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February 2, 1989

34th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L140 - Thu 2 Feb 1989 / Jeu 2 fév 1989

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

NORTHERN ONTARIO ARTISTS AND CULTURAL GROUPS / ARTISTES ET GROUPES CULTURELS DU NORD DE L’ONTARIO

ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY

NORTHERN ONTARIO ARTISTS AND CULTURAL GROUPS / ARTISTES ET GROUPES CULTURELS DU NORD DE L’ONTARIO

ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY

AFTERNOON SITTING

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

VOTING BY PRIVATE MEMBERS

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES

MARK AND HUGH WILSON

RETAIL STORE HOURS

DEVELOPMENTALLY HANDICAPPED

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

SKILLS TRAINING

BEEF MARKETING

RESPONSES

SKILLS TRAINING

BEEF MARKETING

SKILLS TRAINING

ORAL QUESTIONS

RENT REGULATION

CANCER TREATMENT

HOSPITAL SERVICES

VISITOR

METROPOLITAN TORONTO HOUSING AUTHORITY

TRITIUM

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICES

METROPOLITAN TORONTO HOUSING AUTHORITY

VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION

MENTAL COMPETENCE

AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

REPORT, SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY

INVESTMENT IN CANADIAN FILMS

RETAIL STORE HOURS

COMMUNITY SAFETY

MINING

PETITIONS

CAISSE DE RETRAITE DES ENSEIGNANTS / TEACHERS’ SUPERANNUATION

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

NORTHERN FRONTIER DEVELOP.

LTD. ACT

ORDERS OF THE DAY

RETAIL BUSINESS HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT ACT

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

NORTHERN ONTARIO ARTISTS AND CULTURAL GROUPS / ARTISTES ET GROUPES CULTURELS DU NORD DE L’ONTARIO

Mr. Campbell moved resolution 60:

Que, de l’avis de cette Chambre, le gouvernement devrait encourager le ministère du Développement du Nord et des Mines et le ministère de la Culture et des Communications à soutenir les artistes et les groupes culturels du Nord de l’Ontario, qui désirent avoir un plus grand accès aux marchés du Sud de l’Ontario, et permettre ainsi à tous les habitants de notre province d’apprécier la grande diversité et la beauté des oeuvres de nos talentueux artistes du Nord.

That, in the opinion of this House, the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and the Ministry of Culture and Communications should be encouraged to support northern Ontario artists and cultural groups who seek to more fully access the southern Ontario market, thereby offering all residents of our province an opportunity to appreciate the great diversity, beauty and talent of the north.

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

Mr. Campbell: Those of us from northern Ontario are already aware of the great cultural diversity and the heritage of the north, and as a former art teacher of video media, I am aware of how closely interrelated are culture and quality of life.

Sadly, though, very few people who live south of Parry Sound are even aware of the existence of northern Ontario and its art and culture, except as vaguely remembered Art 101 lessons from high school on Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. While I do not for a moment underestimate the value and the great beauty of their work, I feel that it is vital that the unique vision of today’s northern artists be given a wider audience.

To this end, the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines is to be congratulated on its ongoing support of Ontario North Now at Ontario Place. During the operating season, various northern artists and art galleries are showcased there.

A number of fine northern Ontario artists have gained wider acceptance and notice through this program. Doug Fox of Wikwemikong, Clem Berini of Timmins, Lozia Daoust of Sudbury, Zoe Wood Solomon, also of Sudbury, and Robert Ralph Carmichael of Echo Bay are all artists whose works have gained wider public acceptance through Ontario North Now. In fact, many people carry Robert Carmichael’s work in their pockets and purses, for it was he who designed the very handsome new $1 coin depicting Ontario’s official bird, the loon. The art galleries that have been showcased have allowed a wider dissemination of northern and native art.

As mentioned earlier, I have a background in teaching video arts. I have had the great pleasure of teaching a number of young people who have moved south to enrich and deliver fine-quality entertainment to the homes of viewers. Some of my former students are employed here in this very building. Dave Tyler does yeoman’s duty for the electronic production office of the Liberal caucus bureau, while Joe Lemieux works for the assembly with the Ont.Parl network and is part of the team responsible for the high-quality coverage given to the Legislative Assembly’s proceedings.

A few of my other former students are Ray Cormier and Don Winton, who work for channel 47, Pete Leclair at CFTO, Terry O’Reilly at CHCH and the Flaherty brothers who offer their services via film and Global. As well, the Charbonneau sisters in Ottawa media are very active in both print and electronic, Carolyn McGrath works in the traffic department at CJOH, Dianne Zolodak works in marketing in Toronto and Cindy Eyre is a singer with a wide southern Ontario audience. In short, these and other northern residents have demonstrated their capabilities in the larger cultural market of the south.

The Ministry of Northern Development and Mines is also to be commended for creating and operating the supplementary northern assistance program or SNAP. One facet of this program is to provide financial assistance to artists and cultural groups who must travel to show their works. This offers an opportunity for northerners to participate more fully in Ontario’s cultural life.

SNAP also works to assist southern Ontario groups and artists to tour the north, thereby increasing and enriching the cultural diversity of the north. The program will pay up to 75 per cent of eligible costs to a maximum of $10,000. Nonprofit volunteer groups may also qualify for assistance under the terms of this program.

What many people do not realize is that northern Ontario is neither a vast wasteland of blasted earth nor a pristine, untouched wilderness. Many southern groups and much of the press would have us believe that one of these two extremes is the norm. However well-meaning the intention of spreading these myths, these depictions are both inaccurate and somewhat insulting.

Yes, there are areas in the north where human shortsightedness has wreaked a terrible havoc; and yes, there are areas of great natural beauty. But what is forgotten, all too often, is that there are a great number of people who live in northern Ontario. These people are like everyone else. They are trying to earn a living, to make the world better for their children, to express their joy in their ethnic roots, while having a fierce pride in Canada. In short, they are like Ontarians in all parts of our province.

Few people realize that Sudbury has one of Ontario’s largest populations of people of Italian and Ukrainian descent outside Toronto; that there are many people of Finnish and eastern European ancestry living throughout the north; that our native people add their millennia-old understanding of the land to our cultural diversity; et que notre population francophone donne une grande joie de vivre à notre province.

In other words, northern Ontario is a microcosm of the province as a whole and has much to offer the rest of the province besides metals and wood products, if our people are only given a chance.

All too frequently we encounter an attitude not unique to any one segment of southern Ontario, which assumes that all is a wasteland north of Highway 401, east of Victoria Park Avenue and west of Bathurst Street. This may be a harsh statement, but the perception is all too real.

Look, for example, at the proposed handling of the Golden Horseshoe’s garbage problem by the mayor of Scarborough. In effect, she said, “Proper treatment and recycling is too expensive, so we’ll ship it north.” That is all. Ship it north and dump it down a mine shaft, with no regard for the impact on the communities already there which are coping with massive challenges of their own. It is this attitude of innocent ignorance which must be changed.

Par exemple, Sudbury est le domicile d’une des plus grandes réussites au Canada dans le domaine des théâtres régionaux : le Sudbury Theatre Centre. Sudbury est aussi un des importants centres de théâtre francophone grâce au Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario. Ces exemples montrent que les gens du Nord sont bel et bien arrivés dans la vie artistique de l’Ontario.

I hope my French is reasonable enough that members and the folks at home can understand.

My resolution calls on both the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and the Ministry of Culture and Communications to think creatively. I have already outlined the fine efforts by MNDM, but they are too often viewed as a curiosity because they are northern.

We already have a program in place which allows northern students to come to southern Ontario to view the Royal Ontario Museum and this very building, the Legislature of Ontario, the centre of government. But encouraging school groups to travel more widely within our province would also help to break down the barriers of perception.

For example, while school groups, as I have said, may currently travel to Toronto from the north to quite properly gain a better understanding of our province and capital, why not have a similar program to assist students to travel north to Old Fort William, Science North or any other of the fascinating displays and features spread throughout Ontario.

The first step, though, is to expand our cultural horizons by exposing northern artists to a greater degree in the major marketplace of our province. We in northern Ontario have come a long way since an advertisement in Toronto asked, “What has more culture than Sudbury?” The answer the radio station gave was, “Yoghurt.”

I look forward to hearing from other members of this House and I hope the spirit of positive suggestions will help to bring a greater understanding and appreciation of our province to all the regions within its border.

The Deputy Speaker: You will reserve 11 minutes for the final part?

Mr. Campbell: I will.

M. Pouliot : Merci. Bonjour. Il me fait plaisir ce matin, non seulement de participer... mais aussi d’appuyer la résolution du député de Sudbury (M. Campbell).

I am very pleased to support the private member’s resolution of the member for Sudbury (Mr. Campbell) regarding long-awaited incentives, long-awaited help for our artists and musicians in the north, the people who are producing, for instance, these beautiful works of art.

If I were to ask the distinguished members of this House, in terms of this creation -- fur, beads, moose hide -- where these are from, where Ontario’s most northerly community is, maybe one of the pages would be able to say: “Mr. Pouliot, you’re talking about Fort Severn. Maybe you’re talking about Kingfisher.”

If I go beyond my learned colleagues in the party of social conscience, most of my distinguished colleagues probably would be at a loss. Their interest therefore resides in southern Ontario. In fact, a cynic could perhaps mention that once you get past Steeles you are entering central Ontario and that the extreme north, because he had a cousin or a relative who once made it there, is North Bay.

The riding that I represent extends to Fort Severn on the shores of Hudson Bay and I am closer to Miami, Florida, as I stand here trying to promote the lifestyle of 18 per cent of the riding of Lake Nipigon, the native population -- our first Canadians, of course, our first Ontarians. Since 1670, through the vested interest of gentlemen adventurers -- and I have been very, very careful when I see that term since dealing with the Hudson’s Bay Co. -- that was the only mode, the only vehicle for promotion, for retailing that our first Canadians have had for centuries.

The member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) often reminds us, after reading the Scriptures, and he does read them, that he once visited Hudson Bay and once read in the Bible that the merchants were chased out of the temple. He now believes that they have returned with a passion and a vengeance through the Hudson’s Bay Co.

What the resolution tells us is that northern Ontario is not the mecca of culture, that encouragement has been lacking in the past. It has been sadly lacking, although there are some positive signs. It is beginning to change. The people of the north, aside from providing southerners with their natural resources, have a lot more to offer.

They can feed the pockets of people elsewhere by exporting their resources; by exporting, in fact, their sons and daughters in terms of raw talent, because job opportunities are better in southern Ontario. But we can also feed the soul with a degree of culture, with our artists, but it takes a collective effort.

The member for Sudbury is so right. It takes the participation of many people, people from the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, the Ministry of Culture and Communications and the Ministry of Education.

The majority of our municipalities in northern Ontario do not have a music teacher. Some school boards have a great deal of difficulty adhering to the principles and curriculum of the Ministry of Education simply because they cannot find someone to teach French as a second language.

How many choirs from northern Ontario have been paid the compliment of an invitation to visit their counterparts in southern Ontario so that their talents could be displayed and appreciated?

I ask the members of the Legislature individually if they have ever spent more than one minute admiring the picture of the loon. The artist is anonymous. We have to bring it down by plane because we have no network, or a very limited network, to have our goods appreciated.

With a bit of practice of the art of not losing, with some training and incentives, with the belief that tomorrow will be brighter than today, we could develop a market for these goods. They can compete, but the people do not know, and the resolution from the member for Sudbury (Mr. Campbell) addresses that.

It tells us that, aside from the natural resources that we produce, surely we will be more complete human beings, that as part of the makeup of anyone, we have to work. Heaven knows that we work very hard up north; not harder than anyone else perhaps, but we work very hard.

We do not feel that TVOntario, whenever we can get it, wherever we have access, and it is not universal -- oh, people take it for granted down here.

Mr. Miller: No, we don’t.

Mr. Pouliot: Up north, we have bigger moccasins to fill. My riding is more than 1,000 miles long. It is the size of West Germany. We measure things on a different scale there. We have people who are committed to making the lives of their neighbours a little better. They wish to put more into life than what they receive, and the way they do it is with their talent.

It is not that there are no takers, but they seldom get a pat on the back. They are talented, but where are they going to express that talent? If they do produce some goods, they simply have no market. They feel alone and neglected. The member for Sudbury has had the courage, has taken this one opportunity that is given to a member in his term of office, to recognize that not enough has been done.

We had a private member’s resolution some weeks back commending the government for its initiative regarding eastern Ontario. With the highest of respect, of course, what needs more help, northern Ontario or eastern Ontario? I am sure they both do, and we can argue for a long, long time, but what I am saying is that exposure to culture –

La chance qu’on donne aux artistes, dans le Sud et le Sud-Est de l’Ontario, n’est quand même pas comparable à celle des gens de chez nous, qui ont su oeuvrer, esseulés et démunis parce que le gouvernement a choisi d’aller ailleurs que chez nous.

Il est souvent difficile pour nos autochtones -- pour les autres aussi -- de continuer d’oeuvrer quotidiennement ; d’essayer en vain... et d’informer leurs confrères des autres centres de l’Ontario que la culture, chez nous, ça existe ; et que personne n’a le monopole du talent. La culture est vivante chez nous, et elle veut pénétrer le marché du Sud de l’Ontario. Elle veut que les gens d’ici, dans le Sud de l’Ontario, se rendent compte des talents... On a surtout besoin d’encouragement.

La député de Sudbury nous offre aujourd’hui l’occasion de nous intégrer à la vie culturelle de l’Ontario. Cette résolution est la bienvenue dans notre parti et elle a aussi notre appui.

Mr. Cousens: I am pleased to participate in this debate. I will tell the honourable member that in spite of the fact that his bill is rather a narrow one saying, “Let’s support the arts in the north,” I am going to support it, because I think that people who are Canadians first and live in Ontario really have to have a great sensitivity to the needs of the people all across our great province.

I say to the member for Sudbury, all I can ask for is a reciprocal type of arrangement when someone from Windsor or someone from eastern Ontario or someone from central Ontario brings forward a similar motion and says, “Hey, where are you guys from the north when it comes to supporting us in our cultural needs?”

I think the one thing we always have to remember in this House and in this province of ours is that we are Canadians first. If I can do anything to support someone in another part of our great country, then I want to do it, and particularly when it is something within Ontario. I am sympathetic to the needs of the people of the north who want to make sure that their expressions are heard, felt and understood, and as we learn what the native cultural groups have to offer we too can learn and prosper from their experiences.

I think some communities do a far more effective job than others in translating their interests in the cultural world into expressions of what Canada is all about. I have a cottage near Penetanguishene and the people up there are constantly trying to build and create an interest in local cultural things by bringing out the past through parades and through special events and through artisans of different kinds and through music. It is marvellous what is happening and what one community can do. It really is an example of how all levels of government can work together to support the arts. That is a credit to this country and a credit to every level of politics.

That is really part of the message that I want to present here. What happens in Sudbury or the north cannot happen in isolation from the rest of the province and the country. Yet we have the member for Sudbury bringing forward this motion, without really having, I think, a sense of some of the other problems that go into it, and maybe in the positive spirit of this debate we can go forward with some positive action for the future.

One of the things I would like to touch on is that the Ontario government, as I am sure every member in this House knows, has a bill called Bill 119. This is the Ontario Lottery Corporation Amendment Act and a very significant bill that will affect the arts in many ways. What is going to happen is that the money that now flows through Wintario and Lottario funding is soon going to be appropriated in a different direction.

Less money will be given to recreation and the arts and it will be directed towards hospital funding. We all know that the hospitals need money, but the worry that many places are having is that that money, once taken away from cultural and recreational budgets that now need it, will no longer be there. They will no longer find the funding. They will not get the funding from the province, that is for sure.

In fact, I wonder if the member whose bill we are considering is aware that the Sudbury Little Theatre Guild is on the record as publicly opposing Bill 119. They are saying: “Hey, don’t do it to us. What you’re doing is taking away the money that has supported the arts.” I wonder if the member for Sudbury is going to go and speak to the Minister of Culture and Communications (Ms. Oddie Munro) and get her to withdraw that bill or amend that bill to take into consideration the point of view of the Sudbury Little Theatre Guild.

The fact of the matter is that there have been a large number of cultural groups across this province -- and we are talking about groups from everywhere, from Georgina, the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, the Oshawa Little Theatre Workshop; every part of the province has come in -- over 900 letters have gone to the ministry saying: “Don’t do it to us. You’re about to hurt the culture and the arts and the development of those things in our own communities.”

Our honourable friend has brought forward an important motion that says we want to do something. He personally can do something, as a Liberal backbencher who may well be in the front benches some day. With the kind of leadership that he could show through this kind of example to get the government to take a lead on this, I would support him for the Ministry of Culture and Communications.

But he is going to have to do more than that, he really is. In the estimates of the Ministry of Culture and Communications, which we have just finished reviewing, the people of Ontario are not aware of how money is not being spent on cultural development and institutions. I am referring here to a report on the spending of that ministry, and it is not good news for the arts.

In fact, what has happened is that there has been a net decrease this year over last year by this Liberal government in the arts. Grants for theatres and theatre awards are down by $91,500. A piddling $31,200 is now spent in that area of expenditures. Ontario lottery projects are down by $317,000 for program grants in one year. That does not just touch the north; that touches the whole province.

This beautiful Liberal government that was going to do so much for the whole province is taking money away from these areas right now. The money that would normally come through lottery grants to support agencies and cultural institutions is down by $6,544,000 in one year from what it was the previous year. Agencies and cultural institutions whose job it is to support the arts across the province have $6,544,000 less than they did the year before.

It is a dangerous precedent that is happening. Here, on the one hand, our honourable friend is supporting the arts; yet on the other, his Minister of Culture and Communications is cutting the budget on grants for theatres, for program grants and for agencies and cultural institutions. Somehow or other it does not add up. It does not add up that the member is saying we want to do more, yet the very government that he is a part of is doing less. I hope that his motion can somehow motivate the minister to do more than she is doing right now.

We have to have municipal support. There is no way that we can have the arts developing in any community unless we start getting municipal councils involved. Somehow or other, we as representatives at the provincial level should give every kind of encouragement we can to municipalities to do more. We have to do more to get corporations to give generously to the arts.

In Canada, we do not begin to invest in the arts the way they do in the United States. I have a comparison of what they give in the US to what they give in Canada over the last 20 years, and US corporations give close to twice as much as Canadian corporations. In pretax profits, US corporations over the last 20 years gave 1.2 per cent to 1.6 per cent in pretax profits. In Canada, our corporations have given, over that period of time, 0.8 per cent to 0.6 per cent. We are seeing less than eight per cent of the estimated 45,000 companies in Canada making contributions to the arts. That is a place to begin.

If we could get corporations to give that kind of leadership, then I am sure we would see more people beginning to benefit.

It is not just government that has to do something. It is not just our government, although our government is not doing anything to speak of. They are reducing what they used to do. We have to get municipal governments and corporations involved and, undoubtedly, the federal government can give leadership in this area as well. There is no doubt that the federal government through different funding sources can come along and start to make it happen.

There cannot be a monopoly on the arts. It has to be something where every community finds its pride in its history, its culture, its people and in doing things, not just being a spectator looking on and seeing other people do things but participating in a meaningful way to make this the country we all want it to be. If those who have the ability to sing or to work with pottery or to dance or to do anything share with others something of the beauty of this land, something of the beauty of our background, something of our culture, something of themselves, then this in itself will be a progressive step forward and something that will be part of the heritage of this country.

We have it in the north right now, and I am delighted to see so many things that can happen from the north. We see it in every part of our province and in every part of our country. May we find more people willing to give leadership to the arts in every way, and recognize them and allow them to have a chance to share their skills and what they are doing.

I am going to support the member’s bill. Hopefully, it will pass this House and the minister will be listening to the member’s expressions and, indeed, the province will begin to put the money back where it should be.

Mr. Leone: I am pleased to respond to this important issue which has been brought before the House and I want to speak in support of the resolution introduced by my friend the member for Sudbury.

I want to support this resolution in two capacities, as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Culture and Communications and as a man who has spent years in the community working for the preservation and promotion of our heritage culture which represents the soul and the essence of our national identity.

I want to support it because I believe it is the right of every citizen of Ontario to have the same rights and privileges for the enjoyment of their culture. While we as government promote the creation and cultivation of our culture in the south, we have to do the same to promote cultural activities in the north and make it possible for artistic talents, creation and activities to be known and enjoyed throughout Ontario, not only in Ontario and Canada but throughout the world.

Last Friday, January 27, I was in Oliver, a small town near Thunder Bay, on behalf of the Minister of Culture and Communications, at the inauguration of a community centre. Later, I attended a fund-raising dinner at the Italian Centennial Club, organized by the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, where I presented the president with a cheque for $90,000 as the contribution from our ministry and government towards the solution of its financial problems.

In my brief remarks, I told the president and the numerous audience that with the co-operation of the Italian clubs of Thunder Bay, I wanted to organize a tour by the symphony in Italy. In this way, we will promote northern culture not only in Ontario and Canada but in other parts of the world. This morning, I received a letter from the president, Don Watson, saying he would take up my kind offer to help the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra to undertake a tour in Italy. They are delighted with this offer.

Also, I want to tell the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Pouliot) that yesterday I received an invitation from a region of Italy where we can exhibit and sell our artistic and cultural products this year. They are offering us 400 square feet of free booth area.

Besides the Ministry of Culture and Communications’ long-standing commitment to the promotion of the arts in northern Ontario, we take much pride in the north’s vast and growing cultural heritage. As a result, we are giving special attention to promoting it to a larger audience. We are engaging in a number of initiatives in co-operation with the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. I would like to take a few moments to outline them.

We are working with the Rainy River Indian band to examine ways of developing the Manitou Mounds national historic site into a heritage park open to the public. At Rushing River and Providence Bay, excavations of native sites are open to the public and employ native youths through the summer Experience program. At Kakabeka Falls another excavation is providing insights into the period of the fur trade.

All three projects illustrate for visitors the important role archaeology plays in the understanding of our heritage. Furthermore, the Rushing River project will be featured in an upcoming TVOntario series on archaeology seen throughout Ontario.

The Ontario Heritage Foundation is involved with the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines in a number of projects which preserve and promote northern Ontario’s heritage. At Moose Factory, for example, the history of the fur trade is being interpreted through a number of restored heritage buildings and museums. As members know, Moose Factory is the destination point for the famed Polar Bear Express.

Turning to the current cultural expressions in the north, I would like to outline the ministry’s initiatives.

Northern Ontario publishers have been given special status to receive benefits from the Ontario book publishing program.

Francophone cultural industries and organizations mainly located in the north are being studied to determine the needs and potential.

The Ontario Arts Council assists in bringing exhibitions by northern artists to southern venues. The Art Gallery of Ontario provides professional advice on staging exhibits.

On another front, the Ministry of Northern Development’s supplementary northern assistance program has a category for arts and cultural program assistance. It supports, among other things, cultural groups, workshops and tours of southern Ontario. The current grant categories of the Ministry of Culture and Communications are also available to support the promotion of northern culture in the south.

Finally, Science North, an agency of the ministry, continues to attract, educate and entertain visitors to Sudbury. It has also brought northern Ontario to the world, with pavilions at Ontario Place for the economic summit in Toronto and at the francophone summit in Quebec.

The government of Ontario is committed to the cultural enhancement of all its citizens. In Ontario we support cultural expression at all levels. We see culture not just as the prerogative or the property of the few or strictly for those from the south, but as the living expression of what many care about in their communities.

I am pleased that our government has taken such an active role in partnership with communities in the development of northern Ontario cultures.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would like very much to participate in the debate. I thank the member for Sudbury for his initiative today. I am sure that what he was wanting to hear was exactly what the parliamentary assistant, the member for Downsview (Mr. Leone), has just said, giving a litany of what is being done at the moment and a government apology, rather than dealing with the stated problem which the member has identified. It is as if there is no point in having a resolution, according to the member for Downsview, because the government is already doing such wonderful things for the culture of the north and the cultural industry, as nascent as it is, in northern Ontario.

I am not sure that is exactly what the member for Sudbury had wanted to hear from the government, but he has another nine, 10 or 11 minutes to perhaps tell the parliamentary assistant what is missing presently, what he hopes to see and why he bothered to bring this resolution forward, if in fact the government is doing such a glorious job.

Mr. Mahoney: I think he is supporting you.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am supporting the member’s resolution. I am wondering if the kind of support he just got from the member for Downsview, I say to the member for Mississauga West (Mr. Mahoney), is exactly what he was after when he brought this forward; because if the status quo is fine, then what is the point in bringing in a resolution?

I want to pay a particular compliment and commendation to the member for Lake Nipigon, who spoke earlier. With a couple of beautiful pieces of art, he was able to make the point magnificently about the failure of our province to give proper support to native communities in northern Ontario to be able to access markets and to develop their skills, native and developing, I would say, in terms of the arts themselves.

It is ironic when you think of the difference between what happened for the Inuit in the Northwest Territories by the initiative, not so much of government formally but of a couple of major art collectors, and that which has happened for the native woodland Indian, if you will, of northern Ontario. That is to say, there has been a great exploitation of art, in the positive and negative sense, for the Inuit, and there is now a major industry in Baker Lake and other places in northwestern Ontario.

In northern Ontario the wonderful art that has been there for centuries is not something that has been allowed to develop or has been given the same kind of status here in the province and therefore helped to be promoted internationally. For instance, one thinks of people like Norval Morrisseau, who for years and years produced wonderful paintings in the north of Ontario and sold them for virtually nothing until he was discovered. But that was not made into the beginning of an industry and fostered by that government and has not been by subsequent governments, as it should have been. As a result, we have not seen the natural development and flourishing of the visual arts in that sense.

One thinks of some of the other people who, in spite of a lack of support, have come out of northern Ontario. In music, one thinks of Ken No, Robert Paquette and people of that ilk who have done some wonderful work in the past and have been recognized to one degree or another: in fact, by this assembly. One thinks of these people who are at the moment, in northern Ontario, trying to deal with the visual arts in terms of producing film and being able to try to get their particular performances brought to southern Ontario instead of always having touring companies from the National Ballet of Canada or Toronto theatre going north. They are running into severe and substantial difficulties.

It is time that we had some sort of concerted attempt to foster the arts in northern Ontario. It is not often that the member for Markham and I agree on anything. Therefore, at this point I think it is probably appropriate that I should refer to one of the things he said that I thought was particularly useful. He said that this government, in moving lottery funds away from arts and culture, is in fact pursuing a course which, in philosophical terms, I think is directly at odds with what the member is putting forward today. I hope that contradiction that the member for Markham raised was noted by the member.

It is difficult at the best of times to get government or industry in this country interested in proper, viable and continuing support for the arts and culture. It has always been a low priority. Still, we see arts, even in places like Toronto, in major difficulty in terms of being able to continue. I think of recent theatre groups here, such as Factory Theatre Lab, which are desperately trying to maintain themselves because of the lack of adequate funding. It has been especially true for people living in the hinterland, and especially true for those in northern Ontario.

If we take away funds from Wintario, if we continue to underfund the arts, as we have been doing through Wintario, and do not allow groups to participate which should be participating in that program, then I think we will be doing them a major disservice. The kind of resolution this member is bringing forward will just be so much flying against the wind of reality and not have any chance of development.

I want to focus on something which I know is not specifically part of what the member is talking about here; it is the limitation of how we look at Wintario grants and whom they can go to. As the members will know, if you have an amateur theatre group, it is not eligible for Wintario assistance. You have to have pros; you have to have a professional director and you have to have professional actors. But if you are totally an amateur group, you are not even eligible for any kind of assistance.

If the members think about the development of grass-roots art and culture, it is vitally important that government funds go into assisting the amateur sector and not just the developing professional, because where does the professional come from anyway? He or she comes from a large base of amateurs involved in a particular field, whether it is photography, music or theatre. It is from that base that those people come, and from that cultural context that they derive their strength and their art.

We do not foster this in any way with the government funding programs that we have at the present time. I suggest to the member for Sudbury that if there is a specific change in policy it would be of huge assistance in the north, in small communities which could use a little bit of assistance in putting on a theatre production or trying to mount an arts exposition, or the kind of thing that the member for Lake Nipigon was showing to the House earlier on; that would be one where that could be done.

Let me conclude my remarks short of the time, which I know will disappoint the table, which always expects me to fill the time right to the last second.

The motion is well addressed. It is a problem which does exist. The kind of response we had from the member for Downsview, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Culture and Communications, is not what we need. We need some real recognition of the fact that although we are doing things, there is a huge deficit and a need for new investment of money, time and energy in the north specifically and around the kinds of things the member for Lake Nipigon so eloquently spoke about.

I hope the government takes more seriously the kind of suggestion that is being brought forward by the member for Sudbury today.

Mr. Pollock: I am pleased to join in this debate and I am certainly going to support the resolution of the member for Sudbury.

I have had the privilege of travelling in the north on different occasions, and I have to admit, the north grows on you. I have been impressed by its vastness and some of the particular scenes in the north.

I think it is a worthwhile resolution that the member for Sudbury brings forward. It certainly will be beneficial to the north to have the government get involved and support more of these particular artists and people from the north, because it is a great part of this province.

I just wanted to put a few of those things on the record.

Mr. Kozyra: It is a pleasure to speak briefly in support of this resolution.

As members know, northern Ontario is blessed with a strong and varied network of artists and cultural groups. Unfortunately, though known in the north, these artists and groups are one of Ontario’s best-kept secrets as far as southern Ontario is concerned. Greater access to the huge southern Ontario market, as proposed in this resolution, would provide that much-needed exposure and recognition.

It must be noted that at present some good programs and activities do serve and have the potential to serve the promotion of northern culture in wider audiences. These, as has already been outlined in more detail, include Science North out of Sudbury, which has had pavilions in Toronto and Quebec. Exhibitions by northern artists have been brought to southern venues through the help of the Ontario Arts Council. Public archaeology projects, as well as serving the local visitors, will be featured on TVOntario programming on Ontario archaeology.

The Ministry of Northern Development and Mines supports workshops and tours of northern cultural groups. As well, at present there is a very exciting feasibility study of the Manitou Mounds, the largest burial site of its kind in North America, and it holds great potential.

The two ministries involved, in their positions, are supportive. The Ministry of Culture and Communications sees the promotion of this northern cultural development as a priority, and that ministry, along with Northern Development Mines, has co-operated in the past and will continue to do so.

In conclusion, let me say that what has been done has been good, but it is obvious to everyone that a great deal more can be done; a resolution of this sort goes a long way to furthering that.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): If there are no other participants in the debate, the member for Sudbury to wrap up.

Mr. Campbell: First of all, I am gratified with the number of members who chose to speak on my resolution, particularly those from southern Ontario who perhaps will help us in northern Ontario deal in more concrete terms with the kinds of things we have been talking about this morning.

I am very pleased that the member for Scarborough West participated in the debate and particularly that he has joined the ranks of us who have moustaches. I am pleased to see his return because I think it adds to his visage and he is more photogenic. As a former video-media teacher, I can probably say that, if the member does not mind.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I’ll get you.

Mr. Campbell: I thought you already did.

In any event, in my summation I wanted to deal with a number of the things that have been talked about this morning. I particularly appreciate the member for Lake Nipigon bringing in examples of northern art and bringing in the kinds of things that we can exhibit and be more marketable sources perhaps in the south. He mentioned about being closer to Miami than his home, being in this community, and I think that demonstrates the vastness of the territory we have to cover.

I very much appreciate the member for Markham (Mr. Cousens), and the member for Scarborough West again, talking from a southern perspective. However, the speech of the member of Markham was about taxes and about private sector giving, and it must be pointed out that the tax structure in the United States encourages more private sector development. The governments in the United States do not participate to the same degree through their government direct programs, but encourage taxation. That is why the US companies, for the large part, are able to take advantage of those kinds of tax programs to allow support of the arts to take place.

I think attitudes are changing. As I pointed out in my opening remarks, the attitudes of southerners are changing as they become more exposed to northern Ontario art, whether it be native or ethnic northern art or other kinds of cultural pursuits.

For example, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, the Sudbury Theatre Centre, directed by Tony Lloyd, who has just retired. He built that, with a lot of community support in Sudbury, into one of the finest regional theatres in the whole country -- not just Ontario but the whole country. I was pleased to serve on the Sudbury Theatre Centre board and be able to participate in the building of the new theatre, with quite a bit of support from both the federal and provincial governments.

A number of organizations have travelled to represent this province. I am proud of the Black Sea Kozaks, a Ukrainian group that represented Ontario -- not just northern Ontario or Sudbury but Ontario -- in Vancouver at Expo 86 and again in Australia at Expo 88. I am pleased that those kinds of things show that we can widen the market and the scope of the kinds of things we can do in northern Ontario and let the rest of the world know it.

I am pleased as well that the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Kozyra) brought the northwestern perspective regarding the cultural pursuits as being the best-kept secret. I know he has been active in cultural pursuits in his community, and he knows full well the kinds of programs in Thunder Bay that have been supported by our government.

I am very much gratified that the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Culture and Communications brought the ministry’s perspective to the debate and outlined a number of initiatives and programs. I think particularly of Moosonee and the work that has been done up there. I think also of a number of other cultural pursuits in northern Ontario that have been widely supported.

I purposely kept my remarks to the Ministry of Northern Development because I felt that the parliamentary assistant, the member for Downs-view, would bring his perspective from his ministry.

In closing, this has been a very good forum to bring out a lot of the questions and comments that support, and I would hope continue to support, my resolution. I think it is important. A wider market and a wider scope of what we have to offer in northern Ontario has to be supported, nurtured and cultured to bring to the marketing centre of Ontario, which is Toronto -- that is an accepted fact -- more of an understanding by southerners in the whole process of the pursuit of arts and culture in northern Ontario.

A community or region that denies its cultural heritage, that denies the fact that it cannot perish as a civilization, does not survive.

ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY

Mr. Neumann moved resolution 59:

That in the opinion of this House, recognizing the critical importance of the Brundtland report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, this House commends the government of Ontario for its active participation on the National Task Force on the Environment and the Economy and for establishing the Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy to develop a provincial sustainable development strategy; therefore, the government of Ontario should continue these efforts and:

1. Conduct a thorough review of its programs, policies and practices to ensure that the concept of sustainable development is applied within all areas of Ontario government decision-making; and

2. Implement a procedure for reviewing, on an annual basis, the progress made by all ministries, boards and crown corporations in applying the concept of sustainable development within their areas of responsibility.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): The member is reminded he has up to 20 minutes for his presentation and may reserve any portion thereof for his windup.

Mr. Neumann: In preparing for this resolution and the debate today, I have been encouraged by the support I have received from my colleagues in the House and also from community groups within our province. I have received encouragement from Pollution Probe, the Conservation Council of Ontario, the Federation of Ontario Naturalists and the Harmony Foundation of Canada among others.

The hole in the protective ozone layer is growing larger, acid rain is harming our trees and lakes, global warming threatens to harm our world in many ways, the rain forests are disappearing, the deserts are growing larger and our air, water and soil are being burdened with the waste of our society.

Stories such as these, which speak to the survival of our world, are in the news almost daily. Whales in the St. Lawrence River are dying and their bodies are so toxic they are classified as hazardous waste. Oil spills off our coasts cause great damage to wildlife and the environment. The issues of solid waste management, pollution in our rivers and lakes, erosion of our soils and resource depletion face decision-makers today.

Having inherited this legacy from the past, can we human beings, custodians of this fragile planet, alter our ways so that the legacy we will leave is one of hope for the future? We do not need to tell our children about these issues. They know and are voicing their concerns for their future more clearly day by day. These issues, while global in scope, affect us close to home and in our daily lives. They result from our pattern of life, from decisions made locally in all areas of the world.

Each of us can find examples of sad legacies from the past right in our own communities. Beautiful Mohawk Lake in the city of Brantford was enjoyed by many for swimming, boating and fishing but a few decades ago. Today, such activities are gone; the lake is too polluted. The cost for cleanup will be high and while it may be possible to clean up the lake, and it should be done, I mention it today for the lesson we can learn.

Development of industry and housing and the style of that development in the area were a boon to many, but despite these benefits, the hidden costs not calculated back then resulted in the pollution of Mohawk Lake. In the same way, decisions we make today may force future generations to pay a costly price. That is what the concept of sustainable development is all about: development today that robs from the future cannot be sustained. From understanding this concept, we can build hope for the future.

Our concept of environment must also change. The environment is not something out there apart from us. We are part of it and what we do affects all other humans and life on earth. We must stop thinking of environmental issues as something separate and distinct. All decisions we make -- how we live, what we eat, how we make our living -- are in effect environmental decisions.

Individual awareness and actions, worthy as they are, are not enough. As legislators in Ontario we can make a statement. We can provide leadership. We can prompt action to embark upon a new direction with a vision for the future. We can become part of the solution rather than the problem. Today, as we debate this resolution, we are helping to raise the level of awareness and understanding and we are helping to show the need for change of direction. We have the opportunity to endorse an important concept that provides guidance for action at all levels.

We should not be overwhelmed by the size of the problem facing our world. We do not always need to wait for the big solution in order to take action.

The Brundtland report of the World Commission on Environment and Development was released in 1987. Let’s listen to a few statements from this United Nations document:

“Most of today’s decision-makers will be dead before the planet feels the heavier effects of acid precipitation, global warming, ozone depletion, or widespread desertification and species loss. Most of the young voters of today will still be alive. In the commission’s hearings it was the young, those who have the most to lose, who were the harshest critics of the planet’s present management.”

Another quote, “The time has come to take the decisions needed to secure the resources to sustain this and coming generations.” While documenting the planet’s ills, the report was one of hope, but that hope “is conditional on decisive political action now to begin managing environmental resources to ensure both sustainable human progress and human survival.”

Two basic principles emerge from this report: One, we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs; two, environmental and economic issues are interrelated. While development can damage the environment, a deteriorating environment can constrain development.

The reaction to this report around the world has been encouraging. Canada’s national task force has completed its report and round tables are being established in Ontario and other provinces. Municipalities and citizen organizations have taken up the challenge as well.

While the Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy carries out its task, it is important that we, as legislators, take a stand, that we set the example, that the government of Ontario expand the application of the concept of sustainable development into all areas of decision-making.

By adopting this resolution, this House would be calling upon the government of Ontario to “conduct a thorough review of its programs, policies and practices to ensure that the concept of sustainable development is applied within all areas of Ontario government decision-making.”

I will comment on this first point at this time. Such a review would supplement and strengthen the work of the Ontario round table by indicating strong leadership through example for the co-operative effort that will be needed in the broader community. Review will be ongoing and action can be taken along the way as feasible ideas emerge.

Major issues related to management of renewable resources and energy conservation are obvious areas for ongoing review and action, but questions such as fast-food packaging in our cafeterias right here at Queen’s Park or revising government-wide purchasing policies to be environmentally friendly need to be tackled as well. Virtually every ministry should become involved, although some areas will be more obvious than others.

I give three examples of possible involvement. First, in the Treasury, can taxation policies be altered to discourage purchase of products that harm the environment? Can we change packaging of consumer products through product standards? Alternatively, should taxation policy be used to achieve this goal?

Second, in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, how should criteria for grants or loans to industry be revised to reflect environmental concerns such as recycling?

Third, what role should the Ministry of Education and education authorities in our province play in this regard? Should curricula be revised to enhance awareness on these issues? Would an interdisciplinary approach lead to a more thorough and objective review of these matters by the students of our province?

Efforts along these lines are already under way in some ministries. Reducing acid rain, encouraging energy conservation and programs to foster recycling are but a few examples.

A good example of applying the concept of sustainable development is the decision this government took to discourage new mining operations from setting up new disposable town sites around their mines. By encouraging workers to settle in existing communities, infrastructures already in place are more fully utilized and more diversified communities provide strength for the future. Two towns that have benefited from this policy are Marathon and Manitouwadge. I had the privilege last year of visiting those two towns and seeing some of the results.

Second, the resolution asks the government to “implement a procedure for reviewing, on an annual basis, the progress made by all ministries, boards and crown corporations in applying the concept of sustainable development within their areas of responsibility.”

This is probably the most important aspect of this resolution because it recognizes that review and implementation should be an ongoing process. The mechanism established will challenge key decision-makers to become involved in finding the new directions needed and in producing results as well.

Cross-ministry application of major principles or government policy is not anything new. The application of our government’s multicultural policy is a good example. The Minister of Citizenship (Mr. Phillips) has the responsibility for ensuring that all other ministries are making progress in applying the multicultural policy. In a similar way, an annual review would ensure that sustainable development concepts are treated seriously by all key decision-makers at various levels.

I will conclude my opening remarks with some positive examples from my own community. The city of Brantford is planning to recycle mined-out gravel pits for its new industrial park rather than annexing farm land, which would have been easier and less costly to develop. This will be a better long-range choice.

Cascades Dominion last fall abandoned its production of egg cartons using styrofoam. This Brantford firm now uses recycled paper for all its egg carton production. Another firm in Brantford, Johnson’s wax, well ahead of most companies, stopped using chlorofluorocarbons in its aerosol spray can products. It took this visionary decision in 1975 when it first learned of the danger to the environment, namely, the ozone layer. This was before the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer and well before the Montreal protocol. This example speaks volumes.

I look forward to hearing the comments of my colleagues in the House on this important matter. I would like to conclude by reading a statement from a report produced by the Conservation Council of Ontario:

“...The province needs to put out a statement of its vision of the future development of Ontario. This development philosophy should be clearly rooted in the notion of sustainable development. This should serve to give direction not just to the ministries with a central responsibility for policy in the environmental and resource management fields but also to all other ministries, from education to trade, whose policies and programs have a direct bearing on the demands made of the environment.

Such a statement should recognize that, whether it is in our production processes, consumption patterns or lifestyles, our human behaviour can be encouraged, guided, cajoled or regulated to be supportive of development that does not destroy or weaken our life-support systems of air, water, soil, vegetation and animal life, that does not deplete the genetic diversity in our environment and that does not erode the opportunities for sustainable development.”

I will conclude my remarks at the end of the hour.

Mrs. Grier: I am pleased to support the resolution that has been put forward this morning by the member for Brantford and to acknowledge his sincerity in supporting the conclusions of the Brundtland report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, known as Our Common Future.

I acknowledge the government of Ontario has taken a lead in publicly recognizing the value of the recommendations of the Brundtland report. I am not quite as optimistic as the member for Brantford that public recognition has been translated into meaningful action to make sure those recommendations are in fact implemented.

In the two short years since the world commission reported, Gro Brundtland’s name has become a household word around the world. She is the socialist Prime Minister of Norway. I am very proud to be associated with her and her party through the Socialist International. What she produced as chairman of that world commission was a global agenda for change, changes in attitude, changes in policy, changes in approach to our economy, with a linking of economic decisions with environmental decisions, pointing out to us how that could be done.

I think the impact of that book has been profound. It is equal to the impact a book by another woman had in 1962. I am referring to Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring. Rachel Carson in 1962 alerted us to the dimensions of the problem that was occurring in our environment. What Gro Brundtland has done is to lay out a survival plan for the world, and in so doing, to remind us how long it is since Silent Spring was published and how much worse the problem has become in those intervening years.

There are two themes in the Brundtland report. One, as I have said, is the need to integrate economic and environmental policies and to make sure any economic decisions that are made are made fully cognizant of the impact those decisions will have on the environment now and in the future. The other theme is the need for sustainable development.

In the report, Mrs. Brundtland has used the state of the underdeveloped countries, mostly in the Third World, to illustrate these themes. She has shown very graphically how western industrial capitalism is repeating in the Third World all the errors we have made in the west and is in fact imposing on those underdeveloped countries fearful environmental degradation.

The fact that most of the examples come from the Third World does not make those examples irrelevant to Ontario because we have, after all, our own Third World in this province. We have the north, our own underdeveloped equivalent of many of the underdeveloped countries of the world. We have the fourth world that is often referred to, our native people. I think it is ironic that at this time, when we are all talking about sustainable development, we seem to have refused to recognize from our own native people what sustainable development actually means.

Our native people lived in this province and sustained its environment for many hundreds of years before we came along and began to allow our environment to deteriorate.

I have a couple of concerns about the reaction of this province to the Brundtland report. I am a little worried that the popularization of the phrase “sustainable development” and the fact it has now become a buzzword in our language will give rise to a lot of discussion about what it really means, that we will have lengthy arguments about the definition of “sustainable development” and pay lipservice in a whole lot of inconsistent ways to the fact we support the concept.

I am also concerned about the concentration that seems to be emerging on setting up structures and discussing the process and the organization by which we get to implement the recommendations of the Brundtland report. I worry that all of that concentration on process may in fact serve as an excuse to delay actually doing something and actually taking decisions in harmony with the recommendations of the Brundtland report.

The member for Brantford mentions the Premier’s round table that has been set up to make recommendations as to how the Brundtland commission is to be implemented in this province. I think it is interesting that when that announcement was made last October, the announcement said the round table would hold its first meeting in December. It is now February. The round table has not yet met. The budget, the resources for that round table have not yet been announced.

The point I want to make is that we do not have to wait for round tables and structures. We can get on with weighing the environmental consequences of every decision we make. We can make the environment integral to every action we have taken, not just in small ways like packaging but in major ways.

If this government truly supports the principles of the Brundtland commission, I assume we will not be building any more nuclear plants in this province because it will be essential we take responsibility for that technology from its cradle to its grave, and that includes its waste disposal. We would not dream of allowing Ontario Hydro to sell small reactors to the Third World, because that would be merely continuing the tradition of passing our problems on to underdeveloped countries.

If we really believed in the recommendations of the Brundtland report, we would immediately amend the Environmental Assessment Act, which now only covers public projects, to make sure every project was subject to environmental assessment. We would not be spending months, years and millions of dollars in setting limits for emissions of toxic substances under the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement program or under revisions to the air pollution regulation. We would be saying that we would immediately move to zero discharge, because that was what we had agreed to in our Great Lakes water quality agreement with the United States some years ago.

I think the proof that this government is not really prepared to live up to the implications of supporting the Brundtland commission is shown by its actions in Temagami. If ever there was an example that makes the Brundtland report on the environment and development meaningful, it is the Temagami situation. If ever there was an opportunity to truly integrate economic and environmental decisions, it is in our attitude towards the survival of the Temagami wilderness. If ever there was an example where sustainable development could really be put into practice, surely it is in those wonderful pine forests of Temagami.

I support the resolution that is before us today. How could I not? It is the kind of resolution and the kind of recommendations that are long overdue. When I see that philosophy put into practice in the daily decisions of this government, then I will be very proud that I have supported the resolution.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I had not intended to speak on this resolution. In fact, the member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman) wanted to speak on it, and I hope that he will be here shortly so that he can perhaps take the second turn around. He is tied up in committee; I think he has a motion tabled at the committee, so that is why he is not able to speak at this time. As I mentioned, I hope he can return.

I would like to go on record on behalf of my party as saying that we have no hesitation in supporting the resolution put forward by the member for Brantford (Mr. Neumann). Environment is so important. In fact, I would like to recall a former Minister of the Environment, Ms. Fish, who used to highlight its importance in nearly every speech by saying that “environment is only earth, air and water.” It says a lot about what environment is. It leaves out nothing, so it is extremely important.

As I mentioned, I would even go along with commending the government of Ontario for its active participation on the National Task Force on the Environment and the Economy. That is saying something, coming from this side of the House; but at times the government should be commended and at other times criticized. Having commended it, I would like to just take a minute to criticize it.

The government has a responsibility right here in this province and this city and certainly in many areas of the province, such as my riding of Wellington. There are very serious environmental problems, and the single most important problem facing many areas of the province is the solution to the waste management controversy.

It is slightly off the topic, although it falls under environment, but I would hope that if I am able to commend the government on one initiative, then I should be able to offer it some constructive criticism on another issue: That is, for heaven’s sake, it should put its mind to solving the problems that the municipalities have in obtaining permission for sewage expansions; show some leadership in solving the waste management crisis.

It is not a matter of simply coming up with a solution in one area and letting the others flounder through. It would seem to me that the provincial government should provide leadership so that if a region or a county had a problem pertaining to waste, the solution that would apply to that area could perhaps be used in some other part of the province, so that we do not have to restudy the same problem, or presentations or projects in every single part of this province. Surely, we could have a more consolidated process. We have to go through the hearing process.

I have no problem with that, but it is just that smaller municipalities, especially, need some guidance from the Ministry of the Environment to help make the right decisions to help solve their problems.

I will leave it at that and hope that the member for Leeds-Grenville is able to return from committee in time to participate. As a matter of fact, he is coming in now so I will sit down. He should have a few minutes left.

Mr. Elliot: As the previous speakers have indicated, our topic this morning is really environmentally sustainable development. It is indeed a pleasure for me to speak in support of this motion put by the member for Brantford. I am extremely pleased to expand upon his comments. As a former mayor of Brantford, he did an excellent job. He and his council implemented much sustainable development in his city while he was mayor there. His background lends great credibility to his motion. He has discussed the Brundtland report entitled Our Common Future.

I agree that it is very important the government of Ontario actively participate on the National Task Force on the Environment and the Economy. I also agree that it is most important that the Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy is establishing a provincial sustainable development strategy. The government of Ontario should continue these efforts and conduct a thorough review of its programs, policies and practices to ensure that the concept of sustainable development is applied within all areas of Ontario government decision-making.

Further, it should implement a procedure for reviewing, on an annual basis, the progress made by all ministries, boards and crown corporations in applying the concept of sustainable development within their areas of responsibility. This is particularly important and true in the Ministry of the Environment.

Worldwide, throughout Canada and here in Ontario, there is compelling evidence that environmentally sustainable development is not only a possibility, but is already a reality in many industries. One of our biggest challenges, the disposition of our garbage, is quickly becoming a vibrant growth industry.

Vegetation replacement, mainly trees, should be an opportunity for real growth. The lakes and streams here in Ontario and the oceans of Canada are largely untapped and are perhaps one of our richest resources, but our richest resource is our youth. By educating them properly, our goal of environmentally sustainable development will be achieved.

There are many examples, as I said before, in industry where this type of development is already in progress. I would like to highlight the waste management field. Until very recently almost all the garbage in Ontario has been landfilled. Under the leadership of the Ministry of the Environment, exciting new approaches are being formulated for the disposition of waste.

The 4R program is under way. The emphasis is on reuse, reduction, recycling and reclaiming. Curbside recycling will realistically allow us to reuse between 25 per cent and 35 per cent of our household waste. Further separation of waste at locations, hopefully close to source, should allow us to reuse an additional 25 per cent to 35 per cent of our household waste. The remaining waste must be broken down into two main types -- that which decays or rots and that which does not. The decaying garbage may be composted or landfilled, but those sites may be reused because the residue may be reused as soil. The second type can safely be put in landfill because there are no emissions.

In my opinion, the golden rule for industry from now on should be, if your product has to be landfilled, do not make it. I am talking about cars, refrigerators, tires, batteries and so on. The theme for the 1990s should be, “No more landfill.”

The soft drink industry, in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment, has made great strides in beginning to address the landfill problem with its famous blue box program. I am told 1.7 million households will be using the blue box very soon. The goal is 2.2 million households by the early 1990s, and this represents 80 per cent of the households in Ontario. This is just the beginning. Apartments, the food service industry and institutions must address disposing of their waste in a manner similar to the blue box program.

The reuse-recycling concept, backed up by other considerations such as composting on a large scale and modification of packaging, will allow Ontario, by the end of the next decade, to have an environmentally sustainable waste management process.

I was privileged, on January 3, to represent the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) when we opened our fourth and final blue box program in the region of Halton. Halton Hills began a curbside pickup approximately 10 years ago. One of the main things that was highlighted in the speech that I read for the minister that morning was the fact that by collecting newspapers in Halton Hills alone, you could save in the order of 9,600 trees.

This does not sound like very much at first blush, but when you take into consideration that there are approximately 840 municipalities in Ontario, and Halton Hills is probably about an average-sized community, that translates into more than eight million trees per year if every municipality was doing exactly the same thing.

To put it in context, the Toronto Star, in its weekend edition, uses the equivalent of 44,000 trees. This translates into 2.25 million trees per year for just the weekend edition. By recycling newsprint throughout Ontario, we could produce the Toronto Star on an annual basis without using any more trees.

We must recycle wood products. We must plant more trees. We must husband this valuable renewable resource.

I would like to spend a few moments to talk about a definition of “sustainable development.” There have been several conferences with respect to this important concept recently. One was held in Sweden, in Stockholm. At that recent conference, the way they defined “sustainable development” was that suitable development must be ecologically, socially and economically sustainable.

One of the gentlemen there, Otto Soemarwoto, indicated that there must be four main components to sustainable development. The first is the need for agricultural and biological diversity. The second is the need to improve our ability to predict what will happen in the future through the use of applied and pure science. The need for governments to react quickly against events that are detrimental to the Earth’s surface or to humans is the third. Fourth and finally, the need for citizens to exercise restraint in the use of pollution-causing agents, is probably the most important because the underlined part at the end of that one is that we must be self-motivated.

I firmly believe that individuals and groups can make a difference. Every morning each of us must reaffirm our commitment to environmentally sustainable development as legislators. Each of us can practise recycling. Each of us can refuse to purchase overpackaged goods. Each of us can purchase items made from recycled materials. Each of us can strongly encourage sound reforestation practices. Each of us can take the time to be well enough informed to support sound, environmentally sustainable development.

As I begin to wind down my remarks, I would again like to commend the member for Brantford for his visionary motion. It deserves the support of this House. I support its intent with much enthusiasm.

As I conclude, I would like to read into the record part of a newsletter. I will not mention the municipality in the United States nor the county from which this newsletter came, but I will mention that the logo at the top says it is called the Conservation League and it began in 1934. In my view, they have one of the most up-to-date recycling recovery processes in the world. The newsletter reads:

“In 1987, the Resource Recovery Centre opened a 130,000-square-foot facility that includes state-of-the-art equipment used to recycle materials which otherwise would contribute only to growing landfill. Instead, materials are recycled and energy is saved.”

I see that my time is growing very short. I would like to indicate that in the

article they specifically mentioned at least five different items where not only is energy saved but the reuse of the materials is highlighted in a very positive way. I have a great deal of enthusiasm, as we approach this major problem in Ontario, that we will recover it in the context of the type of motion that the member for Brantford put this morning.

Mr.

Hampton: This is a resolution which I find interesting, to say the least, because while I want to support the general intent of it, while I want to say that this is indeed the way we ought to be going, as a person who deals every day in my own constituency, in my own part of the province, with what seems to be one environmental disaster after another, or potentially one environmental disaster after another, I feel bound to say I like the resolution but I also feel bound to say that there is a lot that is not happening at this time and there is a lot that the present government is doing which actually flies in the face of this resolution.

I want to deal with some of those things to try to put something of practice and something of practical worth into the sense of this resolution.

It is a very good thing to say that “Ontario should conduct a thorough review of its programs, policies and practices to ensure that the concept of sustainable development is applied within all areas of Ontario government decision-making.” I want to see that happen. I also want to make the point it is not happening now. In fact, some of the policies in the Ministry of Natural Resources are going in the opposite direction.

I also want to see the government of this province implement a procedure for reviewing, on an annual basis, the progress made by all ministries, because it is quite clear to me that if this were in place at this time, the Ministry of Natural Resources would get absolutely failing marks across the northern

section of this province.

I think boards and crown corporations should also be required to apply this concept of sustainable development within their areas of responsibility. There is no doubt about it. It is long overdue.

I want to talk about the Ministry of Natural Resources and what it is not doing, and ought to be doing, in the face of this kind of resolution, because let us face it, if you come from the northern part of Ontario, the Ministry of Natural Resources is the ministry which has the greatest impact not only upon the lives and wellbeing of the people who live in northern Ontario but upon the very environment that we live with.

Let’s take, for example, the issue of forest management. You would be hard pressed to find in Ontario a professional forester who would say that aerial reseeding of cutover land is better than hand-planted seedlings. You would be hard pressed to find someone who says it is just as good or better to regenerate by means of aerial seeding. Almost every professional forester out there will tell you that if you want to regenerate a forest efficiently, then you regenerate by hand with seedlings. You do that especially when you are in muskeg areas or rocky areas, which take in most of northern Ontario.

Northern Ontario is overwhelmingly Canadian Shield. You do not have a lot of sand. You do not have a lot of deep soil available for replanting.

Yet, what policy has the Ministry of Natural Resources instituted in the last year? It is a policy of gradually stepping out of growing and planting seedlings and growing into more and more aerial seeding. And what is the rationale for this? The rationale is it is cheaper to seed by using aerial seeding. It is not more effective, it is not more efficient, you do not get the regeneration growths, but it is cheaper. That policy flies directly in the face of this resolution.

Let me give members another example. The Ministry of Natural Resources a couple of years ago instituted a $10 resident fishing licence. The resident fishing licence was to be used to restock and regenerate the fish stocks that in many parts of northern Ontario have been so badly abused. Yet what is happening? Members need only pick out any edition of the magazines or press releases of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters to see it. What is happening is there have been cutbacks in the fish restocking and fish management program, again, by the Ministry of Natural Resources.

The money was made available, yet the money is not being used appropriately in a way that would be in accord with the resolution we are speaking about today. The Ministry of Natural Resources is failing badly -- today, yesterday -- and if the current policies are any indication, it will fail tomorrow in meeting the requirements of this kind of resolution.

Let’s look, for example, at the paper industry in northern Ontario. It is an industry that is vital to the livelihood of that part of the province. It is vital to the many small communities that exist there. Paper mills, unfortunately, do two things that are not in any way helpful to the environment. One of them is that all kraft paper mills generate, as an unwanted byproduct, the very serious pollutant dioxin. There are kraft paper mills in northern Ontario that have been found to have very high concentrations of dioxin in their effluent.

The European Community is acting on this problem in 1989 and 1990, yet when asked when the Ontario Ministry of the Environment intends to act, the minister will not say. When we press the minister, he says: “Look at the regulations of the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement.”

There is a problem with the MISA regulations. First of all, the monitoring system is already a year behind. We look at the abatement schedule, which is not listed to take place until 1993. I suggest that in view of the fact the monitoring timetable is already a year behind, we will be lucky if we make 1994. That is not good enough. It is not good enough because dioxin is a long-lasting pollutant. It does not break down easily and is a very serious pollutant for all levels of the ecosystem.

Let us take air quality controls. The other unfortunate thing about paper mills and kraft pulp mills is that they pour out a stream of air pollutants. The paper mill in my own community last year exceeded the existing limits 421 times; on 421 separate, individual times the paper mill exceeded the existing limits. This cannot continue, yet there is -- I will not say it is inactivity -- hesitation on the part of the Ministry of the Environment to do more.

It seems to me the Brundtland report says one very clear thing. It says there is a close and inseparable continuity between the economics of the social system and the environment. What is so problematic about what the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Natural Resources are doing in the north is that the longer they put off these things, the longer they put off the proper regeneration of the forests and the proper regulation and control of air pollutants and water pollutants from paper mills, the more difficult it becomes to put them in place without harming the economic infrastructure of those communities.

That is because after a certain point a paper mill company will say, “If you impose these restrictions on us, we will close the mill.” After you have allowed a mill to continue to pollute in that way for 15 or 20 years, it becomes much easier for the corporation to walk away from it and say, “Well, to do the kind of work you require us to do now, it is easier and cheaper for us to walk away from it.” So it is very important to impose these requirements and regulations early and to upgrade them, rather than let the situation continue and then have to do a crash course, because that can have very deleterious effects on the local economic environment.

We support the wishes and the would-be’s of this resolution. We only say that the government of this province should be doing something now to show it is in agreement with the resolution contained herein.

Mr. Runciman: At the outset, I want to compliment the member for his interest in the environment and in the concept of sustainable development, and to indicate, as my colleague the member for Wellington (Mr. J. M. Johnson) did earlier, that we will be supporting the resolution. I must say that in our view it is putting the cart before the horse to some extent, but that does not necessarily reflect in a negative way on the member’s initiative in any respect.

We believe there is a crucial missing link in the proposal; that is, he has neglected to consider that there is no overall provincial strategy for the application of a sustainable development concept. I think it will be extremely difficult for ministries to apply a concept and a review process when there is no plan and there are no guidelines.

The national task force was clear that there must be advanced and integrated planning. To aid in the development of a plan for rational management and protection of resources, the task force recommended that every province and territory assume the responsibility for the co-ordination and development of conservation strategies in their jurisdiction. Those strategies would then be used as blueprints for sustainable economic development.

The member may be aware that Ontario began such a plan even before the establishment of the national task force. The previous Conservative government helped initiate and fund the Conservation Council of Ontario’s assessment of conservation and development in Ontario. That report was entitled Towards a Conservation Strategy for Ontario and was released in May 1986. The report offered an overview assessment of conservation and development practices in Ontario and recommendations for the organization of the next steps to be taken in introducing a provincial conservation strategy.

Regrettably, since its release, the current government has virtually ignored the report. Before responding to the council’s report, the Liberal government wanted to wait for the report of the national task force. That was one of its excuses. It has been over a year now since the report of the task force and still the government has ignored the work of the Conservation Council of Ontario. Because the council feels it is urgent that Ontario move ahead with a conservation strategy to eventually have a blueprint for sustainable development, the council has proceeded on its own initiative to do a follow-up study. We hope that will be released in the near future.

We can only hope the government will stand up and listen and use the efforts of the conservation council in tandem with the discussions at the environment round table to develop Ontario’s blueprint for sustainable development. When this blueprint is in place, the proposals of the member for Brantford will be complete and effective.

There is another thing I want to mention. One of the problems in some respects with the small number in our caucus is that you do not always have enough time to prepare for these debates. But a concern of mine was reinforced yesterday with the release of a demographic study indicating that Ontario’s population is going to increase by three million souls by the year 2010, much of that increase through immigration.

It seems to me that when we are talking about sustainable development and conservation, one element that is consistently ignored and never touched upon is the question of population strategies for Ontario. I just do not think there is any population strategy or any real consideration being given to the implications of three million more people in this province by the year 2010. I personally would like to see consideration given to a royal commission on population growth.

If you take a look at what is happening in this province now, our health care system is overburdened. People are not able to attain the necessary medical services right across this province and the health care system is taking almost one third of the provincial budget.

Take a look at the education system. There was an

article in the Toronto Star recently about the impact immigration is having on the education system in Metropolitan Toronto.

Traffic congestion: I have been living in Toronto on a part-time basis for eight years now and I have seen such a dramatic impact in terms of the traffic congestion problems.

You can look at the housing crisis. You can look at increasing crime. You can look at any number of questions that are tied into the very intensive and significant population growth in the Metropolitan Toronto area.

There are our natural resources with the increasingly rapid consumption of prime farm land in this province, the deteriorating highway infrastructure, social programs that are overburdened in many instances now and increasing demands on government in dealing with the current population load. There are the energy generation requirements for this province in the future through Ontario Hydro. All are very significant questions that have a bearing on the population of this province. It is a critical element that must be considered.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has now expired. The member for Brantford had reserved some time.

Mr. Neumann: I have enjoyed listening to the remarks of my colleagues in the House on this important resolution. I am not surprised to hear criticisms of the government and its policies. That is to be expected from opposition members. I am pleased, however, that the members opposite have indicated their support for the resolution.

The Ministry of the Environment has provided considerable leadership in this province and across North America in initiatives related to environmental issues. The budget for the ministry is up 51 per cent since the 1984-85 period. That indicates quite a commitment by this government to environmental matters. The Minister of the Environment has initiated a new approach within that ministry that tackles environmental problems head on, such approaches as those that relate to the “polluter pays” principle and a proactive role in environmental protection rather than a reactive one.

Comment was made about the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement. While there may be some criticism of that program, it is a bold new initiative that requires dischargers to meet standards attainable by the best available technology, periodically examining new technologies in a drive to eliminate persistent toxic discharges into our waterways. The absolute discharge amounts allowed to each source are capped and new limits are set on many persistent toxic chemicals previously ignored. I believe it is a very positive initiative of this government.

I mentioned in my opening remarks the progress made on acid rain. Another area of improvement is in the area of increased fines for polluters. Amendments to Ontario’s three major environmental laws dramatically increased fines tenfold, $100,000 per day, adding jail terms of up to one year. The most dangerous offences could incur fines of $500,000 per day. This, accompanied by stricter enforcement and follow-through, is a positive initiative of this government.

Proclamation of the spills bill is another area, and there is the establishment of the $10-million security fund to provide timely and effective cleanup of spills. These are areas in addition to the ones mentioned by my colleague.

In conclusion, I would like to say that this resolution does not call for the production of more reports. I note the member for Leeds-Grenville made reference to this document, Towards a Conservation Strategy for Ontario. I have read the document and it is a fine document. I think it can help in guiding us along the way. I noticed, however, that having made reference to a report, he called for yet another report to be commissioned on population.

There may be a need for reports and studies to be done. My resolution, however, does not focus on the creation of new reports. I believe there is enough information available now about the basic principles of sustainable development, the concept that we should not be borrowing ecologically from future generations, the concept that environmental and economic issues are interrelated and that sustainable development means having decision-makers challenged in all areas of decision-making.

There is enough known about the basic principles for there to be leadership provided and direction given to all decision-makers within our areas of responsibility, so that we can become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. If that means a few decision-makers in Ontario squirm, let them squirm. This is private members’ hour and we are challenging the government to move forward, as it has done, perhaps more quickly.

As well, I would like to comment again on the final point in my resolution, which calls for an annual review and a mechanism for monitoring what all the ministries, boards and agencies are doing. I mentioned the role the Ministry of Citizenship plays in implementing the government’s multicultural policy and I noted with interest that the Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet (Mr. Elston) has been given responsibility with respect to the Ontario round table.

I find this encouraging because, along with the fine work of the Ministry of the Environment, perhaps it is important that a ministry such as Management Board, which has links to virtually every ministry, take a responsibility in this area.

I submit that this resolution, if implemented by the government, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, would be complementary to and supportive of the initiatives of the round table. We do not need to wait to find out what the round table recommends with respect to the broader strategies in our society. We can be moving in many areas within the government, within the ministries and within different departments and agencies along the way. As feasible alternatives, as feasible measures are discovered, they should be implemented.

In conclusion, I am encouraged by the positive support indicated by my colleagues in this House. The issues we are debating today on this resolution are weighty issues. They are global in impact, yet they arise from the local areas all over the planet. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we should not be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problems before us. We should be challenged by them, because the solutions can be found individually and locally within our areas of responsibility, perhaps right here in this building at Queen’s Park, in some of the things we do in our offices and in our communities. All of us should be challenged. That is the main purpose of this resolution.

I thank the members for supporting the resolution. I thank the various environmental groups that provided me with information to assist me in my research and in preparing me for today. I have enjoyed the debate. I look forward to the resolution being approved and seeing the response.

Mr. Speaker: That completes the allotted time for discussion on ballot item 59 and ballot item 60.

NORTHERN ONTARIO ARTISTS AND CULTURAL GROUPS / ARTISTES ET GROUPES CULTURELS DU NORD DE L’ONTARIO

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Campbell has moved resolution 60.

M. Campbell propose la résolution 60.

Motion agreed to.

La motion est adoptée.

ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Neumann has moved resolution 59.

Motion agreed to.

The House recessed at 12 noon.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:29 p.m.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

VOTING BY PRIVATE MEMBERS

Mr. Farnan: Yesterday, I had a very few moments to comment on the concept of a free vote for Liberal backbenchers on the issue of Bill 113 and Bill 114. We have had a statement from the Premier (Mr. Peterson) in this House that indeed every vote was a free vote.

I think we have to distinguish what we mean by a free vote. In the eyes of members of the public, a free vote is similar to a vote taken on capital punishment at the federal level, where all members were free to vote according to their convictions and consciences. In this particular matter, the Liberal members of this House have been instructed right along the line on what to say when they make a speech and what to write in their letters. We will be voting today on the issue of Bill 113 and on Monday, presumably, on Bill 114.

I am not a betting man nor am I inclined to wager, but I am prepared to offer $5 to any Liberal member who is prepared to bet. I will say that the Liberals will either vote in favour of the legislation or they will be absent from the House. Not one Liberal member will vote against this legislation, and here is $5 that says that is the way it is going to be.

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES

Mr. McCague: Last year, the Treasurer (Mr.

R. F. Nixon) went to Europe to speculate about possible tax increases in his next budget. This year, he went to England to write the epitaph for his government’s hollow, short-sighted and politically motivated opposition to the free trade agreement.

The Treasurer’s statement yesterday simply highlights the Liberals’ doubletalk and bafflegab on the FTA. The Treasurer said, for instance, that Ontario had concerns about the deal but not on the basis of tariff reduction. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. Kwinter) was singing a different tune in 1986 when he tabled reports concluding that tariff reductions would cost this province hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The Treasurer’s statement will be news to the Liberal members of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, who, in their report of last October, expressed serious concerns about tariff reductions.

We can add this to a growing list of cases which show that this is a government which not only does not do what it says it will do but does not even mean what it says. I can understand why the Treasurer leaves the country to make these kinds of statements and can only speculate that he carries a passport from the twilight zone, because that is where this government seems to develop most of its policies.

MARK AND HUGH WILSON

Mr. Owen: Despite the mild weather that has been with us here in Toronto, elsewhere in Ontario and in my riding of Simcoe Centre there has been sufficient snow to support the many thousands of Ontarians and visitors who enjoy winter activities. Simcoe Centre and Huronia as a whole offer numerous venues and opportunities for people to participate in their favourite winter sports. Cross-country skiing, in particular, is available right across our area.

Simcoe county boasts a number of competitive cross-country skiers, including Mark and Hugh Wilson. These 19-year-old twin brothers swept the top two places in the 14th Vachon Cup cross-country race held at Camp Fortune, Quebec, this past Sunday. They captured first and second in the junior free-technique 10-kilometre skating event and produced the day’s two best times, to lead 164 other senior, junior and masters racers in this sprint distance.

Mark and Hugh are members of the national junior team and have been skiing competitively for approximately nine years. They moved to Barrie from Gloucester, near Ottawa, a year and a half ago. We join their parents in the pride of their sons’ excellence in sport and assure them of our continued support and good wishes in future achievements.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mrs. Grier: I want to put on the record today some thoughts about Sunday shopping that have been movingly expressed by pupils of St. Ambrose school in my constituency.

Katherine Silviera writes: “I think that shopping on Sunday will destroy our families because moms, dads, brothers and sisters will be forced to work and be away from home. My mother works at Eaton’s Sherway. She already has to work one night a week and if she works on Sunday we won’t be able to go to mass, eat dinner together or do girly things that girls, excuse me, ladies do. Please vote for no Sunday shopping.”

Katie Antonczyk writes to tell me what is happening to the families of her friends: “We think that Sunday shopping should be stopped because it will break the love between our families. The Raparello family is breaking up, her father is gone and she hardly ever sees her brother because he is always working. The Russo family is not always together either because her father works every Sunday and he gets home all moody and grumpy. The Antonczyk family is not communicating very well either because her father works until about seven and she cannot go out or even spend some outings together.”

These young people in Etobicoke-Lakeshore have proven once again that St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians apply to this Liberal government:

“When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things. Now I see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.”

DEVELOPMENTALLY HANDICAPPED

Mr. Jackson: I rise today to bring to the attention of the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) another example of this government’s commitment to breaking promises.

In May 1987, this government announced, in typical Liberal fashion, the media release of a plan entitled Challenges and Opportunities: Community Living for People with Developmental Handicaps. The plan was announced as a seven-year program that would see the closure of institutions for the mentally handicapped. The individuals who relied on these institutions would have the opportunity for a greater quality of life by living in the community.

What the announcement did was raise hopes and expectations in parents that their children were coming home. This government’s election promise has turned into a governing excuse. This seven-year plan has now become a mysterious multi-year plan.

This government is presently putting more money into institutional care than into community living. As a result, salary imbalances are reaching crisis proportions, with loss of personnel and lowered expectations at a time of increased challenges to meet higher client needs. This government has cancelled the intermediate step program between group homes and independent apartment living. Groups like People First were created and have become enthused solely on this government’s promise to provide real jobs. The parents, who for years kept their children at home, bought this government’s promise.

I say to the Premier that the Ontario Association for Community Living and the families and children it serves are going to starve on a diet of this government’s promises.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Mr. Adams: Concern about the environment has grown to such an extent that some people have become very pessimistic about the future.

I would like to inform the House of hopeful signs in one small community, Peterborough.

We were the first of the blue box communities, after decades of volunteer, community-run recycling. The city and the province are to double the capacity of Scott’s Plains Recycling and relocate it so that it will be accessible to rural communities.

A group of grade 8 students have gained national media attention for their knowledge of the greenhouse effect. They have lobbied local politicians and have organized a group of senior high school students to take

part in a demonstration this Saturday to show their concern.

At Trent University, the Ontario Public Interest Research Group has for many years performed research and public education activities on environmental issues.

At the other end of the age spectrum, a senior citizen has arranged a public viewing next week of the award-winning TVOntario documentary on the greenhouse effect. This same person has been on more than 30 radio stations across North America discussing the disposable diaper issue.

The Mayor’s Citizens Committee on Sustainable Development is fully operational, and the community has two members sitting on the Premier’s Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy.

When young and old work to combat environmental issues, there is hope.

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Mr. Cousens: I was asked this morning by one of the people who works in this Legislative Building when we are going to do something more to promote the construction of Highway 407.

I feel I have missed an opportunity in the last few weeks. I have not had a chance to remind this House of the importance of doing something about the road networks around Metropolitan Toronto. One of the reasons I have not done that is that the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton) has not been around for us to pick on him and remind him. I hope he is not sick.

Hon. Mrs. Smith: He is sick.

Mr. Cousens: I hope he gets well soon so he can come back here and get to work on building Highway 407. This House has a responsibility to do good things across the province. I hope the minister gets better by my wishing him well.

Hon. Mr. Conway: Spend, spend, spend.

Mr. Cousens: We have to have our priorities in order. If those guys think they can successfully lead this province, they are not going to do it unless they do something to build the infrastructure for the people.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

SKILLS TRAINING

Hon. Mr. Curling: Technological advances, demographic trends and changes in international trading patterns will have a major impact on the economic environment over the next decade and will exert escalating pressures on our labour markets. If we are to remain competitive in a new global economy, Ontario will require a highly skilled and adaptable workforce. Skills training is critical to our capacity to meet these challenges.

Today, I am tabling a paper that proposes a renewed federal-provincial training partnership. It is called Building a Training System for the 1990s: A Shared Responsibility, and it outlines the province’s negotiating position for the upcoming federal-provincial training talks.

Ontario is committed to working with the federal government and its other partners to put in place an effective and positive system where adult workers can undertake training and retraining in the 1990s. The positions set out in this paper represent the directions shared through ongoing talks with labour-market ministries across Canada as well as Ontario’s training community.

The federal-provincial partnership is governed by an agreement on training which was signed in 1986 and is due to expire March 31, 1989. The negotiation of a new set of agreements between our two governments presents an opportunity to review the partnership and ensure it is appropriate to the challenges facing the province in the next decade.

Ontario is committed to working with the federal government to ensure that federal expenditures complement provincial efforts to build a training system. Towards this end, Ontario will continue to advocate a number of changes in federal policy.

These principles for federal action will guide the government of Ontario as we renegotiate our training agreement with the federal government leading up to March 31.

We are negotiating another agreement with the federal government. An agreement to enhance the employability of social assistance recipients will provide an important opportunity to improve self-employment prospects of benefit recipients. We are keen to sign such an agreement within the context of our larger training relationship with Ottawa.

Now that the federal cabinet has been sworn in and my counterpart, Ms. McDougall, is continuing as Minister of Employment and Immigration, may I take this opportunity to congratulate her on her reappointment. The government of Ontario welcomes the opportunity that her reappointment will bring and I look forward to meeting with her at the first opportunity to begin our negotiations.

BEEF MARKETING

Hon. Mr. Riddell: I rise to inform the members of this House of an announcement about the beef cattle industry in Ontario. As I stated in this House at an earlier date, Ontario beef cattle producers will have an opportunity to vote on two questions affecting the future of the marketing system for their industry.

The vote comes as the result of a recommendation made by the Beef Marketing Task Force, which I established in February 1988 with the mandate to develop a plan of action aimed at achieving a long-term, viable beef industry in Ontario. In forming the 16-member Beef Marketing Task Force, every effort was made to ensure representation from all sectors of the beef cattle marketplace. The task force was supported by the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association and the Beef Producers for Change, both of which were represented on the task force.

The Beef Marketing Task Force recommended that beef cattle producers in Ontario be allowed to vote on whether they want to alter their present marketing system. The vote, which will be held on April 14, is being conducted by the Farm Products Marketing Commission through a mail-in ballot asking producers two questions:

1. Are you in favour of the proposed producer-controlled marketing commission which would regulate the sale of all beef cattle in Ontario?

2. Are you in favour of the above proposed producer-controlled marketing commission working toward a national beef cattle marketing plan with the authority to manage supply and determine price?

I want to make it clear to the members of this House that these questions were developed by the consensus of a vote committee representing the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association, Beef Producers for Change and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. The group also prepared an information package which will be mailed with the ballot.

The vote committee has agreed upon and set the voter eligibility criteria to involve all Ontario producers who produced four or more head of beef cattle for at least 45 consecutive days in 1987 or 1988. Beef cattle includes dairy and beef breeds.

As well, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food is arranging a series of 41 information meetings across Ontario in late March and early April. The meetings will take the form of a debate between representatives of the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association and the Beef Producers for Change. In addition, we are installing a toll-free information line.

The results of the vote will be announced in May, at which time I will accept the vote of 60 per cent as a clear signal that producers want to alter their marketing system.

This vote seeks the consensus of beef cattle producers to decide their future marketing system. I am pleased that the ministry could act as a facilitator in establishing the groundwork for this very important vote, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank chairman Dr. Ken McDermid and the members of the task force and the vote committee for their commitment and dedication toward this important endeavour.

RESPONSES

SKILLS TRAINING

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would like to respond to the statement of the Minister of Skills Development (Mr. Curling) based on the report he is introducing today regarding building a training system as a shared responsibility. He lays down what it is the federal government should do, which is an interesting notion of sharing.

I thought perhaps it would be good for members to know and for the public to know what this government’s part of that responsibility has been and how it has neglected its responsibilities on training.

This government has committed itself to increasing the number of women in apprenticeships and increasing the percentage of women taking apprenticeships in Ontario. Members will be interested to know that although apprenticeships are up to 45,000 this year, about the number they were back in the early 1980s, the percentage of women in apprenticeships has dropped, has actually dropped.

Let’s look at their Transitions program, which is a training program for older workers, a much vaunted program of which they have been able to spend barely a pittance, a tiny proportion of the $8 million initially slotted for this. Why? Because the criteria are absolutely useless to most of the workers who wish to participate. It is not the kind of program that is at all useful.

If it were a program that started when we knew a plant was going to be shut down, as I said to the minister during the estimates, if it were something we could get into the plant six months before those workers were laid off so they could be retrained for specific work, then it would be useful, but as it is now, hardly anybody is even bothering to participate.

Let’s look at the emphasis on apprenticeship versus other programs in the money that actually goes in from this government. Let’s remember that most of the money that goes in is actually federal dollars.

There is very little provincial money that actually goes into apprenticeship at all, except if you are a university graduate and you want to be an international marketing intern; then this government will give IBM Canada $30,000 over two years to allow this marketing intern to participate in that poor, impoverished corporation, while it will only give a tradesman, who maybe needs $6,000 or $7,000 or $8,000 worth of tools, $750 towards his tool needs. That is the priority of this government in terms of training.

Let’s look at the fact that this government has no concept at all of what the number of apprenticeship categories should be, how we should increase those or what the role should be in terms of meeting the targets that were set. For instance, this minister and his deputy minister told the government and cabinet that they could not meet the target of 60,000 apprentices they had promised with the resources they have, and yet this cabinet said they could have no more money. They have already decided they are not even going to bother to try to meet those kinds of criteria.

There is a lot missing from this statement of shared responsibility, and that is perhaps because this government has taken none.

BEEF MARKETING

Mr. Wildman: I would like to respond to the statement by the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell). At the outset, I would like to say that we are happy to see that the committee has reached a consensus. It is a long-awaited one, and I am glad that the vote is going to be taken.

Obviously, the crucial questions were the wording of the questions and the definition of a beef producer. I note, though, that in the wording of the questions that the committee has arrived at, producers are being asked if they are in favour of a system which will be a national one or working towards a national one.

While we agree that is certainly desirable, whatever the decision, we wonder what this government will do in Ontario if 60 or more per cent of the producers voting and who are eligible to vote choose a change in the marketing system. Is this government then going to be prepared to act in Ontario to establish a new marketing system, perhaps with supply management, if that is the desire of the producers? We should be working for a national plan whatever the decision, but we also should be acting on the wishes of the producers in Ontario in the interim.

Mr. McCague: I would like to make a comment or two on the statement from the Minister of Agriculture and Food. I am pleased to do this on behalf of my colleague the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve), who is studying agriculture in another jurisdiction at the moment.

It is hard to argue with the statement that the minister has made today. I just wonder, though. It is a well-known fact that the Beef Producers for Change wanted specific reference in the question to costs of production. I can only hope that they can live with this question, which, as the minister says, has been developed through co-operation and the two associations.

Although this is long-awaited and has been promised for several months, we are happy to see that the minister is now about to put the question before the farmers.

SKILLS TRAINING

Mr. Cousens: I would like to make a few remarks to the Minister of Skills Development (Mr. Curling). Shame on him, shame.

How can he begin to say he is going to have negotiations with the federal government when he starts off by lambasting it in this presentation? He just does not know how to negotiate with another political power when he is going to start it that way. Just shame on him. He has not learned a thing. Two years in the job and he does not know how to begin to set up a relationship.

The federal government in 1987-88 agreed to give this government of Ontario $35 million and ended up giving it more than that: $37.4 million. In 1988-89, they agreed to $37 million and ended up giving $37 million. The fiscal irresponsibility starts with the minister. He thought he should get a little bit more, and because he could not live within it, he starts blaming them.

His statement today says the federal government should do that, they should implement this; not once does he say, “Thanks.” If he is going to have a working relationship with another level of government, he should start working together with it and give credit where it is due. They are giving the leadership and he is following. He is not even doing a good job following.

Mr. Jackson: I too would like to comment on the announcement today by the Minister of Skills Development, an interesting document with its typical red Liberal gash on it. For the second time in as many weeks, he states this government’s commitment to a negotiating position.

The government of Ontario will take any group down the path on a negotiating process past an election, to the gate and then it will drop its hand. That has been the reputation that this government has now achieved in terms of negotiating processes.

In terms of reaffirming its commitment, why was it that this minister’s predecessor announced that 1987 was going to be the year of apprenticeship and then found out that not even a single person from the Ministry of Education was invited to help build that system?

Mr. Cousens: Not one?

Mr. Jackson: Not one person from the Ministry of Education. We have seen a decline in provincial dollars in programs that are 100 per cent financed here in Ontario. We have seen the women in trades and technology program and older worker programs with 100 per cent Ontario dollars phased out. We are seeing those programs phased out.

This government cannot point a finger at the federal government and talk about its commitment when this government’s own is declining. The fact of the matter is, and I agree with my colleague the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston), that this document is an admission that Ontario under this Premier (David Peterson) lacks the vision, lacks the planning and lacks the management necessary to develop a world-class workforce.

ORAL QUESTIONS

RENT REGULATION

Mr. Breaugh: I have a question for the Minister of Housing. The numbers are out now for the rent review process as of the end of December. We are gradually whittling away at a process and a little bit more than 22 per cent of the rental units in Ontario are still caught in the process. In another decade or so, this system may work.

My question is precisely about the decisions that have been reached. Can the minister explain why better than 90,000 tenants who have now had a decision from the rent review process have been faced with an average increase of 11.4 per cent when the announced guidelines are somewhere around 4.7 per cent and the rate of inflation is at a similar level? How does the minister explain that w