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April 4, 1991

35th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

ELECTION AMENDMENT ACT, 1991

Mr Mills moved second reading of Bill 65,

An Act to amend the Election Act, 1984.

Mr Mills: The amendment that I am moving today makes such profound common sense that it makes it difficult for me to debate this item because I am sure that my colleagues on the government side and the honourable members in both the opposition and the third party will see the logic in this amendment to the Election Act.

In the last election, I narrowly squeaked by originally and it resulted in a judicial recount. As members know, a judicial recount gives everybody the opportunity to look at the ballots and to argue what is acceptable and what perhaps is not. I noticed that on several occasions the people had indicated that they wanted to vote for me and they spoiled their ballots by putting on the back of their ballots the party affiliation that I was representing. That caused quite a bit of grief in so far as the count went.

I know that this subject has been of much discussion dating back over many years and back into 1970 and nothing previously has ever been done to address this problem. Ontario traditionally has been reluctant to address this problem, as it thought, in the bygone era, that the person representing the riding was all important and the party affiliation was really not there, that the people elected were there to represent the people. In 1976, political parties were legally recognized throughout the province of Ontario through the Election Finances Act.

At the present time, when you go into a polling booth there is a small sign, and I will hold it up and show members. This is the actual size of this sign and it just indicates the parties that the people are intending to vote for. It is about that size and of course you cannot readily see, especially if you are getting along in years, who is who.

In the last election, I remember -- and I see the honourable member for Simcoe East is in the members' gallery there. I believe he had some sort of problem in his election whereby two candidates by his name ran for the same position and I believe -- I stand corrected if I am wrong -- that he took some steps to try to have the Progressive Conservative logo imprinted on the ballot. Of course, he was not successful in this because you are not allowed to do that sort of thing at the present time.

In my research in this case there have been at least two candidates in recent elections who have used party logos to indicate that they were members of a particular party when in fact they were not, and this caused all kinds of embarrassment and problems for the real candidate.

I think that this amendment is very good because it now requires a written statement signed by the party leader before you will be able to get your name and party affiliation on the ballots, so that is a big step forward.

It removes all the confusion. It stops people jumping up and saying that they purport to represent a party when in fact they do not. I do not have to remind the honourable members here of the last-minute problems that occurred in the last election over a seat in Brampton, where we had one candidate who was recognized --

Mr Callahan: It is a good thing that happened.

Mr Mills: That is why the member is here. Anyway, the honourable members know the confusion that little episode caused.

This amendment is so very, very good and so sensible that I am finding it increasingly difficult to get sort of really worked up and into a debating mood, because it is rather like watching paint dry. That is not very exciting, but nevertheless this amendment to the Election Act is one that really should be addressed and it should be supported.

We talk about the provinces that do this now -- there are provinces all across Canada that mark the ballots with the political affiliation. In Alberta the party name is printed following the name. In British Columbia it is the same way. In Manitoba a candidate is endorsed by a political party, registered with the chief electoral officer and then has the registered name or abbreviation of the party printed following his name. In New Brunswick it is much the same, a little different in that there is no provision for someone marking the ballot as an independent.

Newfoundlanders at present are the only ones, like us in Ontario, who do not allow party affiliation on the ballots, although in Newfoundland they still put down what you do for a living, be it a fisherman, a doctor or whatever. We of course do not do that. In Newfoundland the chief electoral officer has recommended that the Election Act be changed to allow for the provision that I am talking about here this morning, so in Newfoundland they are addressing this problem as well.

In Nova Scotia the name of the party is printed following the candidate's name, and if a candidate is not running in Nova Scotia, then the word "independent" is printed under his name. In Prince Edward Island the political affiliation is printed following the name, and again, there is no provision for recognizing someone running as an independent.

In Quebec the authorized political party appears under the name of the candidate, and if a candidate is not running for an authorized party, then the word "independent" is printed. In Saskatchewan, it is the same thing. The candidate is endorsed by a political party registered by the chief electoral officer; then the political affiliation appears in brackets beneath his name.

In the Northwest Territories there is an exception. As everybody in this House probably knows, there is no political affiliation in the Northwest Territories and in this case no political affiliation, of course, would appear underneath the name of the candidate. In the Yukon the name of the political party endorsing a candidate appears under the candidate's name. Again, if he is not endorsed by a registered party, then the political affiliation of the candidate shall be described on the ballot as the word "independent."

So Newfoundland and Ontario are lagging behind in this change that makes such good sense, and Newfoundland is taking steps to right this wrong.

I close off my remarks by asking for full party support of this change and I am sure that everybody will benefit. There is a hidden benefit there about the environment, the way I see it. I know in the last election, a candidate who ran in the riding quite close to me took it upon herself not to use any signs at all, she was so environmentally sensitive. This cost that lady that seat, I feel.

Now, if we can put this on the ballots, some of us might in the long term either think about messing up our whole ridings with signs or even think about a reduced plan, because after all, the whole object, as I see it, of signs in an election is to identify the candidate with a party and with the electorate. This amendment to the Election Act would go a long way to resolving the issue.

I thank all members for listening and I hope that they will support it.

The Deputy Speaker: Before I recognize the member for Brampton South, I would like to recognize a former member of this House, Howard Sheppard. Howard represented the constituency of Northumberland. Welcome to Queen's Park.

Mr Callahan: It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this bill introduced by the member for Durham East. But before I do that, I have always been a firm believer that the electorate should have as much information as possible about the candidates they are going to support in an election, so therefore putting their party affiliation on the ballot is certainly giving more information to the people.

Having said that, the difficulty and the problem is the frailty and the inadequacy of private members' hour. There has never been a private member's bill that has ever made it into legislation, other than one on daylight saving time. So what it means is, as we debate in good faith this very important issue in this House and other issues, they will never find their way on to the government agenda. If members do, they make history. However, having said that, I would like to address the bill itself.

As we all know, in elections in the parliamentary system in Ontario, 75% of your vote actually comes from the leader. If he or she is popular, it becomes very easy to run and you really are just picking up about 25% of that vote. So that, in a sense, is important in terms of having the party affiliation on the ballot if your leader is popular.

Just for example, if you were in British Columbia now and Mr Vander Zalm were still Premier, I do not think that this type of bill would be presented to the House, because you certainly would not want to be identified as a Social Credit member running under Mr Vander Zalm. I just give that as an example that once you put it there, it is there for good. You do not get it off again.

It is interesting as well, as the member for Durham East indicated, that the only two provinces that do not have it on the ballot are Newfoundland and Ontario. I will give a little history lesson as to why Ontario does not have it. For 42 years the Conservative Party ran by natural birth and inheritance. Nobody else had a chance. Of course, they did not want to identify themselves on the ballot because most of them were so well known, they had been around so long that they knew that their party faithful would come out and support them.

In fact, a curious situation arose in my riding. I ran in 1977 and 1981 against former Premier Bill Davis in my riding, and the NDP of the day, I think it was in either 1981 or 1977, put a Davis on the ballot. They did that innocently enough. They did not want to confuse the public, I do not think. In any event, up to that point in time the former Premier was always known as W. G. Davis on the ballot. But because the NDP had run a fellow by the name of Neil Davis, you could tell alphabetically that W. G. Davis was no longer going to be first on the ballot. How do you tell your supporters who they should vote for?

It is easy to say, "Vote for the first person on the ballot." From that point on the former Premier, when he was running, ran under the title Bill Davis so that he could be first on the ballot.

As the members can see, there is importance to this and there are fun and games that can be played by other parties in terms of putting another name that is similar to the existing member on the ballot and confusing the daylights out of people. Particularly when you do not even have their profession on there, it makes it very difficult for the public to be aware of what or whom they are voting for.

I disagree in this respect with one of the items. I did not see it in the bill but the member says it is there. It was the requirement that the party leader sign the nomination papers of a candidate. I would totally disagree with that. For this reason I would disagree with it: We as members of the House belong to a political party, yes, but we also are elected to represent the people of our community and not to be in any way muffled, silenced or to run on the fear that if we say something that perhaps is in the interests of our constituents but does not quite sit with the party's philosophy, we could then be penalized in the next campaign by not having our papers signed.

We all saw an instance of this, I believe, in the federal election, where Mr Mulroney would not sign the papers of a particular candidate and I think the candidate had to run as an independent. I suggest to the members that that is one item that should be kept out of there in order to ensure the integrity and the freedom of members to say what they like as long as it is in the interests of their constituents.

The situation that we have had in terms of the party leadership now, I think that part and parcel of this, if the government looks at this and I think it should look at it -- I certainly was in favour of it when we were in government, that party affiliation be put on the ballot, for the reason I started out with, that the public should have access to all of the information possible to elect the best possible person to represent their views in this Legislature.

But I think it goes deeper than that. I think the importance in this first step, you might say, is there should be a looking at the reform of Parliament. In fact, if the Premier wants to set up a committee that will be meaningful, I think that is one that could really be meaningful. It may very well be at the very root cause of some of the problems that are existing in this country that Parliament and the legislative process, where a government falls if everybody does not vote in accordance with the party that is in power, becomes a bit of a sham.

It means that you are not representing your constituents to their best interests but you are just simply voting at the push of a button. I think that has to be reformed. Every vote should not be a confidence vote that a government will fall and require an election.

I think there are other issues that could be looked at in a reform of Parliament as well. The very fact that the Premier perhaps appoints the entire cabinet, I suggest, is not a good democratic way of doing it. I think 50% should be appointed by the Premier and the others should be elected from among the caucus. Otherwise what you get is the gift, the golden apple that can be held over your head to make certain that you play the party line. Who are the losers? The losers are in fact your constituents, because anything that makes you less free to advance their cause in this House is to their detriment. I would suggest that is an area.

Who knows better than the caucus who is the best person, who he or she may be, to lead the party? Do the people who go out into these conventions -- and in most cases they are stacked delegates meetings -- know really who the best person is, or is the person who wins the leadership the person who can sell the most memberships to stack the delegates meetings in order to wind up with the major votes at a convention?

I suggest that the member for Durham East has certainly taken that first step, and I hope his government looks at it because I think it is important. However, he may rue the day when he did it, because in the next election he does not know whether or not Mr Rae will be popular, and if he is not, then people will just go down the ballot, and when they see "NDP" they will bypass it and go on to the next one and perhaps vote Reform.

Mr Carr: PC.

Mr Callahan: No, no, not PC. They will skip that one, too. But they will go down the ballot. There is sort of a boomerang effect to this, that if you put it on the ballot, you may well have created for yourself a ticking time bomb that may result in your being blasted right out of this House. So think about that.

But I would urge the member for Durham East not to let this die. Do not let them just pass this in this House and have nothing happen, because that is what happens around this place. As I said when I started, too often good ideas in this House that are raised, many of them on Thursday morning, never get beyond the approval of the House, and the people of Ontario, I think, are less rich as a result of it. So pursue it, but also pursue it, as I said, with a further enlargement of a committee to look at the question of studying Parliament, the parliamentary system, and whether it works in Canada.

We should also be looking at the question of a redistribution of powers; 1867 was a long time ago, and a lot of the powers that were allocated out of sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution, or the British North America Act, no longer apply. In fact, that is part of the root cause of the problems we are having in this country, too. Instead of going around and asking people to say why they feel Quebec should stay in Confederation, perhaps they should be going around and looking at these aspects and at a broader cure to the malaise that we have in this country.

I think in the final analysis, as is represented by the fact that we are all here in this Legislature, we care with great passion about Ontario, and we care with equal passion about Canada. Let's hope that initiatives like this and further initiatives or reform of Parliament will result in Canada being the Canada we all love.

Mr Carr: I will be fairly brief, but I did want to make a couple of comments if I could. I want to compliment my friend for bringing this across. I got to know him during the justice committee, and I want to thank him for bringing this measure before us. I think this particular move would have helped me last time. I come from a riding with a great Tory tradition. Jim Snow was the former member, the Minister of Transportation, as well as Terry O'Connor after him, and in the last campaign everybody was running around saying, "Who is the Tory candidate?" I was not well known, a virtual newcomer, and it would have been very helpful to me.

Mr McLean: But they sure know now.

Mr Carr: They know now, as my colleague says. But I have a couple of concerns about the independence of the process. I think a lot of people want more independent members in this Legislature. When you put the party affiliation down, you really do not know why people voted. It may be because the member for Durham East, the member who introduced this, is a great member, and he can rightly say, "I am going to disagree with the NDP on this policy, and I am going to vote independently for my constituents because I believe in it and they voted for me."

But you will have other people who will say: "No, no, it was not the member for Durham East I voted for. It was the name, the NDP portion on the back that I voted for." Right now, a member like the member for Durham East can be relatively independent and stand up and say: "It was me elected. Sure, I was a part of the party, but it was really me the people elected, so I can be independent if I want and vote against the party on this issue."

It does not happen by all three sides when we are in power, but conceivably it could, and I think that is what the electorate really wants. I think that is why sometimes there is a little bit of bit of frustration, because we try to put everything into party lines, and the vast majority of people do not fall into parties. The vast majority of people are the swing voters that on some issues might be NDP, others Conservative, others Liberal.

This makes it very difficult, because it takes away, I think, in my example, the independence of the member. Because people will say: "No, Mr Mills, on this issue it wasn't you I voted for; it was the NDP and your Premier, Mr Rae. So you can't disagree with them on that, because I voted for the NDP policy." So I think there are a few concerns in that area, and I think, as we know, the public wants our members to be a little more independent, not to toe the line on issues. They want their members to be fairly aggressive and fairly independent.

I must say, having new members on all sides, that that has certainly happened in this House to a great extent, and hopefully it will continue on a little bit more.

I am also a little concerned about what may happen as a result of the options, that it may get confusing, because I know there will be some members -- for example, our colleague the member for Markham. People do not know or care what party the member is with. They vote for the man, and so somebody like that might not put his name on the ballot. People do not care. If he ran as an independent or for the Green Party or any party, he would probably be elected, because they like him. They trust him. He has done a good job for them. He might decide, for example, to leave it off.

You have a ballot where you have party affiliations, and then one member, because he wants to be a little more independent, is left off. My fear is that people will come in and say, "What the heck is happening here?" They will not know the reasons it is left off. They will think: "What's the matter? Aren't you proud of the party?" That is not the case, because an independent member like the member for Markham might want to leave it off because he wants to be independent in the way he votes on a lot of issues.

So there are some concerns there on a couple of these issues that I would raise. On the whole though -- and I think that is what the member tried to do by giving the option, to say that there are some circumstances, and it makes it very difficult -- I must say I am in favour of it, because I am proud to be a Progressive Conservative. I think certainly the last time, the vast majority of the people voted for me because of the fact I was with the Conservative Party and because of the fact that they liked our leader and what he stood for, so it certainly would have helped me the last time around. While there are some problems with it, I certainly would be in favour of putting it on there.

I believe a couple of my colleagues have comments to make, so I will leave it at that.

Mr Drainville: It gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to this bill put forth by the honourable member for Durham East. I come at this from a particular perspective. I served as a returning officer for Broadview-Greenwood riding federally in the elections of 1979 and 1980. At that time, I had an opportunity to see the benefits of having the political affiliation on the ballot. I served in a riding that had a great number of people from different ethnic backgrounds, as well as people with a high rate of illiteracy.

Having the political affiliation on the ballot under those circumstances actually helped in the process of ensuring that people were supporting the party that they wanted to support.

I have always seen this as a definite advantage. As has been mentioned by the honourable member for Durham East, Ontario and Newfoundland are the only two provinces lagging behind, and Newfoundland is on the way to introducing this into its system. So I would like to say to the House that this is something I think is very important.

I would also like to talk about a very important principle which needs always to be acknowledged here, and that is the egalitarian principle to which I think we, as members in this House, have to give our unqualified assent and support. The reality is that here we are, government members bringing forth a bill, albeit a private member's bill, that indicates our support for a principle that says it is important that all parties have the opportunity to be recognized.

A government, generally speaking, or members of the government or even incumbents who are serving in this House, happen to be in a wonderful position when they go into an election of being known by the electorate, and their names are known. In some sense, there is not a great need to have political affiliation in that they have already built up a certain reputation before they come to the next election.

What we are saying in this private member's bill is an important thing, and that is to put forward the egalitarian principle that says that people need as much information as possible to make their decision, to make the job easier so that their enfranchisement is something that can take effect as soon as it possibly can. When people go into the voting booth, it is clear to them the direction that they want to go and whom they want to support.

In terms of the party leaders signing the papers, I do not want to dwell too long on this point, but I really do think it is important that when one belongs to a party, that that is recognized by the party leadership. I realized, when the honourable member was speaking about this from across the floor, that he was saying there could be problems. Of course there are problems. If you are an independent-minded member of a particular party and you happen not to be getting along with the leader, indeed it can cause problems.

But the reality is that the system we are part of is a system based upon a partisan party principle. If you are on the outs with the leadership of that party, it seems to me, if you are so far on the outs that the leader is not even willing to sign your papers, there is a question as to your effectiveness to begin with in serving in that political party and trying to say in an election that you are going to continue to support the policies that are put forward by that particular party.

I do not see this as a great obstacle at all, but rather a very understandable statement that each and every candidate who is running, if he or she is running under a party banner, needs to be acknowledged to be a representative of that party.

I think that touches on all the points that I want to make today.

Mr Sola: Quite a few of the points that I was going to touch on have already been mentioned, but there are still a couple left over for me to touch upon initially.

First of all, I would like to say that in today's society, we are much more mobile. Having run in the 1987 and 1990 elections, I have noticed the great turnover in the electorate. Perhaps up to 25%, maybe 30%, of the electorate in Mississauga East in 1987 were no longer at the same addresses or perhaps even in the same riding in 1990. The old argument that the candidate is well known in his or her riding and can run on the basis of his or her reputation, I think, is no longer valid because of the mobility of our society.

We have people who were living in Mississauga in the 1990 election who may be in Manitoba for the next provincial election over there, or people from Newfoundland who will be in Mississauga in the next election. That is one reason it is necessary to have party affiliation associated with the name.

Speaking personally, in 1987 the name John Sola was certainly not a household name in Mississauga East. It was closer to being John Who? when I was knocking on doors. But the name David Peterson certainly was a household name, the name Liberal certainly was a household name, and I came in on a Liberal tide. Having survived an NDP tide, I can also say that it may have been fortunate for me that party affiliation was not on the ballot in 1990. The member who proposed this legislation may live to regret it, because the electorate is very volatile and the name Bob Rae may not have the same appeal in the next election as it had in the past.

If we are making it easier for people to associate with a certain area in a city, we should certainly be making it easy for people to associate the candidates on a ballot with the parties they represent. Especially in the greater Metro area, even incumbents have a difficult time getting access to the media. Some of the more high-profile critics do get access to the media, but the backbenchers, the critics of less high-profile areas, have a very difficult time getting access to the major media.

Therefore, their own electorate gets less of a chance to hear directly what the candidate stands for, unless they go to all-candidates meetings and unless they attend some of the functions that we attend. So it is much more difficult for a candidate to show individually what he stands for. But when he is affiliated with a party, when the party name is associated with his name, then every voter gets some idea of what that candidate will represent if elected.

I support this legislation. I think it is an idea whose time has come, and moreover whose time is more than overdue. In closing, I would just like to say, having mentioned the Greek and Chinese scripts, that members of the governing party may hope that in the coming election the party affiliation is put in those scripts, if things turn out the way they did in 1990 for the governing party.

Mr McLean: I want to speak briefly on this Bill 65, presented to the House today by my colleague the member for Durham East. Yes, there has been a lot of concern raised and, very well, in the last election when there were two McLeans on the ballot it certainly did confuse a lot of people. However, the real one did come through and win and the other guy got twice as many, three times as many, votes as he should have and he made the statement that he did not realize that he would do so well, being a member of the other political affiliation party which is not represented in this House.

With regard to the problem I had when this came to light during the campaign, that there was going to be another McLean on the ballot, we had requested party affiliation to be added to it through the elections commissioner. However, my Liberal opponent appeared to disagree with that idea. I do not know why, but it did happen. With regard to Bill 65, that would certainly do away with any problem. However, we did request that our addresses be put on because the other McLean happened to be from Penetanguishene and not from Orillia, so that did make a difference.

The problem I had with the procedure was the fact that somebody could object to that being put on when there was rightfully a discrepancy or a problem that they could identify, that some people would not really know which McLean they were voting for.

So Bill 65 has a lot of merit in that it would solve that problem. The problem that I have, really, is the fact that a lot of the members probably would not be over there today if people had known which party they were representing. That has really created a problem for us. However, maybe the public across the province will realize in two or three years what they have done.

That would have maybe helped in that case. I believe it should be clear and precise which party a candidate is representing. Then there would be no doubt in anybody's mind whom they are voting for.

But that does still create a problem, as my colleague has said. There are many people who would sooner vote for somebody who does not belong to a political party, somebody with an open mind who wants to come to Queen's Park and represent his constituents without voting the party line. That has been my theory all my 15 years in municipal politics and that is the way we operated, and the way I believe we should be operating at Queen's Park.

It concerns me, always has concerned me and I have not always voted the party line, because I vote with my constituents, what they are indicating to me, and I think that is the way it should be. There should be some legislation that would allow an individual to do that. I think it would be more important than the legislation that we are dealing with here today. However, that is not the case.

When we are talking about identifying people, the other interesting aspect of the campaign is that when the campaign was called, I had a news conference indicating that people in the province have a great concern for the environment and I said: "Why don't we all do away with lawn signs? That's going to be my policy. I'm not going to put up lawn signs in this election." Well, my opposition did not think that was just the right thing to do. They would have their signs recycled, they would be put out of use, they would not go into the garbage dumps.

I continued with my promise not to have lawn signs and stuck with that. My two colleagues had thousands and thousands of lawn signs littering the countryside and they were still there months after.

So when we are talking about identification, is it lawn signs identifying people any more than putting one's party affiliation on the ballot? In a tough election I believe the electorate is not all that dumb. I believe the electorate is very smart. I remember the time there were two Trudeaus on the ballot the same as there were two Davises at one time, and obviously the real ones got elected.

I really have no objections to the member's bill as far as putting on the party affiliation is concerned, but I would love to have seen in some way having the opportunity, the right to decide whether one wanted it on. We are really taking that right away. Some people or some parties are not very popular, and yet if the candidate has done an excellent job in his riding and is a popular candidate and if he affiliates with that party he is a member of on the front, some people will say, "Well, if he is a certain member of that party, I won't vote for him because of the party," forgetting the member really.

I will leave a bit of time for my colleague the member for Simcoe West. I know he has a few remarks he would like to make. I would just like to close by saying I will support the bill. I believe it is a step in the right direction. However, I have some concerns and reservations about it. I do think of a bill that would give members of this Legislature the freedom and the right to vote as they see fit, regardless of what party or affiliation they have.

I really want to emphasize these two issues, as we are talking about amending the Election Act. I think, as it is referred to committee, friendly amendments may be proposed that will address the issue of making sure most of the people in our constituency, if not all, can actively participate in the election process.

As the member has indicated, some people may be opposed to standing behind an election party for the simple fact that they should be elected as the member, but it is the policies of our party that govern a lot of our direction. Yes, as members we have the freedom of voice to emphasize it in our caucuses. But if we are to talk about the logo of the party, it is important that we make sure the logo of the party is accessible to all people. How we will make it accessible to those who are blind is another question we must deal with. Braille will make that available.

But there are two questions: one, for those who are unable to read, making sure that possibly a picture is available; two, for those who are unable to see, providing Braille or some form of identification so that a person can play an active part.

I do support my colleague, as I think he has made a remarkable step on behalf of the government. Hopefully it will be passed and in place for the next election, but I also wanted to make sure those issues I have raised are taken under consideration by the committee.

Mr J. Wilson: It is a pleasure to rise today and speak to Bill 65, the private member's bill introduced by the member for Durham East. I just want to follow up on the remarks made by our colleague the member for Simcoe East. I am proud to announce today that when we are talking about the real McLean, McDonald's has now introduced a McLean deluxe burger. My colleague is extremely proud of that and I just want the House to be aware that the real McLean is alive and well. It is true; there is a bulletin right here before me. I am sure the member for Simcoe East will be sure to tell his constituents this afternoon.

I do have a worry, though, about the proposed bill where it says, "A candidate of a registered party who wishes the party's name to appear on the ballot may file with the nomination paper a written statement signed by the party's leader confirming that he or she is the party's candidate."

My worry there is that some candidates, when filing their papers, may tick off the little box that I guess will be on the form to have their party affiliation, while others may not. Unless there is some sort of collusion ahead of time, we may end up with ballots where we have Liberals, NDPs, Conservatives and names without party affiliation. We may have some of the main political parties, some of those candidates who choose not to put their party affiliation. I think it adds confusion to the voter who may go into the voter box and say: "Well, there is Jim Wilson in Simcoe West.

He does not have his party affiliation. Is this the Jim Wilson that has been the Conservative candidate?" There could very well be confusion, so I think the bill could be made better if it was all or nothing, if it was required by all candidates or not required at all.

My preference is that it not be required. In rural Ontario in Simcoe West we had the honourable member George McCague serve for some 15 years prior to myself and George got elected each time, five times, because he did a good job for his riding, not because of his party affiliation. It is extremely important in rural Ontario, as it is in all ridings, that members have served on municipal council or have been involved in the community.

I think particularly our constituents notice more, perhaps because we have a number of local newspapers and local radio stations and we are in those papers every week reporting on what we are doing on their behalf at Queen's Park. They are very much aware of what we do as members of provincial Parliament, they are very much aware of what their candidates' records have been and they like to vote for the local man or woman regardless of party affiliation. I think it is important that we continue that proud tradition in rural Ontario, where we vote for good people to represent our constituents.

The number one issue in this past election was that people were tired either of Ottawa or Queen's Park representing themselves to our constituents or to the voters, rather than the way the darned system was designed in the first place, that our constituents and the voters of this province are represented here by us, their elected representatives. We should not and never forget that is our job, to represent their views and not our views to them.

Mr White: It is a pleasure to speak on my friend's private member's bill. The member for Durham East is already an established member of his community. He has a regular contribution to the local papers, his regular column, and even so, despite the fine member he has proven to be and the popular member of his community he is, I doubt he would have been elected had people not known what party he was running for. I think this bill only makes a great deal of sense as an updating, as an informational bill. It says, "Let's get into the 20th century before we leave it."

Obviously people are denied their basic democratic values, a basic right if, when they walk into the polling station, they do not know who is representing the party they wish to vote for. Very frequently there are names, as my friend the member for Simcoe East alleges, which are very similar. Some of the members here and I myself have very common names: White, Brown, Smith. It is not uncommon not only to have names that are similar, but even to have the same name on the ballot. In my particular area we had a White and a Wyatt, which I am sure many voters might have had some difficulty distinguishing.

The reason behind not having the party name on the ballot I think goes back to what the member for Brampton South was referring to, that for 42 years we had a dynasty and the member was the member indefinitely. This is no longer the case, and I think it behooves us, as we are reforming the way this province is governed, to also reform the way people can have a real choice come election day.

It is also a matter of finances. I know certainly the more one's name is associated with a party -- it is, after all, the party and the local riding association that are financing your campaign, but it should not be a situation in this province where those who have the most money, those who can put the mail out the farthest, the most frequently and the most blatantly should be the ones who pick up the votes. There should be an association that is related not simply to finances, but also to what that person is standing for.

It is fine as we stand here, but I think the time has come for this kind of a resolution to be put forward and the member for Durham East's private member's bill to be passed.

Mr Winninger: It gives me pleasure to rise in support of Bill 65. The comments by the member for Durham East I think were lucid, well informed, convincing and eminently sensible. Some members from the Conservative caucus have suggested that political affiliation might be better left off the ballot. I can understand why they might not want to be associated with their party at the present time. They may feel their own personal popularity overrides the popularity of the party in their riding and that may in fact be why they are here in the House today.

However, I think we have to remember that when candidates register to run in an election they register as members of a political party. To my memory, when the voters go to cast their ballots, there is a list of candidates with political affiliation attached to the voting booth. The only place the political affiliation does not appear is on the ballot. On that count, we are far behind the majority of other provinces across the country that allow for political affiliation.

In my riding of London South, approximately 10 or 11 years ago, there were two candidates running at the same time, neither of whom was an incumbent. Both had the surname Green, both ran a green campaign long before the colour green became fashionable and both lost. The fact that both lost may have had something to do with the fact that there was no way for the voter to differentiate between each of the candidates.

When the members are elected and take their places in this House, and if they have the same surname, they are differentiated through reference to their ridings, which makes sense. So if you are going to differentiate the candidates in an election, why not do it before the votes are cast when it will be most important that the voters make an educated decision as to whom they are voting for and not just the name that may have more recognition in the riding.

I think it is incumbent upon this Legislature to ensure that full disclosure is made, when the candidates go to the voters during an election, that the voters know which party a particular candidate aligns himself or herself with and, if another candidate is running as an independent, that the public also know he or she is running as an independent and not affiliated with another party. This will certainly reduce the degree of confusion in the mind of the voter. It is a reform that has been a long time coming, but the time is at hand for the reform to be passed in the form of legislation.

I would certainly concur with the member for Durham East that this is an eminently sensible move that this Legislature should be prepared to take at this time. Therefore, I would endorse the bill put forward by the member for Durham East.

Mr Perruzza: It gives me great pleasure to be able to speak to this bill which I feel is rather timely. Some time ago I think the winds of change began to blow, not only in this province or in this country but all over the world, and I think it is catch-up time for Ontario. This deals with certain democratic principles I think we should not simply neglect. I think 42 years of Tory dynasty in this province are over and I think people should know what they are getting when they are getting it at election time. I think this stifles the expression of certain democratic rights.

I know there are a number of other parties which would like to be recognized at election time. Regrettably, they do not have the funds or the ability.

Mr Mills: It has really been a delightful experience for me so early in my political career in this House to present a private member's bill, and I thank all the members for their participation and some of the encouraging things they have said.

Mention was made by the honourable member for Brampton South about not mentioning the fact that the Conservatives had stifled some sort of recognition due to their 42 years, but being a kinder, gentler type of person, I deliberately refrained from bringing that to the attention of the members here this morning. I can understand the concern of the member for Brampton South, that he is glad this bill was not in order in the last election. If it had been, there might be so few of those chairs now that we would have him shuffled up to one end and I know --

Mr Carr: Having it on is going to cost you next time. What goes around, comes around.

Mr Mills: No, as far as the next election is concerned, I have absolutely no worries about the initials NDP being behind my name. I remain confident that our party is doing a great job. As the polls have indicated, 62% of the people support us at this time. I am confident that at the end of this time, it will be even greater. With all due respect to my honourable friends opposite, maybe those seats will diminish even less.

But I stand by my principles in life and I am confident that any party affiliation whatever makes really no difference. I have some sympathy with the honourable member for Simcoe East that we are here to serve the people. I think we are all here to serve the people but, nevertheless, we have a duty to the electorate to let them know what party we stand for so that they can make their decision on the ballot.

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANTS

Mr Miclash moved resolution 9:

That, in the opinion of this House, recognizing that fully accessible health care for every Ontarian should be a priority of this government, that northern Ontario residents often have to travel outside their communities to receive specialized health care services, that travel costs in northern Ontario are higher on average than in other areas of the province and that some situations, regardless of age, require the assistance of a travel companion, the government of Ontario should: reduce the distance criteria under the northern health travel grant program from 250 kilometres to 200 kilometres; remove the age requirement for companion travel assistance; change the formula used to calculate the grants to more accurately reflect the actual travel costs incurred; expand the program's geographic boundaries to include Parry Sound and all of the Nipissing district; and make these changes retroactive to 14 August 1990.

Mr Miclash: As members of the House will know, the people of northern Ontario are spread across a vast area. I know that some of the members from the opposite side of the House have already had an opportunity to come up and travel those portions of Ontario where we have a very thin, uneven population.

What I would like to say at this point is that we do have a strong sense of our contribution to Ontario. Across the north, we have a great many examples of this and I would just like to speak a little bit about my own riding.

We know that gold mining, for example, is very important to the riding of Kenora. We have gold mining throughout the riding in Red Lake and Golden, and we have the possibility of more coming in at Shoal Lake. As well, we have a very important forestry industry, one that contributes a lot to the economy of this province. Our natural resources are very important to the province and we actually contribute a tremendous amount of wealth to the province of Ontario.

Of course, we are looking at services, services that are provided for people across the province. Many of these services are taken for granted by people in southern Ontario. However, when it comes to northern Ontario we have some particular problems and I would like to point out the problem of health care. Again, I talk about the population being spread out in a vast area and the provision of that health care.

I have been a northerner for 37 years, actually born, raised and have lived in the same town, Kenora, and have represented the riding of Kenora over the past three and a half years. I must say that I am proud to rise in this House and present a resolution today that will address some of the concerns about this major concern of health care.

Mr Speaker, you may remember, and people in the House who were here in the past session will remember, that I introduced the same resolution back in May. I was encouraging that government to expand the northern health travel grant. I must say that resolution was supported at that time by both the Tories and the NDP. What I am doing today is introducing the resolution again, a very important resolution that I can see to be very helpful to the people throughout the entire north. What I am asking today is for the members, as they did last May, to support this resolution.

A lot of people might say, "Why did the Liberals not implement these changes?" In fact, the government brought in several programs to improve northern health care services. My resolution was introduced actually to build on these successes. We developed a strong sense of momentum on northern health care issues and I feel it is up to the present government to follow through on this momentum.

I must indicate that shortly after the Liberals took office in 1985, the northern health travel grant program was introduced, and at that time it provided financial assistance to northerners who have to travel long distances to receive specialized medical health care which is not available in their home communities. The program, as I indicated earlier, provided a much-needed service and was very popular.

If I might just read from an article, this is from the Dryden Observer of 20 March of this present year and it indicates: "Most northerners agree that the province of Ontario's northern health travel grant is a popular and worthwhile program. After all, it eases the financial burden placed on northern residents who have to travel long distances to receive medical services not available in their own community." Again, that is from an editorial in the Dryden Observer of 20 March.

This program was brought in by the Liberal government in 1985 and it has assisted more than 80,000 patients. I must repeat, 80,000 people in northern Ontario have actually taken advantage of this program. In 1988, the program was reviewed and we met with both health care givers and users for their input. We found that it was a very important program, a program important to both. In 1990, again we reviewed the program and further developed a more comprehensive set of improvements, once again with the input of both the health care givers and those groups and users of the program.

The improvements that we found would be necessary were introduced on 14 August 1990. At that time, we proposed a $2.5-million expansion of the program, which included the following very important commitments:

We said that we would remove the age restriction for having a travel companion. Currently, the travel costs of companions travelling with patients are only covered if that patient is under the age of 18 years. This age restriction should be removed for a number of reasons, reasons that would allow older people, people with certain disabilities, to have a companion with them. As I said, age is not the only barrier. We have a good number of other things that would contribute to the need of a person needing a companion to go along with him.

We also reduced the minimum travel distance requirement for accessing this program from 250 kilometres to 200 kilometres. A good number of large-sized population centres are slightly less than the 250-kilometre requirement rate now. When I think of places like Kenora, Jaffray and Melick, and Keewatin in my riding, which are actually 220 kilometres away from our major medical centre, that being Winnipeg, I think of how this program could be expanded to help the people in need of that care in our area.

Finally, our proposal would have expanded the program to cover both Parry Sound and the entire district of Nipissing, again a very important aspect to improving the program.

The improvements that I talked about that we introduced would allow an additional 3,420 northerners to benefit from the program, again a very significant number and a very significant program, to allow them to get needed medical attention that they cannot receive in their smaller communities.

When it all adds up, we have made tremendous progress over the past five years in the delivery of health care services in the northern areas. But I must say that we cannot stop there. We must build on the momentum that was established by the previous government. It is now up to the present government, the NDP, to carry on that momentum. So far, as with many other things we have seen, that has not happened in this first six months of the new government.

We feel that the government maybe lack attention on our northern issues and, as I say, this attention on this very particular issue is of great importance to me. We know that the NDP has a large northern caucus but, more importantly, a large number of cabinet ministers, six cabinet ministers are from the north, and I feel that there should be enough voice in the NDP government to address our concerns.

I adjourned the debate last May, and this was the debate in which I introduced my resolution to improve the grant program. The member for Sudbury East, who is now the House leader and Minister of Northern Development, made a very important statement, and I just might quote her with pride: "It is your Liberal minister who is in power, your government that is in power. If you were serious, you would have made some changes." I must say that we moved ahead to make those changes and now we are looking upon her government and herself to implement these changes.

I must remind her that she is now an NDP minister who is in government, and if they were serious at all they would take a very good look at carrying on with these changes.

As I said, over those five years, the previous government did build a good amount of momentum on this issue, and what I am asking today is for this present government to follow through on that momentum. At this time I would urge all the members to support my resolution. I would particularly challenge the northern members and, more importantly, the northern cabinet members, to demonstrate their effectiveness in their caucus and in their cabinet to ensure that these most important measures are implemented as soon as possible.

Mr Martin: I stand this morning, a very willing participant in this debate and certainly in accord with the member for Kenora and commend him for bringing this forward. If, as he says, it is the second time he has brought it forward, that is terrific, and I join with him in fighting on behalf of the people who we represent in northern Ontario so that we might get a share of the resources necessary to maintain a quality of life in that part of this province that speaks more adequately to the contribution that we make to the province economically.

Certainly, the issue of health services and the northern health grant has been a fundamental plank in the NDP northern initiatives program over the past number of years. If the members will remember, the New Democratic Party travelled across northern Ontario to gather information around the provision of health services to folks who live up there and in actual fact produced a document called Operation Critical that was presented to this House not so long ago and was received, I believe, favourably by many and will probably be referred to later by my friend across the floor.

Certainly, Operation Critical came as a result of a lot of the work that was done by my New Democratic Party colleagues in the north and built on a foundation in accord with what the Liberals put in place in 1985.

My predecessor from Sault Ste Marie, Karl Morin-Strom, played a very critical and important role in the development of the initial package of legislation that came down with regard to this particular issue and I must this morning certainly give him some credit as well, because not only is the member for Kenora bringing this forward for the second time, but I think it is important that we recognize that many of the members from this side of the House, when they were on that side of the House, raised this issue and played an important role.

We certainly supported the present legislation that was there back in 1985; 1985 was part of the accord period and I have to say that some of the most progressive legislation that this province has seen in its history came at that time. I suggest to members that a lot of the reason for that was because of the participation of our members in the preparation and presentation of that legislation. We supported it then and we support any improvements to it that might be forthcoming. Certainly this morning I stand in support of the resolution that is in front of us and believe that it is not only necessary but an issue of justice.

I share with the House and the member who brought this piece of legislation forward that our government does in fact have some plans in the works. The cabinet and the Ministry of Health are working on some material that will be forthcoming in the very near future which will enhance the northern travel program that is now in place. I suggest to the members that it may even be more exciting and positive to us who live in the north than the piece of legislation that we are looking at this morning. However, that does not get in the way of my supporting it.

The issue of health services in the north is a very fundamental issue for those of us who live there. It is an issue of justice because, as the member for Kenora has stated so ably, we have a great sense of our contribution to Ontario. Every job that is created in northern Ontario in the resource extraction sector produces, in fact, 8 to 11 jobs in southern Ontario. We feel that it is only right that it should provide to us in turn those services that we need to maintain a quality of life up there in order to keep our people healthy, so that we can continue to contribute in this significant and important way to the whole of the province.

Mr Phillips: I wish to speak in support of the member's motion as well. I compliment him for, I think the best term is perhaps, relentlessly pursuing this. I guess it was about eight or nine months ago that he thought he had the battle won and of course there were some events that changed that in September, and now it is back here. I think the merits of the case obviously have not changed and I look forward to all members of the House supporting it as they did, I think, when he brought it forward initially.

It is important for the House to continue to be reminded of the challenges in this vast province, and that this Legislature reflect the needs of all of the people of this province. Certainly when we look at something like the northern health travel grants, that is an indication of the need for us to be thinking constantly, as I say, about the diversity, particularly geographic diversity. Frankly, I hope that the House would support this and that the minister would move on it quickly.

The member for Sault Ste Marie has reminded us of the study that was done, I think a little more than a year ago, when several members -- actually, probably six now cabinet ministers, then members of the official opposition -- completed a study called Operation Critical. One of the key recommendations in that was to change the travel grant program. I will just quote a couple of paragraphs from it.

It said, "New Democrats will fight for needed improvements specific to the northern problem of a small population spread out over large distances." One of the recommendations is to "make the medically necessary travel grant work." Then right under it is a paragraph that says, "The members must appreciate the fact that what is needed is action, not further review and study." That, of course, was a year ago and I think just underlines the need to move quickly with the recommendations that the member for Kenora has brought forward.

It is a good idea. It does closely parallel an announcement that the previous government had made and did not have the opportunity to implement because of the change of government. It closely parallels an announcement that was made in August 1990 as, I think it is fair to say, a direct result of the initiatives of the member for Kenora who brought it to the House about 10 months ago, who got the support of the House about 10 months ago. As I say, it was supported then by all parties and all members of the House.

I am here today to urge all of us to support the recommendation, to say that it is one that makes sense, that will be of significant benefit to people in the north. It is one that I think parallels some of the recommendations that were in Operation Critical from a year ago. I hope, as we vote later this morning on this motion by the member for Kenora, that we have full and enthusiastic support for it.

Mr Wood: On the issue of northern Ontario travel grants, there are a lot of aspects of the resolution that was brought forward by the member for Kenora that I fully support, for the simple reason that I have lived in the north for 31 years. I am also from the second-largest riding in Ontario and the population is very thinly spread out throughout my riding, where people have to travel large distances. I think the matter that we should be putting emphasis on is health care prevention.

We should be talking about community delivery, we should be talking about having people looked after locally in their communities as much as possible, because of the loneliness when they are away from home for treatment. A lot of these areas also have to be addressed, and I understand that in the next number of weeks or months the Ministry of Health will be looking at some of these areas to address them.

One aspect of the resolution that the member for Kenora has brought forward which is very difficult for me to support is the nightmare that would be created by the retroactivity back to 14 April, which was a Liberal promise, I believe, that was made during the campaign. It did not get them elected at that particular time.

As far as the northern health travel grant program is concerned, we need it. The number of kilometres has to be reduced in order to help the people of the north, because of the fact that everybody in Ontario should have the same resources as far as health care is concerned. It is very critical that more emphasis is put on people in the north, so on that basis I congratulate the member for Kenora for bringing this resolution forward the second time that he has brought it forward. As I said, I support it in principle, with the exception of the retroactivity of it.

Mr Ramsay: It is a pleasure to be standing in my place as the member for Timiskaming to be supporting my colleague from Kenora on this very important private member's motion that we have before us here today. I not only want to speak to it; I certainly wholeheartedly endorse this motion and I would like to applaud the member for Kenora for again bringing back this motion to the House.

As the members all know, this was a Liberal government initiative that was supported by the New Democratic Party. We are looking forward today to some further support from the NDP government to make sure that we can improve this program. This program has worked very well, but as we all know, why we are all here is so that we can continue to improve government programs that we develop here in this House. I guess what the member for Kenora is really asking for today is unanimous support to improve this program, because northerners need it.

Now as we all know, in opposition the New Democrats, of course, had all the answers for all the problems and challenges that are out there. We look at the task force report that the NDP had completed around the north last year -- it was called Operation Critical -- and in that report the now governing party had suggested that this program be radically improved. I wholeheartedly support that. In fact, in August my Premier had announced that we would do that, he would bolster this program by $2.5 million additional. It is unfortunate that we are not in our place to fulfil that commitment -- we wish we could -- but we are certainly asking the government of the day to do that.

Back to the Operation Critical support of the government party: They had said that they felt that if it was necessary to travel over 80 kilometres in northern Ontario, that travel distance should be supported. As all members know, right now the government supports travel of over 250 kilometres. I must point out that that does not capture a lot of the northerners who live over that distance, as the member for Cochrane North has pointed out. As a northerner, I think it is always good to point out that there are vast distances in northern Ontario.

I must say, as a person who originally grew up in southern Ontario, most southern Ontario people are not aware of those vast distances that we northerners have to travel.

In the north we do not expect to have in every centre all the facilities that the people of southern Ontario do in their big centres. We are very aware of budgets and how the health care system has to be fiscally responsible, but what we have set up are regional centres, such as Sudbury, that would serve northeastern Ontario. Sudbury is the oncology centre for northeastern Ontario; Sudbury is basically the heart and stroke centre of northeastern Ontario. In fact, the quality of care in Sudbury is second to none.

But in our ridings we sometimes live more than 250 kilometres from Sudbury. In some cases, and I had a case of a constituent calling me last week, people have to make not one or two trips a year; some people, for different medical reasons, have to make two or three trips a week. So we find constituents in Timiskaming having to go to Sudbury a couple of times a week, maybe just a shade under 250 kilometres, who do not qualify for this program.

I would like to point out that until about six months ago the program kind of relaxed its administration on that. It had great sympathy for people, and I was finding that most of the grants in my area were going through. For some reason, in the last six months there has been much stricter adherence to those administrative regulatory rules, and now I am finding the people in my area are not being allowed to apply for that grant. In fact, the confusion was compounded because the doctors were not told, and of course it is the doctors who hand the grant application form to the patient. So it has caused a lot of disruption in my area.

I certainly would plead for this government to bring in the changes that are badly overdue, changes that not only do we in the Liberal Party believe in, but obviously, from the task force of the governing party, we know the governing party believes in. I must ask, when we all know what to do and what is wrong with it, why has the government not acted? It is not going to take that much to make this program become very effective for the people of northern Ontario. We know the answers and all parties in this House agree. I guess what we are calling upon today is the governing party to get off its duff, to act so that northerners have decent access to health care in this province.

Mr Eves: It is a pleasure to rise and speak, not only on behalf of our caucus but also as a northern member, with respect to this program. I want to thank the member for bringing in this resolution, which I wholeheartedly endorse and support. I think it is an idea whose time is long overdue. It has been debated many times in this Legislature on different occasions.

With respect to my own riding, being the fifth-largest geographical riding in the province of Ontario, and we like to think of it as part of northern Ontario, this has been a long fight, not only by municipal representatives who have fought for this in the Parry Sound Municipal Association, which is an association of all organized municipalities within the district of Parry Sound, which number 28, and some seven organized municipalities in East Nipissing which are also in the riding of Parry Sound. They all wholeheartedly endorse this concept that has been introduced today by the member.

As a matter of fact, with respect to Parry Sound riding, this issue goes back several years. It was on 25 June 1987 that this House unanimously endorsed a private member's resolution that I introduced. Members of all three political parties in attendance voted in favour -- not one single dissenting vote -- to include the riding of Parry Sound, meaning the geographical district of Parry Sound, and all of the geographical district of Nipissing in northern Ontario for the purposes of all government ministries, agencies, boards and commissions.

Seeing as how it did not produce any action and there was a subsequent intervening provincial election in 1987, I reintroduced exactly the same resolution, which was again passed unanimously by Parliament on 28 April 1988, with exactly the same language. Again, every single member of the Legislature from all three political parties endorsed the private member's resolution which I introduced.

We did subsequently receive an announcement from the then Minister of Northern Development, Mr Fontaine, which he delivered in this House on 9 June 1988, among other things including the district of Parry Sound and all of the geographical district of Nipissing in northern Ontario for the purposes of all ministries. However, we have a few ministries that have steadfastly refused to recognize not only those two unanimous resolutions, but even the statement by the minister and the statement by the Premier of the day, Mr Peterson.

Unfortunately, one of those ministries holding out is the Ministry of Health. I had written many letters to the previous Minister of Health, the member for Oriole, and I have written two similar letters to the current Minister of Health, the member for Ottawa Centre. It is amazing, the replies are almost identical. It is like I am in a time warp here and nothing seems to have changed. "It's a very interesting idea. The ministry is looking into it. We have an ongoing review of the northern health travel grant program and when that review is complete, we'll let you know."

I think it is time the Legislature acted and the minister acted on this important program. Everybody recognizes the difficulty that northerners have with respect to all kinds of services that the provincial government provides, but we are talking about health care in particular here this morning. I have no doubt that members from all three parties support this because I can of course point to the many statements.

I have pointed to a few commitments that were made by the previous government, I have alluded to statements that have been made by myself and other members of our caucus, and there are many statements on record by members of the current government: "23 August 1988: 'Health travel grants inadequate, Wildman says'"; "'Health care in north shocking,' Mr Rae said."

I do not think there is much doubt that the members of this Legislature all endorse what is being proposed today -- at least, I hope they do -- by the honourable member. As a matter of fact, members of the governing party may wish to go a little further than the honourable member is suggesting today, by having due respect for the conclusions that were reached in Operation Critical, The Report of the New Democratic Task Force on Northern Health Care Issues in February 1990. Some of those conclusions are indeed very interesting.

"First, the issue of distance." We are talking about the northern health travel grant program. "Any travelling of more than 80 kilometres (one hour by car) because a service is not available should be reimbursed. To the argument that the costs will be prohibitive, we prefer to regard the added cost as an incentive to provide the service locally." I could not agree more.

What is the point -- and it has already been alluded to by a couple of other speakers -- of trying to develop, for example, a cancer research facility in Sudbury if we are not going to encourage northerners to use that facility? If we are in a way going to discourage them by not making the distance requirement sufficient enough to encourage travel within northern Ontario, then the incentive is going to be there for them to travel to southern Ontario. That is exactly, I would think, what we are trying to get away from by providing those much-needed services.

We are doing some of that, not as quickly as we would all like to see it of course, but we are trying to do some of that in northern Ontario. It would be nice to see those people able to partake of that program and use the services the government is trying to provide in northern Ontario.

On the conclusion page, page 35 of Operation Critical, the report comes to the conclusion that because of "a small population spread out over large distances" in northern Ontario, they should "increase travelling clinics, improve the transportation system, and make the medically necessary travel grants work." That is again exactly what we are talking about in the honourable member's resolution before us today, to try and make the northern health travel grant program more workable.

In the riding of Parry Sound, people have perhaps been even more disadvantaged by a double standard than any other riding in the province of Ontario, because of the fact that about 25% of the population currently lies above the geographical or arbitrary boundary that is set by regulation by the Ministry of Health for qualification for the northern health travel grant program and the other 75% of the people, in the very same constituency, do not qualify.

What is even more shocking is the fact that the people who most need this service, who really cannot afford to travel for necessary medical care, are the ones who end up not getting necessary medical care because they cannot afford some things that other members and I might take for granted as individuals. Travelling to Toronto, for example, for cancer treatment is the one that comes most commonly to mind.

We have many constituents in the riding of Parry Sound who have to travel to Toronto for various medical reasons. I am just picking treatment for cancer at the Princess Margaret Hospital as one example. In a lot of these cases these constituents literally cannot come to Toronto and receive treatment because they cannot afford it, and I think that is a very sorry state indeed in the health care system in the province of Ontario. I think if it is true in my riding, it is certainly true in a lot of other ridings farther north.

I would like to address that inequity, both within the riding of Parry Sound and within all northern constituencies in the province of Ontario. It is a very, very unfortunate set of circumstances indeed. Some service clubs in my constituency, and I am sure in others, have tried to fill that void and provide transportation for some of these patients who need it, but I really think that we as a society and we as a government should be making a very, very concerted effort to address these inequities as much as is possible.

It is interesting, somewhat political at times, that the former Premier issued a press release on 14 August 1990 -- I think there was an election campaign going on then -- with almost the exact wording of the honourable member's resolution here today, as to how the northern health travel grant program could be improved upon and we could reduce the distance requirement from 300 kilometres and 250 kilometres.

There are two requirements, for those members that perhaps are unfamiliar with the program. One is for travel within northern Ontario to receive health care; the other is for travel from northern Ontario to southern Ontario to receive health care. There are two different distance criteria in the regulations right now -- one is 300 kilometres one way, the other one is 250 one way -- and the suggestion is being made, if I read the honourable member's resolution correctly, that we reduce both of those distances to 200 kilometres one way, which I fully and wholeheartedly endorse.

His resolution also goes on to include, and I thank him for that, the geographical district of Parry Sound and the entire geographical district of Nipissing. l mention "entire" because a good portion of Nipissing is already included by the definition under the regulation but the other part of Nipissing, the eastern part of Nipissing, is not. I think that is an inequity that has to be dealt with obviously as well.

When the then Premier, Mr Peterson, was questioned by the local media after his press release of 14 August 1990, he had failed to address both aspects of the distance requirement in his announcement and somewhat hurriedly instructed his staff, I presume, within about the next 48 hours, if memory serves me correctly, to make sure that indeed all parts of the riding of Parry Sound were included in the northern health travel grant program.

We have had all this commitment and all these statements by various members of all three parties, but to date we have not had any delivery from the Ministry of Health.

I know that the government is relatively new but, by the same token, I presume that this ongoing review that the member for Oriole referred to in 1987 and people before her referred to, and then in 1988 it was referred to and in 1989 it was referred to, has got to be the longest ongoing review of a program ever in the history of the Ontario Legislature, because here we are in 1991 and the current minister is saying: "You know, we've got this review going on of the northern health travel grant program. We'll get around to it. It just takes a little time. We can't do everything in the first six months."

I think Dr Barkin has been over there for a while as Deputy Minister of Health. I am sure that the other officials in the Ministry of Health do not change every time there is an election, I hope. I would hope that the ongoing review has now been completed and that they would see fit to include not only the riding of Parry Sound in the northern health travel grant program, but make the amendments to the program that are being suggested by the honourable member.

As a matter of fact, I might go one step further and be so bold as to suggest that we adopt the distance requirements outlined in Operation Critical by the NDP task force in February 1990 of 80 kilometres, because I really think that would address some of the basic problems that I outlined at the outset.

We are trying in this province, I hope, to provide first-class medical services as close to home as possible for northerners, and if we are going to try to encourage them to use those facilities, such as the one in Sudbury, then surely the very least we can do is make it as easy as possible and provide that little bit of incentive and in many cases much-needed support of these people so they can use the services and receive the treatment that they rightly deserve.

I will be supporting the resolution, as I hope indeed all members of the Legislature will do on a non-partisan issue. I think it is issues such as these where partisan politics really have no place in the Ontario Legislature, and it is during private members' hour such as this morning and dealing with issues like this that very directly touch and affect people perhaps less fortunate in society. I think those are the issues that surely we can rise above partisanship on and support and help the people in the province of Ontario.

Mr Winninger: Normally, speaking as a southerner I could support the resolution put forth by the member for Kenora. However, I have two major concerns. First of all, one is that the resolution may not in fact go far enough to assist northerners with their health care needs. But more important, the retroactivity provision in the resolution, in my view, is very problematic.

The northern health travel grant program came into effect in December 1985. The previous government had five full years to make the necessary changes to the travel grant program. It was only in August of 1990, during an election campaign, when an undertaking was made to improve access to health care where northerners have to travel to obtain it, and there is no magic in this 14 August date, other than that is when the former Premier of the province made certain campaign promises, probably to woo those elusive northern voters.

In any event, there are choices that have to be made with regard to health care in the north. You can bring the services to the health care users. You can transport the health care users to those services. You can offer good community-based health care right in those communities.

I would suggest that while on the one hand we have to improve access to those medically necessary services that northerners require and to provide sufficient travel allowances, we must not do that at the expense of local community-based care. That initiative also has to be prominent. Otherwise, we will just encourage northerners to travel for health care.

Certainly the minimum distance of 250 kilometres should be reduced, in my submission, simply because it encourages those northerners who need health care perhaps to go farther south, more than 250 kilometres, to get the health care that they might receive closer to home.

Reimbursement for travel certainly should be speeded up. Overnight accommodation, which is often required, should be covered. Where a patient over 18 years of age requires a companion, certainly that kind of service should be covered. People who are required to travel to obtain health care fittings, to consult with specialists, to obtain treatment and surgery, they need to have these medically necessary needs covered.

These initiatives are covered by the resolution, but the retroactive provision is certainly problematic. For that reason, while I support the general thrust of the resolution, I cannot vote for it.

Mr Brown: I am pleased to rise today in support of my colleague's resolution, and I must say that I am, first of all, encouraged by the comments of the member for Sault Ste Marie that tell us that the government is moving forward on this issue and is going to do something bigger and better. I think that is commendable and we are looking forward to that happening in the very near future.

I must say also that I applaud the member for Kenora for bringing this forward. One of our other colleagues has mentioned his tenacity on this issue, how he has not let it die, how he has worked hard as a private member to make something happen that is good for northern Ontarians. I think that is commendable.

The member, as some members may know, because not all of us were here during the last session, also presented a bill regarding highway speeds. He suggested that we increase on certain highways in northern Ontario the speed limit by 10 kilometres, and I am pleased to see that the government is now consulting about an announcement which was made that actually would have happened last August. The announcement was not made in August; it was supposed to happen in August, but now the government is proceeding with that and it appears that on some very safe highways we are going to have a 10-kilometre speed limit raise.

These are two issues brought by a private member to private members' hour that are being proceeded with, and I think, if anything, it shows what a private member can do in this place. I think the member for Kenora should be looked at by all members as somebody who is achieving something that is good for his constituents and good for the area and I think we all should commend him for that.

Dealing with the specific issue, I think the issue really is quality health care for all Ontarians. The issue is providing services as close to home as possible, making sure that we have the specialists and facilities as close to home as possible, but I think we all understand that in the distances of northern Ontario that is just not possible for certain select treatments.

We look at an amazing and I think important development in Sudbury with the cancer treatment centre being located there to serve the whole northeast, but for many of my constituents, or at least some of my constituents, it is still too far away. You still will have to go more than 200 kilometres to get to it, and I have one of the closer constituencies to Sudbury. So that is important, and I think that no matter how we try -- and try we should, and that should be our first priority, to provide the best-quality health care as close to home as possible -- I am not certain that we ever will achieve totally that goal.

I think the member's resolution and the previous announcement of government policy is a step in the right direction. I look forward to seeing bigger and better things, because I have some concerns myself about this particular resolution.

In my riding, most of my constituents actually, if they are going to be served in the north, are inside the 200-kilometre limit. But I have villages in my constituency, such as Killarney, where you must go to Sudbury for health care. There is a nursing station there and a doctor comes once a week, but for anything that is major, you must go to Sudbury. Some people sometimes go three or four times a week. They travel a lot.

I am not in my own mind completely certain that the way to approach this is a distance criterion at all. Maybe it is a look at the total expenditures over a year necessary for health care. It may be the better approach. I look even at Manitoulin Island, where I have constituents in Meldrum Bay. The hospital in the closest position from them actually is 70 or 80 kilometres away, and if you have to do that every day, that gets to be a great expense and people just cannot afford it.

I also look at the fact that some people cannot afford any travel. They do not have cars of their own. They do not have people who will take them to a health centre. Public transportation almost does not exist in most areas of my riding. That means you have got to hire cabs, you have got to do things that are very expensive, and I think that we have to look at providing and targeting these kinds of grants to the people who need them the most.

It may be, in these fiscally strained times -- as we all know, governments do not have the money to do whatever they might wish -- that we must have a look at making sure the people who need it are the ones who get it. I think that is fundamental to our health care system in Ontario.

This might be heresy for a northern Ontario member to say, but I would really like to see this not be a northern Ontario health grant; I think it should be an Ontario travel health grant. There are places like Tobermory.

Tobermory is really 15 miles or 20 miles from my riding, and yet for them to get care in Toronto or perhaps in London, or perhaps the service is only available in Ottawa, they have a huge expense that, if you happen to live across the channel on Manitoulin, you would be paid for, but if you happen to live in Tobermory you cannot be, and there are even instances of people in Ottawa who have to travel to London. While we might want to see that people all over the north have good care, it is also important to make sure that people in the rest of the province have the same privileges as we do.

I think when we look at this, the resolution of the member for Kenora goes a long way towards doing what we need to have done in this province, but I think we should be thinking about the total concern of all the people in the province, and as the government moves forward, react appropriately to the needs of the people. Let's not just kind of box ourselves in to this temporary measure.

I am proud to be supporting the resolution of the member for Kenora and hope the government will proceed quickly.

Mr Silipo: I want to rise very briefly to speak in support of this resolution. I think that certainly, as somebody who is from the south of the province and from one of the urban centres in the province, it is important also to indicate my support and our support for a resolution of this nature that tries to address the issue of equity, I think, in terms of health services for the people of the north.

As someone who has had an opportunity to travel a little bit within the north, I certainly am a little bit more aware now than I was perhaps in the past about the kinds of needs that exist in the north and the problems that the great distances between communities pose for people. I think that therefore for me it is really a very simple issue in terms of equity and in making sure that if we really believe in having fully accessible health care for all the people of the province, we need to recognize that for that to be achieved there have to be some different rules and some laxer rules for areas like the north.

Having said that, I just want to say, and this will not in the end prevent me from supporting this resolution, that I do have a concern around the last provision the member for Kenora has put into this resolution. That is the issue of retroactivity that some members have spoken to. I certainly do not see how the retroactivity could be brought about. I see a lot of administrative nightmares in doing that, but I will support this notwithstanding that.

The point I want to make on that issue is that I think it is unfortunate that when resolutions are brought forward that deal with important principles such as this one does, and which call upon all of us in private members' hour to go above and beyond our own particular partisan positions on these issues and to support them, I think it is also incumbent upon the people bringing these, if they want us to respond in that vein, not to put into resolutions issues or items that then simply do nothing but tend to bring the debate back into the partisan fold.

I just sort of put that out as a bit of a plea, I guess, for all members in future bringing forward resolutions. If we want these sessions on Thursday mornings to be really meaningful as something that goes beyond partisan positions, I think it is incumbent upon us to remember that in the way we draft these resolutions.

Mrs Haslam: Although I totally agree with my honourable colleague, I do want to reiterate exactly what he said. I think this is an important issue that I would like to support, but I have a problem when the perception is game-playing in any type of legislation that is brought forward. I really have a concern that on an issue like this, I wish to support it, but there is always a little hook in there that makes it difficult for me to look at that type of private member's bill that is brought forward.

If those types of private members' bills could be looked at in that way, that we do want to support them, that this is an important issue, let's look at the issues so that we can all support them and not put time lines in and not put a hook in there like a retroactivity that is difficult for us to support because we can see the administration problems of it.

Like my honourable colleague, I think this is an important enough issue that I will not let that deter me from supporting this resolution, but I do feel that is a very difficult clause in there that affects some of the ways that some of us look at that particular private member's bill. In this case I will be supporting it, but it is difficult when those time lines and those little things are put into private members' legislation.

Mr Miclash: I would just like to thank the members who spoke in favour of this resolution, and even the members who have indicated a problem with the resolution.

Of course, as we have heard, the retroactivity portion of the resolution is the problem. Might I just remind the members opposite a little bit about retroactivity. Let's take a look at Bill 4, at what they as a party are trying to do with Bill 4. There is no problem in retroactivity there.

What I am suggesting here is that we take a look back to a portion of this resolution that says retroactivity back to when the people of northern Ontario -- I must remember the southern member for London South, who got up and showed that he is definitely a southern member, not concerned about the smaller centres. Of course we would like care in all of our smaller centres throughout the north. We know that is impractical. As he travelled the north with the member for Dovercourt, I would have thought he would have seen a little bit of that, a little bit of the fact that we cannot provide all those services throughout the entire north in our smaller centres.

The member for Parry Sound spoke to me regarding the retroactivity of this particular portion of my resolution, and he indicated that the OHIP office in Kingston is looking at many of the proposals, the applications that were put to it, and is holding them. They were sort of anticipating that this would be coming forth, as was announced on 14 August. He has indicated to me that he has researched it and has found that they are holding these applications from that date onward.

So that is where I can speak a little bit more on the retroactivity and how important it is to those many people who have travelled, who have listened to the former Premier speak on this, sort of being encouraged by his words, and have kept track of what it has cost them since.

Again, I would like to thank those members who supported this resolution and as well those who spoke against it.

ELECTION AMENDMENT ACT, 1991

The Deputy Speaker: Mr Mills has moved second reading of Bill 65.

Motion agreed to.

Bill ordered for committee of the whole House.

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANTS

The House divided on Mr Miclash's motion of resolution 9, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes-37

Arnott, Bradley, Brown, Carr, Curling, Drainville, Duignan, Eves, Fawcett, Harnick, Haslam, Hayes, Klopp, Kormos, Malkowski, Martin, Mathyssen, McClelland, Miclash, Mills, Morrow, Murdoch, B., O'Connor, Offer, Perruzza, Phillips, G., Silipo, Sola, Sterling, Sutherland, Tilson, Villeneuve, Waters, White, Wilson, J., Wiseman, Wood.

Nays-15

Abel, Cooper, Coppen, Dadamo, Fletcher, Haeck, Hansen, Hope, Huget, Johnson, Lessard, Owens, Wilson, F., Wilson, G., Winninger.

The House recessed at 1210.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1330.

ROYAL ASSENT / SANCTION ROYALE

The Speaker: I beg to inform the House that in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, His Honour the Administrator has been pleased to assent to certain bills in his office.

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees: The following are the titles of the bills to which His Honour has assented:

Bill 24,

An Act to control the private use of Cards issued and Numbers assigned to Insured Persons under the Health Insurance Act;

Projet de loi 24, Loi contrôlant l'usage dans le secteur privé des cartes et des numéros attribués aux assurés en vertu de la

Loi sur l'assurance-santé ;

Bill 31,

An Act to amend the Representation Act, 1986;

Bill Pr29,

An Act respecting the City of London.

OPPOSITION DAY

The Speaker: Members will be aware that there appears in today's Orders and Notices two notices of an opposition day to be debated next week. Under standing order 41(d), the Speaker is required to select one of these notices for consideration, taking into account the order in which they were received. I would like to advise the members that the motion by Mr Elston will be the one that will be selected for debate next week.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

VISITORS

Mr Daigeler: I am very pleased to welcome a student delegation from Pope John XXIII elementary school in my riding which is visiting today at Queen's Park. For many members who represent regions in central and southern Ontario, school trips to Queen's Park are a common occurrence. For me, on the other hand, this is only the third student visit since my election in 1987.

For obvious reasons, schools in the Ottawa area and eastern Ontario make it a regular practice to observe the proceedings of the federal House. Hence, I am all the more pleased that the Nepean school, which my own children attended, has chosen to learn at first hand about Queen's Park and what the provincial government is all about.

Like other members, I am invited from time to time to speak to children about my role and responsibilities as an MPP. Frankly, I enjoy nothing more than talking about my work as a legislator with our young generation. I always try to give them a sense of their own power and their own responsibility in a democratic society. Who knows? I may even start a political service career in some of these young minds.

It is important for our schools to teach about the public policy process, and I thank the teachers who organize these parliamentary visits like the one from Nepean today.

JULIAN EASTER

Mr Jackson: It is with great pleasure that I rise to acknowledge this week's Julian Easter celebration which will be observed by many Ontario citizens on Sunday 7 April. The independent Easter date, which continues to be used by the churches of the Christian east, has become a significant aspect of the particular religious and cultural identities of those communities.

This weekend, the great mystery that is Easter will be relived by colourful services and ancient traditions, calling to mind the death and resurrection of Christ. The celebrations, however, will have different emphasis for different communities. The Ethiopian Church, under its patriarch, Abuna Takla Haymonot, is one for which the pain of Good Friday continues to characterize its life. Ethiopia today faces a renewed threat of famine and the ravages of war. It is my sincere hope that the Ethiopians' plight will touch the hearts of all western leaders, especially at this Easter season.

As someone personally with deep ancestral Ukrainian roots, I share the joy of all Ukrainian Catholics, whose church will be able to experience resurrection in a way it has not known for a long period of time. This year, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky, has returned to his homeland from exile to be with his people on Easter Day for the first time in 40 years, and the Ukrainian people in Canada, celebrating Easter this year for the 100th time since the coming of their first ancestors to this country, can join with their families and friends in the ethnic homeland in the unity of love and perfect freedom of worship.

On behalf of that community, let me say in Ukrainian, Christ is risen.

ONTARIO TEACHERS' FEDERATION

The federation acts as an effective advocate on many educational issues. It was established in 1944 through the Teaching Profession Act and has remained the main professional organization for the 110,000 teachers across the province.

I would like to thank the federation for taking the time to meet with MPPs. Input from this group, which represents front-line service providers in education, is so important. I sincerely hope the federation continues its good work in providing MPPs with valuable information, which certainly assists us as legislators in producing high-quality legislation in the area of education.

Mr Speaker, as a member of the Ontario Teachers' Federation, I know you will take the opportunity to join me in saying a special hello to Bill Sparks, the Scarborough representative of the Ontario Teachers' Federation.

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr Ramsay: Today I would like to talk about an issue which is of great concern to the constituents of Timiskaming and most northerners. Gasoline prices in the north are often higher than in southern parts of the province, and of course long-distance travel is often a necessity in my riding of Timiskaming, with little or no public transportation available.

Recently a poll was taken in the Kirkland Lake local paper, the Northern Daily News, where readers were asked to send in a coupon if they felt gasoline and oil prices should be investigated. Some 453 coupons were received, which represents 8% of the readership.

As of 27 March, gasoline prices were as follows: in Kirkland Lake, 58.3 cents a litre, in New Liskeard, 57.7 cents and in Timmins, 56.8 cents.

Last December the Minister of Energy commented that higher gasoline prices in the north could be attributed to the higher cost of transporting the fuel to northern gas outlets. Timmins is 210 kilometres north of New Liskeard and it has cheaper gas. It is obvious that the minister's answer is not good enough, and the people of my riding of Timiskaming demand this to be corrected right away.

MUNICIPAL-INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY FOR ABATEMENT

Mr Runciman: I rise to draw to the attention of all members a weakness in the wording of the Ministry of the Environment's municipal-industrial strategy for abatement. This matter was brought to my attention by Iain Grant of Brockville.

While my party supports MISA, which is designed to improve the quality of our lakes and rivers by limiting the amount of various chemicals being dumped into our sewers, I draw to the attention of the House the regulation concerning discharge to combined sewers.

The regulation states that the discharge of phosphorus cannot exceed 10 milligrams per litre. However, scientific analysis proves that phosphorus present in normal adult urine ranges from one to two grams per litre over a 14-hour period. This means that everyone who answers the call to nature in a public or industrial building is contravening the MISA regulations by a factor of 200.

Does this mean that managers will be forced to limit the volume of liquid consumed by employees during working hours, thus minimizing the need for kidney flushing? Will coffee breaks be discontinued, only to be supplanted by quick trips home for a pause for the cause, since the regulations do not apply to private residences? Perhaps industries will be forced to lock their lavatories.

This revelation would be merely amusing if it were not for the serious penalties proposed for both individuals and corporations, fines of $25,000 per day. I encourage the Minister of the Environment to amend the MISA regulations so that phosphorous discharges remain limited but do not result in unrealistic penalties being levied against the citizens of this province.

MEMBERS' CONDUCT

Mr Fletcher: On 26 March 1991 the member for Mississauga West made a complaint about my householder. The member read a part of the question from my householder. He did not read the whole question. I feel that the omission of this part of the question created an inaccurate account of my householder. I hope that the member for Mississauga West was not intentionally trying to mislead or deceive anyone.

Yesterday the member for Scarborough North mentioned that he was upset because the standing committee on the Ombudsman had adjourned early. The member failed to mention that the committee was to reconvene at the Office of the Ombudsman so that committee members could observe the goings-on of that office and they would learn something about it. I hope that the member did not intentionally intend to mislead or deceive anyone.

The official opposition is a party with no direction, little credibility, no leadership and obviously no future. The results of 6 September were not a fluke; they were a message that the people of Ontario do not want misleading or deceitful politicians any more.

As a rookie MPP, I have learned much, but I hope to learn so much more. I do not want to become as the members sitting opposite.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

Mr McGuinty: The following is a list of questions and answers collected during my acquaintance with the Minister of Energy. By sharing these, I think we will all gain a keen insight into the minister's productivity during the past seven months.

Question: Will the minister fulfil the NDP promise to phase out nuclear generation?

Answer: It is under review.

Question: Will the minister fulfil the NDP promise to prohibit Ontario Hydro from exporting tritium?

Answer: It is under review.

Question: Will the minister fulfil the NDP promise to ban all energy from waste facilities?

Answer: It is under review.

Question: Will the minister fulfil the NDP promise to purchase all uranium from Elliot Lake?

Answer: It is under review.

Question: Will the minister carry out the NDP promise to adopt a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2005?

Answer: It is under review.

Question: Will the minister fulfil the NDP commitment to reduce carbon emissions in new cars?

Answer: It is under review.

Question: Will the minister fulfil the NDP commitment to establish a rebate program for fuel-efficient cars?

Answer: It is under review.

Question: Will the minister fulfil the NDP commitment to impose a carbon tax on fossil fuels?

Answer: It is under review.

Question: Will the minister fulfil the NDP commitment to increase hydro buyback rates paid to private power producers?

Answer: It is under review.

Question: What does the minister propose to do about declining block rates for Hydro's commercial customers?

Answer: It is under review.

I could go on and on, but I understand that the House must adjourn at 6 o'clock.

WOMEN IN POLITICS

Mrs Witmer: As critic for women's issues, I was shocked this morning to listen to one of the Premier's inner circle of advisers on Canada AM in a panel discussion about the appointment of the first female Premier in the history of this country, Mrs Rita Johnston.

Gerry Caplan, a long-time NDP spokesperson, stated, "Conservative women don't advance the cause of women at all." In fact, he went on to say, "If you are woman in politics, unless you take a different position, then you may as well be a man."

I take offence at Mr Caplan's comments. I believe women have every right to take any position they want in politics. I find it ironic that these comments were made by a member of the party which purports to be the advocate of women in Canada, which is very proud, as we all are, of the record number of women in this provincial cabinet. Surely Mr Caplan must recognize the sheer symbolic significance of the first woman being appointed as a first minister in this country.

I believe that every female member in this chamber represents and indeed advances the cause of women in Ontario, and I believe that comments such as this are an insult to all women.

JOHN YOVANOV AND ARCHIE MCCOY

Mr Abel: It is with great pleasure today that I rise to pay tribute to two very special people from the town of Flamborough in the riding of Wentworth North, John Yovanov and Archie McCoy.

John Yovanov has been awarded the Joe Fletcher Memorial Trophy as the Wentworth agricultural community's citizen of the year. As a successful farmer and a Wentworth school board trustee, John's service to agriculture has stemmed chiefly from his recognition that farmers need to help people of the urban public gain an understanding of agriculture, the source of their food supply. He has worked steadfastly to that end for many years.

Archie McCoy has been awarded the first Flamborough Corporate Citizen of the Year award. Archie, like John, is a well-known farmer in the area. Besides producing one of Ontario's top dairy herds of Holsteins and Brown Swiss, Archie is also owner of McCoy Industries Ltd, the largest privately owned die cast foundry in the province. A confirmed environmentalist, Archie has spent over $1 million to ensure clean air emissions from his foundry. His landscaping efforts have won him the Trillium Award and his farm operations are in the forefront in soil conservation and environmental improvements.

In conclusion, I would like to say that John Yovanov and Archie McCoy are both outstanding examples of good citizens. While they prospered by hard work and business practices, they have not lost touch with the people in their community. We are all very proud to have John and Archie in our community.

Mr Cousens: Mr Speaker, I request unanimous consent for statements from all parties on International Refugee Rights Day.

Agreed to.

INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE RIGHTS DAY

Mr Cousens: Many questions have to be answered, and if only we took the time to ask a few of them. How many refugees are there in the world today? How many of them are suffering for lack of food, lack of clothing, no home, no roof, no health protection? How many other people are refugees just because of the war that is on in their country, such as the Kurds on the borders of Turkey? How many refugees are there coming out of Africa right now? How many residents are there in Ontario and in Canada who have come here as refugees, come here as a place to live and establish their homes and make this their place to live?

I am pleased that this House today will at least pause for a few moments to reflect upon the importance of International Refugee Rights Day. It is an important time for all of us to pay our respects to refugees all over the world, remembering that governments cannot solve the problem by themselves but that all of us as citizens of the world have a responsibility.

Interjections.

Mr Cousens: I see this as an important statement.

The Speaker: Will the member take his seat? I agree entirely with the member for Markham. I believe this could be an important occasion. I think it requires a degree of solemnity, not often enjoyed in the House, today. I invite all members to listen carefully to the remarks by the member for Markham and any other members who wish to participate.

Mr Cousens: In the aftermath of the war in Iraq, we are now only beginning to learn of the horrors facing the people of Iraq and Kuwait. Millions of others in countries around the world face terror and tyranny on a daily basis.

We in Canada take pride in our commitment to the principles of human rights and freedoms. Thousands of people each year find refuge in our country, to escape repression and to start their lives anew, free from repression and human indignity. The vast majority of those seeking refuge make Ontario, and indeed the Toronto area, their home. They come here in the hope that they too can live freely and prosper in ways that many of us have taken for granted.

This country has a proud tradition of acceptance and tolerance of all cultures. Our forebears were people from other countries who persevered and toiled in making this nation what it is today. As we struggle with the many internal problems we in Canada now face, let us take time to appreciate the many things we share and should appreciate. Let us take the time to remember that our national crises pale in comparison to the plight of those who consider day-to-day survival a major accomplishment.

Mr Cordiano: I too wish to associate myself with the remarks just made. We mark this day as International Refugee Rights Day. Of course, we recognize it around the world. There are many people suffering who are refugees fleeing from oppression, repression and starvation. It is as simple as that. As I was thinking about this statement, I thought to myself, this has been said many, many times, about how we at this time in our history can reflect on the fact that we take what we have, in many ways, for granted. I say that personally.

When we see the plight of many millions of people throughout the world who are suffering in the way that they are as refugees, we can sit back and ask ourselves if there is not more that we can do. Certainly I think, in the context of our nation and in the context of the difficulties we face right here in this country, there is a whole lot more we can do as citizens of Canada.

We currently have 20,000 refugee claimants in Ontario. That is more than a 40% increase since September 1989. It is a huge backlog in the federal refugee claimants process which the federal government has not succeeded in improving significantly. I think that there is a great deal that we must say about the plight of those people who are now on social assistance, who as a result of federal laws are not eligible to work legally in this country, in this province.

I think it is time that both our levels of government, both the federal government and the provincial government, took some concrete steps to deal with the plight of these people who are refugees who are on social assistance and using up enormous resources in our social assistance system. I think we would be much better off if we would issue work permits so that these people can gain employment right now, ameliorate their problems, have decent work, go out, earn some pay and contribute to the economy of this province.

I think that is something that can and should be done. This government should look at it seriously and I ask the minister to do just that.

Hon Ms Ziemba: Today, as the members know, is International Refugees Rights Day. It commemorates the decision on the Singh case handed down six years ago by the Supreme Court of Canada which granted refugee claimants certain basic rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This landmark decision transformed the status of refugees in this country by guaranteeing them the right to an oral hearing and to the basic protections set out by the charter. I rise in the House today to lend this government's support to the precedent-setting Singh decision and to this commemorative day.

I also wish to speak out on behalf of refugee claimants, the majority of whom arrive in Ontario. The refugee claimant determination process is out of control in this country. The federal government has made attempts to unblock what has become known as the backlog in the system, but the fact is that 70% of the existing claims do not yet have a final determination. Many more refugee claimants than ever before are waiting, sometimes for years, for a decision on whether or not they will be able to remain in this country. This makes a mockery of the spirit of the Supreme Court's 1985 decision.

The Canadian Council of Churches has argued that the lengthy delays that plague the system constitute an abuse of human rights.

There are some concerns that the decision which we honour today may have contributed to the growing crisis in refugee policy through its insistence on the right to an oral hearing. There have even been calls to override the decision, a provision that also exists under the Charter of Rights. I do not want to see this happen. I believe the problem is with the cost and the time involved in administering unwieldy regulations. We should not doubt the validity of the decision itself, a compassionate and a just decision, but rather the process it has led to.

In 1984, the year before the Singh case, there were some 11,000 refugee claims awaiting resolution. Now, seven years later and two years into a new determination, there are approximately 90,000 cases in Canada without a final determination of status.

This is clearly an escalating problem. Every month in this country 3,000 people file claims for refugee status and of these, 2,000 are in Ontario, so the issue is of great concern to this government.

The services provided by Ontario Welcome House, a part of my ministry, go some distance in assisting refugees in the resettlement process, yet we do not have a major role in the policy and funding decisions affecting the screening process. My ministry is now examining ways in which we might participate in finding solutions.

Already millions of dollars in welfare payments go towards the support of refugee claimants in this province, and we know that the human costs of waiting in limbo for months or even years are extremely high. While some people who are awaiting decisions on their cases may work after an initial hearing, which may take months to schedule, they may not be reunited with their families and they may not plan for their futures. They have been granted the most rudimentary of rights through the charter but they are without a political voice. They have no vote and no influence over the decisions that will affect their own lives so critically.

Even at a time when our country and our economy are under severe strains -- particularly at such a time -- we must pursue the search for a compassionate response to the plight of those who have already been the helpless victims of oppression in their own countries, and we must seriously question a system which, however unintentionally, forces refugees to put their lives on hold while our beleaguered bureaucracy tries to catch up.

Perhaps we should be less concerned with so-called bogus claims, since under the new screening process some 85% of refugee claimants are ultimately genuine refugees, and of the remaining 15% many will appeal their decisions and be allowed to stay. Perhaps we should focus instead on ways to speed up the process in the interests of the overwhelming majority of genuine refugees. In the meantime, we will search for ways in which we might become more responsive to the desperate needs of a vulnerable group in our society.

LEGISLATIVE MAP

Mr Eves: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would bring your and the House's attention to the fact that on the interactive map in the first-floor hallway, the map of the province of Ontario, the name of the community of Temagami is spelt "Timagami." I do not know how many thousands of dollars of the taxpayers' money were spent building this map, but I thought that I should bring it to the attention of the House. Perhaps if you need information about the correct spelling, you could check with the member for Victoria-Haliburton or his solicitor; they might know.

The Speaker: I appreciate the member bringing this administrative matter to my attention. I will attend to it.

ORAL QUESTIONS

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr Nixon: The most recent statistics on unemployment are already a month old and we expect the new ones to become public tomorrow when this House is not in session, but at the present time unemployment has jumped from 6% to 10.4% in less than a year. The matter has been raised repeatedly in the Legislature on the basis that the NDP government has not responded in any effective way to the plight of those who have been dispossessed. If you simply divide those people who have lost their jobs by the number of days, the easy average is 1,600 jobs a day.

But if you look at the trend of the numbers, it is accelerating, so that while it might have been less than that a few months ago, it is certainly more than 1,600 a day now.

I have today's Orders and Notices in my hand and, compared to last week, there is no legislation before the House of any significance except that which was put forward by the Minister of Health which, while it is important, has really little or nothing to do with the economy or the job situation that I am referring to.

Once again, by way of question to the Premier, what is he going to do to urge on his Minister of Labour, who once again sits placidly and complacently in his place, and the other members of his cabinet? What is he going to do to empower himself in that regard so this House can take some action about the continuation of the recession we are suffering here in Ontario and the depredations that it is working on our unemployed?

Hon Mr Rae: I want to say to the Leader of the Opposition that I do not think there is a member in this House who does not share the concern that has been expressed by him with respect to the seriousness of the economic situation. There is no question that what we are facing is literally unparalleled since the Second World War in terms of its seriousness and its structural effect.

The approach of the government has been to say that we w