of workers. People are going to put their hard-earned savings into this and there are two aspects they are going to purchase. One is, as I read the minister's document, companies that may be failing, where the government will want the workers to purchase them. We will want to be sure that as they put their hard-earned savings into this, there is some protection for them and there is full disclosure. I think the Ontario Securities Commission has already expressed its concern about the lack of disclosure.

The second thing we will want to debate is how much money is involved here. The Treasurer has indicated in an interview, I think, that it might be as much as $100 million a year. The actual taxpayers' subsidy can be $50,000 per individual, as I think the Treasurer will acknowledge -- approximately $50,000 per individual investor of taxpayers' money in this.

I understand there is a proposal in the document that if an owner of a business is planning to retire, he could sell the business to the employees. Again, we have to recognize there could be as much as $50,000 per employee of taxpayers' money involved in that, so we will want to look at what protection there is for the taxpayer.

The final aspect of this that we will want to look at is the issue I raised yesterday. That will be addressed by one of my colleagues who is also responding. It has to do with just who has access to these venture capital programs, who will manage them and who has the authority to run them.

We look forward to taking certain aspects of this and ensuring that the workers are protected, the taxpayers are protected and we still achieve the objectives the Treasurer has outlined in terms of ensuring that, wherever possible, workers in this province have an opportunity to participate in the ownership of their businesses and, wherever possible, firms that may be viable long-term but need a little injection of help can be saved.

Mr Offer: As my colleague the member for Scarborough-Agincourt has indicated, we recognize that there are certain aspects of the Treasurer's statement in the Legislature which we know will require further debate. In his statement he has spoken about the need for consultation. The question today becomes, was he in fact listening? This particular announcement and the proposed legislation only applies to trade unions. It excludes, for instance, co-operatives and employee associations.

The Treasurer will be aware that in Saskatchewan and BC, for instance, this type of legislation applies not only to trade unions but indeed to associations of trade unions, to investment co-operatives and to associations of employees. Real legislation which provides real protection must embrace these types and forms of associations.

We will also be asking the Treasurer in this debate how he can respond to the question of this limited form of protection and application of legislation when just yesterday in this Legislature, in response to a question by the member for Scarborough-Agincourt on this very issue, on whether the Premier will be able to assure all workers of the province that they will be treated equally, the response of the Premier was yes, yet in the Treasurer's statement today he has limited the application to trade unions. He has excluded employee associations; he has excluded co-operatives.

These are areas which will require debate and certainly are of concern to us in order to provide real protection for those who very badly need it.

Mr Stockwell: When I discuss the announcements such as the Treasurer has made today, I tend to be somewhat cynical, I suppose, because if we look back on some of the other programs and offers that have been put forward by all levels of government under programs much the same as this -- for instance ESOP. The employee share ownership plan, in two or three years, has had nine takeups. Members opposite would probably class that as a dismal failure. It is that way because it is so complicated and difficult to qualify. I firmly believe the Treasurer has made it that way.

I would not expect the member for Scarborough-Agincourt to worry too much about the $100 million, because I doubt very much if we are going to get anywhere near that kind of number when we are talking about takeups or people who qualify for these particular programs.

Mr Sorbara: It is public relations.

Mr Stockwell: The suggestion is it is public relations. It probably is public relations. It is public relations for the unions in this province. I make a wager as well. I think the unions will be about the only people who qualify under these programs.

The Treasurer suggests, "The Ontario investment and worker ownership program is an important step on the road to rebuilding the economy." That is a farce. If this is the most important step this government is taking, it is in far sadder shape than anyone could have expected. They are playing on the margins. Let's ask ourselves one simple question: Why, if this is such a good idea, do we have to give tax incentives to unions or the employees? Because nobody would finance these plans. Nobody would finance this employee takeover. Why? Because it is a huge investment for a very risky business.

No question about it, it will be very risk-oriented. If you cannot find capital financing out there today, you go to the government. The government will be left holding the bag, in my opinion, on a lot of risky programs that the private sector would not pick up.

Having said that, we must understand that we are in a public relations forum here. They are not going to be allowed to qualify. Even if they do qualify they are going to be very risky, operated and run by unions. This is not going to be a step on the road to recovery. We are going to balkanize the capital markets, particularly because this government is venturing into the capital market business. In my opinion, that is not going to bode well for our economy in this province.

This is a clear hurdle between interprovincial trading, in my opinion. We are offering preferential treatment to provincially run businesses. There is no doubt in my mind that this will be seen as an interprovincial barrier established by this Treasurer and this province.

The Treasurer suggests, as I said, it was a takeover. What it comes down to is simply this: It is asking the taxpayers in Ontario to subsidize union takeovers. That is really what it comes down to. They are asking the taxpayers right across this province to subsidize union takeovers of businesses that basically are not viable. They could not get capital financing, they are not making money, so the province is going to guarantee the loans so a union can buy out a failing business.

If it were the personal money of the Treasurer or any of his colleagues, would they lend it out on this basis? Of course they would not, because it is a very risky business, a risky venture and, as I said before, it is using the taxpayers' money to bail out companies for a union takeover, which I cannot endorse. I would not endorse that on a union basis. I would endorse it on a private sector business operation. If a business fails, it fails. That is the free market system.

I know what is going to happen. The takeup under this program will be marginal. It will be exclusively the domain of unions. It will be a taxpayer risk to finance these takeups. Most of the businesses will fail. We will be stuck with a tremendous bill to pay because they will not be able to service their debts.

This, the Treasurer is suggesting to us, is the first step on a road to rebuilding the economy. This is public relations, it is farcical and it will not work. It never has and it never will. I do not hear any taxpayers coming up to me and saying, "Please, could you start subsidizing unions to take over their companies so they can lose money, go out of business and you guarantee their loans?" Not very bright.

ENERGY CONSERVATION

Mr Jordan: On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: Yesterday in this House I made a statement regarding the government's policy on conservation programs and I pointed out that they were costly and, in our opinion, not effective.

After returning to my office I found I had received a call from a senior official of Ontario Hydro. I returned the call to find this official very critical of my statement. He said he thought they had an excellent program, had received excellent press and he was disappointed that I would make such a statement in the House.

I was representing the feelings of the people I represent in Lanark-Renfrew, and I was representing our party policy. I am wondering if this is going to be a policy of the new Minister of Energy to try to harass members so they are not free to express their views relative to new policies.

The Speaker: I will be pleased to take a look at the situation brought to my attention by the member for Lanark-Renfrew. Perhaps the member could provide my office with further details.

Mr Mancini: On the same point, Mr Speaker --

The Speaker: You are rising on what?

Mr Mancini: On the member's point of privilege, because the member --

The Speaker: No, no. Take your seat. You rise on your own point of privilege, not someone else's.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mr Elston: I have a question for my favourite storyteller, the Treasurer. He has by now been seen to have considerable competition but he is far and away the leader in storytelling in this province. I would like to talk to him just a little bit about the loss of jobs in Ontario, the fact that thousands of working women and men have been thrown out of work and that there has been little if any response by his government to any of these things.

Last Friday, for instance, Komdresco in Cambridge shut its doors for the last time, throwing some 200 women and men out of work. The day before, Borden announced it was closing the Ingersoll plant, putting another 79 people on the unemployment lines. While the Premier continues to speak of consultation, dialogue and consensus, the sad reality is that we continue to await his grand economic recovery plan and nothing comes as these men and women lose their jobs.

I want to know what plans the Treasurer and the Premier have, since the Premier is in charge of almost everything in this province of ours now, to stem the flow of capital, jobs and talent out of Ontario and into places like Pennsylvania, Mexico and other locales?

Hon Mr Laughren: I regret that the leader of the official opposition chooses to cast such a pall of gloom over Ontario. I think most of us feel that Ontario is still the best jurisdiction in the world in which to live, work and invest.

We acknowledge the fact that the last year has been an extremely difficult year. To deny it would be downright foolish. We know that in the last 18 months the private sector has laid off over 250,000 people. Government cannot pick up all of that slack. That is simply not possible to do.

At the same time what is bothering us is that of all the job losses, about two thirds of them are deemed to be permanent. Without getting into all of the reasons for that, since I would be accused of finger-pointing at the federal government because of its high-dollar, high-interest rate policy, we are trying very hard in this province to create an environment in which the investment community will see that this remains the best jurisdiction in the world in which to invest.

Mr Elston: I merely stated in my opening question that several companies had recently shut down. That there are others is clear to all of us. While my favourite storyteller does not disappoint with his new stories, perhaps he could hear these companies and the number of people they have thrown out of work: Kendall in Peterborough -- they have gone south -- 144 people; Amerock, Meaford, 140 people; Heinz, Leamington, 280 people; H & K Manufacturing in Cobourg is shutting down on the 25th of this month to concentrate production in Dallas, Texas.

The people in this province are not finding it to be satisfactorily competitive with other jurisdictions. I do not think any of us need to be told by the Treasurer that he is hoping it will remain a competitive climate to do business in, rather than asserting that is the case.

I want to know what the Treasurer and Deputy Premier is going to do to stop the haemorrhaging and in fact to enhance our competitiveness in the international field.

Hon Mr Laughren: Before I do that, I wonder if I could put it in a bit of perspective here that the leader of the official opposition is not giving. He went through a list of some companies that have closed. I wonder if I could give him some good news, if he can handle it.

Mr Elston: You are really stretching.

Hon Mr Laughren: No, I am not stretching it. These are all good-news announcements which the leader of the official opposition does not want to hear.

Finally, I remind the leader of the official opposition that in the last year, of all the foreign investment that came to Canada, three quarters of it, a full 75% of it, came to this province because people know this is a great place to invest.

Mr Elston: I think I want to thank Darcy McKeough for leaving one of his old speeches in the Treasury. I cannot ask any of us here to listen to this story without joining the debate but perhaps on another occasion.

It is very clear indeed that a whole group of people in business in Ontario find that it is onerous to be in business in this province and that they need some leadership from this Treasurer, from this government, to help them compete against the international competition.

To ask the same question again and ask him once again, will the Treasurer tell us what he is doing to make Ontario competitive? What role will the release of his government's statement tomorrow on the Labour Relations Amendment Act add to competitiveness in Ontario?

Hon Mr Laughren: There are a number of questions built into that supplementary. But I truly believe this government has indicated and shown by its actions, not simply its words, that it is prepared to sit down with the business community to work out differences we might have. I do not think any government in this country has ever spent the time we have in consulting with the business community. When we do it, we are criticized by the opposition for spending too much time consulting with the business community.

Interjection.

The Speaker: Order, the member for Grey.

Hon Mr Laughren: I do not think we do spend too much time consulting with the business community, and there are examples. The statement I made today is a good example of how we went out and consulted with the business community, with the labour movement, with investment groups, we made changes to our proposals and we have come up with a better package than we went in with, and I think that is the way it is going to be.

Finally, the leader talked about the Labour Relations Act amendments, which I gather will be introduced tomorrow. I think there has been a lot of hand-wringing over that legislation and the discussion paper before anybody even knows what is contained therein. I ask the leader of the official opposition to check what happened with labour relations in Quebec when it reformed its labour legislation a number of years ago. I believe that, if anything, it created a better atmosphere of labour relations in the province than had existed before.

Mr Phillips: My question is also to the Treasurer and follows along with my leader's questions. It also has to do with developing confidence in the economy.

I think the Treasurer would acknowledge that the area that is perhaps of most concern to the people of Ontario, and certainly to the investment community, is his four-year economic plan. I think most people would accept living with a deficit in tough times -- perhaps not the deficit he has, but a deficit. The thing that concerns people the most is a four-year economic plan that calls for deficits that never get below, I believe, $7.8 billion, and even that assumes a healthy economic climate for the next three years and about $5 billion of new taxes. We recently saw the two new governments that were elected out west both calling for balanced budgets over the mandate of their term.

Given that experience, given the fact that the minister has now had this job for a year, could he outline for the people of Ontario that it is his intention not to live with that four-year major deficit plan, but rather that he will undertake to come out with a balanced budget by the end of his mandate?

Hon Mr Laughren: It seems like longer than a year. I want to assure the member opposite that when we put in the budget this past spring the deficits for what we call the out years, the three years after this one -- and his numbers are quite correct -- we did it based on our forecasts of where the economy was heading in the next three years after this one. While there are some indications by some forecasters that the growth will be greater than we had predicted, it is not a lot greater. Even the more optimistic ones are not greatly more optimistic.

The unemployment rate will stay very high for the next three to four years. Even in that third year, when the forecasters assume we will be completely out of the recession, the unemployment rate will still be flirting with between 7% and 8%. That was the forecast upon which we based the numbers in the budget.

I see the Speaker is looking nervously at me, so I will simply wait for the supplementary, other than to say that we think it is going to be difficult enough reaching the figures for those out years, without pretending that we can balance the budget in three years.

Mr Phillips: That is a problem. On the unemployment rate, I believe the Treasurer predicts higher than 7% to 8%; I think he is in the 8% to 10% range, which I think for all of us, on every side of the House, is unacceptable.

At the standing committee on finance and economic affairs the noted economist Mel Watkins spoke to us. He spoke on behalf of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and 59 economists. When we asked, should this government balance the budget, he was quite critical of the Treasurer and the government and said, "I would think that this government...with a four- to five-year mandate" -- which it does have -- "ought to aim to balance its budget over that period." He was just one of virtually everyone who felt the Treasurer should balance the budget over his mandate.

My question to the Treasurer is, what are we going to tell Professor Watkins the next time he appears before our committee, asking his advice on the Treasurer's balanced budget?

Hon Mr Laughren: I think all Keynesians want to balance the budget over the economic cycle. He might take offence at me for referring to him as a Keynesian, but I think he is. I think it is simply unrealistic to think we can cope with the rising utilization of the health care system -- it is raised in this Legislature almost every day -- increased enrolments in the educational system, the absolute essential --

Mr Elston: You're cutting it back. You're slashing health care.

Hon Mr Laughren: The Liberal leader even complains when we try to contain the cost of the health care system. At the same time, the members opposite say we should be cutting expenditures. The opposition has to understand that there is a serious problem out there in terms of rising expenditures. At the same time our revenues are not going up as quickly. I simply say to the member opposite that nothing would make me happier than to have a balanced budget at the end of three years, but I am not going to kid the troops and pretend that I believe we can do it in that period of time, because I simply do not believe it.

Mr Phillips: Just so we know what we are dealing with over essentially the next four years, is the Treasurer confirming today that he is making his financial plans -- because he is laying them now for the next 18 months to two years -- on the basis of continued deficits in the $8-billion range, new taxes in the $5-billion range and unemployment running in the 8% to 9% range? Is that what Ontario has to look forward to over the mandate of this government?

Hon Mr Laughren: There is no question that in the next three years after this one -- I think we are talking about the same time frame -- we are going to be faced with budget deficits; that is absolutely correct. If the economy rebounds faster than, quite frankly, I think it is going to, and if our revenues are more buoyant and we are able to contain our expenditures even better than we have already -- we have stayed within our forecast this year despite some very substantial pressures -- then of course we would have the deficit lower than is forecast in our 1991-92 budget.

At the same time, I am not going to stand in my place and, simply to take off some immediate heat, say that people should not worry and that we will reduce the deficit more than is indicated in the out years in the 1991-92 budget, because I do not think we are going to be able to do that unless there is a much more buoyant recovery in the economy than I think there is going to be.

RETAIL STORE LEGISLATION

Mr Carr: My question is to the Solicitor General. I quote from the throne speech to start off with, and we are going back a year or so ago: "It is a government that will listen to the people and respond to their needs to the best of its ability."

There is a group of drugstore workers who have attempted to make their views known. They appeared before the standing committee on administration of justice. They wrote to the Solicitor General and they have met with him. They have taken out full-page ads in the papers. They have given him about 20,000 petitions. They have protested in front of the Legislature. They have confronted him as well as the Premier in the alley. Last night they were at the Premier's office protesting. Why will the Solicitor General not listen to the people and change his bill that discriminates against drugstores that are over 7,500 square feet?

Hon Mr Pilkey: In the amendments presented by this government, Bill 115 does not discriminate against those drugstore workers. In fact, the bill and the amendments do not alter the previous legislation brought in by the former government. The promise this party brought to the people of Ontario was for the enactment of a common pause day that could be enjoyed by individuals and families alike, and also worker protection to require that those who wish not to work on Sunday would not have to. There is nothing in the bill or the amendments brought forward by this government that alters the facts for these people, as it was the law for, I believe, the last two or three years.

Mr Carr: I know the Solicitor General is fairly new to the position, but there are his draft regulations on tourism. I will speak slowly so he will understand this. This is his document and if he will look to it and refer to the very bottom of the first page, in clause (

a) this government says that if a municipality decides to open -- he remembers that he was a mayor; this is a municipality -- if they are above 7,500 square feet and decide to open, under the tourism criteria they cannot open.

Let me put it very simply to the Solicitor General: If Toronto decides to open, under the tourism criteria these drugstores cannot open if they are above 7,500 square feet. Will the Solicitor General take a look at these regulations -- remember, we are talking about his draft regulations -- look at the 7,500 square feet, get an eraser and take that out?

Hon Mr Pilkey: I would like to indicate to the members of the House on this particular issue, because I think it adds great clarity, that drugstores that are providing pharmaceutical, cosmetic and related goods can and are open 52 weeks a year on Sundays in this province. The only caveat there is that they be no larger than 7,500 square feet. All I can indicate to anyone who is a shopper of any ilk at all is that if a drugstore cannot serve the need for pharmaceutical goods in 7,500 square feet, there is something wrong.

Mr Carr: The problem is that they cannot do anything with the square footage. In case he does not know, they cannot close it down. They even wanted to be a little bit practical and said: "We would only sell the things you tell us we can sell on a Sunday and 70% of the things we sell are drug items. We have cash registers that we can program so the only things that will be able to be processed are what you tell us. The advanced technology is such that if somebody tries to take a piece of bread or a Coke, and you does not want to include that, it will not be able to go through the register, those little things that go through and print the money."

This is the situation. The Solicitor General has said continually that he is listening to the people. This is what somebody said, and I have a picture of this lady: "You don't care, Bob" -- referring to the Premier -- "as long as you have your pockets full, as long as you're chauffeured around all the time. What would you care about the people in this province, trying to look after it, because this province is going to the dogs?" I agree with this lady. It is going to the dogs.

The Solicitor General can decide what needs to be sold. If it needs to be drugs, that can be programmed. He can even tell them what he wants them to sell. My question is this: Will he commit today to letting those drugstores open?

Hon Mr Pilkey: In terms of the comments read by the member, those are obviously extremely objective remarks by that individual that he conveys to the House. I would also like to indicate that if the member opposite believes --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Pilkey: To the second part of the question, I would like to pass along the opinion that if drugstores start back into the roping-off example, or if people are allowed into stores to take products off the shelf and bring them to a cash register to find out they are then rejected by some kind of automated tape, it would certainly create tremendous confusion, disruption and a not very harmonious circumstance in those retail outlets. I can only indicate to members that this party did not campaign or promise amendment to the drugstore issue. It did promise and campaign on a common pause day and worker protection, and we have delivered on that promise.

HEALTH CARE

Mr J. Wilson: In the absence of the Minister of Health, my question is to the Deputy Premier. CKCO-TV reported yesterday that the Ontario Hospital Association says that provincial hospitals are running a total deficit of $200 million, that 3,500 hospital beds, will be closed by the end of March 1992, and that 5,000 full-time positions will be eliminated.

The government is squeezing the hospital system without an effective management plan. The OHA says hospitals are being forced to plan for the future in the dark. Will the Deputy Premier, the person who holds Ontario's purse strings, today table this government's comprehensive plan for controlling health care costs in this province?

Hon Mr Laughren: I think it is important to get a couple of things on the record in this assembly. First of all, when we issued our transfers to our partners in the province last spring, the hospital sector got an increase of about 9.5%, as I recall, which is a fairly substantial increase in funding for hospitals.

Second, the Minister of Health has asked the hospitals in a very direct fashion, in her inimitable way, to live within their budgets. We are not into bailing out hospitals that have deficits. That has been stated categorically to the hospital sector. I think we should understand that there is a lot of money spent on the health care system in this province. We are determined to maintain the best health care system anywhere at the same time as we maintain its costs, because I believe as fervently as it is possible to believe that if we are going to save and maintain the principles of medicare in this province, we have to contain its costs as well.

Mr J. Wilson: We would agree that Ontario's health care system needs to be managed more effectively, yet this system is starting to haemorrhage and this government is applying only Band-Aids. The minister has no overall plan for maintaining accessible, quality health care. The OHA president, Dennis Timbrell, told the Globe and Mail that the province has complicated matters by failing to provide clear guidelines on the future of hospitals within the health care system. Mr Timbrell said, "We've got to have some leadership from the ministry, and some very clear policies." When can we expect to see those policies?

Hon Mr Laughren: First of all, when a comprehensive program for managing the hospital system is released, it will be released by the Minister of Health and not by me. But I can tell the member that, in particular, the Conservative Party of this province simply cannot rise to its collective feet every day in this Legislature and start demanding that we control the expenditures in the province and then the very moment we try to effect savings, whether it is the closing of registry offices or the rationalization of the hospital system, complain that we are not doing enough or doing too much.

I do not know whether the Conservative caucus believes we are doing too much to control the cost of health care or whether we are not doing enough. I wish they would tell me which it is.

Mr J. Wilson: I say to the Deputy Premier: Read my lips. I already said to him that we agree Ontario's health care system needs to be managed more effectively. The point is that they do not have a plan in place. They cannot just close beds and lay off workers in a piecemeal fashion. The majority of the jobs cut will be in critically needed nursing positions.

The integrity of our system is at risk because we have no clear direction from this government. In fact, the Minister of Health told the district health councils in a letter recently that she is looking to them for leadership. I ask the Deputy Premier, what message does this send out when the Minister of Health is shirking her responsibilities and failing to provide the necessary leadership?

Hon Mr Laughren: When I think of the way in which this Minister of Health conducts herself and works with the health care system compared to the way the honourable Frank Miller used to deal with the health care system, there is no comparison; none whatsoever.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Laughren: I will make sure the balance of my remarks are not provocative.

I would say in a very serious way that the debate around managing the hospital system cannot be conducted simply between the Minister of Health and the OHA. There are other major players in the delivery of health care in this province, including the people who work in the hospitals, the district health councils and the communities in which the hospitals are located.

We are not going back to the old days when the Ministry of Health and the OHA simply locked horns to resolve any differences. We live in a different era, a more consultative, collaborative era, and we are not going to go back to the old way of managing the health care system.

SNOW REMOVAL

Mr Mancini: My question is for the Minister of Transportation. Less than two weeks ago, during the estimates debate of the Ministry of Transportation, he assured me that public safety was at the top of his priority list.

Yesterday I spoke to Hector C. King, president of the Armstrong Metis Association. Mr King had called to complain about a situation that developed last Thursday and Friday due to heavy snowfall and, I should say, little or no snow removal by the ministry. Highway 527 between Thunder Bay and Armstrong was left in a deplorable condition.

A regular bus service leaving Thunder Bay on Friday, November 1, at 5:30 pm and scheduled to arrive in Armstrong at 9 pm did not arrive until 3:30 pm the following day, 18 1/2 hours behind schedule. Why was there no snow removal service on this important northern highway? Does this represent the public safety the minister promised us two weeks ago?

Hon Mr Pouliot: The member is quite right. The unseasonable snowstorm that struck Minnesota and Manitoba with a vengeance, the one that originated in western Canada, left fully 95% of the Trans-Canada Highway closed in the month of October.

The member is talking about Armstrong. The riding I represent -- and I have an interest here -- is 114,000 square miles and extends all the way to Hudson Bay. I have been in Manitouwadge for 26 years and I never blamed the government of the day, be it the Conservatives or the Liberals. I am more aware than anyone else that safety, maintenance, road conditions and a lifeline for the people of the north -- of all Ontario -- are extremely important components for the Ministry of Transportation. We mean what we say. We do the best under very difficult circumstances when we have two to three feet of snow in October.

Mr Mancini: We were not interested in a weather report about Minnesota. We wanted to know about Thunder Bay to Armstrong.

I spoke with the manager of the bus line and he told me this was the first time in his six years with the bus company that a serious delay had occurred due to the ministry's failure to remove snow on Highway 527. I am talking about a near tragedy in the minister's own riding. I am told that travellers on the bus included two pregnant women and six children under the age of six.

We need to know why the snowplows were not out on Friday, November 1, clearing Highway 527, and why the snowplows did not leave their yards in Armstrong until 9 am Saturday morning. Is this an indication of what we can expect for the rest of this winter? Can the minister tell the Legislature if there have been cuts in the snow removal service for northern Ontario?

Hon Mr Pouliot: I thank the member for his sincere concern regarding not only the riding of Lake Nipigon but all of Ontario. The commitment is there. There has been no curtailment, no cutback in terms of maintenance.

Interjections.

Hon Mr Pouliot: The member has asked me a question; he should have the decency to let me answer. We will do it together. The member should try to be positive for a change; maybe he will like it. Maybe he will find it becoming.

What we have here is a budget that allocates more money than ever before for the building of roads and the maintenance of these roads all across Ontario: $1.1 billion out of a capital budget of $1.9 billion in highway transfer payments to municipalities in maintenance of our roads. We are determined to keep up with the elements and we are doing the very best we can. In fact, jurisdictions across Canada come to Ontario, look at our management system and try to implement our system in compliance with their own jurisdictions.

TOBACCO GROWERS

Mr Villeneuve: My question is of the Minister of Agriculture and Food. I am sure the minister is aware of the rumours of a tobacco control board. The same as an LCBO, we will now have a TCBO, and it is creating a lot of anxiety for our tobacco growers.

The government collects more than $1 billion a year in taxes on tobacco sales but is doing literally nothing to protect and assist our tobacco farmers. The joint federal-provincial Redux program was supposed to help tobacco growers take land out of production, yet we hear from the tobacco growers that $14 million of federal money is still there, unused, because the provincial government has abandoned that program. Is it really NDP policy to shut down the entire tobacco growing industry and also the tobacco retailing industry? What has happened to the crop transition team that was helping tobacco farmers a few years ago?

Hon Mr Buchanan: Is there no limit on the number of questions the member can roll into one question? I should have been writing them down, because I have forgotten the one he started with.

In terms of supporting the tobacco industry and the tobacco farmers in particular in this province, this government is concerned, and there are ongoing discussions with our federal counterparts and with the tobacco board. There are ongoing discussions, and we expect to be able to make an announcement this fall.

The member is right that there is federal money left over in the Redux program. We are aware of that. We want to make sure those moneys are made available to the farmers. We want to put in place a long-term program that will assist farmers who wish to get out of tobacco production.

In terms of some of the other points the member made about opening stores, I just ask the member to read the newspaper clipping a little more closely. The Minister of Health was quoted but did not say there was any suggestion or any idea of opening stores. She made comments about concern about tobacco consumption and dealing with that within a strategy for health but did not talk about or agree to any proposal of opening special stores.

Mr Villeneuve: The $14 million of federal money that is idle must be used now. These people cannot even meet their financial obligations. It seems to me that any tobacco control board -- and the minister says it will not happen, but there is a mixed message coming from the government -- is going to really create a bootlegging industry in the tobacco business. It will encourage a lot more cross-border shopping because, as the minister knows, the purchase of tobacco products is one of the main reasons Ontarians go to the states of New York and Michigan.

The minister is endangering some 14,000 shopkeepers if indeed what the Minister of Health has said comes to fruition. Can the minister assure us today that he will aid the remaining growers in the tobacco industry by returning some of the $14 million that is there and indeed not promote the bootlegging of tobacco products?

Hon Mr Buchanan: I would like to assure the member that we are very much concerned about the interests of tobacco farmers. I am sure the Treasurer is most concerned about any cross-border shopping or bootlegging of cigarette products in Ontario and wants to make sure that he collects all the taxes due to the province.

I believe it is actually $15 million that is left over in the federal program. We want to make sure, again, that the farmers of Ontario get that money. We also want to be able to try and put in our share, though, to ensure that tobacco farmers can get out of the growing of tobacco and have some hope of a reasonable future in this province.

PASSENGER RAIL SERVICE

Mr Farnan: My question is to the Minister of Transportation. Cambridge is among the largest cities in Ontario -- indeed, it is among the largest cities in all of Canada -- that is without any passenger rail service. It is totally unacceptable for a city the size of Cambridge to be without passenger rail service. It is a community that continues to grow. What has the minister to say to the residents of Cambridge on the issue of passenger rail service?

Hon Mr Pouliot: I thank my colleague and friend the member for Cambridge for the question. It is filled with validity. The grievance voiced by the people of Cambridge is indeed legitimate, and this is what we have done. Many communities wish to avail themselves of GO Transit service. It is a normal reaction, for the service itself is excellent. We have commissioned a study to look at all the needs of the community. The study is near completion and we are hoping to report to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario the findings of that study in rather short order.

Mr Farnan: The people of Cambridge are fed up with studies on this issue. Our request is very modest. There is a train to Guelph. We are asking that that train go on one journey in the morning and one journey in the night to Cambridge. The track is in place. The signals are in place. The station is in place. There is community support. There is a projected ridership for this. Cambridge is waiting and we want that service now.

Hon Mr Pouliot: In his unique fashion, the member for Cambridge reminds all of us of the many compelling reasons why Cambridge should have a GO Transit system.

I will make a commitment to my friend. I know he will appreciate that this administration operates in a most systematic and liberal fashion. Political expediency is not the order of the day. The member would be appalled and shocked if we go back to yesteryear and have political expediency decide who gets what. We are not going to do that.

The study is reaching its final phase. I can promise the member that before the end of the fiscal year, we will be in a better position to inform and say yes or no; yes or no because, not like these people, those are not election promises. The study will find all the compelling reasons we will acquiesce to what the member is asking for. I thank the member for his question and I would be more than willing to go and talk to him right after question period.

HEALTH CARE

Mrs Sullivan: My question is for the Deputy Premier. He knows that 2,300 people have already been laid off permanently in our hospitals and that this number will double over the next six months. He knows that beds will close in communities in which there are no alternatives, no other places for certain kinds of health service delivery, no chronic care facilities, limited or no home care facilities and no ambulatory care service that meets the needs in communities in many places in Ontario.

The Treasurer and Deputy Premier says he provided 9.5% in transfers; indeed, the operating transfers were 6%. Hospitals throughout the province are eliminating beds, they are cutting services, they are curtailing access and they are chopping jobs. I would like to know and the people of Ontario would like to know according to what premises are the hospitals to do those things? What are the standards of service that the Treasurer is requiring hospitals to provide, and what are the standards of services that people across Ontario can expect?

Mr Bradley: Good question.

Hon Mr Laughren: Yes, it is indeed a good question. Some of the specifics that the member opposite is seeking would be better coming from the Minister of Health. But let me in a very general way respond to the member.

I think all of us appreciate the fact that the cost of the health care system cannot continue to grow the way it has in the past. We simply cannot sustain that level of growth in the health care system unless we rationalize health care. The Minister of Health has already taken some actions such as the removal of electrolysis from OHIP and restricting out-of-province expenditures, which I think are very responsible decisions on the part of the minister.

When we talk about the hospital sector itself, I think it is terribly important that the Ministry of Health, in conjunction with the Ontario Hospital Association, the district health councils, the communities and the people who work in those hospitals, sit down and work out the best way to deliver the most essential service there is in this province. We are determined to do that in the most appropriate way possible, but I hasten to add, we simply cannot sit back and just let her rip when it comes to the escalation in the cost of the delivery of health care in the province. We simply cannot do that if we are going to control the cost of health care.

Mrs Sullivan: It seems to me from the response of the Treasurer that hospitals indeed have a right to feel very concerned about what this government's view of their place is in the health care system and in the management of health care.

I would like to review, in posing my next question, some of the things that hospitals see facing them. When the agreement with the Ontario Medical Association was signed, it provided for a hierarchy that left hospitals out. Hospitals were recently, just last week, left off the distribution list for the long-term care consultative document. There have been no transition funds announced for the hospitals, which require them to deal with the risk, the questions of growth and the questions of safety in their communities.

Seventy five million dollars has been taken out of the hospital capital budget. Less than half of the moneys that were required to meet the pay equity requirements for hospitals are going to be provided. There has been no money for the nurses' settlements, nor for any additional wage increases for other employees. The hospitals have been told as of last week that district health councils will be providing the advice to the minister in relationship to hospital planning.

The Speaker: Does the member have a supplementary?

Mrs Sullivan: I have a supplementary, Mr Speaker. When over 50% of our hospitals are facing enormous deficits, the Deputy Premier cannot tell me that all the fault lies with the hospitals. He cannot tell me that all the hospitals are badly managed.

The Speaker: Would the member please place her question.

Mrs Sullivan: When will this government bring the hospitals back into the management of the health care system and provide them the funding to do so?

Hon Mr Laughren: The member opposite says the hospitals should be concerned about their plight. Of course they should be concerned; we all should be. But I think simply to walk away from the problem and say, "Whatever your deficit is, here's the money," surely is not the answer. I do not think the member opposite would come out and say that. She might imply it in her question, but I do not think she would support that kind of action either.

When it comes to the capital budget, the reduction in the capital budget that we anticipated this year was not because we are pulling back; it was simply because those expenditures would not be made this year in any case. That money was not going to be --

Mr Elston: Because you didn't approve it. Come on, Floyd.

Hon Mr Laughren: No, that is simply not the case. We announced that there was going to be $125 million for pay equity in the broad public sector. That commitment remains. No other jurisdiction has made that commitment. As far as the nurses' settlement is concerned, we indicated to the hospitals that the nurses' settlement was to be rolled into the 9.5% increase they received in their funding.

Mrs Sullivan: Six per cent.

Hon Mr Laughren: No, the 9.5% that they received.

Finally, Mr Speaker -- I can see you are getting edgy -- I want to assure the member that the hospital system in this province simply must be rationalized. I understand there are 700 or 800 empty hospital beds in Metro at any given time. We need to rationalize the health care system, and we are determined to make that happen.

COURT ACTION

Mr Harnick: My question is to the Attorney General. Last week, an action was commenced under the auspices of the Canadian Jewish Congress regarding school funding. The facts in this lawsuit are not in dispute; it is purely a legal issue. Will the Attorney General refer this matter to the Court of Appeal to save expense and time for all the litigants, including the taxpayers of Ontario?

Hon Mr Hampton: I can tell the member that after some consultation with the Canadian Jewish Congress, we indicated to them that we would not be referring the matter to the Court of Appeal.

Mr Harnick: Why not? The facts are not in dispute; it is strictly a legal issue. Why is the Attorney General putting the parties, including the representatives of his ministry, through a full trial when it can be sent right to the Court of Appeal, where it is going to end up regardless of the outcome of the trial in the trial court?

Hon Mr Hampton: I can tell the honourable member that senior counsel in the civil law division and in the constitutional law division of the Ministry of the Attorney General looked at the arguments that the Canadian Jewish Congress was advancing, and after a very thorough review, the view was that the arguments were not in any way substantially dissimilar from the arguments that were advanced in a court action, which the former government was very familiar with. Therefore, given that the arguments were substantially the same, the feeling was that there would be no benefit in referring this directly to the Court of Appeal.

NORTHERN LIBRARY SERVICES

Mr Wood: My question is to the Minister of Culture and Communications. In these tough economic times, northern communities are being hit hard. It is important to remember that they rely on their public libraries to provide free access to information and cultural resources. I understand the public library services in the north are being eroded. What is her ministry doing to counter this trend?

Hon Mrs Haslam: First off, I would like to assure my colleague that I do recognize the very special economic and geographic problems facing northern Ontario libraries. The vast majority serve communities of under 5,000 people. Many are isolated and have a small tax base and limited municipal support. The Ontario library service north, which supports northern libraries, receives $2 million out of a total of $7 million of the OLS budget from the ministry while serving only 8% of the population.

I have just approved a grant of $100,000 to the OLS north to continue to buy books that will supplement the collections of very small libraries in the north. While I recognize the many issues of inequality in the north, I believe we are providing the best and most equitable library service that we can currently afford.

Mr Wood: I understand the report of the Advisory Committee on Finance Matters to the Minister of Municipal Affairs on the provincial-municipal financial relationship, otherwise known as the Ballinger-Hopcroft report, recommends the deconditionalization of grants to many municipal agencies. Those agencies include public libraries. What is the minister's position on the initiative, keeping in mind that the whole move would seriously damage public library service in the north?

Hon Mrs Haslam: The Ballinger-Hopcroft report is, as the member mentioned, an advisory report to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and does contain many sweeping recommendations that will require considerable debate. My position continues to be that the per-household grants provided by my ministry will be paid directly to library boards for the provision of library service as required under

section 30 of the Public Libraries Act. I anticipate no change in this position.

POLICE SERVICES

Mr Conway: My question is for the Solicitor General. It concerns policing by the Ontario Provincial Police in my part of rural Ontario and I gather in other parts of the province as well.

On the front page of this week's Eganville Leader, which is a very well read weekly newspaper serving my county, it is reported that the Killaloe OPP detachment, which serves a very large rural

section of west Renfrew county, is now living with the following constraint: namely, police cruisers will be limited to not more than 108 kilometres per eight-hour shift. Can the minister confirm that is happening, and is he aware what that kind of constraint will mean to policing in rural Ontario?

Hon Mr Pilkey: I cannot attest to specific knowledge on that specific jurisdiction that the member raises his earnest concerns about. I can tell him that because of the budget constraints that face the entire government, the OPP, as well as all functions within the Ministry of the Solicitor General and the Ministry of Correctional Services, have been asked to review their circumstances. I do know that Commissioner O'Grady has implemented certain operational requirements to try to comply with the budget restraint and with, I believe, a rather severe shortfall that exists within the OPP presently.

Mr Conway: The Eganville Leader report makes very plain that the force is struggling with very real service cuts in my part of Ontario. I note that the Lindsay Daily Post of September 30, 1991, contains the following paragraph: "People in Bobcaygeon, Dunsford and Woodville have been asking for increased police presence. 'But [quoting Lindsay OPP Staff Sergeant Jack Watkins] the safety of these communities in Victoria county is being threatened by these cutbacks.'"

It is quite clear from these two references, and the provincial press is replete with several others, that the budgetary problems at the OPP are serious and palpable and are having a real and negative effect on rural communities, whether they are in Killaloe or Eganville in Renfrew county or in Bobcaygeon or Woodville in Victoria county. Is the minister aware that the public is increasingly concerned about what this is doing in terms of safety and security in these rural communities, and what particular measures does he intend to initiate to alleviate this real and significant concern?

Hon Mr Pilkey: An expenditure reduction plan has been implemented to contain costs, but without compromising the Ontario Provincial Police's ability to serve the public. As I indicated, the OPP have forecast a financial deficit for this fiscal year. It has been pressured as a result of a variety of cost increases. There are cost-cutting measures by the commissioner that he has directed. We hope they are of a temporary nature, but I am assured that none of those particular expenditure reductions will compromise the OPP's ability to serve the public in a safe and competent fashion.

PAY EQUITY

Mrs Cunningham: My question is for the Minister of Colleges and Universities. In the 1991 budget the Treasurer announced he will make available $125 million to assist our major transfer payments on the issue of pay equity, talking about municipalities, school boards, hospitals and universities and colleges, and they are looking for these pay equity adjustments now. It is my understanding some of the institutions already have them.

Rumours are circulating that the colleges and universities will be receiving only 50% of the amount they were originally promised. Could the minister clarify in this House exactly what was promised, whether they will be getting only 50% of that, and when he will be making the transfer payments for pay equity to the colleges and universities of this province?

Hon Mr Allen: I cannot answer the final part of that question, which is to give a date at which the information will be relayed to the institutions, institution by institution, in terms of the pay equity transfer each of them will receive. I can tell the member that the original allocation in the budget of $125 million for pay equity in the broader public sector is still in place and will be devoted entirely to that objective.

What I also must tell the member, however, is that a portion of that has been set aside for the calculation around proportional value of pay equity to apply to some sectors of employment in the broader public sector. That does mean the initial payment that will be made to the transfer partners will go ahead at a somewhat lower rate of transfer for the pay equity payment to those institutions.

Mrs Cunningham: I do not think the minister answered the question, so I am going to give him another opportunity. I have to have an answer because I have been asked to get it, and I want the minister to respond as clearly as he can, with numbers. I am not sure what he promised the colleges and universities. I have read three different announcements and I cannot find that number, so I need to know what was promised.

I also need to know, and I think the colleges and universities need to know, what they are probably going to get. I suppose if the minister is going to stand up in the House in the next week or two and tell them they are going to get the money, that is fine, but they have a responsibility to provide the education to our students and preplanning a budget is very important. Could the minister please tell us what he promised, whether or not the rumour is true -- that is, the 50% -- and if he does not want to say when, I will be happy with the answer to the first two parts.

Hon Mr Allen: The announcement will be made in some detail by the Treasurer very shortly and it is not my responsibility to give that detail. I have been asked the very same question by the member, with the same concern. What I will tell her in terms of further detail is that in addition to the 7.3% transfer announcement, there was indicated a 0.7% add-on that would relate to the pay equity transfer overall. It is not my responsibility at this point in time to make the specific announcement as to what that difference will be, but the institutions will know very shortly.

PETITIONS

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

Mr J. Wilson: I have the pleasure of presenting a petition to the Legislature of Ontario that reads as follows:

"Whereas the Queen of Canada has long been a symbol of national unity for Canadians from all walks of life and from all ethnic backgrounds;

"Whereas the people of Canada are currently facing a constitutional crisis which could potentially result in the breakup of the federation and are in need of unifying symbols;

"We, the undersigned, respectfully petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to restore the oath to the Queen for Ontario's police officers."

I have affixed my name to this petition and it is also signed by a number of good residents of the town of Stayner.

The Speaker: Reports by committees?

WITHDRAWAL OF BILL 149

The Speaker: Before introduction of bills, on Tuesday, November 5, the member for Parry Sound introduced a bill entitled

An Act respecting the Amalgamation of Municipalities in the Districts of Nipissing and Parry Sound. It has been brought to my attention that this bill is in a unilingual format only, which is contrary to subsection 3(2) of the French Language Services Act, 1986. I must advise all honourable members that this matter contravenes

section 37(

d) of our standing orders in that it is in improper form. I must therefore rule that this bill is out of order and must be omitted from the order paper.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

LABOUR SPONSORED VENTURE CAPITAL CORPORATIONS ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LES CORPORATIONS À CAPITAL DE RISQUE DE TRAVAILLEURS

Ms Wark-Martyn moved first reading of Bill 150,

An Act to provide for the Creation and Registration of Labour Sponsored Venture Capital Corporations to Invest in Eligible Ontario Businesses and to make certain other amendments.

M. Wark-Martyn propose la première lecture du projet de loi 150, Loi prévoyant la création et l'inscription de corporations à capital de risque de travailleurs aux fins d''investissement dans des entreprises ontariennes admissibles et apportant des modifications corrélatives.

Motion agreed to.

La motion est adoptée.

Hon Ms Wark-Martyn: This bill is

an act to support labour-sponsored venture capital corporations investing in eligible Ontario businesses. This is the government's first initiative designed to deal with two important issues raised in the 1991 Ontario budget, the need to promote investment in industries to enable them to compete and grow in the Ontario market and the need to provide opportunities for workers to get involved in and initiate economic change.

The act proposes to set up the Ontario investment and worker ownership program. It has two parts: the labour-sponsored investment fund, which offers a 20% tax credit for eligible investors -- this credit is based on existing federal legislation that offers investors a matching 20% federal tax credit -- and the Employee Ownership Labour Sponsored Venture Capital Corp, which offers a provincial tax credit to workers investing in the corporation they work for as part of an employee buyout plan or company restructuring.

This bill also contains certain other provisions required for administration of the act. By working together, business, labour and government will find economic solutions for Ontario. This bill is an example of this government's commitment to that goal.

Mr Stockwell: Mr Speaker, may I request unanimous consent to introduce the report from the standing committee on government agencies which was somehow omitted?

The Speaker: Do we have unanimous consent to revert to reports by committees?

Agreed to.

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

Mr Stockwell from the standing committee on government agencies presented the committee's 17th report.

The Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 104(g)(11), the report is deemed to be adopted by the House.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ONTARIO MEDICAL ASSOCIATION DUES ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LES COTISATIONS DE L'ONTARIO MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 135,

An Act to provide for the Payment of Physicians' Dues and Other Amounts to the Ontario Medical Association.

Suite du débat ajourné visant la motion de deuxième lecture du projet de loi 135, Loi prévoyant le paiement des cotisations des médecins et d'autres montants à l'Ontario Medical Association.

Mrs Marland: I am happy to have a further opportunity to complete the comments I was in the process of making yesterday afternoon on Bill 135,

An Act to provide for the Payment of Physicians' Dues and Other Amounts to the Ontario Medical Association. When I was talking yesterday, I was saying to my colleagues in this House that I hope they remain healthy, because as long as they are healthy and do not need the health care system, the impact of what is going on today with the health care system will never touch them; but should they need the health care system, then they will realize in a personal way exactly what is going on in Ontario today.

Yesterday, when we were talking about Bill 135, we were talking about the government collecting dues for physicians in this province to belong to the Ontario Medical Association. We also were making very clear the fact that now the Ontario Medical Association is nothing more or less than a union. This professional association has become unionized, with the right to arbitrate what its fees will be for services. We recognize it is all part of this famous agreement that was signed in May of this year between the Ontario government and the Ontario Medical Association.

One of the things I tried to address yesterday was the very real concern I have for the fact that all this is on the surface and nobody really realizes what the impact is going to be underneath. One of the examples of the impact is contained in a letter I wish to read into the record. What all of us are concerned about in this province is not only the quality of health care but also the cost of health care, and this letter very clearly gives an example of one specialty where the cost of health care will increase because of this legislation and the

part it forms of the total agreement between the OMA and the government.

The letter is on the letterhead of the Rudd Clinic and it is dated July 19, 1991. Interestingly enough, the letter is addressed to Dr Tom Dixon, chairman of the board of the Ontario Medical Association:

"Dear Dr Dixon:

"I would like to present the following reasons why I and also my colleagues at the Rudd Clinic should be exempt from the threshold limits.

"I understand that your main reason for exempting doctors or groups is in cases of specialties where there are insufficient doctors to service the community, where the service is unique and where under-serviced areas are taken care of.

"I would think that other very important considerations to government should be whether maintaining the status quo saves the taxpayer money and still maintains the quality of service with equal availability to all.

"First, our clinic certainly is unique. We have five colorectal surgeons who do nothing else but colorectal surgical procedures. There is no other clinic like this in Canada. Because of the way we are set up, with our equipment and experience, we are able to do a lot of procedures in the clinic which almost all other surgeons do in the hospital.

"As evidence of this, we service approximately 3,000 referring doctors, who refer patients from all parts of the province and from every university centre and hospital in Toronto.

"We have made great efforts to teach our techniques to others, but it is hard to duplicate our results without our extensive equipment and well-trained staff; hence, our clinic remains unique.

"There are only a few colorectal surgeons in Canada, let alone Ontario. This is not enough by a long way. There is little chance for many more colorectal surgeons in the future as there is no significant university training program in Canada. We are an underserviced specialty. We cannot afford to lose any colorectal surgeons.

"Second, we service all Ontario, including the underserviced areas of Ontario -- especially the north -- Kapuskasing, North Bay, Thunder Bay, etc. We see many patients from Ottawa to Sault Ste Marie.

"Third, we have saved government many, many tens of millions of dollars. We do many surgical procedures in the clinic which normally are done in the hospital (eg, all haemorrhoids, fissures, anal lesions, most fistulae and colonoscopies and polypectomies). In the large number of patients we have treated just for one of these (eg, haemorrhoids) we have saved the government over $30 million by keeping the patients out of hospital and working. This figure increases proportionately when all the other techniques (and especially colonoscopy) are included since all of these are done in our clinic and out of hospital.

The savings to government in hospital beds alone is staggering and must be an important consideration to government and taxpayer and voter.

"There is no question but that if I and my colleagues were subjected to threshold limits, we would see fewer patients, have the rest seen by less experienced doctors and the whole effect would be inferior-quality care for many of the patients who come from all over Ontario to benefit from the expertise in our specialized clinic. We don't mind contributing to our high overhead because we want the best equipment, etc, for our patients; it does give the best results. It does not seem logical or desirable to penalize those who are helping keep the quality of medicine high, for which Ontario can be proud.

"We are unique. We are in a specialty which has very few specialists, and we see many patients from underserviced communities in Ontario. We save government huge amounts of money and have a very large, loyal and happy group of patients who appreciate our work. They are taxpayers and voters. I hope we will be allowed to continue this service.

"If there are other considerations you wish me to address, please let me know.

"I hope you will look favourably on my request to exempt myself and my colleagues at the Rudd Clinic.

"Yours sincerely,

"W. W. H. Rudd, MD, FRCS (C), FACS."

That is a very significant letter, and it is only one area of specialty. This specialist is trying to say that his particular practice of medicine for the health care of his patients in this province is unique. While it is unique, it is saving the government, and therefore the taxpayers of this province, millions of dollars. The alternative to his practice is that patients are hospitalized and they lose time from their places of employment. So we not only have people away from their places of employment; we have the daily cost of their being in hospital.

This practice is one of those being addressed in the new agreement between the OMA and the government of Ontario. The people in his practice are included in Bill 135, which is before us today. They are very special physicians who now will have their Ontario Medical Association dues taken out of their billings. I do not think that was necessary for these particular doctors.

I think they were more than happy, as most of the doctors in this province were, to pay their own professional association dues, just as I am quite confident that most of the doctors in this province were quite happy to pay their own malpractice insurance. Physicians and surgeons around this province have been paying their own malpractice insurance for a very long time. They accept that as a cost of doing business.

Interjection.

Mrs Marland: Mr Speaker, every time I speak in this House, the member for Yorkview interjects, and I take strong exception to it. If he wishes to make a contribution to this debate, he should arrange with his whip to get on his own speaking roster.

The Speaker: Indeed, the member for Yorkview should know that interjections are out of order. Of course it will be helpful if those who are speaking address their remarks to the Chair.

Mrs Marland: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will address my remarks to you.

What is happening here is a big game. It is a game being played at the expense of the health of the people who live in this province when we say to doctors: "We're going to control you. We're now going to unionize you. We're now going to force your professional association to come to the bargaining table with us, the socialist government, because that way we can control how much you earn."

I thought we lived in Ontario, in the free country of Canada. I did not really think we were going to regress into pure socialism, the like of which has now been discontinued in eastern European countries.

What has happened with Bill 135, as part of the overall agreement the physicians of this province have been forced into, is that they are now part of a union. The irony is that when the physicians of this province were young men and women deciding what they wanted to do with their careers and their lives in terms of a vocation, I am sure, like all of us, they looked at many options for employment. Those who chose medicine did not choose the practice of medicine to become members of a union. They chose the practice of medicine in order to maintain the health of people.

They chose the practice of medicine because they wished to serve in the most human way possible, which is to help people live healthy lives, help people regain health if they are in poor health, perform surgical procedures to correct problems people have that are able to be remedied with surgical procedures.

Whatever area of practice of medicine these young men and women chose when they entered that profession, it was because they wanted to serve the public in that capacity. They are not business people, for the most part. I think any doctor in this province will tell us that if they had wanted to be business people, they would have gone into a business field. They chose medicine because they wanted to serve that basic human need directly with their patients, that of preserving and recovering good health.

But the way doctors have been treated in this province has now resulted in their all giving up. They have been pushed so far by the governments of this province that they say: "What's the use? We might as well tell our professional association" -- the Ontario Medical Association -- "to bargain the best deal it can with the government, because we're now unionized government employees."

We are killing the very essence of their professional ethic by treating them the way we do. If the government does not care about doctors, that is fine. But I care about people, and I care about the people of this province who will end up paying the penalty for the way we have treated our doctors, our specialists and our physicians in this province.

I remember standing in this House during that lengthy debate on Bill 94 in December 1986, when I talked about children in my riding who needed very special surgery on their faces and on their heads. One of the best specialists at that time was just in the process of leaving the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto to go and practise in Houston, Texas. Ironically, one of the reasons he was leaving was because he was being so controlled here by that legislation that he would not be allowed to practise the number of hours that he wanted to. He would not be allowed to serve those patients to the extent that he wanted to.

Mr White: He came back.

Mrs Marland: He did not have that freedom. Because of that he decided, "What's the point?" He would move to Houston, Texas, where he could work whatever hours he wanted.

Mr White: Why did he come back?

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order. The member for Durham Centre contributes nothing to the process of this House with this kind of interjection. Please give the floor to the speaker.

Mrs Marland: I appreciate that, Mr Speaker. Thank you.

This individual surgeon wanted to dedicate his life to his very special surgery. I am talking about children who are born with tremendous deformities. Through his expertise, his particular dedication and his skill, and all the investment that he had made of his life to obtain that level of ability, he was able to operate on these young babies and young children to give them an opportunity to live normal lives.

Because of what was happening to him in Ontario, because of the attitude that doctors are not any different from anybody else -- we must control them and now ultimately we must unionize them -- we have lost hundreds of our specialists. I am just giving that doctor as an example.

We are now losing those specialists who had been teachers in our university hospitals. Why would they bother trying to teach medicine when the practice of medicine in Ontario has become, in the mind, thinking and philosophy of this socialist government, nothing more or less than people who work on a shop floor in a factory? The people who choose the practice of medicine for their career and profession are the people each one of us will be looking for if that need has to be met personally or by a member of our family.

I know very well that when we need that specialized kind of health care, none of us wants to settle for anyone but the best. We only have one chance at life, and life itself is so fragile that when we start to lose our health, we want the best health care possible. We are saying to the physicians and specialists of this province that we are going to treat them like any other unionized group. We are going to tell them how much they can earn, regardless of how much it costs them to practise.

Dr Rudd, whose letter I read into the record a few moments ago, spends millions of dollars on his specialized fibre optic equipment. That is his own capital cost; that is how he chooses to practise. While he is practising and able to give that service to his patients, he is saving the taxpayers money because he is keeping them out of the hospital. Otherwise, that procedure would be done in the hospital.

Now we are saying to them that we are going to take their Ontario Medical Association dues out of the billing we receive from them. It is almost as though the government does not trust the physicians. Is it such a big deal that the government has to control them by saying one of the things we have to do is make sure we get those OMA dues in? It is something like $1,000 per physician. I would really like to know how many physicians in this province refuse to pay their $1,000, but it is such a big deal that we are in this House today discussing a piece of legislation that is an insult to the medical practitioners in this province.

More than that, it is an insult to all those people in the province today who are suffering all kinds of emergency situations, whether we are talking about housing, food or jobs -- all the things this socialist government is always yelling about. They are always saying we must help the workers and save the jobs. What are we doing today? We are dealing with a piece of legislation that has a system of collecting dues to the Ontario Medical Association from the physicians of this province.

Is this a priority of the government? In November 1991, when people are without food, homes and jobs and we have an economy in a recession, the only thing this government can come up with for a piece of legislation before this House is a bill dealing with collecting professional dues from doctors. Is that the priority of this government?

I simply place the question, because the answer is very obvious. The irony goes even further because, as I think I mentioned yesterday, even though it is compulsory that these dues and assessments come from all practising physicians, it is not compulsory that they are members of the association. It is only compulsory that the government collect the money. It is voluntary whether those physicians are actually members of the Ontario Medical Association.

It is depressing when we try to understand what it is this socialist government wants out of the doctors and the health care providers of this province. We have invested millions of dollars building our hospitals, building additions to our hospitals and building new hospitals in remote areas. While we have made this tremendous capital investment over the years in this province, this government is saying it is okay for hospitals to close hospital beds and have nurses out of work and patients waiting on stretchers in hallways because there are no beds for them.

We are dealing with this situation on a daily basis, and I can give the minister names of patients in my riding who cannot access the health care they need because the hospital has just made another cutback.

We talked about 250 beds last week at the Toronto Hospital. We had 30 beds in the Mississauga Hospital two weeks before that. Psychiatric patients are unable to access the kind of in-hospital care they need because there are no beds for them.

We heard yesterday from the Minister of Health when she answered the question about the request for the new drug for schizophrenic patients. We heard that they are looking at it but they have not decided yet and she mentioned something about cost. If somebody can be kept out of hospital by paying for his drugs, does it not make sense to spend the money on the drugs rather than have him hospitalized at the daily cost of a hospital bed?

Here we are with all these problems, yet today we are discussing who will collect the dues for the OMA on behalf of the physicians in this province. To say it is okay to treat the physicians as employees of the government, to say it is okay that they are unionized, I suggest, is handing the responsibility of health care in this province to an unknown quantity.

If we are going to say they can have binding arbitration in the future in the settlement of what those professional fees will be for medical services in this province, then we are saying this government really does not care, because it will not have that responsibility. There will be an arbitrator somewhere who will decide what medical services are worth in this province. That is a black day for Ontario, Mr Speaker, because you and I will decide what health care services are worth in this province when we need them.

The way we are treating the medical profession through this agreement between the government and the Ontario Medical Association is unacceptable; it is deplorable. When people say, "The Ontario Medical Association signed this, they agreed to it," of course they agreed to it -- they were pushed to the wall. They had no other choice at this point.

When you cap the income of physicians and specialists at an arbitrary amount, regardless of what their overhead is, then we really are dealing with something with blinkers on. When government members look at an operation like the Rudd Clinic and say its billings will be capped at $400,000 and they do not care whether it costs them $250,000, $300,000 or $350,000 a year to operate -- I have no idea what the figures are, but by the equipment it has, government members know there is a tremendous investment and cost of operation.

But if we do not care about that we say, "Okay, the billing is still limited at $400,000." As I said yesterday, we thought it was okay to pay the chairman of Ontario Hydro $400,000, or even $230,000 or whatever his new, revised figure is, and he does not have any overhead at all. Where is the comparison? Where is the logic? Where is the fairness? There is none.

If I was a young person today I would think twice about entering the practice of medicine in this province. Why would I invest 10 or 12 years of my life going to school to be a medical specialist in surgery or psychiatry, whatever area, and then have the government control my income? We do not do it with anybody else -- or is that what is coming? Is that what is going to happen next, that we are going to control all the other professions?

Perhaps Bill 135 is only the beginning of the written enforcement of the philosophy of this socialist government. Maybe their plan is to unionize all the professions in this province and control what everybody earns. Maybe that is the road we are now on. If it is, then we are going to see a very large exodus of professionals from this province, from many professions, not only the practice of medicine. If they are saying as a socialist government, "We're going to control everything you do because we're paying your salaries. We're not going to pay you too much; we're going to cap it at this amount," then the only people who lose are the patients and the people of this province.

Members had better get sick in the first half of the year, the first two thirds of the year or however long it takes for those individual practitioners to meet that $400,000 in their billing, because when they meet that $400,000 in their billing and their overhead may be $300,000, why would they continue practising that year? Members had better make sure they are not looking for a specialist in the latter part of the year with the kind of legislation that is coming down.

Bill 135 is in my opinion the tip of the iceberg when we start forcing one group of professionals in this province to pay their professional association dues through the billings they send to the province. People do not understand that doctors get paid by the government only. Doctors do not have any other source of income from the practice of medicine except from the government. People do not understand that today. They today do not understand that the government has made doctors in all specialties and all practice of medicine government employees, civil servants, whatever word members want to use to describe them. That is what they are.

Now we are saying, "We don't even trust you to pay your professional association dues, so we're going to take them out of your salary." I do not think the majority of physicians in this province realize the significance of this legislation. Do members know why? The majority of physicians in this province are so dedicated and so committed to the profession they have chosen that they spend all their time looking after sick people. They are not up to all these games and pieces of legislation that come from this socialist government. They do not have time for that. They are saving lives and looking after sick people.

They do not have time to get into the gamesmanship that has been going on with this socialist government and the Ontario Medical Association. They will not find out until they have done their billings that their OMA fees are now deducted. They did not have a problem paying them themselves anyway. That is the issue.

I do not think there is any point in continuing this debate on this unnecessary bill any further. The socialist members in this House could not care less. The fact remains that Bill 135 is only the beginning of the end. As we deal with each piece of legislation that comes through, it further penalizes health care in this province by pointing a finger at one group that forms a percentage of the overall cost of health care and says: "It is those rotten doctors that drive the cost of medicine in this province. That's why we've got to control them and that's why we've got to cap them."

Why do we not let them continue paying their professional dues? Why do we not let them continue paying their own malpractice insurance? That is not a problem for them. Instead of that, we are going to say, "You can only practise so much at such and such a rate, and then after that we control you." It is a very sad day.

Mr Sutherland: It is a pleasure for me to respond to the member for Mississauga South. The member is somehow implying that there is something wrong with a majority of a group deciding that they want to pay membership fees to an organization, namely, the OMA. The member has tried to imply somehow that this deal was coerced upon the doctors. As we know, the doctors voted in a democratic election where they had the opportunity to participate. Those who wanted to participate did so and they ratified this deal. The doctors did not have to ratify this deal. Their representatives did not have to negotiate it either. So I find that a little bit disturbing.

The member for Mississauga South also talked about doctors who are in teaching hospitals and leaving this province and going to other provinces. I want to remind her that the reason many of those doctors are leaving is not the most recent deal. The reason many of those doctors are leaving is that our post-secondary education system has been seriously underfunded, starting in 1977-78 when her party was in power.

I also want to say that I know many of the doctors -- one of my former roommates from university is in medical school -- are very dedicated and caring individuals and are very concerned about health care. There is no doubt about that and I do not think anyone questions that.

I will wait to see the next time a member of the third party decides to get up and rail at this government about the high cost of expenses and talk about the deficit. We will see whether the member for Mississauga South will be one of those people up talking about the deficit at the same time as this government is working on curbing health care costs.

Mr Frankford: The member for Mississauga South said physicians are going to be pushed to the wall, while I think the Liberals say the physicians are being wrestled to the ceiling. I hope the members on the opposite side will get their act together and decide where we actually are.

We have heard some extraordinary statements about health care from the last speaker. I am really not clear what her position is on universal medicare. I thought her party was for it. I believe the federal party actually supported the Canada Health Act. Clearly it is something that is coming in all over. I think it is a nice opportunity to recognize the wise decision of the voters of Pennsylvania yesterday when they elected a Democratic senator who took a very strong pro-universal medicare position. This follows on the election to Congress of a socialist from Vermont in the elections last year.

The industrialized world is moving in that direction, and I am sure the people who feel they are moving to greener, free-enterprise pastures, which are not that free whatever the member for Mississauga South may imply, are going to be disappointed. In fact, those who emigrate find themselves in a very restricted system.

I really should concentrate on this bill. It is a simple piece of legislation that is part of the thrust to a rational health care system which we need and which can improve on what we have right now.

Mr Bradley: I was wondering, with the money that it will take to implement this act -- there is always some expense that will take place -- whether there will be any money left in the budget of the Ministry of Health for a second CAT scanner for the Niagara region. I look at what the member has said and I know she is very concerned about that. I thought that when she addressed her remarks to this bill, she would look at the potential negative implications of it as they relate to other expenditures within the ministry.

I know that in her area the member is concerned about these matters. I know my colleagues from the Niagara Peninsula are very concerned about these matters and are probably wondering, as well, will the implications of this bill mean that there cannot be a second or third CAT scanner in the Niagara region when people are waiting five or six months to use one, when up in York region at night the dogs and cats can get a CAT scan?

These are the concerns I have. I know the member for Mississauga South, if she had had the time -- she did not want to take the entire afternoon -- would probably have asked the very same question I have asked. I am sure that in Cambridge they are probably in the streets talking about the fact that there is not a second CAT scanner permitted in the Niagara region, even though it would not cost the Ministry of Health very much money at all. It requires the individual hospitals to foot the cost and the public to raise the capital cost.

I simply raise that. I know the member did not have the time to address that issue and I was pleased to be able to address it myself this afternoon.

Mr Bisson: I listened intently both yesterday and this afternoon in the House to the comments by the member from the third party, the member for Mississauga South. I want to touch on one thing she touched on. I tried to listen to her really well. If there were a coherent message in what she was saying when she kept on embroidering a tapestry, I guess of -- I am not going to use the word because it would be unparliamentary, but it was not quite the way it should be.

One of the very strong points she made was that this government was wasting the time --

Mr White: What tapestry? He has lost the thread.

The Acting Speaker: Order. I would ask the member not to leave the House. On several occasions the member for Durham Centre has used the opportunity of exiting the House to make interjections. It is totally unacceptable. We would appreciate it if you cut it out of the process.

Mr White: Mr Speaker, I have not left the House since this afternoon --

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Bisson: I have lost about 20 seconds on the clock. I hope I can get it at the end.

The point she was making was that the government was wasting the legislative time of the House by introducing Bill 135. I took the liberty of going back and taking a look at the last recession we had in Ontario, which was in 1981. I remind members of this House -- they do not need to be reminded -- that it was a Conservative government that was here at the time. I looked at some of the bills that were before the House in any one week within the month of June.

I will just read a few to you, Mr Speaker: the City of Ottawa Road Closing Act, the County Courts Amendment Act, the Executive Council Amendment Act, the George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art Act, the Legislative Assembly Act, the Liquor Licence Amendment Act, the Live Stock Branding Amendment Act -- the list goes on.

The member says we are wasting time speaking about something that is as important as Bill 135 in regard to the health care system. I just point out that when they were in government it was no different. There are acts that you must bring to the House. This is an important piece of legislation and I ask for all the members to support this because it does mean the future of our OHIP system.

Mrs Marland: In response to the member for Oxford who talked about why the doctors were happy to sign this agreement with his socialist government, it is pretty hard to disagree when you have your hands tied behind your back. The doctors settled with this agreement because they had no choice. It was the best they could possibly get for the kind of bargaining they were into. When he talks about the deficit, yes, I will stand up in this House and criticize this deficit, and yes, I will refer to the deficit when we are talking about this kind of legislation because this legislation is going to end up costing us more money because of the way it treats the practice of medicine in this province.

If the member for Oxford did not hear what I was saying, then he could not have been listening. The examples I gave were procedures that one specialist can do that save millions of dollars because they are done in his clinic and not in the hospital. If that is too complicated for him, then there is nothing I can do about it.

As for the member for Scarborough East, who is not in the House at the moment but who was here a moment ago to respond to me, what can I say about him? He is a physician and I think he should be embarrassed to stand in this House and defend this bill or any other of the directions of his socialist government in the way it is treating the health care providers in this province.

Yes, I say to the member for St Catharines, I do have a lot --

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Please address your remarks through the Chair.

Mrs Marland: Through you, Mr Speaker, I do have a lot more questions and a lot more comments I would have liked to have made today, but being the excellent Speaker you are, I knew you would not let me speak about anything else but Bill 135. That is why I kept very close to it. I simply say that if the member for Cochrane South has nothing better to do than stand up and list a whole lot of 10-year-old bills, then I feel sorry for him too.

Mr Bisson: I am just going to take a couple of minutes. I am not going to go on at great length for a couple of hours such as the previous speaker has taken -- within her rights, I must add.

Bill 135 comes down to a couple of very essential points. One of those points is that it is a fact -- the member for Mississauga South would not recognize it -- that part of the health care cost is the payment of doctors. Every time somebody is sick he or she is treated by a doctor. That obviously has an extreme amount of cost, one that comes to the health care system.

If we want to ensure that in the long run we have the dollars necessary to be able to fund the medical care system that Ontarians have grown very fond of over the years, along with other people across the country who enjoy the same kind of benefits in other provinces or territories, I think they would not only ask but would demand governments to be very judicious when it comes to being able to deal with the amount of money we are spending in our medical care system to ensure that in the long run the system is there and that we protect it.

Really, that is what this bill is all about. Back, I think it was, in 1985 doctors felt they wanted to have the ability to be able to bill above the OHIP guidelines. There was the whole extra-billing issue. I understand that. Like anybody else in this province who works for a living, I would always want to be able to get a little bit more for the services we give. But what they were doing at the time was attempting to extract more money from the public than is possible. The government of the day, I think, made the right decision.

Bill 135 basically makes sure that we have a better process by which we can negotiate with our doctors so that at the end we can ensure the dollars are there to be able to not only pay the doctors but pay our nurses, to pay towards the budgets of hospitals or health councils and all the other services that are necessary to deliver the fine health care system we are used to in this province.

The other question that has been raised in debate and that my honourable friend who is just leaving the House, the member for Mississauga South, mentioned is that she has seen this as some sort of bill that speaks to trade unionism, that basically entrenches the right of trade unionism or collective bargaining for doctors.

I do not think that is quite the situation, but the only point I would make is that there is nothing wrong with collective bargaining. Collective bargaining has been part of the democratic process of the nations of the free world for a long time. Why? That system was brought in so that you can bring people together to negotiate with their employer, whoever that employer may be, to get a fair remuneration for the work they do.

What Bill 135 does, very simply, is it makes sure that those doctors who are practising medicine within the province pay their dues to their association. Presently, there is roughly 10% of doctors practising medicine in Ontario who enjoy all the privileges of that association and do not pay their dues. All the bill does is to say, "Listen, if you're going to practise medicine within the province of Ontario and you're going to enjoy the privileges given by your medical association, you should pay those dues."

That was part of a position, I think, that the doctors wanted when they brought to the bargaining table their representatives to make sure that all the doctors within the province pay, and not have a system by which I will not pay, as one doctor, and enjoy all the benefits without having to pay those dues. I think that is something that is quite right, and I think it speaks to the whole question of what it is to work as an association. The more members we have in our association, participating, paying into the membership, the better the job the association will be able to do to have the dollars necessary to service its members.

I think in the long run the additional 10% of doctors paying into the medical association would only provide a better service, not only to the doctors, but I would dare say also for the public they serve.

The other point I just want to get to very quickly is the whole question of the usage in the House with regard to what pieces of legislation we bring to it. I did not get too much of a chance, Mr Speaker, because you were ruling on a matter that was somewhat out of order, and I tend to agree. The whole question is what the member was talking about, that she did not want to see Bill 135 come forward. Why? Because she felt we would be able to deal with more important issues, as she had put it, for the people of this province. Clearly, there are a number of issues that we need to deal with in this province, many of which, if we all had a lifetime, we would never be able to get to.

Bill 135 is an integral part of what this economy is all about. Health care represents the largest expenditure the province spends at any one time, within any one ministry. I think, just roughly, somewhere around $17 billion to $18 billion out of our $50-billion budget goes to health care.

It would seem to me a member who purports to represent the right wing, or the capitalists, as she likes to call herself, would be concerned that we have some opportunity of being able to manage that system. Certainly if I am in the private sector, I am not going to allow a department within my company to run uncontrolled, so that I do not have any say or any control over what is being spent.

That is not directly what this bill is doing altogether, but that is what this government is attempting to do through legislation such as this: to put in some good management practices within the particular ministries or within particular services the government offers so that we make sure we have the best use for our dollar.

More specifically, when she talked about the types of bills we are dealing with, yes, we are dealing with a number of bills that are very central to what is happening within the economy of Ontario, but as I say, it is an essential part of what we are doing.

I wonder if I am straying away a little bit from the topic. I am looking at you, Mr Speaker, for direction.

The Acting Speaker: It would be very easy for you to get back on topic, I suggest to you.

Mr Bisson: I let myself go to your indulgence. The point is that in order to be able to make sure we have the money necessary to provide not only health care but all the other services in this province that people have come to expect of their governments, it is very essential that the government put together a good management strategy. Then that strategy will be put together, as well as a good plan to make sure we can get the biggest bang for our dollar with the money we get from the taxpayers of this province. That is what Bill 135 is about. It is simply that.

If a member of the opposition is going to say we should not do these things because they infringe on the rights of doctors, well, I am sorry. Everybody within society has responsibilities and we as members of our society have to live up to those responsibilities one way or another.

I have taken 10 minutes on the clock. With that, I will leave the time to other members.

Mr Mammoliti: I must commend my colleague the member for Cochrane South. I agree with most everything he said in terms of Bill 135. However, I cannot understand the member for Mississauga South, who spoke just before him and basically criticized the doctors.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Your comments are directed to the speech that was given by the member for Cochrane South, not the member for Mississauga South.

Mr Mammoliti: Yes, I understand that.

In his speech, the member talked a little bit about the doctors, and I got the impression that he meant to say it was a democratic procedure. Being pushed to the wall, as the member for Mississauga South said earlier, is just not the case. I cannot see it being that way. I cannot see it in terms of democracy and what it is all about. In this particular case, that is what it is: democracy. I tend to agree with my colleague the member for Cochrane South when he says democracy is where it is at.

In terms of his views on unions, I tend to agree with him as well. The difference between us and the speaker before him is that we believe unions are where it is at. I certainly believe that. I feel the member for Mississauga South insulted the doctors when they said they belonged to the union. If anything, the union will bring them together and it will be a united front, a