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December 18, 1997

36th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

L264 - Thu 18 Dec 1997 / Jeu 18 Déc 1997

ORDERS OF THE DAY

FISH AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LA PROTECTION DU POISSON ET DE LA FAUNE

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

ARTS AND CULTURAL FUNDING

HOLIDAY MESSAGES

BRUCE GENERATING STATION

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

ATOM EGOYAN

STRATHROY FOODS

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

TORONTO BOARD OF EDUCATION

WINTER CARNIVALS

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND PRIVATE BILLS

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ONTARIO HYDRO NUCLEAR AFFAIRS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

TECHNOLOGY FOR CLASSROOMS TAX CREDIT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LE CRÉDIT D'IMPÔT FAVORISANT L'EMP/ LOI DE LA TECHNOLOGIE DANS LES SALLES DE CLASSE

ORAL QUESTIONS

NORTH YORK BRANSON HOSPITAL

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

PENSION FUNDS

ASSISTANCE TO DISABLED STUDENTS

IPPERWASH PROVINCIAL PARK

CHILDREN'S SERVICES

HIGHWAY 407

CHARITABLE GAMING

BEAR HUNTING

EDUCATION FINANCING

WAWA ECONOMY

POST-TEACHERS'-STRIKE COMPENSATION

PETITIONS

PAY EQUITY

CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH CARE

CERTIFIED GENERAL ACCOUNTANTS

CHILD CARE

CERTIFIED GENERAL ACCOUNTANTS

TVONTARIO

COURT DECISION

EDUCATION FINANCING

COURT DECISION

RÉFORME DU SYSTÈME D'ÉDUCATION

ABORTION

BEAR HUNTING

FIRE IN HAMILTON

EDUCATION REFORM AND ABORTION

CASINO GAMBLING

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH CARE

EDUCATION REFORM

RÉFORME DU SYSTÈME D'ÉDUCATION

ORDERS OF THE DAY

FISH AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LA PROTECTION DU POISSON ET DE LA FAUNE

MILK AMENDMENT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR LE LAIT

STREAMLINING OF ADMINISTRATION OF PROVINCIAL OFFENCES ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SIMPLIFIANT L'ADMINISTRATION EN CE QUI A TRAIT AUX INFRACTIONS PROVINCIALES

SUPPLY ACT, 1997 / LOI DE CRÉDITS DE 1997

CITY OF BRAMPTON ACT, 1997

LONDON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ACT, 1997

JAMAICAN CANADIAN ASSOCIATION ACT, 1997

INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED JUDAIC STUDIES ACT, 1997

UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS' DAY ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LE JOUR DES LOYALISTES DE L'EMPIRE-UNI

STATUS OF BUSINESS

COMMITTEE REPORTS

COMMITTEE SITTINGS

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

HOLIDAY MESSAGES

ROYAL ASSENT SANCTION ROYALE

PROROGATION SPEECH DISCOURS DE PROROGATION

The House met at 1001.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

FISH AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LA PROTECTION DU POISSON ET DE LA FAUNE

Hon Mr Snobelen moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 139,

An Act to promote the conservation of fish and wildlife through the revision of the Game and Fish Act / Projet de loi 139, Loi visant à promouvoir la protection du poisson et de la faune en révisant la

Loi sur la chasse et la pêche.

Hon John Snobelen (Minister of Natural Resources): To the joy of thousands and the encouragement of my colleagues, I'll be sharing my time with the member for Halton North this morning.

Today I'm introducing, for third reading, Bill 139, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act. This government recognizes that effective management of the province's fish and wildlife resources is essential to the environmental, social and economic wellbeing of Ontario. The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act demonstrates our commitment to effective management of our natural resources. This act will strengthen Ontario's efforts in conserving and managing the province's valuable fish and wildlife resources. The act will do this by toughening enforcement provisions, protecting and managing a broader range of species, and improving our client service.

We have known for a long time that the current Game and Fish Act is inadequate to meet the needs of Ontario's fish and wildlife resources. Over the last two decades, all three parties have attempted to make major legislative changes to the Game and Fish Act. I'm pleased to say that we have been successful, where other governments have failed, because we built on a strong consensus among stakeholders. We've done the work and the consulting needed to win that support.

I'm proud to be able to introduce Bill 139 for third reading and finish the work begun by Premier Mike Harris when he was Minister of Natural Resources. In building support for this legislation, we used all previous attempts to make legislative changes to the Game and Fish Act as a starting point in developing the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act.

I'd like to acknowledge the previous efforts and ongoing cooperation of all three parties and, in particular, the previous minister, Chris Hodgson. I'd also like to thank the many people right across Ontario who have helped to bring forward a bill that reflects a great deal of consensus and has earned broad support.

We received valuable input during consultation on this legislation from client groups representing a variety of interests, including recreational hunting and fishing, commercial fishing and wildlife industries, animal welfare, agriculture, naturalists and tourist operators. I'm pleased to say that the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act is strongly supported by an impressive range of organizations concerned with Ontario's natural resources. We built support for this bill because we consulted, we listened and we responded to our clients.

Our clients told us that stricter enforcement provisions were needed. The new act will serve as a warning to poachers that Ontario will not tolerate abuses to our fish and wildlife. Offenders will face the toughest penalties in Ontario's history. Those convicted of commercial offences under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act will be subject to fines of up to $100,000. We've added jail terms as penalties for offences under the act. With this change, courts will have the power to order offenders to perform community service.

Through our consultation we heard from many client groups and members of the public about the protection and management of black bears. The new act has a number of important changes that provide greater protection for black bears. It would prohibit interfering with a black bear in its den or intentionally destroying its den and prohibits the possession of black bear gall bladders separated from the carcass. By prohibiting the possession of gall bladders in this way, we will have an effective tool against the illegal trade of gall bladders, which has been of significant international concern.

The black bear has also been added to the list of species that may not be hunted while the animal is swimming.

Our clients also told us that the new legislation should not just focus on game species such as white-tailed deer, black bear and wild turkey. One of the important changes reflected in the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act is that a broader range of species will be included. The new act provides for the protection and management of specially protected species such as the southern flying squirrel, the blue racer snake, the redback salamander and - one of my personal favourites - the spicebush swallowtail butterfly. I know that has your attention too, Mr Speaker.

A long-standing complaint with the current Game and Fish Act is that it is outdated and confusing, even for those who use it regularly. The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act is better organized, making it easier to use and to understand. Following first reading of the act, several groups of individuals suggested amendments to this bill. I'm pleased to say that we've responded to that input. We have incorporated a number of changes to the legislation. I'd like to highlight some of those changes.

We defined the use of the term "aquaculture" in the act to recognize this important and growing industry. We amended

section 13 of the act to clarify the prohibition on harassment of people who are legally hunting, fishing and trapping. Subsection 24(2) of the act states, "A person shall not use a boat for the purpose of killing, injuring, capturing, harassing, pursuing or chasing wildlife." This provision gives enforcement staff a mechanism to address clearly unethical situations. For example, it would prevent someone from using a watercraft to chase a nesting bird away from a nest. However, some members felt this subsection might infringe on the ability to reach an appropriate site from which to hunt legally.

We listened to the concerns and, to clarify the situation, we've included an amendment that, through regulation, will provide for exemptions to the general prohibition.

Currently, a person must obtain a dog licence when using a dog to hunt white-tailed deer, moose and elk. Our clients told us that there should be a similar requirement for persons using a dog to hunt black bear. We've amended the act to ensure this is a consistent approach with respect to big game hunting.

Section 36 of the act prohibits a person from abandoning or allowing the spoilage of fish and wildlife. We've made an amendment to the bill to allow for an exemption on the prohibition because we recognize there are situations where this is necessary to prevent or control the spread of disease. We amended

section 88 to clarify that a conservation officer may also inspect associated ammunition when inspecting a firearm for the purposes of the act or the regulations.

I've touched on just a few of the many ways in which the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act will improve our ability to sustain and manage our province's fish and wildlife resources. I believe we've listened to our clients through the long journey of this bill, including the important amendments we have recently made. The passage of this bill will fulfil a promise this government made to the people of Ontario, all of whom value our natural resources to bring forward tough legislation for fish and wildlife protection in this province.

Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton North): I'm very pleased - a great deal of pleasure - to rise in the House today and speak in support of Bill 139, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act. This act has been a long time coming. As the minister mentioned, it, or

an act very similar to it, was first introduced in 1985 by the then Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Michael Harris. It was again introduced by the Peterson government, by Vince Kerrio, in this House, following the Peterson victory. It was again introduced by Mr Bud Wildman, who was then Minister of Natural Resources under the Rae administration. Finally, it was reintroduced again by the Honourable Chris Hodgson as Minister of Natural Resources last year and has reached this point in the Legislature under the guidance of the Honourable John Snobelen, now Minister of Natural Resources.

It has taken a lot of people a lot of time to get this bill to the point it is at today. I would be remiss if I didn't thank the member for Algoma-Manitoulin for his support of this bill through second reading and the committee hearings, along with the member for Sudbury East, who with their parties supported this legislation and, with their amendments and comments, have made this a better piece of legislation throughout that process.

The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act sets the stage for a very effective management of our fish and wildlife resources into the next century.

As the Honourable Minister of Natural Resources has mentioned, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act was developed through extensive consultations with a large number of client groups. A number of those client groups, including the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Animal Alliance of Canada, the World Wildlife Fund, the Ontario Hawking Club and the Northern Ontario Tourist Outfitters Association, made presentations on Bill 139 to the standing committee on general government last week.

The input from these client groups and from the committee members representing all three parties was invaluable in making the amendments the minister described earlier. I would like to thank them, the client groups and the committee members for their efforts and assistance.

All too often we refer to the bureaucrats in the government in - what should I say? - less than glowing terms, but let me say that the civil servants in the Ministry of Natural Resources helped us put together this act and do much of the informal consultation prior to getting the bill to this point in time. I make note of those individuals and thank them for their commitment to this bill.

There is extremely strong support among our client groups for this bill and I am pleased that we have been able to make such substantial progress on this very important issue.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Questions or comments?

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): It is nice to see a piece of legislation go through this House supported by all parties, to be sure, but we cannot forget the fact that it's nice to pass these laws but if you don't have the conservation officers to enforce them, you really haven't done anything at all. When we look at the fact that 20% of all the conservation officers we had within the Ministry of Natural Resources have been let go or fired or eliminated, there are simply too few people left to make the necessary inspections, to make sure that the laws of this province as they relate to natural resources are being adhered to.

The other interesting fact of course, which bears right on that same issue as well, is when you look at the amount of money we're spending in natural resources. Just two years ago we spent over $519 million to make sure that the natural resources of this province were properly managed and looked after by the province. That now is down to $369 million, a drop of $150 million, which in effect means that the ability of this ministry to do its work has been reduced by some 33%.

So I say to the minister, yes, we support this law, but at the same time you want to have enough resources within your government department to make sure the inspections that will be required under the new act and regulations will be properly done. Currently that's simply not the case. There are too few people we've got as conservation officers and it is high time we change that perspective or we change the way we're doing that right now.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I guess my question to the minister would be this: On the one hand you say you're strengthening the act to make sure that we protect the wildlife and we protect fish habitat. I guess it's two questions. The first one is, I want to know how the ministry is going to do that given that there are half the employees in the Ministry of Natural Resources there were, let's say, two years ago.

I think the minister and most members of this House would understand and agree that if you're going to put a law in place, it takes a certain number of people to go out there and look and inspect what's happening out in the bush, check out what's happening and at the same time enforce the actual law itself. So my first question to the minister is, how do you plan to enforce this law if you don't have the staff at the Ministry of Natural Resources to go out and do the type of site inspections that need to be done?

The second question I would have is this: When the minister, in June 1997, got up with great fanfare and introduced his bill he said, "We're going to get tough. We're going to protect fish wildlife. This is what this is all about. We're going to do a really good job," but then there was an internal memo dated August 14, 1997, from the deputy minister which said, "The Ministry of Natural Resources will no longer review proposals to determine if proposed work will destroy fish habitat."

Isn't that interesting?

On the one hand, the government says they're going to be strengthening the legislation in order to protect fish habitat and on the other hand their own internal memo is saying, "We're not going to go and inspect anything that happens with lumber companies or prospectors or mining companies that go into the bush, that need to cross creeks in order to do work." Of course we have to allow them to cross a creek to do the work, but there are certain methods of doing that that protect fish wildlife, and the Ministry of Natural Resources is saying, "We're not going to send anybody into the bush in order to inspect what happens and how this is done." So my question is, how are you going to protect fish wildlife without the ministry staff needed to be able to do that and without an inspection of those permits?

Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): I'm pleased to rise and add my commendation to the minister and the parliamentary assistant for having brought this bill forward, and also to appreciate the support of the members of the opposition for this bill. I had the privilege of sitting on the committee that heard representations and I can say that various groups from across the province came forward to commend this government on bringing this bill, which had been contemplated by many governments to this point, forward to the point we're at now for third reading.

Also, as the member of provincial Parliament for the riding of York-Mackenzie, I received many submissions from constituents. One of those letters came to me from Mr Neil Traverse of Newmarket. I'd like to just read what was contained in his letter and also in many other letters we received from people across the province. He urges us, regarding Bill 139 and the fish and wildlife of Ontario, saying that they need the support of this government through this bill.

The indication in this letter is that this bill is particularly important in the sections dealing with increases in fines for poaching, closing the loopholes in the law for animals poached from other jurisdictions, and the special purpose account that uses the money from angling and hunting licences for conservation. He goes on to say that all of these are needed to improve the management of Ontario's wildlife.

Many other organizations, ranging from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Animal Alliance of Canada, the World Wildlife Fund and many other organizations from across this province and in fact across this country, have come forward to commend this government for bringing forward this very important bill.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions or comments? If not, the minister for two minutes.

Hon Mr Snobelen: I want to thank the member for York-Mackenzie for his comments this morning and make note of the fact that the member was the parliamentary assistant during the time this bill was introduced and certainly did much of the consultation work with groups across the province. He is to be commended for that work.

I also take note of the comments by members of the opposition and the third party. Of course I have listened intently to those comments and will take those views into account when we manage this act after it has been passed and received royal assent.

I also note today that there is a certain kind of warmth and kindness in the remarks that hasn't necessarily been present when I have introduced other bills in this House. I can only assume that's because of the festive season and also because of the commitment to the preservation of fish and wildlife in Ontario.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I'm pleased to rise and participate in third reading debate on the Game and Fish Act. Having spoken to it already on second reading, I want to acknowledge that I am indeed a former Minister of Natural Resources, as I did acknowledge when I spoke on second reading of the bill, I say to the parliamentary assistant.

Therefore, yes, I am one of the people who have looked at versions of the Game and Fish Act in the past, part of one of those previous governments that has wanted to see amendments brought forward to the Game and Fish Act but has not seen it carried forward to the stage we're at today, which is third reading on an amended Game and Fish Act. On second reading I expressed a sentiment that I think is shared by members of the House, that we're glad to see that at least this

section of the amendments to the Game and Fish Act is going to come forward.

I do, however, think it's equally important to acknowledge that one of the reasons this particular version of the Game and Fish Act and its amendments is coming forward for third reading is that the controversial issues which had delayed this act coming forward for previous governments, which indeed have been engaged in discussions about this for what seems like many years - the act and the amendments had been proposed well before I became minister and that was some eight years ago if my calculations are correct, so this debate has been going on for some time.

The reason it is coming forward today for third reading is that the most controversial issues that have stalled the finalization of the amendments to this act for past governments, over a number of years, have simply not been dealt with by the government. There are two in particular and I know they have received some extensive comment at the second reading debate, but I think they deserve to be mentioned again as this goes to third reading, because we don't want these controversial issues to disappear and never be dealt with again.

One of those is the whole issue of the domestic farming of wildlife species. This has caused considerable concern for people in the hunting fraternity, as well as for people in the Ministry of Natural Resources and people who are concerned about what effect wildlife species being imported for domestic farming purposes - because you cannot farm native wildlife species - may have on our ability to provide for conservation of our own native wildlife species.

This is an ongoing question that causes ongoing concerns. It's not dealt with in the amendments to the Game and Fish Act that are before us today, and there is not a chance it is going to get dealt with in the half day of hearings that were to have been devoted to this particular act. So it's an outstanding issue that I believe the government of the day needs to continue to grapple with.

A second controversial issue that is not dealt with, that again is of ongoing concern, is the whole question of fish farming. I know that people who are involved in aquaculture have considerable concerns about certain parts of the Game and Fish Act. I think their concerns need to be heard, they need to be addressed, and if it means the current government or a future government has to come to grips with further amendments to the Game and Fish Act, so be it. I don't think these long-standing concerns can simply be ignored now that there is to be some proceeding with a process of amending the Game and Fish Act.

Those are two of the controversial issues that I think have been left out. If I address what is in the act, obviously we are all going to be supportive of measures which allow greater conservation of game and fish. As a northerner, I am obviously going to rise in support of measures which will enhance conservation. I spoke on second reading about the importance of natural resources to the economy of northern Ontario, and I can't emphasize that enough.

This may not seem to be - apart from the parliamentary assistant and the Minister of Natural Resources - one of the issues of greatest political importance, unless you happen to come from northern Ontario where the management of natural resources is indeed a matter of great importance, because it's crucial to our economy.

It's for that reason that we will be supportive of measures which enhance conservation, but we cannot speak to that and lend our support to this without putting it into the context of what this government has done to make it virtually impossible to enforce the very conservation measures it is putting forward, with considerable pride, in this bill.

You cannot enforce effective conservation, of the amended Game and Fish Act or any of the regulations relating to the conservation of our natural resources, if you do not have enough physical and financial resources within the Ministry of Natural Resources to provide for the enforcement. You cannot provide enforcement if your conservation officers are spending a large part of their time behind the desk doing administrative work, as is indeed the case.

The threatened cutback to conservation officers has not proceeded, but the lack of time our conservation officers have to actually be out in the bush, doing the monitoring and doing the enforcement of the Game and Fish Act, has been considerably reduced.

Beyond that, there is an inability now on the part of the Ministry of Natural Resources to do the kind of monitoring, the kind of auditing which is necessary if you're going to be involved in real conservation of natural resources. As a former minister, I know the demands of audit. I know that at the point of time at which I was involved as Minister of Natural Resources there was an almost desperate need to have an audit of our timber resources. It is a time-consuming, costly process and a process which has to be carried on on an ongoing basis if you're going to effectively manage our timber resources, clearly one of our key economic natural resources.

There is also an essential need to provide for audit of our wildlife species, so as we talk about Game and Fish Act amendments, we talk about enforcement that will enhance the preservation of wildlife species. You can't do that unless you have some audit of how healthy the wildlife species are. The first call I got from a concerned constituent when I became Minister of Natural Resources - I remember it well, on a Sunday afternoon - was from somebody who believed that the ministry's assessment of its wildlife species was totally inaccurate and that decisions being made to regulate hunting were being made on the basis of inaccurate data.

I don't know whether that particular constituent's claim was right or wrong and whether the ministry's data were accurate or not accurate, but my point is it is again a costly, time-consuming process, a labour-intensive process, in order to be able to carry out an effective audit of the health of our wildlife species.

The same thing is true when it comes to fisheries conservation, whether we're talking about management of the fisheries for recreational purposes or management of the fisheries for commercial purposes. You cannot provide for a regulatory framework that allows effective conservation as a resource, so that it can be managed for both recreational and commercial use, unless you know how healthy the fish stocks are.

I have talked to commercial fishermen on Lake Erie who said they don't think the Ministry of Natural Resources is able to do an effective audit of the health of our fisheries resource, so how can they decide what the fisheries quotas should be, and yet that determination of the fisheries quota is absolutely crucial to the economic health of our commercial fisheries and, in turn, has a direct bearing on what the allocation is for recreational fishing, which has an important economic impact on communities right across the province.

The fishermen on Lake Erie said to me, "Unless you have natural resources people who can actually go out on the boat, so that they understand what is actually happening when you're out there fishing, then you cannot have a good sense of the health of our fisheries resource."

What's the point of my raising all of these issues around audit, whether it's of timber or wildlife or fisheries? It's because in each of these areas you've got to have the knowledge to provide the regulations that allow for conservation, and in each of the areas it is both costly and labour-intensive, and so when we talk about the Game and Fish Act and we talk about new conservation measures and the importance of enforcing that, we have to come back to the fact that this government, the Mike Harris government that is bringing this bill forward, has cut back the budget for the Ministry of Natural Resources by some 22%.

When the parliamentary assistant thanks the staff of the Ministry of Natural Resources - and as a former minister I want to second the thanks that are given to the staff of the Ministry of Natural Resources - let's recognize the fact that he is thanking some 2,000 fewer people than were in the Ministry of Natural Resources, on their staff, when the Harris government came into office. I do think it is - I'm not sure if the word "hypocrisy" is parliamentary language, Mr Speaker, and I know that you are very intent on watching parliamentary language.

Let me say it is one thing to speak on the one hand about the importance of conservation, new conservation measures and enforcement of these conservation measures, and on the other hand to have cut 22% of the budget of the ministry that is responsible for monitoring and for enforcement, and to have 2,000 fewer people out in the field who can actually carry on that monitoring and that enforcement.

I don't think those two realities fit together. That is why, although I can be supportive of new conservation measures, I am not optimistic that they can actually be made effective in the field.

I hope the minister, as he makes his comments with some pride about bringing this bill forward for third reading, if he is sincere in that pride and in his commitment to conservation and to the management of our natural resources, will persuade his cabinet colleagues and the Premier of Ontario and the Minister of Finance that natural resources are indeed important economically to this province, important to the future of this province, and deserve better than having the budget of the ministry that provides for the management of those natural resources slashed and its personnel cut in half.

Because we're talking about the Game and Fish Act, I won't get into the actual economic impact on northern Ontario communities of losing those 2,000 jobs, because of course the predominant number of staff cuts affected northern Ontario communities and that had a significant economic impact on our communities.

Let me just again stress the fact that in northern Ontario particularly, the management of our natural resources is crucial for our economy and for our future. It cannot be done effectively if the Ministry of Natural Resources is somehow reduced to being a junior ministry, and its minister is brought out only to present amendments to the Game and Fish Act - an important part of the management of our natural resources, and I don't want to underplay it, but only one part of our management of natural resources, and even that

part cannot be carried out effectively unless there are adequate personnel and adequate resources given to the Ministry of Natural Resources.

If this sounds like a plea to recognize the importance of what this bill supposedly addresses, it is, because I think it is important and has to be acknowledged as such in every aspect of the ministry's and the government's operations.

With that in my mind, I want to turn to a couple of the issues that are important to the management of our natural resources, that are relevant to this act but are not addressed in the amendments before us, and would not appropriately - let me acknowledge that - be addressed in this specific act. But I think it's important we recognize that conservation of game and fisheries cannot proceed in the absence of effective conservation of other areas of our natural resources.

I am concerned, therefore, that the whole issue of timber management is not being dealt with adequately by this government in spite of the fact that there was considerable time, a tremendous effort and a great deal of money devoted to something called the class environmental assessment of timber management.

I'm fairly familiar with the class environmental assessment on timber management because I was the minister at the time that began. There was a lot of controversy about whether that should have taken as long or cost as much as it did. There was a lot of controversy, even then, about whether or not a focus on timber management was adequate to address all of the related issues involved in forestry management, which includes the management of our game and our fisheries.

Nevertheless, it was a costly, time-consuming effort focusing again on one part of resource management, forest management, but broadening in the course of that to touch on other issues related to forest management, to recognize the interrelatedness of the whole management of forestry, timber, game, wildlife resources and fisheries resources, because you can't talk about one separately from another.

That was a basis on which this government could have proceeded to take some very significant actions in the management, not only of our timber resources, of our game and fish resources, but of our whole forest management. What did they do instead? They cut back on the funding that was to have been devoted to implementing the recommendations of the class environmental assessment on timber management. They cut $19 million out of the budget that was devoted to that.

What does that say about this government's actual commitment to the management, not only of timber but of forestry? If you're seriously concerned about the Game and Fish Act and the conservation measures that are about to be adopted, why would you not be equally concerned as a government about implementing the recommendations of the environmental assessment on timber management, those recommendations having a very direct bearing on the management of our wildlife and our fisheries resources?

If you want to talk about wildlife, talk about caribou, talk about moose, talk about the kind of interrelationship between the management of timber and the way in which we harvest our forest for timber purposes and what that does in terms of the habitat for caribou or for moose. They're interrelated issues. Unless as a government you are prepared to devote resources - financial and personnel - to the whole area of forestry management, then you're not going to effectively manage the wildlife resource or the fisheries resource, let alone the timber resource.

Cutting $19 million from implementing those recommendations was really not an adequate response from a government that purports to be concerned about these issues.

The government of course is involved in an extensive exercise looking at Lands for Life. This could potentially be a very positive exercise. It's an important one, and I want to recognize the importance of that exercise. It's an exercise that is extremely important to northern Ontario and extremely important to the management of our natural resources.

The outcome of the Lands for Life process could result in essentially a dividing up of a huge land mass in Ontario - almost 90% of the land mass of northern Ontario. If anybody has actually seen a map of Ontario, you'll realize what a huge part of the total land mass of Ontario we're talking about here, when we're talking about 90% of the land mass of northern Ontario being discussed at a table with a group of individuals who will make recommendations to government. Government alone will have the power to decide in what way northern Ontario is to be divided up.

The decisions that are made there are going to have an enormous effect, not only on the management of our resources but on the economy of northern Ontario and of the province itself.

Yet the concern all of us have, even as we endorse the importance of the Lands for Life process, is that there will not be enough time devoted to this process, that the report will be called for before there has been a full consideration of the huge sweep of issues that are being debated in the Lands for Life process, and that once again, there will not be due consultation on the recommendations the government is considering.

Let me make another plea, while there is still time, to a government that has curtailed the consultation process on virtually everything they've done for the last two years, a government that would prefer to see recommendations which bring about sweeping changes to health care, to education, to the way in which our municipalities are managed, to see those changes brought forward with no consultation at all.

We have a government that has forced opposition members to do sit-ins in the House and bring in thousands of amendments to bills just to have time for some public consultation on issues that bring about enormous changes in the way in which we are governed.

I say to that government that has so little regard for the consultation process, please, when you get the Lands for Life recommendations, and when you're about to take decisions that will have a bearing on northern Ontario's economy with implications for the future that, if you're not a northerner, are almost imaginable, please give us time to look at those recommendations, to have some broad public consultation on the recommendations so that northerners get a chance to say how northern Ontario should be managed and how our resources should be managed.

Mr Speaker, I am conscious that my colleague is anxious to speak before he has to leave for another event, so there are just two other areas I want to touch on that for me are so fundamentally important to resource management that, although I've spoken briefly to them on second reading of the bill, I feel called upon to mention again today.

One is the issue of parks management. Obviously parks management is part of the Lands for Life management, it's part of timber management, it's part of forest management, and it's something where I find the government's policy confusing to say the least. When I spoke on second reading, I thought it was appropriate to mention that the government had received an F about a year and a half ago from the World Wildlife Fund for its failure to acknowledge and protect ecologically significant areas in Ontario.

I acknowledged, and I think the parliamentary assistant said in his comments, that the government had moved up I think to a C in a subsequent rating because they had set aside some additional to preserve ecologically significant areas.

I acknowledge that they have made some steps in the direction of setting aside ecologically significant lands, but I want to make it very clear that neither the World Wildlife Fund nor anybody who is genuinely concerned about the management of our parks is going to be supportive of a government that, on the one hand - I can't use the word "hypocrisy," so I won't - sets aside lands for ecologically significant reasons, as if they were protecting those lands as parks, and, on the other hand, cuts back on parks management and puts in place a policy that says any park in Ontario must be able to pay for itself or it will be closed or sold off.

I can't reconcile those two parts of a policy related to parks: a government that wants to impress the World Wildlife Fund that it warrants a C+ instead of an F because it's setting aside lands for parks management with a government that says that if any park in Ontario can't pay for itself, it is going to be closed down or privatized. We've already seen the shutting down of a number of our parks. I will tell you that you cannot run a natural environment park or a wilderness park like Quetico Provincial Park in my part of the province on a pay-as-you-go basis.

You can't run it like a tourist-oriented KOA, and yet that's what the policy of this government is, to run our parks, even our wilderness parks, as if they were commercially operated KOAs.

I want to know, if this government is serious about conservation, if it values getting from an F to a C+ in the World Wildlife Fund rating for what it's prepared to do on conservation of parks, is it prepared to change the policy put in place by the previous Minister of Natural Resources?

I would love to hear the minister or the parliamentary assistant stand up today and tell me, "That policy that was articulated by Mr Hodgson" - that is recorded in Hansard, so if you want to check whether he said it or not, it's there - "that says that parks have to pay as they go, that they have to be able to prove that they are revenue-neutral," if we can still use that word in Ontario, "that they're not costing the government anything to run, that that policy that was articulated by Mr Hodgson has been withdrawn, repudiated, repealed by the government today." If I could hear that kind of statement from this government, I could then believe that we had a government that was seriously prepared to revisit its approach to conservation and to management of our natural resources.

If they are not prepared to repeal that policy, then I am very afraid that any recognition of ecologically significant areas, setting them aside as parkland, means virtually nothing because there is no commitment to real management of those as natural resources in the public interest.

Lastly, I want to touch on an another issue that is important to me, and that's the issue of fire management, because all of what we're talking about today becomes meaningless if our forests burn down around us. It is meaningless if we talk about habitat for wildlife, and you can't talk about conservation of wildlife, unless you're prepared to talk about habitat and you're not prepared to talk about the role that fire management plays in ensuring that we have a healthy habitat for wildlife.

You can't talk about fisheries management or the tourism benefit of management of our fisheries if you're not prepared to look at fire protection, fire management of the very forest resource which is the basis for the majority of our fisheries and our recreational fishery. You certainly can't talk about the management of natural resources if you're not prepared to talk about the issue of fire management in relationship to natural resources.

This is one of the areas where the government's actions - I don't think I can call it policy because I don't think there is any policy for fire management on the part of this government right now - speak so loudly that they either don't understand the issue of fire management or they don't want to understand it, or they want to play games with the budget for fire management so that they can look as though they're making some cutbacks right across the board, because this is one of the areas in which this government saw fit to cut back its budget, to trim the budget for fire management.

I'm a former Minister of Natural Resources and I know how easy it is to take a budget and say, "You're going to make some cutbacks, so let's take some money out of the fire budget," because you know, after all, if the fires starts and the forests start to burn, you're going to be able to come back to your government and you're going to get some more money to ensure that you've got the fire protection. It can be a way of playing some games with the exercise of having to make cutbacks.

I certainly don't want to suggest that there should be any more cutbacks in other areas of the Ministry of Natural Resources so that the fire budget is protected - far from it.

There should not be the cutbacks in the Ministry of Natural Resources, but there cannot be cutbacks in the area of fire management because what happened was that this government cut back the budget for fire management, it closed firefighting bases, it created situations not just in northern Ontario but in southern Ontario where if a fire begins in our forest, it is virtually impossible to get to that fire before it becomes a significant fire much more difficult to stop and much more likely to destroy hectares of our forests as well as threaten numbers of our communities.

That's what happened when this government cut back on the budget for forest firefighting. What also happened was that they laid off personnel who were trained to fight fires. Then the fires started and they started becoming huge fires, almost unfightable fires, and there were no trained personnel to fight them. We had people coming into our constituency offices, because I'm in northern Ontario, saying: "I'm a trained firefighter.

The Ministry of Natural Resources cannot re-employ me to go and fight the fires that are burning today because it would violate my severance package." So they had to go out and set up a training program to train people to fight fires. It took a while to get the training program set up and in the meantime the fires were burning.

This government must put in place a coherent policy for forest management that includes firefighting and it must provide adequate resources and the trained personnel to fight the fires when they occur.

Again I want to stress the urgency of this today. I know it's December and I know there's no snow on the streets of Toronto and I think you should know there's very little snow on the streets of Thunder Bay and there's a dry spell in the Prairies. If you think this isn't relevant - I see the member for Etobicoke, I'm not sure which Etobicoke, shaking his head - come to northern Ontario and I'll tell you that in December, when you don't get the average snowfall you expect to get, you start worrying about what the fires are going to be like in April.

That's a reality for northern Ontario, and because this government doesn't understand that, they don't understand the northern realities, they're not talking about a budget for firefighting in December when they see that there is not enough moisture now to prevent those fires becoming acute this spring.

As a northerner I want to say, reverse the lack of policy you've had in the past, reverse the cutbacks in firefighting and make sure that come April, after what appears to be a dry winter coming, we have the resources that we need to fight fires in northern Ontario. Without that, all this talk about the game and fish protection act become meaningless, because we will not be able to protect the natural resources of habitat for our fisheries or our wildlife or protect the timber resources that are so essential to our economy. Nor will we be able to protect the parks that, on the one hand, the government says it wants to create.

The management of fire within our provincial parks is a whole other issue and I'm not going to get into that today, but it's an important issue. Believe it or not, it's a complex issue because fighting fires in our provincial parks hasn't downsized. It can lead to what we call the Yellowstone park factor where our forests become ancient and the undergrowth in the forest becomes like a tinder box ready to explode and create a fire of such intensity that even the most ancient trees, the trees that are 200 and 300 years old, trees that have survived lesser fires, less intense fires, can be destroyed.

Our ancient forests can be wiped out because of the intensity of a fire that can start in our forestry preserves, in our park preserves. That's what happened in Yellowstone National Park, and I believe it's a tragedy. As a northerner, I have to tell you, it's a tragedy if we lose those resources.

So I plead with this government again, plea number three, if I'm counting, to look at the way in which it has handled fire management and to put in place a coherent policy and to have some debate and discussion with people in the field about how to fight fires effectively. We know a lot about it. One of the areas of expertise, or it used to be one of the areas of expertise, of the Ministry of Natural Resources was how to fight fires. We've lost a lot of that expertise with the cutbacks, but there are some areas in which we need to have a lot more discussion to understand how we manage our parks and our old forests, our ancient forests, in times of fire.

I hope this government will look at this whole issue and take it seriously, because the whole question of management of our natural resources is so critical for the future of northern Ontario, and indeed of the province, and this Game and Fish Act is one important part, but one part only, of the management of those resources.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Comments and questions?

Mr Bisson: I want to comment on the speech from the former Minister of Natural Resources from the year, I believe, 1987. She raises a point that is really important, and that is the whole issue of the ministry having the capability of being able to go out and do the work that has to be done to check fish habitat.

I can tell you as a northerner, as she well understands, in the north one of the primary activities of industry is the forestry industry. By the very design of the work they do, they have to cross creeks and rivers to get to the other side, to get to patches of timber to cut down for economic activity. We all know that the companies, as best as they can, try to do a good job, but the ministry has always been there, with good regulation and also with ministry staff, to go in and to check what's going on when they do these crossings.

Our fear, because we've seen it in the past, is that if the ministry is not there doing the work that has to be done to make sure it's being done right, sometimes, especially in the case of the smaller contractors, they'll start crossing these creeks in a way that will disturb fish habitat. Somebody here in southern Ontario may say, "That's not a big deal; it's just a couple of fish," but for communities that's sometimes a way of life. If you get into some of these smaller communities, sport fishing is a big part of what they do as economic activity.

For the recreation of people who live in northern Ontario, as a fisherman I can tell you there's nothing more pleasurable than getting out on the weekend to do a little bit of fishing, and you want to know there will be fish when you get there.

The government is strengthening the rules by which some of this has to be done, and we think that's a step in the right direction, but our fear is that if the ministry doesn't have the capacity to put people in the field to inspect what is going on, you can have all the regulations you want, at the end of the day if nobody knows you're doing something wrong, how the heck are you going to enforce this thing? I think the member makes a good point and it's something the government should concentrate on.

Mr Jerry J. Ouellette (Oshawa): I rise to speak to the member for Fort William's comments. First of all, I'd like to say that we know very well that fishing and hunting are very active activities in the province and represent a direct expenditure of about $2.92 billion, but that doesn't include the manufacturers or external sales that go outside the province. I think when those are factored in, we're going to see figures up around the $4 billion mark.

In the region of Durham, the rough estimates the region has produced show that fishing alone represents a $75-million industry. On Pelee Island, for example, in a five-day pheasant hunt they generate in excess of $1 million worth of revenue.

More directly to the comments from the member for Fort William, and understanding the northern concerns, when we talk about the enforcement provisions, what took place under the previous governments is that we had enforcement officers but they had gas and mileage limitations. Effectively, they could drive to work in their vehicle and then they had to stay in the office; they weren't allowed out in the streets to do anything.

We talk about game audits and the problems there. It was the previous governments that reduced the numbers of game audits, that didn't do them. That's why when this government came in one of the first things we did was the moose audit. That's why we saw significant changes in the moose-tag allocation, because we went out there and saw what was out there and knew what needed to be done in order to have that sustainable harvest.

Also, when we talk about trained individuals participating in knowing what's going on in MNR-related issues, the previous governments started to hire COs who didn't even have hunting licences or experience in the hunting field. Those are just a couple of things.

As well, the member for Fort William may or may not remember, but I was part of the Ontario Wildlife Working Group she established. She talked about caribou management. At that time, members of the ministry told me that it was that minister, the member for Fort William, who had shelved the caribou management program in Ontario.

Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): The last member of the government spoke on how important the fish habitat and the forestry business are to the government and to the province. When you look at the budget cuts, last year from $426 million to $369 million, I'm just wondering how important this industry is to the government.

As pointed out by the member for Fort William, if we really mean business, if we're serious about our forests and fish habitat, we need to have the people in place to supervise these economic resources of the province. I think it's unfair on the government's part to stand today in the House and say, "We're doing something about our fish habitat or the forestry industry in Ontario." Also, as pointed out by the member for Fort William, if we really mean business, especially in firefighting, regarding our natural resources, we need the expertise and personnel to fight these forest fires.

In reducing the budget by close to $150 million, I don't think the government is serious about improving the forestry industry and our fish habitat. For the last six or seven years we've been at this kind of legislation and finally there is something in place.

Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): The member for Fort William began her remarks by talking about some of the things that weren't in Bill 139 and mentioned specifically the issue of farming of non-indigenous game animals. That's something that I think is a growing industry, especially in southern Ontario. During the past summer, I had the opportunity of touring some farms in the Huron county area, and one of those farms had emu, llamas and wallabies. It really seemed clear that species like emus were well bred and produced in southern Ontario climates.

But we need to be concerned, and I'd like to ask the minister what sort of resources are going to be allocated to ensure that domestic farm animals are going to be protected from outbreaks of disease and things like that from non-indigenous game animals being farmed in Ontario.

The member for Fort William also mentioned one of the most important issues with respect to this bill, and that is the mechanisms that are there for enforcement. It's all well and good to increase the fines that may be payable if somebody is convicted, but for you to get that conviction, you need to have people out in the field to enforce the act. We know that in 1996-97 this ministry cut its annual budget by $90 million and reduced its staff by over 2,100 people - that was half of the ministry - so how are they ever going to enforce the provisions of this act?

I'd like to end, with respect to her comments, by talking about protection of natural resource areas and specifically parks, because in my riding we have a park in the Detroit River called Peche Island, and the ministry is trying to sell that back to our community. It's a public resource that we're being expected to pay for twice, and that's not right.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Fort William has two minutes to respond.

Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the comments of my colleagues the members for Ottawa East, Cochrane South, Windsor-Riverside and of course Oshawa. I appreciate the member of the Conservative caucus's recognition of the importance of both fishing and hunting to northern Ontario's economy; of course it is important to southern Ontario's as well. I recognize that the member for Oshawa does have a northern connection fairly recently, so I can appreciate that he would understand the realities of fishing and hunting and, I hope, of forest management in northern Ontario.

His participation on the wildlife management board makes me think back to the caribou management. With only two minutes, I'm not going to dwell on that, but I would quarrel with the fact that it was shelved. I think it became part of all the questions that were being asked eventually at the class environmental assessment on timber management, which should really have been an environmental assessment on forest management and should have included all the related issues such as caribou management. But as you can appreciate, that would be a very complex undertaking and would have taken many more years and many more dollars.

I will just end by reiterating my four pleas, I think it is now, to this government to bring forward a bill and to take some pride in having moved forward on amendments to the Game and Fish Act which are conservation-focused. My plea, then, is to make this government a government of sincerity in its approach to conservation and to the management of natural resources; first of all, that this act be seen as only one part of an overall policy of the management of our natural resources and that as much attention, along with resources, be given to the management of all of our natural resources and to the interrelatedness of the management of our natural resources.

Fisheries, wildlife, forests, the economic benefit, the tourism benefit, the multiple users, the parks management are all part of a comprehensive approach to the management of natural resources. No conservation effort can be successful without adequate personnel and resources.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I know I don't have to announce this, but I'm going to be splitting my time this morning with the member for Windsor-Riverside and the member for Cochrane South, because we all have things we want to say on this piece of legislation, which we are going to vote in favour of. But before we do that, it's important that we set the context within which this bill is going to unfold in the province.

I'm going to make reference to some comments that were made by some of the members opposite with regard to what they see as their movement to improve the ability of workers in the MNR field in northern Ontario to do their work. I suggest that rings hollow in northern Ontario. We all know that on the one hand they may be doing some things that are perhaps in the interests of conservation and planning, but when you fire most of the people who actually do that work, it doesn't matter how much mileage they have or how much gas money they have, if you don't have the people to drive the trucks, the trucks ain't going anywhere and there's no management going on and there's no planning going on.

Any member who has spent any time at all in northern Ontario will understand the importance of the Ministry of Natural Resources to that part of this wonderful province. Anybody who has lived in a community like Wawa or Chapleau or Blind River or Hornepayne or Terrace Bay will know of the importance of the Ministry of Natural Resources.

In fact, when you speak of the government in that part of this country, 99% of the time you're speaking of the Ministry of Natural Resources, the people who manage the resources, who manage the forests, who manage the water, who manage the wildlife, who manage the lakes, who, as we know because we get to know them as neighbours and friends, have at heart the best interests of all those resources that are so important to those of us who choose to call northern Ontario home. We're comfortable that they were working as hard as they could in the best interests of us all.

We know that if you ravage any part of the natural resource we've inherited from our forefathers in this province, if we take advantage of it, exploit it in a way that is in a hurry, that is shortsighted and doesn't take into account the long-term implications, then we do everybody a disfavour, because for the longest time the economy of this province and this country has been based on the fact that we have an abundance of natural resources. The natural resource sector shows up in almost every financial paper you read or statement that's put out as the core, the base upon which the economy of this wonderful country and this province is built.

If you don't take that seriously and put in place the numbers of people required to make sure it's managed properly, if you put legislation in place, however wonderful, however progressive and however thoughtful it is, without the people in place to oversee that and to make sure that those who participate in the economy that is provided because we have those resources, at the end of the day we all lose. All of us lose, and most particularly those of us who call northern Ontario home lose.

We've made an investment up there. We've chosen to live in that part of Ontario because we feel good there. We feel there's a source of life there for us and that it's a place we want our children to feel at home in. We want the economy to evolve. We want it to be mixed. We want all the partners to play a role. We want the forest resource sector to do well. We want those people who come to our wonderful part of Ontario to find that there are fish still in the lakes, and when they catch those fish that they don't have two heads, that they're edible and don't carry disease.

It's so very important that those of us who call northern Ontario home, who make investments in northern Ontario, believe and understand and feel very concretely that the government we elect to protect those resources, to manage those resources, to put in place the checks and balances regarding those resources, is actually there to do that. I was saying to the member for Cochrane South, in any small community in northern Ontario, when you referred to the government, it was assumed you were talking about the Ministry of Natural Resources. We knew that there were people there who had the best interests of our livelihood, our future, in mind when they went out and did their work.

We don't feel that any more. We don't know where the government is any more. The government has disappeared. The feeling is that all of this has been turned over to the private sector. I have no quarrel with the private sector. I think they have a role to play as well in the economy that's evolving in this province, a role that's very important and that only they can play. But if you don't have a government that understands the interplay between the various private sector groups in a place like northern Ontario, then you have trouble and the resource doesn't get managed in a positive and progressive and creative way and at the end of the day we all suffer.

The resource will be under attack, under tremendous stress. The trees will disappear. There will no longer be the kind of fish available in the lakes and streams. Tourism operators will no longer be able to attract people to come into the area and enjoy the wilderness in the way that they've come to expect and that we've been developing over the last few years, both in the summer and in the winter. That concerns me.

Some of you who were listening last night, who were perhaps here in the House last night, will remember that I called for this place to have a moment of silence for all those who have lost their jobs over the last two and a half years by way of decisions of this government to downsize and restructure.

Literally thousands of hardworking, committed, long-serving civil servants in this province over the last two and a half years have been summarily dismissed, told they're not needed any more, that the experience they've engendered, the skill they've developed, the understanding they've come to about the work they do was no longer appreciated by this government, no longer seen as necessary, so they lost their jobs.

As we move into this Christmas season, we're going to be asked this afternoon, as we were asked, I suppose, as I read the news clips this morning, by the Premier to be more positive, to think more optimistically about the future. I have to tell you, there are thousands of people in this province today who are not going to have a very happy and joyful Christmas, because they lost their job.

They lost their job because of decisions that were made directly by this government because they worked for this government directly: people in the Ministry of Transportation, people in the Ministry of Education, people in the Ministry of the Environment and, to connect it to this bill we're speaking about here this morning, people in the Ministry of Natural Resources.

There wasn't a ministry more ravaged by this government than the Ministry of Natural Resources. Literally hundreds, thousands of people out of work, full-time and part-time people, who have committed their lives in many interesting ways, not just in the eight, 10 or 12 hours they put in every day re their job and the thing they do and get paid for, but in their love and interest above and beyond that in the natural resource they live in in northern Ontario. They were told they were no longer needed, that they could no longer count on the income they got to keep them going in this work of love they do.

That's really unfortunate, and it's unfortunate most particularly at this time of year as we go into Christmas, a time when we're asked to renew and revisit and re-energize and come out recommitted to the work all of us feel so strongly about. That there will be literally thousands of people in northern Ontario who have over a long time worked in the natural resources sector out of work, anxious and concerned, their families not able to have the kind of Christmas they've become accustomed to, speaks volumes about the concern we have surrounding this bill.

As I said when I started, there are things in this bill that we can support. This bill is a move in the right direction, but if you don't have the MNR personnel to oversee, to enforce, to work with the interests out there around how we best manage the resource, then it's all for naught.

You can have the best legislation in the world, you can have the best laws in the world, you can have the best plans in the world on paper, but if you don't have the people to carry them out, if you don't have the people to enforce the regulations, if you don't have the people to imagine new ways of bringing people together and making things happen, you're whistling in the wind. It's all a wish and a promise. There's nothing concrete, no foundation to it.

We shouldn't be surprised, because so much of what this government has done over the last two and a half years has been a whole lot of smoke and mirrors. What this government is about, in a very simple way - I think in a very understandable way, because now, two and a half years into their mandate, we're beginning to see in some very concrete ways what I'm about to say - is diminishing the role of government, diminishing the part government plays in the life of people, diminishing the ability of government to be a force for balance and planning in the province.

They bring in legislation that usually has some fancy name attached to it that talks about something positive that's going to happen, but when we get into the bill to examine it - and we don't get to do that too often around here any more, because usually bills are brought in and rammed through at lightening speed. The only chance we ever get to actually get into any bill in a thought-out, reasonable way is when we resort to some so-called tactic in this place to make them slow down. For some political reason, because we're putting pressure on them, the public is starting to come alive.

In view of what's going on, we force them to take a longer time at second reading, to send the bill out to public consultation so people have a chance to participate.

It's interesting. We're seeing that in spades these last couple of days of this session, because this government is very anxious to bring what they've done for the last two and a half years to an end, to pass legislation that, as in this instance, is good stuff. But however good, it needs to be processed, it needs to be taken out there so that people have a chance to see what's good about it, to analyse it so they begin to know what's bad about it.

Very thoughtful people out there will probably bring to the government some ideas on how this might roll out and cause problems a year or two or three or five years out. But because of the new process in this place, the new rules that were brought in, we don't get a chance to do that on hardly anything any more.

Democracy is diminished, the ability of this legislative precinct to do its work, as it was imagined by those who developed the British parliamentary system, is diminished, and the role we can play, speaking on behalf of our constituents, representing our constituents, is scoped down in a very serious and significant way.

All of this should raise some level of anxiety, concern and interest in people out there, as this government now begins to - you saw it yesterday, you saw it in the newspapers this morning and you'll see it on the TV tonight and over the weekend. The Premier is talking about a new era, a new day for this government, not wanting to be fighting with people any more, wanting to be conciliatory, wanting to find ways to work together.

Well, I warn people and challenge people and ask people not to be fooled, to remember what has been done over the last two and a half years, to take a good look around them, to see the direct or indirect impact of the decisions of this government on the lives of, if not themselves, their neighbours or some family member.

Look at this bill in the context of all that and ask yourself if this is not just another exercise in public relations and communication by a government that's desperate to do anything at all that has a positive spin to it so they might overshadow the very destructive decisions you've made to diminish the role and the size and the impact and effect and the ability of government in this province to do anything on behalf of anybody. Literally thousands of people this Christmas will not have a paycheque due to direct decisions by your government to get rid of them, to lay them off, to tell them they were no longer useful, were no longer necessary, that we didn't need them any more.

Bills like the one we're dealing with here today, this Bill 139, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, however positive and progressive it may be, will not mean a whole heck of a lot if we don't have the people out there in the communities and towns and streets of this wonderful province to work with it, to work with the people whom it will affect directly and to enforce whatever regulation becomes the order of the day so that it might be a positive initiative for all of us who call Ontario home, in particular those of us who call northern Ontario home.

I will at this time turn this over to my very able colleague from Cochrane South, who will have a few more thoughts to put on the record about this bill.

Again, I want to challenge people out there: Pay attention. Don't be lulled into thinking that just because, after two and a half years of really difficult times imposed by this government on your life, that now they're going to change their spots, now they're going to change their tune, that now it's all going to be wonderful somehow. It's not. Through this Christmas period, I ask you to talk to your friends and neighbours, your family members, and ask them how concretely and directly the standard of living they've come to expect and appreciate and think was perhaps going to be there for a while has been affected very negatively.

I ask them to recommit themselves to the fight that was so effectively brought to the attention of the people of Ontario by the teachers some weeks ago when they went out on their political protest, giving up two weeks of wages to make a statement to this government that what it was doing was absolutely wrong; that this was not a government that was going too fast and doing too much but a government that was heading in the absolutely wrong direction.

No matter what they do to try to smooth those waters by, for example, at this last minute - we only have some probably five or six hours of debate time left in this place - bringing in a bill that has something positive in it, while at the same time firing, laying off, terminating people who will be necessary to make sure the bill becomes effective, to be lulled into thinking that somehow is going to be the answer and that this government has somehow learned a lesson, that it's going to be different and that things will at the end of the day work out - but they won't.

In this province, to have a stable economy, to have an economy that includes everybody, to have an economy that's going to take us in a positive way into the next century, including everybody both at the front end and at the back end, we need strong government. We need a government that cares. We need a government that wants to do the job that it is and was elected to do.

We need a government that has some thoughtful ideas about how we might all be included in this process, so this bill, as I said, however positive, however constructive and a move forward, will not contribute in any significant way to that end, to a stable economy, particularly in the small communities of northern Ontario where we are so exposed to the volatility of the marketplace and so under stress whenever there is a downturn.

If we don't have a government that is willing to put the resources in place, that is willing to make sure the personnel are in place to help us, to work with us through those very difficult times, we will not be able to look forward to a future that will include everybody, that will be stable, that will be hopeful and that will be in the best interests of the people who so deservedly need to be recognized and supported and helped as they try to participate in the life of the province of Ontario.

Thank you very much, and I now turn it over to my colleague from Cochrane South.

The Acting Speaker: Rob Brown, who is a page here in the Legislature - this is the pages' last day, as you may know - would have liked to have introduced his father, Rob, in the west gallery, and his friend Heidi, his classmates at St Patrick's School in Kinkora, Doug, Kevin and Ashlay, and he's sorry he's not able to introduce them to you.

As you know, Kinkora is in beautiful Ellice township and Perth county. The township of Ellice anchors the northwest corner of Stratford, and I assured him I was not able to introduce these very important people to you either.

The Chair recognizes the member for Cochrane South.

Mr Bisson: That's a heck of a way to get a speech, Speaker.

Interjection.

Mr Bisson: No, I wouldn't ask him to withdraw. I think they're good people who came down, are proud of what their son is doing here. In fact, if Rob wants to wheel behind me, he might even be able to get on television - the rules will allow that to happen - so everybody will know who we're talking about.

Speaker, I want to ask you a question, and that question is, what do you know of fish habitat? I'm being serious here.

Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): He does know a lot about it.

Mr Bisson: He knows a lot about fish, I think, but I don't know about the habitat side.

The point I make is simply this: that the people who know most about fish habitat used to work for the Ministry of Natural Resources, and we had a number of people who worked across Ontario for the Ministry of Natural Resources who were experts when it came to the management of the fishing industry and the wildlife and game within the province of Ontario. Those people, quite frankly, did a very good job of making sure that the rules by which we operate that fishing industry and operate sports fishery overall were done in such a way that they looked for the preservation and making sure we had fish habitat over the longer term.

Those people not only did that, but they also ensured that any activity that went on in the bush, when it came to forest industries or mining companies or whatever it might be, was being done in a way that would not impact on the ability of the fish to reproduce. We talk about fish habitat. So when I asked you the question at the very beginning, "What do you know of fish habitat?" it's probably as much as I do, which is I know how to catch a fish, but I don't really know a lot about habitat. That's why we have those people within the Ministry of Natural Resources to do that work.

Unfortunately, we're in a very peculiar situation right now. The government has introduced this bill, which is a positive bill - we give them full credit for it - Bill 139, and it's a bill that has been worked on for many years.

I know back in the time of the Liberal government, the NDP government and now the Conservative government, various governments have done work to make sure that we learn from our mistakes about how we destroyed fish habitat and that we're able to build regulations and laws that are able to say, yes, we have to allow economic activity to happen in the forest, we have to allow companies to go out and harvest trees, but it has to be done in a way that doesn't affect the wildlife and the fish habitat in which they're operating.

The Ministry of Natural Resources over the years learned a lot by working in the bush, by observing what contractors were doing out there, by observing what was happening and how that impacted on the fish habitat, and they learned a lot about how to do that job properly. The unfortunate

part is that the Ministry of Natural Resources, all those people who worked there, are now gone - not all but pretty well all of them.

One of the first decisions this government made under the former minister, Mr Hodgson, was they fired over half the MNR staff across Ontario, so when you go into a community like Hearst, Kapuskasing, White River, Chapleau, Foleyet, Gogama, Timmins or wherever it might be in northern Ontario, you don't have the people in the field that we used to have to make sure that whatever activity is going on in the bush doesn't impact on our ability to make sure that the fish habitat and the wildlife habitat is safe for future generations.

The government says: "Oh, we realize we messed up over here. We realize we're in a position where we have taken away the ability of the ministry to both police what's happening in the bush and at the same time do the kind of scientific work that needs to be done to develop better mechanisms by which we manage our wildlife, so we've got to do something."

They came and introduced this act, and they said, "We've got a very good piece of legislation,

An Act to promote the conservation of fish and wildlife through the revision of the Game and Fish Act, called Bill 139," and brought it into this House. For that we give them credit, because there are a few problems with this act, but all and all, it's not a bad bill. But it's empty, c'est vide. Why? Because the ministry is not going to have the ability to go out and enforce what's in this act once it's passed.

The government has laid off 50% of the MNR workers, and they're not going to have the ability to keep on top of the ongoing work that goes on within the forest industry to learn how to better manage, not only our forest industry but the fish and wildlife areas themselves, because that's how this whole thing developed.

There are two problems. The first problem is we have

an act that has no mechanism by which to enforce it, but the second one is that the government doesn't seem to understand that just because things are done in a particular way doesn't mean they're being done right.

If we look at the practices of, let's say, the mining industry 40 years ago, when it came to how they did work on the surface on a very simple issue like getting rid of their tailings - there's nothing simple about it, but disposition of tailings, 40 or 50 years ago they did it in a particular way because they didn't know any better, and it had a great impact on the fish and wildlife in areas where they were operating. Over time there was public outcry. People in the north who lived by mining communities got up and said, "This is wrong."

We see the example of Kamiskotia mine that killed an entire river system. We take a look at issues like Matachewan that killed another river system. They said: "We can't have that happen. There has got to be better way to dispose of tailings." So the Ministry of Natural Resources along with the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines did a lot of work with the industry to learn how to do it right. Yes, it meant there was a price attached to that.

The mining industry had to learn to dispose of tailings in a safer way, which meant it cost more money, but there was a net positive impact when it came to our environment in northern Ontario to where now you're seeing companies like Kidd Creek operate huge tailings in a fairly safe manner when it comes to our wildlife.

There are always things that could happen, but by and large, if you look at what's happening with the disposition of tailings, at companies like Kidd Creek or Dome Mines and the brand-new superpit they built two or three years ago, a huge increase in production in their milling capacity which meant there was a lot more tailings going out, they did that in a way that is a heck of a lot better as compared to what it was 40 years before. Why?

For two reasons: There were ministry staff in place to learn how to do these things right, so they were able to monitor what was going on with the good and the bad examples within the industry and how it impacted on fish habitat, and they had legislation drafted to set the rules by which the mining operators had to operate.

The mining companies didn't like that initially. I remember having discussions with many of them saying: "This is far too onerous for us. It's going to cost us money." It was doom and gloom. But I think that was a minority within the mining industry. I think most mining executives understood it's not only good public relations to operate a safe mining operation, as in safe tailings, but it's also very good business. They understood there was an equation between the two.

I think the Ministry of Natural Resources, along with the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, was playing a fairly positive role when it came to working with industry in the last four or five years to find out how we balance off the interests of the mining companies to make a dollar - because we want them to make lots of dollars; that's what pays the good wages in northern Ontario; that's how people get jobs that pay $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $100,000 a year - and at the same time, when they're conducting that activity we call mining and disposing of tailings, the tailings are disposed of in such a way that they doesn't impact our environment.

Northerners, of all people, understand the importance of the environment. Although we work, by and large, in very intensive industries within the natural resource area, this is also our playground. It's where we go to spend our time. You come to Timmins or Hearst or White River or Sault Ste Marie or Thunder Bay or whatever place in northern Ontario -

Mr Lessard: I'm looking forward to it.

Mr Bisson: My good friend from Windsor-Riverside is going to be coming to Sault Ste Marie in February to meet with people in the college system. He'll get an opportunity, as he has in the past.

We understand that, yes, we go to work in the morning or on day shift or afternoon or graveyard, but when we have time off, where do we spend most of our time? We go camping in the summer with our families and friends; we go on fishing trips with our buddies, with our family and friends; we go hunting in the fall; we go for rides in the bush with our motorcycles, or we do backpacking or we do snowshoeing or we do cross-country skiing. We utilize the forest and the bush and the area around our communities as our method of entertainment. People here in Toronto go to the show or the opera or the bars or whatever.

I'm not saying they don't have an appreciation for the environment, but I think northerners relate to the environment far more than most people could imagine, because it's both where we work and where we play.

As a northerner, when I see the government of the day say, "I want to bring forward a bill that's going to protect the northern environment," I applaud that. I think that's good. I give Mike Harris and John Snobelen and the previous minister before that, Mr Hodgson, full credit. This is a positive step in the right direction. I have no problem at all. There are a few parts in here we can all pick at and find ways of making adjustments to make the bill a little bit better, but by and large I give you very good marks on this bill.

But where I'm a little bit cynical is how you're going to carry out the mechanisms of this bill, because you're really not going to be able to. We know, and you know, that you've cut the MNR staff by over 50%. Those weren't people who were just there spending their time pulling on elastics in an office and doing nothing. The people at the MNR offices across northern Ontario, as my friend from Sault Ste Marie said earlier, were an integral part of our community. They are the people who were out in the bush watching what was going on.

They are the people who did the scientific studies that needed to be done to make sure we learn from our mistakes and correct the way we do things so that we preserve our northern environment, and they worked with industry to make sure that was done in a positive way.

I say to the government, I'm a little bit cynical about this bill. I will support it because I think it's a step in the right direction, but I really worry about how you're going to be able to enforce some of this bill.

The other thing I want to say before I go over some of the details of the bill - my good friend Mr Martin left with the notes I lent him a second ago, so I'll do this by memory.

I'm also cynical for one other reason. At the same time as the former Minister of Natural Resources, Mr Hodgson, introduced this bill in the House, I was made aware of a memo that I saw - I forget if it was in Chapleau or Foleyet or Timmins I saw it. It was on one of my tours. I saw an internal memo within the Ministry of Natural Resources that said they were not going to send people out to watch what was going on in the issuance of licences when it came to creek crossings.

The former Minister of Natural Resources looks at me a little bit weird, but that's what's happening in your former ministry. It may not have been you. I'm a bit surprised. If you didn't know it, I'm even more worried.

The deputy minister sent a memo out to all field staff saying: "When a logging operator comes into our office and says, `I'm applying for a permit to do a creek crossing,' we do not have the staff to go out and do the field investigation. Issue the permit and basically hope to heck they do it right." It didn't say that exactly, but that was the intent of the memo.

I'll tell you, there are some operators I can think of, like the Nadeaus who are operating up in the Chapleau area, who do an excellent job and try to do a good job and are very conscientious as a medium-sized contractor in the bush to make sure they don't destroy the environment.

I look at people like Ben and Georges Nadeau and others who are out there trying to earn a living in the forest by harvesting the trees in the best way they can, to make a livelihood for them and their families and at the same time provide good-paying jobs for the people who work for them, but they are also very environmentally conscious. That's a lot of our contractors in northern Ontario, but not everybody is like the Ben Nadeaus and Georges Nadeaus of this world.

There are others, and the minister would know because he's had to fine some of them before, who say: "I'm pretty tight this month. I'm not making very much. The mill has lowered the price of lumber." I'm not going to name names of mills because, I'll tell you, there are a few of them that have a habit of doing that. When it comes to the amount of money the contractor gets for his wood, sometimes it's not fair compared to what they're getting in the market when they sell that finished product. But that's for another debate.

The point I make is that there are some small contractors out there who, let's say, are in a hurry to make a dollar and are not very good at what they do. They figure the way to make a dollar is to cut corners when it comes to how we cross creeks, how we get gravel out of sandpits to build roads, how we approach the whole area in which we're doing our cuts.

Eventually these people will get caught, I hope, because of the changes we made in the Crown Forest Sustainability Act, which I think was a good way of balancing off the need of industry to do a job right and for them to do some self-policing on their own and the ministry being able to keep an eye on it. The problem is, once the damage has been done, in many cases it's going to take a lot of years to undo it.

When I talk to people like Ben Nadeau, who is a long-time operator in our area, he says: "Listen, Gilles, I've always believed that I've got to do my job right, and if I don't it costs me money. If I don't do my job right, a lot of these forest companies are not going to want me to work for them." You can't go to work for a company like Malette Waferboard or Malette lumber or Abitibi if you've got a very bad reputation, but if you're -

Interjection.

Mr Bisson: For the most part, that's true, but there are some - I didn't hear you.

Mr Ouellette: Are they back in Timmins?

Mr Bisson: Of course they are. The point I make is simply that there are a number of operators, especially the smaller ones, who operate on crown units who turn around and say: "I'm going to try to make a buck real quick. I'm going to cross this creek the best I can. I'm going to put the culvert in but I'm not going to do the kind of preparatory work that needs to be done to save the fish habitat." By the time the ministry finds out, when the audit is done five years later, because they don't have people going in the bush, that's when we're going to find out there's a problem, or when some fisherman comes by who's been catching nice speckled trout in that creek.

I've been one. You go out on the split rock or the redstone to do some good fishing in a good speckled trout area. You're going to go out there one day and you're going to say: "Jeez, when I was here last spring, I had a good catch. I brought home my limit of five trout and the fishing was really, really good." They're going to get there, they're going to put their line in the water and not a nibble, because somebody up the stream messed it up by doing an improper crossing of a creek. I've seen that happen in areas. I look at the fishing on the I've fished for years and years.

I'll tell you, from the work the Kamiskotia mine did and the tailings that went into the Kamiskotia River, the fishing has been affected in a river that's actually up-river from the Kamiskotia. You wouldn't think that's possible, but I guess the fish come through there. The net effect is that we have a lot less trout there than we used to have before.

I say to the government again, you're taking a step in the right direction with the legislation, but you won't have the mechanism to enforce this and that's really the sad part.

Mr Lessard: Too little, too late.

Mr Bisson: Too little, too late.

The other thing I want to say is this: I understand on the one hand the need for the government to say, "We need to try to find ways to involve industry so they themselves become more responsible." I understand the self-regulation, and to a certain extent the self-policing, that needs to be done within the forest industry. I think that's a step in the right direction. I have no quarrel with the government on that, because by and large you have some fairly good operators out there who are trying to do a good job. They understand that it's not only smart public relations to operate smartly when it comes to how you do your business in the bush, but it's also good business.

But I have a problem when the ministry takes away its capacity to go and do spot inspections of what's going on in the bush. I understand that people like Abitibi, Tembec, Malette and others, now under the Sustainable Forestry Development Act, put together their forest plan. They've got to work towards that plan and at the end of five years we go back and we audit it. If they've done a good job, that's fine; if not, we take the money out of the fund and we have them pay for it. I understand. That's a good mechanism and that's a good way of doing self-policing.

My problem is, especially with the smaller contractors on the crown units, I think we're really setting up some dangerous situations when it comes to how people can do damage and we won't have the ability to find out until somebody complains or after we've done the audit. I would much rather see what we had before, where you had MNR people in the bush who would say, "Hey, what are you doing there, putting a culvert in the way that you are?"

I know the small contractors used to get upset. They would come and see me when we were in government and say, "Jeez, I was putting in a culvert the other day and some MNR guy came up and he told me I couldn't do it this way and I want to make a complaint." I said, "Well, what were you doing?" The guy was setting up the culvert in such a way that it would destroy the fish habitat and I said: "I think the MNR's doing their job.

That's what they're there for." That's how basically a lot of these people learned how to do it right, by the MNR going into the bush and making sure that they did it right, so at least we caught it early on before it became actual damage. I say to the government again, in some ways I think this bill is a bit of public relations.

I also want to touch on the regulatory powers, some of the specifics of this bill because there are a couple of issues that have cropped up over my years as the member for Cochrane South. People have come and complained to me in my office. I think of Mr Don Collins, who comes to complain about this and others, actually good friends of the Tories who came to complain about this particular issue. I'm surprised that the Tories are going in this direction because it's quite contrary to what I would expect the Tories to do when it came to this issue, especially when people like Mr Collins, who holds you in such esteem, would find out about this.

In the regulatory-making sections of the act,

part X, I believe it is, which is regulation, the government is giving itself increased powers to do a number of things around access roads. Access roads, as we know what they are, that's when a forest company goes out and they have a particular harvest they've got to do way back in the back 40 in the bush. They build the road, they go in, they do their forest activity and basically when they're done, they come out, they close the road off and they shut the public from going in in some cases.

That has angered a lot of anglers and hunters in my area because those are traditional fishing spots and hunting grounds for many of the people who live in our community, especially in the area around Foleyet-Chapleau, where there's been a lot of activity in this end where the MNR has gone back and they've basically close the road once the forest company has finished its work. People have been going fishing in those areas for years and years, and all of a sudden they show up one day to go fishing on their annual spring fishing expedition with their friends and they find out that the road is closed. All there is is the sign; they didn't even know there was a sign there.

One of the things that I pushed for in government was to say that we need to find a way to balance off the need of the anglers to get access to their traditional areas of fishing so that they can keep on doing that, but in a way that respects the pressure on the fish habitat.

The other point I was always making in government, and I thought I would have seen it in this bill because I know that our government was prepared to do it - I'd spoken to Howard Hampton, the former Minister of Natural Resources, about this and he told me that he was prepared to do it - and that's the mechanism by which we closed down these roads; that if a road is closed down, there has to be sufficient public notice so that if people who have been interested in that area want to go and have their two cents' worth when it comes to what's going on, they are able to bring forward their points of view to the MNR to make sure that their views are heard about the traditional access that they had and in some way limit the access.

You know, if somebody's been in there for fishing for a long time and they can establish that they've been fishing there for years and that's one of their traditional areas, special consideration would be given to those people to still get access when the forest company has pulled out of there.

In some cases the forest company might have made the road better, but there was an initial road or trail that was built by the family 15, 20, 30 years ago that they've been using all of those years and it happens to be that the forest company drove a road through there and now because they've gone out and the ministry shuts it down, they're not able to get back in. I look at this act and I don't see that particular issue fixed. In fact, I would argue that in some ways they've given increasingly powers to the minister to close down even more of these roads.

I think of people like Mr Collins in Timmins and I'm telling you, I don't think he's going to be very happy when he finds out that the minister has given himself more power under

section 10 of the act to not only close down access roads, but there is no sufficient provision in here to give a good public process by which Mr Collins and others can get involved when it comes to getting their say about what should and shouldn't be closed down when it comes to access in the bush.

Again, I think this is a good example of how if you hurry through legislation without a good public process of dialogue through public hearings - we only had one day of public hearings on this - those kinds of issues aren't sufficiently dealt with and the public feels somewhat alienated. I would argue in the case of Mr Collins and others that they will be greatly offended by what they see in this bill when it comes to the powers that you've been given under

section 10.

I look at sub (7) and sub (12). When I read those particular areas, especially (12), they seem to give the minister much more power to shut roads down, and I'm somewhat concerned about that. Yes, I understand that there are areas that are protected and we have to make sure we do that in such a way that that works out well, but other than that, I think the government is maybe going a little bit too far when it comes to that.

The other point I want to make is on another

section of this bill, "Part IV of the bill deals with the sale, purchase and transport of wildlife and fish. The buying or selling of game wildlife and specially protected wildlife is prohibited." I think that is actually a step in the right direction because I think this speaks to a number of issues that I've seen in the past where some people - and again I've got to say, Mr Speaker, I know you know quite a bit about this because I know you're an avid fisherman; at least that's what I've been told.

But there are some people unfortunately who would go in and actually operate as commercial fishermen when they were not licensed to do so. I think this act deals with this in a fairly progressive way in ensuring that those people are properly licensed and making sure they're not out there doing commercial fishing where really all they should be doing is recreational fishing.

But again I say to the government, how are you going to enforce this? I really wonder how you're going to enforce it.

Under

part VI there's another

section here that says: "Part VI of the bill contains provisions dealing with licences and with authorizations given by the Minister of Natural Resources. For example, provision is made for a hearing before a hearings officer with respect to the refusal of certain licences and with respect to conditions imposed on commercial fishing licences."

I think this is really positive. I think this is good. They've given the public, finally, the ability to have a hearing if they've been refused a licence to do commercial fishing. Before, it was very difficult to get such a hearing. Why didn't we do this kind of process when it came to the whole issue about how the Ministry of Natural Resources and the forestry companies deal with the closure of forest access roads? Why didn't we have some kind of public process where the public is able to have its say? I think we could have looked at that and made some amendments in order to allow that to happen.

Under

part VIII of the bill, which deals with enforcement: "Conservation officers are appointed under

section 87.

Part VIII provides for the inspection by conservation officers of firearms, vehicles, boats, aircraft, buildings and other places (sections 88 to 90) and for searches and seizures."

Part VIII also deals with the question of arrests and entry on private land.

This speaks to a problem that I know my good friend Mr Cheguis at the Ministry of Natural Resources in Timmins has raised with me a number of times. Walter - he's retired now - was for years one of the key conservation officers in our area and worked for the ministry for a number of years. Quite an interesting, colourful character as well. Knew his job, knew how to do it well and I think by and large did a very good job for the province of Ontario.

One of the problems that Walter had explained to me along with some of his colleagues who were basically the COs in our area was that they did not have the kind of powers they needed to do the kinds of searches that needed to be done to deal with people who are not doing things properly when it comes to hunting and fishing.

Often what they had to do, if they had reason to believe that there was something going on that was illegal, at times - not all the time; we have to understand that -they had to get the Ontario Provincial Police involved, which meant to say that you had to call out the OPP to enforce the law that the conservation officer had found somebody was breaking. I think this is not a bad thing because it gives the conservation officers, under

section 8 of the bill, additional powers to go in and investigate somebody who they suspect has broken the law when it comes to fishing and when it comes to hunting. I think most people would agree that if somebody is out there poaching or doing something that's outside of the rules, most northerners would agree that shouldn't happen, and if it does happen, I'm sure they want the MNR to step in and stop that from happening. By and large, people in the north understand that if you go fishing and you take 50 pickerel out of the lake every time you go, it's not going to take a long time, if enough people do that, before there won't be any more pickerel to catch the next time you go fishing.

The idea here is that they're going to give the conservation officers who are left, because I've got to mention there are not very many left these days with the cuts we've had in MNR - at least the ones who are left are going to get some additional powers in this bill to go in and search the boat, search the camp, search the vehicle without the assistance of the Ontario Provincial Police. I think that makes some sense, because why pay duplicate manpower to do what the conservation officer is paid to do in the first place.

I've got to say, just in passing, about Mr Chequis, Walter has done a really good job in our area. In talking to Walter just before he retired - I was chatting with him about a month ago - I was asking him: "Walter, how do you feel? You've been working for the MNR all of these years and you're coming to retirement." I figured, Walter, he loves the bush - you've got to know this guy. He does it for a living and then when he's off he goes back into the bush to relax. He really loves what he does. I've got to say my hat is off to Walter. My friend from Windsor-Riverside will find this interesting.

I said to him, "Walter, you've been working for the MNR all of these years. How do you feel about leaving?" thinking he'd say, "I'm kind of sad, I really enjoyed the job that I was doing." He said: "Gilles, I'm glad to be going. I'm really glad to be going." That took me aback, because I know how much Walter loves the bush and loves what he does.

You know what it was? The whole mandate and the whole operation of MNR has changed in such a way that it wasn't a pleasure for Walter to go in to work any more as it had been in the past, with the cuts this government had done, the decimation of the Ministry of Natural Resources; 2,100 people were laid off in the Ministry of Natural Resources, 50% of the staff. Walter was saying: "Listen, we don't have the ability any more to do the kind of work that needs to be done to ensure that our forests are maintained and preserved for the future generation. You know, Gilles," he said, "I'm glad to be going.

I pity the guys who are coming behind me because they're going to have one heck of a job, considering where this government is going." He told me, "When you go down to Queen's Park, make sure to let that government know how some of us feel."

On behalf of Walter and other COs I'm telling the minister: What you have done is not only bad for the environment but it's really, really bad when it comes to what's going to happen to our future generations and their ability to go out and enjoy the area I grew up in, that I was able to, along with Walter and others, call my playground, where I would go and spend most of my time. I say to this government, you've really gone in the wrong direction.

The other thing I have to say in the few minutes I have left: I again want to say that we will vote in favour of this bill. The government has tried to step in the right direction in putting this legislation together. I think a couple of the sections I quoted are steps in the right direction. They can always be improved; no government gets it perfect, including my former government. But the point is that this is a step in the right direction.

I've got to say that this is really a public relations exercise on the part of the government. This is a government that says on the one hand: "Look at us, we care for the environment. We have a bill, we can show what we've done." When you go out in the election next year or the year after and you're a candidate in northern Ontario or in central or southwest Ontario, you can go and show the people that this government did something for the environment: "We've got this bill called Bill 139. That's our record." Will people remember that the same government that introduced this bill basically took away all the mechanisms to enforce it? I really wonder, will people know?

Interjection.

Mr Bisson: I was going to come to that. Part of what we have to do here in this debate is make sure that people understand what the government has done, but when it comes to the next election, I think people will remember. It's one of those things; it's like a sleeping giant.

The public at one point starts to recognize what this government is doing because they start to see examples of how things will be done in Mike Harris's new Ontario, when the Ministry of the Environment or the Ministry of Agriculture or the Ministry of Mines or the Ministry of Natural Resources may have good legislation on the books to be do what they've got to do, but they will not have the people to go out and enforce it and do the kind of work that needs to be done to make sure these acts are enforced in the proper way.

When we see some bad examples of things like we saw in the past, the old Kamiskotia mine, the Matachewan mine, the lake that we have in the middle of the city of Timmins, between Schumacher and Timmins, in front of the old A&W, where the old McIntyre mine tailings were dug up and left in disgrace, and still today lie in disgrace behind a fence because we allowed a mining company to go and basically rip out the tailings to make the money, then leave us with a hell of a mess. We know that's what these laws are all about. They're to prevent that kind of stuff from happening.

When people see those kinds of examples, people will remember it was Mike Harris who took away the ability for the government to respond to that.

The only point I would make is this: Yes, the private sector is very important. You're not going to see me or any other member of our caucus argue against the right of Abitibi, Malette lumber or any of the other forest companies or mining companies to go out and do a good job. Nobody is going to argue that. They provide the well-paying jobs in northern Ontario that people work at, that people make a good living at, and we have a good standard of living. Nobody argues that.

But there is a role for government, and that's what this government seems to forget, that the government can and should play a positive role in our northern economy. The MNR along with northern development and mines are two of the key ministries that make sure we have a balance between the right of the forest company and the mining company to make a buck in creating the jobs that are so important for our northern economy, but at the same time protecting our environment to make sure it's there for future generations in the years to come.

I think many people will remember, come the next election, that this government may have introduced a positive bill but they has been very short in responding to the bill by enforcement because of the cuts they have made at the ministry.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?

Mr Lessard: I just want to pick up where my friend left off. He talked about the balance between the interests of the private sector and the importance to protect public resources. I think that applies quite specifically with respect to Peche Island, which is an island in the Detroit River, which is part of my riding. That is an island that was purchased by the province in 1972 for $424,000, then it was named a provincial park in 1974. So that's part of our provincial natural resource base.

After this government was elected, it got an evaluation of this park because it didn't think it had any provincial significance. Lo and behold, they got the value of this to be $1.9 million and now they want to sell this island to the city of Windsor. The city asked to take over responsibility of that island for a dollar, but that was an offer that was refused by this government.

I think it is a really dangerous approach towards protection of public resources in Ontario if we decide we're going to put a pricetag on all our public resources, all the provincial parks in Ontario, and say that if they don't derive enough income to sustain themselves, then we're going to sell them all off.

I think that's something, when we're considering what is proposed in Bill 139 with respect to protection of game and fish and with respect to the protection of our resources, we always have to keep in mind, that there is an important role for government to play in the protection of our public resources, that we can't put a value on these things the way the private sector does and that we shouldn't be just, holus-bolus, privatize our public resources or turn over control of them. We need to protect them and maintain them. We need the resources to do that.

That's why I'm concerned about the tremendous cuts that have been made to the natural resources staff.

Mr Gerretsen: I would just like to reiterate some of the comments that have been made here today. When you look at what's happened to the budget at the Ministry of Natural Resources, it has declined by $150 million. Two years ago they spent $519 million and this year they're projected to spend $369 million. That is a decline of almost 33%. When you realize that an awful lot of this money is going towards the enforcement aspect of the various laws that this Legislature has made over the years, you realize that getting rid of the conservation officers is simply not the right thing to do.

We always have to be mindful that it is great to put a law into effect, but if we don't have the enforcement mechanisms, then people will not adhere to it and will do whatever the heck they want. So I just implore the Minister of Natural Resources to fight the good fight that he has to in cabinet and to try to get the funding that he requires to make sure that both this law and the other laws that are under his direction are properly enforced in this province.

In the northern part of my own county of Frontenac there are a number of Ministry of Natural Resources offices, and I know those offices have been decimated in that people who are no longer employed there. Particularly to a lot of the smaller municipalities, the employment base the Ministry of Natural Resources provides is significant, and although we agree with this law, we do not agree with the fact that the enforcement officers are no longer there to make sure the law is being adhered to.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Cochrane South has two minutes to respond.

Mr Lessard: There may be some more responses.

Mr Bisson: I take it there are no more responses. I just want to thank my two colleagues for responding to what I had to say. I hope the government listened to what we had to say, especially about Peche Island, because I know that's a very important issue to the people of Windsor, as raised by the member for Windsor-Riverside.

I also want to urge the members to vote on this particular bill. We think it's an important bill and we're not going to put up anybody else after. We want to see this bill passed. I hope the government doesn't stall the debate any more and that we're able to pass this very important legislation.

The Acting Speaker: Is there any further debate?

Mr Gerretsen: Should the House not adjourn, Mr Speaker? It's past 12 o'clock.

The Acting Speaker: I want to know if there's further debate.

Mr Gerretsen: Yes, we have. We have more speakers on this.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: It being 12 noon, the House stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock this afternoon.

The House recessed from 1204 to 1331.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

ARTS AND CULTURAL FUNDING

Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): As we come to the end of 1997, I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to send a year-end message to the Minister of Culture on behalf of the Ontario Liberal caucus, a message that I hope the minister takes to heart and responds to by changing the direction her party has taken so far in its mandate.

Minister, I don't need to tell you that after two and a half years your government's legacy as far as the arts, cultural and heritage communities in this province are concerned is nothing more than a series of brutal successive cuts that have devastated the cultural sector. An almost 50% cut to the Ontario Arts Council, which is truly the research and development arm for the cultural sector, has left the council and those it funds absolutely reeling.

Your lack of support to public galleries, museums, symphonies, non-profit theatres, arts service organizations and individual artists has left the cultural sector wondering whether they can survive.

As rumours continue to swirl that your government is planning a further cut to the Ontario Arts Council and in fact may be moving to dissolve it entirely, it becomes all the more important that you speak out now in defence of the OAC and the valuable role it plays in our cultural lives and in the economy.

May I say, Minister, your comment yesterday in question period that "We are not in the business of giving out grants" does nothing to reassure those of us who hoped your recent appointment would herald a new approach to this government's support for the arts.

I say to you today, if you truly want to make an impact as the Minister of Culture, you should formally announce that no further cuts will be made to the OAC; but if you truly want to make a difference, you'll return funding levels for the OAC at least back to 1996-97 levels.

HOLIDAY MESSAGES

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): It being half to three quarters of the way through this government's agenda, at the end of this session we're going to prorogue and we are going to see, as we predicted, Mike Harris and his minions begin to spin a story out there of peace and cooperation. As a matter of fact, he started it yesterday. An

article in the Globe and Mail has him extolling the virtues of his government and what he has done and what's going to happen in this province. The reality out there is telling a completely different story.

Another

article in today's paper talks about the leaders of our church communities. Almost every major church community in this province is really upset, angry and concerned. "Churches Strive to Cover Slashed Social Services," but they know they don't have the money. "A Crash Campaign to Combat the Cold." "Students Getting the Shaft." This is the story everywhere we look, and people should be aware of that.

In spite of that, I'd like to take a couple of minutes today to say to the people of Ontario and particularly to my own constituents that I wish them a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, a happy Ramadan and particularly a happy new year and to let them know that in spite of what Mike Harris is doing, there really isn't anything that will come at us that we, together, can't handle, because we're a good province, and our caucus will be -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you.

BRUCE GENERATING STATION

Mrs Barbara Fisher (Bruce): I would like to share with the members present an important discussion I had with the Minister of Energy, Science and Technology, the Honourable Jim Wilson, regarding the Bruce nuclear site. The minister expressed confidence in the future of the BNPD site. He was clearly concerned, as I have been over the past week, about speculation over the state of Bruce A since the leak of a draft report of the Legislature's select committee. These hurtful rumours serve no other purpose than to create confusion and uncertainty in my riding.

Minister Wilson feels that the committee heard enough evidence, that of 100 witnesses and 200 submissions, to indicate that the nuclear recovery plan needs to be reviewed in the context of the white paper. I strongly agree. This is good news for the people of Bruce. A recommendation from the committee requiring Hydro to review the current plan would breathe new life into Ontario Hydro's original decision to lay up all four units a