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December 1, 1994

35th Parliament, 3rd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

vol. A

Hansard Transcripts

vol. B

PUBLICLY FUNDED HOUSING RENT CONTROL ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 SUR LE CONTRÔLE DES LOYERS DES LOGEMENTS DONT LE FINANCEMENT EST PUBLIC

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES

PUBLICLY FUNDED HOUSING RENT CONTROL ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 SUR LE CONTRÔLE DES LOYERS DES LOGEMENTS DONT LE FINANCEMENT EST PUBLIC

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANTS

DRINKING AND DRIVING

JOBS ONTARIO COMMUNITY ACTION

WORLD AIDS DAY

CHILDREN AND YOUTH

FESTIVAL OF TREES

HIGHWAY 416

SKILLS TRAINING

OKTOBERFEST WOMEN OF THE YEAR

VISITORS

WORLD AIDS DAY

LONG-TERM-CARE REFORM

MENTAL HEALTH REFORM

TORONTO BLUE JAYS

HAZARDOUS WASTE

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

ACCESS TO COMMUNITY OF SKERRYVORE

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

WAGE PROTECTION

WETLANDS

CONTROL OF SMOKING

KETTLE ISLAND BRIDGE

FIREARMS SAFETY

AUTISM SERVICES

ST COLUMBAN'S CEMETERY

FIREARMS SAFETY

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT (GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT AND SERVICES), 1994 / LOI DE 1994 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI A TRAIT AUX PRATIQUES DE GESTION ET AUX SERVICES DU GOUVERNEMENT

BUSINESS REGULATION REFORM ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 PORTANT RÉFORME DE LA RÉGLEMENTATION DES ENTREPRISES

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

PUBLICLY FUNDED HOUSING RENT CONTROL ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 SUR LE CONTRÔLE DES LOYERS DES LOGEMENTS DONT LE FINANCEMENT EST PUBLIC

Mr Henderson moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 189,

An Act to protect certain rent-geared-to-income Tenants in publicly funded rental units / Projet de loi 189, Loi visant à protéger des locataires de logements locatifs dont le financement est public qui paient un loyer indexé sur le revenu.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): The honourable member for Etobicoke-Humber has 10 minutes in which to initiate debate.

Mr D. James Henderson (Etobicoke-Humber): Like many members, I have in my constituency large numbers of senior citizens on fixed incomes living in apartment buildings with rent assistance. Most senior citizens have contributed, and sometimes contributed greatly to Ontario society. Some have risked their lives in military or other service to bequeath to the rest of us a free, democratic and prosperous society. Many of those same seniors who have sacrificed greatly for Ontario and for Canada find themselves late in life on fixed incomes with no hope of increasing their revenues.

A succession of governments has appropriately ensured that seniors on fixed and limited incomes will have rent-assisted housing so they can live in decency and in dignity.

However, it is not quite as simple as that. From time to time, a senior citizen who is already housed in a rent-assisted building finds his or her rental costs and/or utility costs increasing at a rate which is unconscionable given that their income is firmly fixed. Currently rents are being increased from 25% to 30% of total income at a rate of 1% per year, an understandable move but none the less one that works serious hardship on persons whose budgets have been stabilized on the basis of a 25% rental figure.

Added to that has been a substantial and less predictable increase in utility costs. Furthermore, many of those seniors are victims of a catch-up program whereby hydro-electric power previously paid for on a bulk-metered basis will now be charged at a much higher rate, sometimes at two or three times the previous monthly charge.

I will quote from a letter recently sent to the Minister of Housing by Bruce Melanson, the chairman of the residents' committee of rent-assisted buildings in my constituency. The residents, says this letter, are "deeply concerned over the new rent and utility increases." This group requested a meeting with the Minister of Housing to discuss its fears. They go on in that letter to speak of "an unfair...burden on low-income senior citizens" and of "financial hardships for senior citizens," given that there are no specific guidelines in place for utility increases.

The letter makes mention of the total increase of rental costs from 25% to 30% of a senior citizen's fixed income and of an unprecedented increase in utility costs.

As the residents' committee observes, many seniors living in Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority accommodation have no way of gaining extra income other than small increases in old age security, Canada pension and other similar fixed benefits. An increase of rent and utility costs therefore diminishes the disposable income of the senior citizen available to spend on other items and means unnecessary and forced lowering of living standard. In my opinion, Ontario's senior citizens deserve better.

I had the pleasure of addressing the Islington Kiwanis this week and I have talked to residents of Mabelle and Dundas streets in my constituency, and I know how strongly seniors feel about these matters.

Let me spell out the figures a little more clearly: A single senior citizen without personal assets and living alone receives as income about $388 in old age security, with a maximum supplement, depending on income, of up to $461, often much less. To this sum of up to $849 may be added a provincial guaranteed annual income supplement of $83, for a total monthly income of up to $932. When that senior citizen's rent is increased from 25% to 30%, $47 per month more goes to rent. To that must be added a utilities increase, which can be of the order of $15 or $20 per month, for a total and fully unexpected overall increase of living costs of nearly $70 per month.

That senior's disposable income after rent and utilities is about $625, so we are speaking of an immediate decrease of nearly 12% in disposable income. However, since food costs are fixed and may take up to three quarters or more of that disposable income, or about $470, we are really talking about a monthly budget of about $150 or less, sometimes much less, after rent, utilities and food. To snatch $70 out of that $150 monthly spending allowance means about a 50% or more cutback in a senior's budget for matters other than room and board. How can we in good conscience impose such hardship on our senior citizens? I believe we cannot.

Ontario's seniors are used to bad news. There are rumours of a $7.5-billion slash in federal social programs. The social safety net that seniors were told they had bought and paid for is unravelling. Seniors struggle on fixed incomes while costs rise and familiar services fall, and I am speaking of such essential matters as health care, social services, pensions and taxes. Almost half of Canadians over 65 have annual incomes of less than $10,000 per year before taxes. The erosion of lifestyle for seniors is not a matter of snatching away perks and frills; we are snatching away essentials; we are snatching away human dignity and self-respect.

I think elected members ignore these injustices at their peril. Seniors enjoy growing political clout and will use it. Seniors represent a third of the electorate and will not tolerate politicians who renege on promises and boost taxes and costs and nibble away at pension and other benefits behind closed doors. Seniors are angry with the antics of cash-strapped governments that chip away at their meagre incomes in the name of an attack on wealth. According to Statistics Canada, 60% of women 65 and older in Canada are living in poverty.

The limited but very timely intention of this bill is to protect senior citizens on fixed incomes from punitive increases in rent and utilities. The bill provides that when a senior citizen is lodged in a rent-assisted housing building, the rate of increase in rent plus utilities cannot exceed the rate of increase in their fixed income during the preceding year. I'll repeat that: When a senior citizen is lodged in rent-assisted housing, the rate of increase in rate plus utilities cannot exceed the rate of increase in their fixed income during the preceding year.

This bill can be criticized for not going far enough. This bill will not affect the government's prerogative to fix the rent in rent-assisted buildings at whatever proportion of income it chooses. I'm not entirely pleased to admit that because I think that such a step in the case of senior citizens would be very warranted. However, in the hope of gathering some support for this bill from government members, I will stop short of that and simply say that once admitted to a rent-assisted housing building, the proportion of fixed income assigned to rent plus utilities cannot increase as a percentage of fixed income.

This modest step allows the government the freedom to fix rents at whatever proportion of fixed income it chooses to accept responsibility for doing, yet protects seniors who have already budgeted a proportion of their income for rent and utilities from unfair post facto increases that would, as I pointed out previously, constitute a 50% or more curtailment and decrease in their disposable income after room and board costs are paid for.

Senior citizens who have sacrificed, struggled and contributed greatly to Ontario and to Canada deserve to live in comfort and in dignity. This bill will not, of course, solve all the financial problems afflicting conscientious seniors, but it makes an important beginning by protecting seniors from a 50% or more decrease in their after-room-and-board disposal income.

This modest step is overdue and I urge all members of this assembly to support this limited yet very just and very timely legislative thrust. I will stop there for now.

The Acting Speaker: Mr Henderson has initiated debate on ballot item number 73. He will have two minutes to summarize. We will now proceed, with each recognized party within the Legislature having 15 minutes to participate in the debate on second reading of Bill 189.

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I welcome this opportunity to speak in support of the member for Etobicoke-Humber's private member's Bill 189,

An Act to protect certain rent-geared-to income Tenants in publicly funded rental units. As you know, the purpose of this bill is to ensure that the rate of rent and utilities increases for tenants 65 years of age and older who pay rent for units that are publicly funded is not greater than the rate at which their income increases.

I will be supporting this bill because the NDP government has taken so much away from our senior citizens -- like out-of-country health coverage, like reducing property tax grants, like delisting certain prescription drugs -- that I think it's about time this same government gave something back to seniors on fixed incomes in the form of legislation to protect them from hurtful increases in rent.

Perhaps this is the appropriate time for us to be urging the government to put an end to the public housing boondoggle that profits only the large property developers and return to a shelter subsidy program for all people in Ontario who need help in getting affordable and decent housing.

We all know, and this is pointed out quite clearly on page 13 of The Common Sense Revolution: "This will eliminate the inefficiencies of government owned and operated housing. By spending money on people instead of bricks and mortar, we will be in a position to eliminate the two-year waiting list for affordable housing."

The PC caucus continues to urge this government to replace non-profit housing subsidies with shelter allowances. Ontario's leading housing sector economists, Clayton Research Associates, estimates the average monthly subsidy would be about $114 per household for a shelter allowance, compared to the current average of nearly $1,000 a month to subsidize a household in non-profit housing.

What is a shelter allowance? Shelter allowances are direct payments to households in need of assistance in order to secure adequate accommodation at a cost they can afford. It is a quite significantly different approach compared to that used in non-profit housing, since low-cost housing is not provided directly. With a shelter allowance, the tenant seeks accommodation on the private rental market and subsidies -- in this case shelter allowances -- are provided directly so that the rent is more affordable.

A shelter allowance program would help all those in needy target groups who wish to apply, especially Ontario's working poor or senior citizens on fixed incomes. Currently, unless a needy tenant receives welfare or family benefits, there is no help until a unit becomes available in a social housing project.

An additional benefit to shelter allowances is that they would allow tenants -- like senior citizens -- to remain in their own homes if they chose, where they are close to family, services and shopping facilities.

As well, shelter allowances avoid the development of low-income ghettos which can occur in social housing projects that do not have a mix of incomes.

As an interesting aside, it should be noted that when the member for Scarborough North was questioning an appointee to the East Niagara Housing Authority before the standing committee on government agencies on October 6, 1994, he appeared to support the PC caucus's call for a reform of government housing. Mr Curling, former Liberal Housing minister, said there is a glut of housing on the market and that subsidizing the individual is a much more human way to help an individual live where he or she wants to live.

Well, that's exactly what we are saying in The Common Sense Revolution: By spending money on people instead of bricks and mortar, we can end the public housing boondoggle that profits only the large property developers. We can return to a shelter subsidy program for all Ontarians who need help in finding decent, affordable housing.

As I said earlier, I will be supporting this bill, which protects senior citizens on fixed incomes from hurtful increases in rent. I am fully aware that everything we enjoy so much in this province today is a direct result of the hard work, dedication and contributions of our senior citizens so many years ago.

Our senior citizens continue to contribute and have a great deal to offer society today. They have a store of wisdom, energy, expertise and the time to use that energy to teach, learn, create and enjoy life to the fullest. They are also the people who are largely responsible for teaching the rest of us that anything is truly attainable and that opportunity really is ageless.

I urge the government side of this Legislature to support private member's Bill 189. Give something back to the senior citizens rather than taking it away.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate. The honourable member for Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings.

Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): Try Kingston and The Islands, Mr Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: Kingston and The Islands, sorry.

Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you very much.

As parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Housing, I'm pleased to rise to respond to Bill 189, the proposed Publicly Funded Housing Rent Control Act. This bill relates to a decision the government took last year as a necessary administrative adjustment to rents in Ontario Housing Corp and other social housing units in Ontario. Under that decision, the share of rent paid by rent-geared-to-income tenants in Ontario's social housing would increase, from a prevailing 25% of income, by 1% every year till it reached 30% of a tenant's income over a five-year period.

Bill 189 proposes that the annual increases in rent for senior citizens in social housing should not exceed the rate of increase in their incomes.

First of all, I want to emphasize that this is not a "rent increase" in the usual sense of the term. This decision is a necessary step to bring the ratio of rent to income in line with the practice in other provincial jurisdictions in Canada. Most other provinces moved to a rent-geared-to-income ratio of 30% during the past decade. Here in Ontario, the ratio has remained untouched for over two decades.

This government has taken great care to ensure that people who can least bear the burden of this adjustment are not adversely affected. It's for this reason that we exempted people who depend almost entirely on social assistance: those whose regular source of income is from general welfare assistance, family welfare assistance or the guaranteed annual income supplement for the disabled. We recognize that without any other source of regular income to support them, people in this group simply could not have managed to bear even this small adjustment to their rent.

It's important to see this issue in the broader fiscal context. As the most severe recession in six decades took its toll on the economy, and consequently on our government's revenue base, we had to take some tough measures. We had to act to ensure that the deficit did not endanger our ability to continue to provide essential services to the people of this province.

No society can throw borrowed money at every problem without having to face the reckoning at some point, and in facing up to the fiscal realities, it's important that everyone who is able to accepts a fair share of the burden.

For the government's part, we took a three-pronged approach to ensure a fair sharing of responsibility: Reduction in government spending by $4 billion; saving a further $2 billion through a social contract with the public sector; and raising another $2.8 billion in revenue through tax and non-tax measures.

But even in this effort to live within our means, we made sure that those least able to pay were not asked to bear an unfairly heavy burden. In the social contract approach, for example, those earning $30,000 or less were exempted. And since this government came to office, we've reduced income taxes for 270,000 low-income Ontarians, 200,000 of them taken off the tax roll entirely.

What this means is that in every aspect of the deficit reduction effort, we have consistently adhered to two fundamental principles: minimize the impacts on those least able to pay; and make the sharing of the burden as fair as possible.

Our goal was and continues to be to return Ontario to a prosperity that is based on responsible fiscal management, investing in jobs and maintaining quality public services. It was part of this government's balanced policy of living within our means while at the same time protecting the vulnerable and maintaining the services that people need.

We have to recognize that about 40% of the people in rent-geared-to-income units in our public housing are senior citizens, and excluding that proportion of residents from even this minimal contribution to our efforts to contain costs would only mean one thing: The other households living in rent-geared-to-income housing would be called upon to bear an even greater share of the burden. Let's remember that this includes not only other senior citizens but also thousands of others in an equally unenviable economic plight.

What this means is that a small number of people will have to bear a larger -- and unfair -- share of the burden. And to make exceptions that are based not on ability to pay but other considerations could not be considered equitable by any means. That's not the kind of equity we're talking about and I'm sure not the kind of equity this House would advocate.

It's also important to emphasize that over time, senior citizens, even those receiving rent-geared-to-income assistance, are relatively better off than those receiving other forms of social assistance. For example, between the years 1988 to 1994, the consumer price index increased by 18%, while the old age supplement, the guaranteed income supplement and the guaranteed annual income supplement for the aged have, on aggregate, increased by 20%.

For an average subsidized rent of $257 per month, as is the case in Ontario's public housing, the average increase per tenant is $10 a month.

The proposed bill would also apply to rent increases for utilities such as hydro. In the first place, we're not discussing a major cost to the tenants. For the average tenant, the change means an extra cost of $5 to $7 per month.

But it's more important to note that the increase here applies only to tenants living in buildings with a central meter where individual units do not have separate meters. In such buildings, tenants have been traditionally paying well below the real cost of the power consumed. In fact, for several years in the past, even normal increases in hydro costs have not been passed through to social housing tenants.

This is not only a matter of paying the actual cost of energy a tenant uses. What's equally important is that it would be an inequity to charge actual costs to some tenants and to go on subsidizing others year after year.

I'm also sure people understand that we can't continue to provide quality service to Ontarians if we undermine the economic base that supports these services.

Tenants in our social housing know that in the rent subsidy they receive, they have a service that gives them safe, secure, affordable and good-quality housing and that in that respect they are far better off than the average low-income household struggling in the private rental market.

The fact is that while rent-geared-to-income tenants, including seniors, would pay only up to 30% of their income as rent when the adjustment process is over, others in the private rental market continue to pay much more than that percentage of their income as rent, in some cases as much as 50%.

I think the government's position is clear. We want to continue providing vital services to the people of this province, but we want to live within our means, and the only way to balance the two objectives is to share the burden fairly. By those standards, we can't support the bill.

Mr Gilles E. Morin (Carleton East): It is a pleasure for me to stand today and support my colleague's bill; that is, the Publicly Funded Housing Rent Control Act. As an elected representative of the people of Ontario, I strongly believe that it is my duty to support a legislative measure whose objective is to protect the interests of the needier, vulnerable members of our society.

In this particular case, the member for Etobicoke Humber addresses serious concerns regarding the welfare of senior citizens who live in a rental unit with rent geared to income. In essence, any increases in rent and utilities should not exceed the rate of increase of the tenant's income. This is what the bill states and I agree.

Knowing the difficulties many seniors have in making ends meet, it is evident that any increase in rent and utilities could only cause additional hardship, as it would take away money that might serve for food, medical supplies not covered by the Ontario drug plan or any other necessities.

Housing itself is one of our major sources of security. Certainly we have no choice in the Canadian climate but to seek shelter. But as a developed and progressive nation, we expect a certain degree of safety and comfort. We expect, and rightly so, proper hygienic conditions. We also expect that not all of our revenues will be expended upon rent so that we may also feed and clothe ourselves appropriately and be able to participate to a certain extent in the activities of our community.

It is very distressing to imagine that some of Ontario's senior citizens may not be enjoying the security of knowing that they need not worry about next month's rent. I don't believe senior citizens, or anybody else, for that matter, should be thinking in terms of sacrificing certain needs for lack of affordable housing.

As a former minister responsible for senior citizens' affairs, I travelled across this province and visited many senior residences and communities. I had the opportunity to learn about the many challenges facing seniors. I also became aware of the incredible vitality that keeps them fit and active. Ontario has a terrific senior population, one that is very committed to its community.

Seniors have given so much to this province. If Ontario is as it is today, if it enjoys so many benefits, it is largely due to the seniors who built this province and steered it through difficult times. They were the people working out on the farms, in businesses, in the mines, in the factories. They provided the ideas and the labour that contributed to Ontario's prosperity. They invested in this province in so many ways, and the least that we can do, that the government can accomplish for them, is to ensure that they do not worry about their rent.

It is a well-documented fact that life expectancy is greater for women than it is for men. A large majority of persons more than 85 years of age are women. In Ontario, in 1992, the poverty rate for unattached men 65 years of age and older was 29.2%. The poverty rate for unattached women 65 years of age and older was 45.2%. It would appear that despite the continuing decline in poverty among seniors, the rate of poverty for elderly women remains consistently higher.

One should not conclude that the overall decline in poverty among seniors implies prosperity. A senior citizen may receive a total of $849 in federal benefits. Add to this the provincial guaranteed annual income supplement of $83, and the minimum monthly income for someone who does not have any other source of income amounts to $932. According to Canadian Pensioners Concerned, an advocacy group for the aged, 44% of persons aged 65 or more received less than $10,000 per year. This revenue hardly covers basic necessities.

Seniors, as we know, suffer from a variety of ailments, whether rheumatism, hypertension, cardiac or respiratory problems. These health problems can entail additional expenses, such as purchases not considered strictly medical, yet essential to one's wellbeing and comfort.

The point in my view is that for many seniors, adding, for example, $50 to their monthly living expenses represents a hardship, and all the more so since housing and utilities are basic necessities, expenses which cannot be avoided. I do not believe that any senior citizen in the province of Ontario should be subjected to the stress or discomfort caused by undue increases in rent and utilities. As a society, we should take pride in the decent, caring treatment of the elderly and vulnerable members of our population.

This is a matter of justice and a matter of responsibility, a responsibility we share as elected representatives of the people but that we all share as members of the same community.

I would like to add, before concluding, that we must prepare for the aging of our society. We must plan for the day when a greater segment of the population will reach retirement. If current trends continue, tomorrow's seniors may not enjoy the benefits that they are currently receiving. If, as it appears, we can no longer rely upon government sources for income, then we must ensure that safeguards are set up that will protect the interests of vulnerable seniors.

As it stood in 1992, unattached men and women aged 65 years and older depended upon government assistance for over 90% of their income. Couples aged 65 and older relied upon government assistance for 88% of their revenues. This bill is an attempt to provide some safeguards, and I am proud to support it and congratulate my colleague for his initiative and good work.

As I heard some speeches this morning, I strongly believe that politics, accusations of negligence, should not be part of this debate. This is a humanitarian issue. This is an issue that deals with human dignity.

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): I do understand and respect the concerns raised by the member for Etobicoke-Humber. I'd like to set this bill in the context of this government's policies and the seniors in this province.

I believe that seniors in Ontario, how we treat them and how they live, are a mark of the standard of our society. In the area of housing for senior citizens, we have Ontario Housing Corp, which is the largest public housing institution in Canada. It owns and manages more than 84,000 units of public housing. The province also has 17,000 units of privately owned housing through the rent supplement agreements with private owners. Senior citizens represent 44% of everyone who is housed in all of those units.

Also, we have non-profit housing which is community-owned and run, the main vehicle for all our new social housing in Ontario. In Niagara Falls, we have Fairhaven, which was started by the church that I belong to and is now looking to expand. We also have an old school on Drummond Road which was made into a seniors' complex and also a lovely new building on McLeod Road, which I just went to in October and knocked on every door. The people are very happy there.

There are almost 50,000 units of non-profit housing for seniors in Ontario today. Our government has acted to reduce the operating costs of all of this social housing through energy retrofit. As the members opposite have said, energy costs are a very important part of running this housing. We have invested $28 million for a program under Jobs Ontario Capital. This is going to mean that all of these units in the long term are much more affordable and that heating costs will be controlled. Housing for seniors, I say, is very important and it is very important that it be affordable.

I'd like to very briefly mention other aspects of seniors' lives, besides housing, which also are very important, such as the Advocacy Act. This legislation empowers vulnerable people and promotes respect for their rights and dignity. The Substitute Decisions Act provides new protection for the right to control your own life.

Second, in the area of health care our government has protected the Ontario drug benefit plan and is working to make it more efficient and effective -- and it must be. It cannot continue to escalate in cost as it did all through the 1980s. To preserve health care, we must make it more efficient.

We also have long-term care facilities. During very difficult economic times, this government has invested in long-term care. We have, during this past year, used $1 billion to operate these facilities, and more than $53 million will be used to expand and renovate.

This government has introduced rights that allow residents more say in their care and to participate in their own plan of care in their lives.

We also have the Long-Term Care Act, which has been many, many years coming. It will receive third reading next week.

This bill will provide one-stop access for consumers to a broad range of community-based support services, which are so essential to the lives of seniors to try to maintain their own dignity and live in their own homes, such as providing information and referral services regarding care, making assessments and determining eligibility, developing a plan of service for eligible persons and offering a specific range of support services such as Meals on Wheels, transportation, adult day care and caregiver support -- because many women are at home caring for seniors and they do need support -- homemaking services, housecleaning, laundry, mending, ironing, preparing meals, personal support services, personal care and also professional services.

All these things our government says are necessary and are the rights of seniors.

Have you heard of the Good Neighbours program which is aimed at reaching out in communities to support each other, especially the elderly, frail and isolated? That's what the Good Neighbours program is all about: independence for seniors to the maximum extent possible.

The quality of life is what it's all about. The right to be respected members of our society is what seniors want and it is what this government is profoundly changing this province for -- the future for all of us.

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): Let me say what a pleasure it is for me to speak in favour of Bill 189 as proposed by the honourable member for Etobicoke-Humber. I think that as I speak to this bill, it is necessary to read the purpose of the bill, being a bill "to ensure that the rate of rent and utility increases for tenants 65 years of age and over who pay rent for units that are publicly funded is not greater than the rate at which their incomes increase."

It is surprising to me that anyone in the Legislature can oppose a bill which carries with it that purpose. I am very much in favour of the legislation and very surprised by the opposition put forward by the government.

As you will know, my riding of Mississauga North is that part of Mississauga that lies north of Eglinton Avenue to the east, west and northerly city limits, and I, in this riding, as well as all of us in our ridings, have a number of communities.

I've had the opportunity over the last while to have a series of public meetings throughout the community, a great number of which were in seniors' housing projects or developments. I've spoken with the seniors who are located in Streetsville at 92 William Street, or 4 Caroline in Meadowvale, at the Edenwood seniors' centre in Malton, spoken at Ridgewood, as well as Etude.

The meetings carried with them a variety of issues, as I'm sure you will be aware. The people spoke about concerns they had at all different levels of government, issues that they wanted to address, whether it be municipal or federal or provincial.

Speaking at the provincial level, there were a great many questions that arose around the substitute decision-making act. But one other issue that was brought forward in each public meeting that I had dealt with the issue of housing, dealt with the issue that costs were increasing over the incomes which were fixed, and how were they going to live their lives in enjoyment and in an enjoyable fashion. Very real, very definite issues.

So when the member brought forward this bill, I thought, "My goodness, this is exactly the issue that had been brought forward to me from those at Edenwood, from those in Streetsville at 4 Caroline or 92 William Street, from those in Malton at Ridgewood or on Etude Drive."

I thought, "This was their issue, this was their concern." They want no free ride. All they want is to be able to live their lives with a sense of dignity and respect, and under the current formula, costs are increasing over their particular fixed incomes. Is that not our responsibility, if not our obligation, to take a look at that particular issue and see, can it be solved? Can it be addressed? Can we meet the concerns of the good people in Mississauga and throughout the province?

This bill does that. It does it in a way which is sensitive, it does it in a way which is effective, and I believe it does it in a way which all members of this legislature should support. We know of the contribution of our senior citizens to our community. It has been said in this debate and it has been said in many debates that the seniors are in no small measure the reason for the communities in which we live, the services, the sense of feeling, the sense of emotion. The heart is found in our senior citizens and that is how our communities have been built.

It is that type of message which we have a responsibility to carry forward for other generations. This bill does that. This bill carries forward that commitment to community and commitment to person that we have received as a message from our senior citizens. We have an obligation to make certain that a bill such as this becomes the law of the land. We have an obligation to do that because of the message that we have heard from our senior citizens. We have an obligation to do that because it in many ways shapes, forms the emotion under which our communities are built.

Our communities are not just brick and mortar. Our communities are a sense of feeling, are a sense of caring, are a sense of commitment. And that's what a bill such as this does. It carries forward that type of message that we have received from our seniors. Our senior citizens are in many ways an important component of the volunteer aspect of our community. We recognize that so many services rely greatly on the volunteer component. We also recognize, and we have made speeches inside this place and outside, about how important that volunteer component is.

Those speeches are right and they are proper, and we recognize that an important aspect of that volunteer component is our senior citizens. They are the people who form an integral and important part of the volunteer sector of our communities.

So if there is another reason, apart from the actual wording and purpose of the bill that this bill should become the law, then we must also recognize that the seniors not only require this protection, but they also continue to build our communities through their volunteer efforts, not only in the past, but in the present and in the future.

And so I am pleased to support this piece of legislation. I hope that members of the government, after listening to members' speeches in opposition, will change their opinion and say, "Yes, we too will support a bill which is kind, considerate and sensitive to the senior citizens of our province."

Ms Evelyn Gigantes (Ottawa Centre): I am very pleased to be able to join in the debate on Bill 189 this morning. I'd like to start out by saying that the speeches which have been put forward in support of the bill, particularly by members of the Liberal Party, have tended to try and suggest that anybody who opposes this bill somehow has disrespect, lack of love, lack of concern for people who are over 65 in the population of Ontario. I want to say very categorically, that is not the case.

I should point out too that only one member of the Conservative caucus of the Legislature has chosen to speak on this bill and I can well understand why that would be, since the program of the Conservative caucus, as it's summed up in -- what's it called -- The Common Sense Revolution, is to sell the units of assisted housing that are in the portfolio of the Ontario Housing Corp and to get rid of, somehow, those social housing units which also provide assisted housing to seniors in Ontario, among other people: unemployed people, the people on social assistance and working poor people who live in the province of Ontario and people who pay market rent in those social housing units.

I'm not impressed by the reasons given for support of this bill. The Liberals have suggested that it is cold-hearted and unsympathetic to seniors to oppose this bill. Let me state the opposite case. In the province of Ontario today, a lot of senior citizens rent their housing, and they rent their housing in the private market. In fact, more senior citizens are renters than the proportion of senior citizens in the population of Ontario would warrant, which means that a lot of senior citizens probably have lower incomes than the population as a whole, so a lot of them are renters in the private market.

Only a portion of those senior citizens have available housing assistance through the Ontario Housing Corp housing stock or through non-profit housing. It is a minority of seniors who receive that benefit.

What the bill before us is saying is that the minority of seniors who receive that benefit, compared to other people who receive housing assistance, should have their household income be the direct reflection of what their rent would be and what their utility costs would be. To me, that is unfairness because we know that in the private rental market, of all the hundreds of thousands of people who are renters in the private rental market, a very large portion of them already pay over 30% of household income in their rent.

To single out those seniors who live in assisted housing and say they should not be willing to pay 30% of their household income, when other people in assisted housing do and when people who rent in the private market often pay higher, seems to me to be unfair.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate.

Mr McLean: I have already spoken, but I just wanted to put on the record that I have Kyle --

Ms Gigantes: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: We had checked with the member for Simcoe East to see if, because no other member of his caucus was available to speak to this bill, he would be agreeable to allow us as a caucus to speak longer on the bill and we were refused that permission. I really object to his taking more time in this debate.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you, that is not a point of order.

Mr McLean: On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: I'd gladly have given my time if they hadn't taken so many shots at me. What I wanted to say is the fact that Kyle Brown is here from the riding, my constituency office, who is a co-op member, and I just wanted to welcome him to the facility today.

The Acting Speaker: That's really not a point of privilege.

Ms Gigantes: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I object to the member for Simcoe East using time which is not his to use to make points. May I make some points too on this debate?

The Acting Speaker: Do we have unanimous consent for the member for Ottawa Centre? No.

The member for Etobicoke-Humber please, in summation.

Mr Henderson: I thank the honourable members for their participation in this debate, but how can any member of this Legislature, especially a New Democrat, defend a 50%-or-more cut in disposable income of some of Ontario's senior citizens? I'm disappointed and I'm shocked.

Ontario's seniors have taken a number of hits recently from this government. We have removed 230 drugs from the Ontario drug benefit plan, including such agents as antihistamines and certain sedatives important to quality of life. Seniors are threatened with user fees, copayments, deductibles and tinkering with a list of those eligible to receive benefits.

Auto insurance legislation has denied retirement seniors the income replacement and loss-of-earnings benefits, while their premiums continue to be used to add to these benefits to the coverage of working people. Seniors with good driving records will subsidize younger, high-risk drivers. Seniors face a nearly 20% increase in auto insurance premiums and we slapped an 8% retail sales tax on top of that.

Beginning in 1992, seniors are now required to pay for day and weekend use of Ontario provincial parks.

The government is changing long-term-care legislation in Ontario, raising the daily copayment amounts and threatening, more recently, the existence of independent service providers like the Victorian Order of Nurses and Red Cross homemakers.

Since 1992, seniors no longer receive cash rebates for sales and property tax, and we have recently reduced out-of-country OHIP coverage from $400 to $100 per day at a time when hospital stay in the United States is about $2,000 a day.

These hits have been absorbed by seniors in recent years, compliments of this government, and it is surely high time that we took action to offset those hurtful changes and to restore dignity of life to senior citizens in Ontario. This bill takes a modest, small step and I urge all members of this Legislative Assembly to support it.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. This completes the debate on ballot item number 73, second reading of Bill 189. We will further deal with this bill following the debate on ballot item number 74.

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I wonder if we could move for adjournment, since nothing is happening.

The Acting Speaker: We are running slightly ahead of the normal schedule. It's my understanding that the member for Durham Centre is on his way to the Legislature. If we will just be somewhat patient for a minute or two, we will be right back in business.

Mr Curling: On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: Let me exercise the privilege of speaking on the bill that has just been moved in the House.

The Acting Speaker: Do we have unanimous consent? No. It's not a point of anything.

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES

Mr White moved private member's notice of motion number 52:

That, in the opinion of this House, the health and wellbeing of children, youth and young families require the active involvement of our whole province in supporting parents and communities and in moving to a better future through strategic investments in children and youth; and

We must examine the services and supports that we offer to young families in order to improve and refine the quality of life for all children and youth in Ontario, including an amelioration of child poverty and family violence; and

Goals and research measurements must be developed to measure how well and how quickly we are progressing as a community in the interests of our children and youth; and

We can enter the social security debate that the federal government is initiating with a strong set of proposals with an aim to enhance the welfare of families and to address the blight of child poverty that has worsened with federal neglect over the past two decades; and

We must build upon the high quality of our public services that have been both socially and economically accountable to the people of Ontario and which are the envy of virtually every jurisdiction.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): The honourable member for Durham Centre has 10 minutes in which to open debate, after which every recognized party will have 15 minutes in which to debate the honourable member's motion.

Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): Professionals and leaders in our province have led the way in the area of family and social policy. We initiated a mammoth undertaking in social welfare reform and now the federal government is following along, but its hearings are mired by fears of a cut-and-slash approach.

I am particularly interested in addressing the issue of child and family values today. I'd like to first acknowledge the work of the Premier's Council and its report, Yours, Mine and Ours. Their work created a unique and innovative report that should be seen as a beacon of wisdom and inspiration. My discourse today will highlight a few issues that have already been brought to the public's attention through their excellent work.

The resolution we're debating today will not produce nirvana nor be as broad-ranging as it deserves to be. Still, I'm struck that the federal debate of five years ago on a similar topic, child poverty, was something of a milestone. It was the swansong for Ed Broadbent, a part of whose riding I share at the provincial level.

Time and again social activists reflect upon the intent of those words, of those declarations from those federal representatives, and find that their words have not been borne out either in deeds or in any genuine commitment to the good of children and youth. They are held accountable for their pronouncements just as we should be here today.

We know how much families are changing these days. A generation ago, almost all families consisted of a dad who was the breadwinner and a mom who stayed at home with the kids. Family life was shrouded by myth. Life wasn't quite like the Father Knows Best stereotype. In fact, I remember reading about the actress who played Kathy on that show. Do you remember the button-nosed, pigtailed kid? She ended up as a drug addict and a petty thief, twice attempted suicide, and then at 40 she was born again.

We were a much more homogeneous society a generation ago. If life wasn't any easier, families were a lot less complex than they are today. Now only 12% of families are reflective of that stereotype. More families take on a greater range of forms than ever before. Single parents, step-families and childless families are far more common than in the past. Young women go through dramatically demanding role changes virtually overnight. Parents, particularly young parents, are now finding that they have only a limited amount of time for their children.

Our community is becoming increasingly diverse. We have cultural, linguistic and ethnic resources that didn't exist in the past. Consequently there are new and different attitudes to child-rearing and to family overall. These are influences upon our children's behaviour that we can do little about. Contemporary writers even speak of the end of childhood.

We aren't always pleased with these changes. There's something both comforting and nostalgic about earlier times. Still, we can't go back to the way things were nor would we really want to.

I mention these issues not because they're signs of an inevitable and intractable decay of family values. No. Families are strong and viable, but we are changing, and now more than ever before we have to find creative responses to the dilemmas that we're faced with. We have to develop resources as communities to support families and children, as we are now not as we once were.

Most of us would like to say that we can manage just fine without any supports whatsoever, but that's now rarely the case. Parents feel alone and uncertain. Working mothers often feel inadequate next to the stereotypical memories of their own mothers. I've seen middle-class moms speaking of how much they're struggling. The single mom who works full-time still expects that she by herself can provide everything that the traditional family could.

Relying upon her family and upon child care providers does not make her any less of a mother; her family is simply different, and with community supports, it can be just as strong as a traditional family. Fathers, too, question their roles, as those roles are changing.

As parents, we no longer have that resource of an extended family. Now we rely more upon our community and upon more formal supports. That's why a high quality of day care is so important, why junior kindergarten and creative recreational resources are vital, why a range of support services for healthy families is crucial. Families are no weaker or stronger than those of the past, only different.

The family of the 1990s should have resources for their children and their future that will make them increasingly viable. Our community as a whole should commit itself to ensuring those resources. Much more could be done if we were to redefine our family values for the 1990s to acknowledge where we are now. The alternative is unacceptable. If we do not invest in children and youth, we may be dooming ourselves both economically and socially. Social investments have just as real a positive benefit as do investments in medical research and services.

It's incumbent upon all of us to accept our responsibility for assisting parents, particularly young parents, in the vital task of preparing the future generation. Much more could be done if we were to establish clear goals as communities, as a province and as a nation, clear goals that acknowledge those changes to family structure.

The Premier's Council report speaks of a need to take a population-based approach to addressing the needs of children and youth. Through a population-based approach, we'll be targeting improvements for families in general and not just those who are the most disadvantaged. Our goals should reflect the overall health of our communities, the wellbeing of all the children and youth in our communities. We know that those are wise investments as well. Every dollar spent on early education and support for children will save some $7 being spent later on in a person's life.

Much of the treatment for children and youth is an attempt to mitigate the effects of society's most entrenched problems: family violence, racism, sexism and poverty. After a child's life has been scarred and limited by the deprivation of child poverty, our community services can only control the social outcast with criminal sanctions or attempt vainly to mediate the disease of addiction. Certainly, my experience as a child welfare worker was one of battling the results of poverty and inequity in the twisted lives of victims. I was battling a social problem on a case-by-case, individual basis.

This approach to the needs of our whole community, the population-based approach, includes the setting of goals for all of our children and youth and may sound overwhelmingly ambitious in a time of government restraint. Conversely, the challenge is too profound to ignore. By setting these goals, we're able to clarify what it is that we're doing well, and we'll be better able to target our spending.

One major result of the past debates on child poverty has been a movement of our social agenda. We're now willing to see how profoundly our community is wounded by the increase in child poverty that has been visited upon us, long-term problems such as academic and career failures, poor health and the lost potential of so many young lives, young lives foreshortened needlessly. Child poverty needs to be addressed with real political will, both provincially and federally.

Our provincial government cannot go it alone. Our initiative, the Ontario child income program, needs the support of the federal government. The federal government is supposedly reviewing this social policy, and it refuses to support poor children in our province until that review is completed. We've already thoroughly reviewed, and we're ready to go ahead with substantial reforms. So, as with child welfare reform and child care reform, we're awaiting the federal commitment. Waiting is not something that's easy for those whose lives are so seriously affected. In the meantime, a huge social deficit is being created.

When we speak of goals or outcomes, we need to measure those outcomes. We should know, community by community and throughout the province, whether we are achieving our goals. Often in the social policy arena our goals are loose or too broadly stated. As a result, we're constantly frustrated, as we have yet to reach them. When we set goals that are measurable, though, we can take some real satisfaction in achieving them.

For example, yesterday it was revealed that there was a dramatic reduction in the number and proportion of low-birth-weight babies in Canada. We know that's a reflection of the good work in health promotion from our community and provincial programs. Our children are becoming healthier.

Problems such as family violence are yielding to our concerted approach. We can compare our communities to those in neighbouring states and know that we have one half of that level of child abuse.

In order to be accountable to our communities, we need to have those measures. We need to develop a report card that tells us how much we've achieved and what we've yet to do. Research can be a little daunting, but the waste of uninformed expenditure would be much worse. We owe it to the families, youth and children of our province to subject our programs and our investments to the rigours of research and evaluation. We need to set informed goals. Our children deserve nothing less.

The Acting Speaker: I wish to thank the honourable member for opening debate. You will have a further two minutes to sum up at the end of the debate.

Mr Charles Beer (York-Mackenzie): It's a pleasure to join in the debate this morning. I want, at the outset, to commend my friend and colleague for the motion that he has put forward and to indicate that I will certainly be supporting that motion. I want also to say, however, to the honourable member that I think that one of the tragedies of the last four years, during the period of this government, has been that we really have had an opportunity to move on a number of these issues and we have not done that.

It's interesting to look at a number of the documents and reports that have come forward over the course of the last five or six years. I want to make reference to Children First as well as to the Premier's Council document and would draw members' attention as well to the work of the standing committee on social development, which earlier this year produced the report Children at Risk after a series of public hearings.

A great deal in fact has been done to set out what the problems are that are facing us in terms of dealing with children and with families, but I think what we have lacked is a real sense of political will and political leadership in making sure that we organize ourselves to have a direct impact on improving the lives of children.

I'd like to, as my friend did, note some of the things that the Premier's Council has advocated, as well as to go back to Children First. The report Children First came out in the fall of 1990. The Premier's Council report, which came out this year, I think followed to a great extent much of what had begun in that Children First document. I think it's useful to look at some of the things that were said in both of those reports in terms of the kind of direction that we need now to take.

Of particular interest, and there were a number of things in the Children First report, but I think there are two things that I want to underline; one was that they set out what they called a statement of entitlements. They tried to define: What is it that all children are entitled to? What do we as a society believe the children should have?

They put forward that, in the view of their committee, all children have fundamental entitlements to, firstly, affectionate care from consistent, caring and competent parents and other caregivers; secondly, an entitlement to conditions of care that permit normal physical and emotional growth and development, freedom from family and societal violence, physical harm, sexual molestation and exploitation, neglect, emotional harm and abandonment.

They added an entitlement to the support of all individuals or groups whose work and lives touched children and whose obligation is to promote the best interests of the child; an entitlement to necessary health care and treatment, adequate nutrition and housing; an entitlement to educational challenges and opportunities; an entitlement to opportunities to participate in their own cultural community, to profess and practise their own religion or to use their own language; an entitlement to opportunities to participate in the community and society as a whole; and finally, an entitlement to the protection of the above entitlements by society as a matter of substantive as well as procedural right.

In the report that the Premier's Council brought forward, an excellent report which I think all members in this Legislature support, in one of the chapters of that document the Premier's Council said that we need to set out what our beliefs are. I think that in reading the beliefs that directed their recommendations we see a great deal of similarity with the earlier report of Children First.

The beliefs that they outlined were:

First, "All children and youth must be valued for who they are now, as well as who they will become as adults. Healthy children and youth are a benefit to us all."

Second, "Parents and those who take on parental responsibilities have the primary role in raising healthy children and youth. They must be supported by their communities in that role."

Third, "All children and youth must have the opportunity to participate in their own development and decisions about their lives." How do we find the way to ensure that children and youth become involved in those decisions?

Fourth, "All children and youth must be able to grow and develop free of violence and abuse, discrimination and inequity."

Finally, "All families in all forms must have a stable and adequate standard of living to allow them to provide for the wellbeing of their children."

Those were the basic value systems, the beliefs, that the Premier's Council put forward and which I think reflect very much what has been noted in Children First, in the Better Beginnings, Better Futures program and indeed in all of the debates over the last three or four years. There is, I think, an underpinning there where we can say: "We can identify those beliefs, those principles, the directions. Now, how do we get on and do it?"

My colleague mentioned as well the concept of the report card. This was something that came through the Premier's Council report and I think is very valuable: that we need to have a report card which will tell us as a province how well we are doing in helping children and youth, and that this report card would focus on outcomes; that what we're after here is not just looking at the agencies or the services that are there, as important as they are, but we have to determine, are those agencies, are those services, really helping us? Are they doing what needs to be done? So the focus, then, is on the outcomes. If we can do that, we will be most successful in reaching our goals.

The question, then, is, how do we begin to do that? A proposal that has come both from the Children First report and from the Premier's Council has been: "Let's look at models. Let's look at, for example, the school as a hub. Can we not find better ways of bringing those services together in the community?"

What I want to say to the honourable member is that as we go about then finding how we help communities help families and help children, let's not fall into the trap that we did as we looked at long-term care of imposing one single model. I think we have to be much more specific in saying to communities, "You tell us how we can best organize to ensure that we're going to meet the needs of kids." As we go forward, let's make sure that in fact truly happens. The school as a hub is one model that can be very effective and very helpful. There may be some others as well, but if we're to have success, it's got to be done at that level.

At the provincial level the focus has to be on breaking down the barriers between the ministries. We know that Health, Community and Social Services, Education, those three, plus Housing and Recreation, have a tremendous impact on the future of children and families, and we need some real leadership at that level, at the provincial level, to break down the barriers among those different ministries so that we can ensure that the communities get the kind of help they need.

In closing, I want to just read from a pamphlet prepared by Fiona Nelson, in fact part of her pamphlet for re-election to the Toronto school board. She has been a member of the Toronto board and has spoken out greatly on issues affecting children. I think it is a good

summary to what we want to do as we go forward from this day.

She says: "If we are serious about our children, if in fact we are serious about our own future, since it is today's children who will expand the economy and pay the pensions, invent, invest and probably even re-engineer the way we live, we have to start now. We can no longer divide children's needs among social agencies. The child's life is seamless. We cannot postpone it, parcel it out nor

schedule it for our own convenience. We have to act now, together, mindful of the child's needs."

For this Legislature it is in a very real sense too late for us to take action. The action which I hope will flow from the debate we are having today is that all of us in this Legislature will make a commitment that the focus, one of the key priorities following the spring election, for whatever government is elected and indeed for whoever is elected to this place, must be on improving children's services and supports for families. If we can make that the focus, as we have on other issues, whether it is in terms of dealing with seniors or others, then I think we can have a profound impact.

But that is going to require leadership at the provincial level in a much more effective and concentrated way than we have seen over of the course of the last four years. I think we need to resolve to make sure that happens.

It is with that sense that, again, I support the honourable member in this motion and believe that we can go forward and bring about much greater success in dealing with children and families.

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): I'm pleased to be able to participate in any debate in this Legislature that deals with the issue of children, children's services and children's rights. At the outset, I must advise the House that I had great difficulty in reading this motion. I'm trying to find out exactly what the member meant. I listened carefully to his opening statements, and for the governing party I would have suspected that we could have gotten some clearer indication of what he's attempting to do with this resolution.

His previous one about a social worker act for Ontario -- very clear, very specific, very focused. We had one on adoption reform -- Mr Martin is here today -- very clear, very focused, very comprehensible. I'm wondering what service is paid to this agenda when it wanders so significantly, involving everything from the definition of a family to society's responsibilities. We can enter the social security debate that the federal government has initiated with a strong set of proposals, but I haven't heard any strong sets of proposals coming out of this government.

As my colleague from the official opposition has recently referenced, I can trot out here in the House today at least a half-dozen reports that have been completed by the current government which provide a whole series of recommendations, but we can't nail down the government to determine what it is actually supporting. It's sort of like shovelling fog or nailing Jell-O to the wall to find and get some specific proposals.

It's no secret that the federal government is currently undertaking a review of social security supports for Canadians. By way of an aside, I had the pleasure of meeting with and listening to a lengthy presentation from Mike Duffy in Ottawa several weeks ago. He was quite upset because in fact what he found out was, in cross-examination in the scrum, that the federal Liberals were quick, within three days of the announcements, to indicate that, "We're going to be discussing this for a good three and a half years, and the first substantive cuts aren't going to occur until after the next federal election."

I just hope that Canadians don't get too terribly excited about the whole concept of social assistance reform in this country because, by Mr Axworthy's own announcement, the substantive cuts or changes are not going to occur until after the next federal election. Perhaps the member opposite is safe in a very general -- we can participate in a debate without anything specific because, quite frankly, it won't really be that meaningful over the course of the next four years.

In fact, Mr Axworthy is in the province today. His travelling road show is actually in the great city of Toronto at the moment, but in terms of what our government's proposals from the province of Ontario are, we have not seen any of those. I had rather hoped that something as important as how to support children shouldn't be left as an open-ended question for the government of the day, certainly not in the very last months of its full term in office.

Certainly, in the beginning of the term, Zanana Akande was able to present a report Children First: Report of the Advisory Committee on Children's Services. We've not, to date, received any official response to the recommendations and a position from the government setting out its support or its indifference to any of the recommendations, and this was tabled in November 1990. I had hoped they might have gotten to some of those recommendations.

The other document that's been referenced by the member who proposes this open-ended paragraph is the reference to Yours, Mine and Ours: Ontario Children and Youth report by the Premier. I've quoted this document about four times in the House since it was distributed back in May 1994. The reason I've had the occasion to quote it is because I find very many of the proposals in here quite supportable. In fact my leader, Mike Harris, has publicly enunciated support for specific recommendations that are contained in this report, and interestingly enough, our public statements on that came prior to the completion of this report.

It's not political one-upmanship. All that means is that there is very wide support across the province of Ontario, and that can be found in a specific reference on page 10 of The Common Sense Revolution. If you compare the two documents, there are commonalities with respect to the support for children in need in both the Mike Harris Common Sense Revolution document and the Premier's council report.

We suspect that the Premier's Council, albeit laid out in their report, has not necessarily indicated that its last budget or its pending budget in particular is going to target and focus on the challenge that children with special needs and children in poverty require in order to be supported adequately in the province of Ontario.

One of the areas that are of concern to me is justice. As we know, children in this province are extremely vulnerable. On several occasions we have been calling for reforms to justice that affect children. I think it's inexcusable that, depending upon what part of the province of Ontario your child is sexually assaulted in, that determines the level of justice he or she receives in our courts. I have brought case after case to the floor of this Legislature of children where the judge has indicated that he doesn't feel the proceeding to trial will sustain a conviction simply because of the age of the children and because they don't have the court resources in order to do it.

Now we have the court resources; we have them in London, Ontario. They're very individualized and they're very focused, and it should be of no surprise to the members of the House that the rate of conviction of paedophiles and sexual assaults against children is double in the London court because of these additional computerized and videotape support services to enhance and equalize the victims' opportunity to present their case in the court. But in all the other jurisdictions in Ontario they don't have that, so it's unequal justice for children who are sexually abused.

All members of the House are aware that when children who are sexually abused don't receive the necessary supports and counselling and the whole concept of empowerment from the fact that someone, an adult, believes them, that manifests itself in all sorts of problems in our schools, in their interpersonal relationships, even in conflicts with the law. We know everything about it, and yet are we doing anything about it?

For as little as $150,000 we could provide these services in each of our courts, and yet we've got $15 million for the symbolic gesture of putting bilingual road signs on our streets. The fact is that if these are the priorities for our children, then we should be doing something about them.

I raised the Frederick Metcalfe case with the minister. Here's a 2-year-old boy living in a family on social assistance and the mother's boyfriend beats this child so unmercifully that he's handicapped for the rest of his life. I've read the transcripts of the court. I've read the appeal court's decision why it's not proceeding and it is deeply, deeply disturbing because it flows from the believability and the testimony of a 2-year-old child who is handicapped for life. Actually, the Metcalfe case occurred not far from your jurisdiction, so I know the member's aware of the case.

These are the kinds of issues we have to be speaking up for. These are the kinds of issues we have to be fighting for for our children. This is not a poverty issue alone. It has a lot to do with the rights of a child, and we're not seeing the kinds of justice reform so that children aren't treated so unequally or inequitably in our courts.

The member opposite made reference to day care. I need not remind him that we have severely criticized his government's approach for putting private sector operators out of business while the total number of available day care spaces in this province dropped. The member opposite frowns, but the fact is that in the first two years, $100 million was injected into the day care configuration of this problem, but we actually saw a decline in the number of spaces.

My party doesn't support universal day care, universally accessible to anybody who walks in off the street and demands it. We can't afford it. But surely to God your political party, which has been uttering that support for all these years, clearly should have seen the folly of your interest in turning the day care debate into an ideological debate, into an economic issue involving the punishing of private operators, instead of keeping foremost what everybody in this province thought was your objective: to increase access.

I just have to quote the Toronto Star, which was very critical of the Minister of Community and Social Services, who's currently engaged in a debate with the federal government and holding up the transfer of moneys. I think the member opposite should be talking to the minister and saying, "Look, day care is important to the member opposite in his region and his minister's holding up those discussions." If that's what's implicit in your motion about entering the debate with the federal government, then I ask your government to please do different tactics than the ones you're currently employing with day care.

I want to talk about the elimination of preschool speech-language services. I've raised with the Minister of Health the fact that preschool children need speech-language services. God knows, we've got all the money in the world to teach second- and third-language instructions in our elementary schools in this province, but for children at age two or three, before they go into school, we're withdrawing support services so that they can learn at least one language to communicate in our society.

Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital is frankly about to maybe show half a million dollars to a $1 million -- I can't call it a profit; hospitals don't profit -- surplus at the end of this year, and yet they cancelled a program worth only $50,000 and threw 100 children to the mercy of the private sector out in the community to receive speech-language services. When I raised it with the minister she thought it was terrible, but nothing's been done about it. So I say, if that's our definition of what we're doing, where's the political will to respond to it?

I wish I had time to go into concerns that were expressed by the Provincial Auditor on this very sensitive issue around support for social assistance recipients, and children in particular. The auditor was extremely critical of the government's approach to collecting moneys that are owed to families. When a father refuses to make his payments under a support order, then what's been happening is that a disproportionate amount of that money has been routinely written off by another arm of the same government, and the auditor's saying that causes more money to go to those families, which is unnecessary if it's gotten from the father, who legally owes it in the first place.

The auditor went on and he had several examples of where this family support plan came up. He commented that "arrears totalled...$700 million." Just think if we had that money to free up for children's services instead of having to pay on behalf of those defaulting fathers.

The auditor went on to talk about child welfare services and found that there were still many outstanding problems with the prevention programs provided by children's aid societies. Due to cutbacks, these expenditures have been reduced by $13.4 million.

I hate to bring it to the House's attention, but prevention programs are critically important for children's aid societies because they deal with protecting children who are being abused, physically and sexually abused, and the society has to maintain its legal responsibility in these matters.

I want to close by suggesting and just briefly referring to some of the concerns that have been raised by my leader, Mike Harris. There's no question that we have taken a very strong position on social assistance reform. We have indicated that we feel the group that must be protected are those sole-support families in Ontario, the mothers raising children, and we figure there are about 200,000 welfare families headed by single parents in this province.

The Mike Harris Common Sense Revolution clearly says that we should be targeting programs for children in need, community-based programs such as community nutrition programs for school-aged children, a learning and earning and parenting program, part of which has been referenced in the Premier's Council report -- Mike Harris commits specific dollars to that program; as many as 23,000 teens and young adults could be helped by this program -- homework assistance centres to assist our school boards, child support enforcement. There are thousands of children paying the emotional price for their parents' separation. Instead of arguing that case, we should be reinforcing the legislation.

I'm still trying to understand what the member opposite means with this resolution and I hope that in his

summary comments he can let the House know.

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I first want to thank the member for Burlington South for his usual non-partisan contribution to the debate here this morning and wonder out loud just where he's been living for the last four years or what he actually reads.

He has no understanding or knowledge of the child income program that was such a vital part of the social assistance reform package that we put together and shared with this province over the last three years and in the end couldn't afford to implement because of the cutbacks that we experienced from the federal government, a program that we have now in front of the present federal government and that we're optimistically hopeful will see the light of day at some point in the not-too-distant future.

His comments re child care and child care spaces: It's got to be a joke that he's making here this morning. We've increased funding for child care by 62%, from $350 million in 1990-91 to about $565 million in 1994-95. We've expanded the child care system by adding 21,000 new fee subsidies and over 18,000 new licensed spaces. I could go on and on.

In my own community, we've had two new day cares open up and another one that we're thinking about and working on developing, and each one of those represents new spaces.

Mr Jackson: You have had five close. Be honest. You've had five close.

Mr Martin: So I don't know where the member opposite, who is continuing to chirp over there -- his 15 minutes obviously wasn't long enough to spin his web of mystique here this morning. I just want to, for the few minutes I have, though, put on the table my comments re this question.

I came to this place from having run a soup kitchen for just about 10 years. In 1983, 1984, 1985, when we first started up, one of the things that astounded us was the number of children who came every day for lunch.

It started out with 10 or 15 and by the time we were finished, we were averaging somewhere between 100 and 125 children every day coming to our place from the neighbourhood schools, three of them, to get lunch. It certainly caused a lot of us to ask questions, questions that we're still asking and I'm still asking here today in 1994 as we look ahead to a new millennium and hopefully a new way of doing business that will see us coming to terms with the question of how we deal with children, how we deal with people, how we deal with people who live in communities.

I think, as the member has suggested in his opening statement re the resolution here this morning, that we definitely do need to redefine family values, as he said, but we need to go even further than that. I think we need to redefine family, and I think we should be wanting to look at family in all of its makeup today.

For me, yes, family is the traditional mom and dad and the kids in many senses, and that can be a very healthy situation. But we all know in many of our own personal circumstances and neighbourhoods and communities that that isn't necessarily always the healthiest of conglomerations. So we need to have another look at that. I think we need to be looking at family as groups of people caring about each other and to be doing things that support that in whatever positive way we can.

I agree as well with the member from the Liberal Party who suggests from the studies that he presented here this morning that we also need to look at family within the context of community and community supports, because that's where we will get the resources to help each other and help children become all that they have the potential to become. We need to develop communities that support groups of people who care about each other. We need to respect the voice of families and groupings of people who care about each other in this exercise, and everything that we do should speak to that.

Certainly in this government we have done a tremendous amount of consulting with children and with parents. The Ministry of Community and Social Services, in trying to redefine how they do business in the communities they serve, have established children's services councils that include parents and consumers of their services. In the Ministry of Education we've established the parent council so that we might get more direct input from them re what we will do with education down the line and into the future.

I just want to in closing say that I am really happy that the member has presented this resolution here this morning and hope that everybody in this place will learn from it and be willing to support it in the end.

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): I'm pleased to join in the debate on this motion by the member for Durham Centre. Part of the resolution that he puts forward reads, "We must examine the services and supports that we offer to young families in order to improve and refine the quality of life for all children and youth in Ontario, including an amelioration of child poverty and family violence." And the resolution goes on through other paragraphs.

I have no objection and I'm supportive of this type of resolution. In so doing, however, I would like to bring forward some of the realities of the area of which I'm a member, not just in the area of Mississauga North, of the city of Mississauga, but rather the region of Peel.

The member for Durham Centre will know that there is in the region of Peel a task force called the Fair Share for Peel Task Force. This task force is made up of representatives of the United Way of Peel Region, the Social Planning Council of Peel, the Children's Aid Society of the Region of Peel, Family Services of Peel, Peel Children's Centre and Community Living Mississauga. They have made in the last three and four years some very serious attempts with the current government.

They take it that the region of Peel does not receive its fair share of funding for social services for children, youth and families from the provincial government. As a result, the resources available to meet the growing demands of Peel's population are totally inadequate, leading to services that are increasingly unavailable and inaccessible.

I make this statement not as one that I have made up, but rather I am reading from the Fair Share for Peel Task Force report, the latest of which is October, just two months ago.

The Fair Share for Peel Task Force has as a mission statement "to promote the optimal and holistic development, growth and potential of children while supporting and strengthening the integrity of the family."

No one can debate in opposition that type of mission statement. They understand that action is required in three areas: that Peel's social services sector is inadequate to respond to the social service needs of Peel's population; secondly, that the current level of funding of Peel's social services for children, youth and their families does not reflect the proportion of Ontario's population represented by Peel; and thirdly, the pattern of current level of funding over the past several years does not reflect the dramatic rate of population growth in the region.

The fact that the current government fails to reflect the growth in the region of Peel has resulted in a tremendous impact on services to children, to families in need, to women. Let me give you some facts in the region of Peel.

A child in Peel region receives services in the amount of $96.52 per capita, while the Ontario per capita expenditure is $261.68. This results in Peel kids often having to go outside the region to receive the help they need. In the area of child care, the provincial government provides $200.42 in child care funding for every child aged 0 to 9 in the region of Peel, while the Ontario per capita funding is $364.35, again a tremendous impact to those in the region of Peel who require these services.

People with developmental challenges receive services funded at a per capita rate of $32.80 in Peel, while in Ontario it's $63.67. This again causes an incredible hardship, and has for many years, in the region of Peel. It can be cured, it can be solved, if one adopts a funding proposal which indeed recognizes growth in certain areas. The Peel region happens to be one of those areas.

On June 13, 1991, I brought a resolution into this Legislature speaking to the Fair Share for Peel Task Force, and the member for Durham Centre spoke to that motion. It is interesting that his opening comments talked about the Fair Share for Peel Task Force but indicated that this is a provincial House, not a regional municipal council. I take exception to the words that were said by the member at that date, because it isn't a regional matter. This is a people issue, this is a child issue, and the speech that the member has made, the resolution, of which I am in support -- let us be very clear -- has not been followed by any action of your government.

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): I want to thank Mr White for bringing forward this resolution about improving the lives of children. We need to think about family values. What are family values? Back in the 1950s, we could think of dad with a shirt and tie, or else his hardhat and boots, going out to work, and 2.5 kids and a white picket fence and mom in the kitchen with her apron on, maybe baking pies, making sure she had supper on the table and the clothes were ironed.

These are all the outward signs, but within this façade, all was not well. We know now that there in certain cases could be violence against women and even cases of incest. Family values are all about bringing up children who are whole, capable individuals, adults capable of reaching their full potential, young people who have self-esteem, like many young people we have here today, and also a respect for others. Isn't that what family values are all about and isn't that what a family is for, to have young people with self-esteem and also respect for others?

We used to say that behind every successful man there is a supportive woman. What about behind every successful woman there is a supportive man? Or how about beside every successful person there is a supportive partner? This means a 50-50 relationship of support, of raising children and of really equality in our society. To reach this type of society, this government can do two things: first of all, enhance women's role in our society, and secondly, eliminate family violence. How can we do these things? I'd like to list a few suggestions.

First, we must help women's opportunities in business. Recently, I went to a reception of Jobs Ontario Training employers, and these were all women, very successful women entrepreneurs in our society.

We could also help change the banks' attitudes towards dealing with women in business.

Just a few days ago on CBC radio, they were talking about young children in grades 1 or 2 in the classroom and how the boys dominated in using the computers. These types of things we have to look at. We must never allow young women to fall into the Cinderella syndrome, which is that the object of life is to meet the right man and then life will be lived happily ever after.

Day care is very important. We must turn day care into a public service, as Minister Silipo said at the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care lobby last Monday.

Let's be careful about advertising that stereotypes and objectifies and thus limits women. Fifteen-year-olds might think that all they should aim for is being a glamorous person, but obviously, as in this advertisement in the Toronto Star yesterday, there is much more for young women to do and be in our society.

Finally, let's remember December 6, 1989, the Montreal massacre of young women who were engineering students. Young women have every right to be engineers in our society, and I suggest, in closing, that our society's attitude must change in order to improve the lives of children.

Mr David Winninger (London South): I would first of all like to commend the member for Durham Centre for bringing forward this important resolution, based as it is on the fine work of the Premier's Council embodied in Yours, Mine and Ours, a non-partisan, multisectoral volunteer organization that advises the Premier on such important matters.

I really think it's important to highlight, as the member for Durham Centre did, that it's incumbent upon every one of us in society to provide the children who will shape our future generations of society with the education, the health care and the social services that they so vitally need. There's no victory, as the Premier said recently at the convention, in eliminating a budget deficit only to find we have a larger social deficit. Hungry kids are a deficit too; crime and family violence are a deficit too.

One need only walk a few blocks west of the Legislature to witness homeless youth living on the streets, families with children relying on food banks, mothers and children fleeing violence to find refuge in shelters.

The demographics of our society, as the member for Durham Centre pointed out, have indeed changed dramatically as opposed to the 1950s. I'm one of those 12% of families, I guess, where my spouse works in the home, and that perhaps makes political life for me a little easier but that could change any day. Although the member for Durham Centre talked about "father knows best," certainly with the time I spend at Queen's Park, mother has to know best, and fortunately that's a sign of the changing times.

But there is not too much time remaining to me and we have a colleague who would like to speak, so I'd like to briefly touch on some of the programs that we have in London to meet the kind of community supports and services that the member for Durham Centre calls for.

Most recently, a program was established called Kids Count. It's a revolutionary new approach to helping out children most in danger of failing in school. It's based on neighbourhood groups coming up with ways to help children in their areas succeed in school, to break the cycle of hunger and despair that condemns many children to lives of poverty and despair.

The program in fact brings together the federal, provincial, municipal governments, public and separate school boards, health and social agencies, businesses and other community partners and neighbourhood groups in an unusual alliance that breaks down the kind of barriers that were addressed both in this House and also in the Yours, Mine and Ours report. That, in addition to the Children's Services Network and the Smart Snacks program in London, I think will go a long way towards mending some of the cracks in the system and helping children get a leg up in life early on when it counts the most.

Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): I too am pleased to rise to support my colleague's resolution this morning and, I would say very clearly, to put the lie to the member from the opposition who suggested that we haven't done anything on the Children First recommendation, because one of the programs that came out of that is the Better Beginnings, Better Futures initiative.

The government is spending $5.73 million a year shared among three ministries, and I'm very pleased to say we have one of the programs in my riding called Better Beginnings for Kingston Children. It's an exciting program that is doing very good work in dealing with the kinds of issues that have been raised this morning to promote healthy child development both for the children involved and their families as well as the community.

I have some testament from the program. I'd first like to very briefly read some of the things that the program does. This comes from Suzanne Flanagan, who is a project coordinator in Kingston:

"The home visiting program focus is on child development for families with children from zero to four. The home visitors are trained to provide prenatal education, breast-feeding support for new mothers, infant care support to new parents, teaching and informing parents on ways to promote healthy growth in their child's physical, behavioral, cognitive, social and intellectual development and provide support to parents who may be facing a crisis."

I want to say too that it's understood that there would be a lot of scepticism in communities when you have demonstration projects like this, but one of the ways of overcoming that is to include many people from the community itself in the program. Suzanne writes: "Two thirds of the 19 staff are community members who have been hired and trained. In the two years that the project has been operating in north Kingston, there have been only two staff members leave." That's two thirds of 19.

I also have some testament from people using the program. One letter writer says: "I also say this for the other mothers who attend the centre," that is, that they're all getting a lot of support from each other, "especially those who feel that the centre's the only place they can turn to when they have questions or personal problems."

Another writes: "I am a mother of two young children, one three, the other one. They help me," that is the people at the centre, "with my three-year-old son. If it was not for Better Beginnings, I would have lost my mind. Better Beginnings gave me support when I was breast-feeding my one-year-old daughter."

The Acting Speaker: The member for Durham Centre has two minutes in summation.

Mr White: An hour's debate is not enough time to explore the issues before us, but I think what we have done is outlined something about our beliefs and something about our commitments.

My friend from York-Mackenzie spoke of the work of the Children First report and the work that's outlined. He went on to talk about a focus on outcomes, which is a focus on how children are doing. I think that's very important.

It's not an issue of which ministry is doing what. I know that our government, and my many colleagues and ministries, have given me ample, ample catalogues of what we have done. My friends have talked about specific programs. My friends from London Centre, from Kingston and The Islands, have talked about those programs. It would be easy to get into a tit-for-tat in terms of what program is doing what, but we haven't done that. Instead we have focused on what our beliefs are, what our supports are, what our intent and commitment are.

I want to compliment my friends from Niagara Falls, from the Sault and those areas as well, because that's what the basis of these programs is, a basis of values and commitment, a commitment for the betterment of children and youth, an attack on child poverty. I mention child poverty again because in my experience, without those basics, without food and nutrition, without clothing and the wherewithal, the economic security and wellbeing, the other issues are really largely irrelevant.

I want to thank my friends, my colleagues, both within the community as a whole and within this Legislature, for their contributions to this debate, and hope that we will use some of the ideas we have shared today in our fight towards a better future for our children and our families in this province.

The Acting Speaker: This completes private members' time for this morning. Do we have unanimous consent to proceed with dealing with Mr Henderson's motion in spite of the fact that it's not quite 12 noon? Agreed.

PUBLICLY FUNDED HOUSING RENT CONTROL ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 SUR LE CONTRÔLE DES LOYERS DES LOGEMENTS DONT LE FINANCEMENT EST PUBLIC

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): We will be dealing with ballot item number 73, standing in the name of Mr Jim Henderson. Are there any members opposed to a vote on this ballot item? If so, will they please rise. Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr Henderson's motion carry?

All those in favour, please say "aye."

All those opposed, please say "nay."

In my opinion, the nays have it.

I declare the motion lost.

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): We now will deal with ballot item number 74, standing in the name of Mr White. Are there any members opposed to a vote on Mr White's motion? If so, will they please rise. Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr White's motion carry? I declare the motion carried.

Being almost 12 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 this afternoon.

The House recessed from 1156 to 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANTS

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): My statement today is addressed to the Minister of Health concerning the northern health travel grants. Jesse Cantlon is three and a half years old and has been travelling back and forth to Sick Kids with his parents since he was four months old and diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour.

There has never been a problem with collecting from the travel grant system until now. The July 25, 1994, visit was paid for travel as far as Timmins instead of Toronto, the reason being that your ministry said he could have seen a specialist in Timmins.

Jesse's problems vary from month to month. When his parents bring him to Sick Kids hospital he sees a wide array of specialists at one time, such as a neurosurgeon, a nephrologist and an oncologist, because other health problems have occurred due to his illness. All tests and scans are compared in relation to the past tests over a period of time, as well as looked at for the probable relation to his cancer. All these specialists are paediatric subspecialists.

Some of his visits to Toronto include the cancer clinic as well as Sick Kids. His parents never know what specialist he has to see until they get there. It all depends on the results of his examinations. He now has kidney problems that are due to his cancer. Although Jesse may see several specialists when he goes to Sick Kids, only one signs the travel grant form.

Mrs Cantlon has telephoned the ministry concerning this problem and has been told that she had to submit a list of all the specialists Jesse may see when he goes to Toronto. This is not possible because there are so many doctors at Sick Kids whom Jesse has to see. I would ask the minister please to correct this problem and all the northern health travel grant problems for children right across northern Ontario.

DRINKING AND DRIVING

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): The net designed to catch motorists who choose to drink and drive is a lot tighter, thanks to the many police officers who are staffing the RIDE programs across Ontario.

Drinking and driving is one of the most destructive, yet one of the most preventable, causes of injury and death on our highways today. Drinking and driving costs our health care system $100 million annually. In 1992, drinking and driving resulted in 11,966 hospital admissions, 568 died in alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents, and 31,292 drivers were charged with impaired driving in Ontario.

It is a sad fact of life that warm feelings associated with this festive season often result in too much drinking and tragedy on our highways and roads.

Many people still fail to realize that a drinking-and-driving conviction could cost them as much as $20,000. A first conviction for impaired driving with more than 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood is a fine of not less than $300 and a licence suspension for one year. A second conviction brings a minimum 14-day jail term and a licence suspension of two years. A third results in a 90-day jail term and a licence suspension of three years. Insurance rates skyrocket after a drunk driving offence is registered on your record.

I urge everyone to take care this holiday season and throughout the year. Please do not drink and drive.

Mr Speaker, to you and to the members in this Legislature, I wish you all a Merry Christmas. Scottish ancestry doesn't allow me to send everyone Christmas cards.

JOBS ONTARIO COMMUNITY ACTION

Mrs Karen Haslam (Perth): I'd like to take a few minutes today to inform this House about good news for my riding.

It is always rewarding to receive funding in my riding; however, more important to me are the benefits of a good working relationship I have with one of the major employers in Stratford. Currently the festival's annual economic benefit to the area is estimated to be more than $100 million.

Last week, I also attended the official opening of Greenwood Court seniors' residence and nursing home. This was a joint project between the Avon Mennonite Church and Tri-County Mennonite Homes. While our government funded this project at approximately $4.4 million, again it was the participation of and partnerships from the community which made this a special enterprise. Teamwork between the Huron-Perth separate school board, the Perth public school board and the city of Stratford on the Stratford Education and Recreation Centre project opened the way for Tri-County Mennonite Homes to buy the land and receive the necessary approvals and funding.

I am proud to represent Perth county, a community that builds on cooperation, teamwork and partnerships.

WORLD AIDS DAY

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): I rise today to talk of World AIDS Day, which was commenced approximately six years ago.

As you know, it is a debilitating and awful disease which has taken the lives of many Ontarians and in fact takes the lives now of more Ontarians under 65 than cancer does. It is an awful thing and it's a disease that we need to talk about and be open about and to rise above the fear that is out there.

I have with me today Helen Mah, MPP for a day from Jarvis Collegiate, who is, interestingly enough, quite conservative on economic matters, but on this issue is a strong proponent of action, a proponent of making sure that the government acts to provide funding for AIDS, to make sure that people don't have to go on welfare to get access to AIDS drugs and to other drugs related to catastrophic illness. She is also, despite her conservative instincts on economic matters, a proponent of same-sex rights and benefits, which is much to her credit and of course a view that I support as well.

I'd like today to honour those who are working in the field of preventing and hopefully one day curing this disease and pay, if I can, a brief tribute to a friend of mine who passed away two years ago, James Thatcher, who I think would be pleased to see that, finally, catastrophic illness drug funding will be coming.

CHILDREN AND YOUTH

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): True is the saying that a government is measured by how it establishes priorities.

I recently had confirmed for me just how high a spending priority young offenders are for the NDP. At the Syl Apps Youth Centre for young offenders in Oakville, a foodservice consultant recommended that a rethermalization foodservice, complete with trolleys, be implemented there. The food trolleys were imported from France at a cost to taxpayers of $14,322 each. The rationale for this expense is that, "The equipment allows staff to provide both hot and cold meals to residents at any time...and encourages positive social interaction between residents and staff."

And now for another story. On Friday last I visited M.M. Robinson High School, academic home to more than 1,500 students in north Burlington. Members of the parents' advisory committee showed me extensive and chronic structural problems that are so severe that by any standard they would be a risk to the safety and health of students and staff. How is it that during the years of extensive funding for school construction, M.M. Robinson High School was overlooked? Where was the member for Halton Centre and her Liberal government then?

In these difficult economic times, I want to remind both the current NDP and the past Liberal government of their misguided priorities. The young offenders at Syl Apps appreciate five-star meal service. However, the law-abiding students at M.M. Robinson school need to know that their government values their educational experience, and at the very least it should be a safe and healthy environment in which they can learn.

FESTIVAL OF TREES

Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): I want to congratulate all those who organized and contributed to the Festival of Trees recently held in Peterborough.

Founded in 1991, the festival has raised over $500,000 this year for three local health care organizations. Hospice Peterborough uses the funds to support its work with families and individuals coping with terminal illnesses. The foundations at St Joseph's General Hospital and Peterborough Civic Hospital use the funds to purchase equipment, fund building projects and enhance patient care and continuing education for staff.

The Peterborough Memorial Community Centre was transformed into a Victorian village at Christmastime, depicting Peterborough at the turn of the century. There were many activities for young and old alike, combining the creative talents of people from all walks of life. I was particularly touched by the Tribute Tree where decorations were hung in memory of loved ones.

I'm proud of the work invested in this coming together of the community and bring it to your attention as a role model for neighbourhoods throughout the province. This year, over 1,500 volunteers, 900 volunteer entertainers and hundreds of sponsors, including many local businesses, participated in the festival. I thank all those who helped organize this year's event and I congratulate them for its tremendous success. In particular, I'd like to thank Margaret-Ellen Disney, this year's chair, for honouring Peterborough with her creative and innovative energy.

HIGHWAY 416

Mr Hans Daigeler (Nepean): On Monday, the Minister of Transportation made statements in this House that must not go unchallenged. In fact, when I read Hansard, I got very angry at his obvious and blatant fudging of the facts.

He says the 416 completion can't be accelerated without federal help. Whoever spoke of acceleration or fast-tracking, Minister? I was personally assured by not one but two successive NDP ministers of Transportation that the 416 would be completed on time. Ed Philip said so to me in this House on November 1, 1990. Gilles Pouliot, on October 22, 1991, in the estimates committee, made the very same promise, also to me. For the government's and the public's edification, this was done without any reference whatsoever to federal help.

Then a year later Bob Rae and Gilles Pouliot, on the sly, cancelled the completion, but they were caught red-handed by CJOH-TV and me. Completing the 416 now is no "acceleration," Minister; it's getting it off the shelves where your NDP government put it.

The new minister said to me on November 2, "When Bob Rae's government makes a promise, we keep it." Well, keep your word, Minister, even if it's unusual for you. Fulfil your double promise of November 1, 1990, and of October 22, 1991, and complete the 416 now and on time.

SKILLS TRAINING

Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): Sadly, we do not have a workable labour force training vehicle in Ontario. On November 23, 1992, Bill 96, which established the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, OTAB, a crown agency responsible for the promotion, funding, coordination, design and provision of programs and services for labour force training, received its first reading. Four years after the election of this NDP government, we do not have even local boards established. The bureaucracy is outrageous. The cost in dollars and human resources time is indefensible and plain irresponsible. In fact, without local boards we have no labour force training vehicle in Ontario.

A local board implementation guide was released recently as a result of the September 25, 1994, announcement by Lloyd Axworthy and David Cooke when they launched this local training board process. The very first step was launch meetings, and in London recently they were told that the purpose is "to begin discussion on an outreach strategy and a process for selection of nominees to sit on local boards."

We've spoken to a number of people who attended the November 1 meeting. Educators and trainers made up the largest group, and after a lengthy and difficult discussion between people with competing interests, they were unable to agree on a representative to sit on this temporary administrative group. They've putting ads in the newspaper. What an ineffective process. How time-consuming. How costly. We're not surprised: OTAB is a failure, and we have no vehicle for our young people or the workforce.

OKTOBERFEST WOMEN OF THE YEAR

Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): As you know, Mr Speaker, a lot of times we get wrapped up in our business down here and we don't have to time or we fail to recognize a lot of the hard work and energy that's going on back in our ridings. Today, I'd like to recognize a few people.

On October 13, a reception was held in honour of the Oktoberfest Women of the Year recipients. These women who were recognized this year are all exceptional in their areas. The categories and recipients are as follows: advocacy, Maria Alvarez; art-history-literature, Nicole Fougere; business-entrepreneur, Tracey Johnson-Aldworth; employee, Gonda VanRoosmalen; homemaker, Janet Stevens; humanitarian, Bettye Clark; professional, Dr Josephine Naidoo; senior, Cecilia Duval; sports-recreation, Joyce Legatt; and young adult, Jill Carter.

These women were recognized by their peers, friends and families because these women have dedicated themselves to the greatest form of expression. It is a message that spills forth from them for their community, for Ontario and for Canada.

As Ontarians, we are beginning to recognize the excellence that is inherited in our province. We are beginning to stand up with pride for what we believe in and for what our province represents. Nowhere is that more evident than in these recipients and the other women who were nominated in these categories.

To all the recipients and nominees, we thank you for your commitment and expressions of yourself.

VISITORS

Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would like to ask the House to join with me in welcoming the many Second World War flying veterans who are here as my guests today from my riding. They sit up there in the members' gallery. They've served Canada well, and they're here today for the first time to see how the Legislature operates. They're from the Golden Wings and from the 420 Squadron, and I ask the House to give them a warm welcome.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The member will know that he does not have a point of order. However, the special visitors he has now introduced are most welcome to our chamber.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

WORLD AIDS DAY

Hon Ruth Grier (Minister of Health): I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that today is World AIDS Day. It's a day to acknowledge and honour both the people who are living with HIV and AIDS and their friends and families who share their pain and struggle. It's also a day to reiterate our commitment to do everything we can to prevent the spread of HIV.

In Ontario we have had almost 15,000 people infected with HIV since the beginning of the epidemic. Many who were infected in the 1980s are now getting ill.

When our government was first elected, we made a number of commitments to the HIV/AIDS community. We made AIDS a priority.

One result was the Premier's announcement yesterday that we will shortly put in place drug coverage for patients in economic need. The government's goal is to eliminate the need for patients with a catastrophic disease from having to go on welfare just to get adequate drug coverage.

We promised to establish the AIDS bureau and give it a stronger community focus. We did that, and the feedback we've had on the work of the bureau has been very positive.

It was expected that we would expand our community-based program. We have, and continue to enhance this program and build on its strength.

We made a commitment to make our advisory committees more representative of the community. With the Ontario Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS, we've done that, and more than half the members are consumers, advocates and activists, and we continue to rely on their guidance and advice.

We promised to offer anonymous testing. Ontario now has 24 anonymous testing programs in place across the province. Compared to our other testing programs, a significantly higher proportion of people tested anonymously are HIV-positive. That means the program is reaching people who are at risk and counselling them so they do get care and don't spread the virus.

We promised to develop a strategic plan for AIDS in Ontario. In December 1993 we released Building on Our Strengths: Focusing Our Efforts -- Ontario's HIV/AIDS Plan to the Year 2000.

We promised to review AIDS funding. We now know where and how all the money for AIDS is spent, and we're looking at ways to ensure that it is used effectively.

Also, we established the HIV observational database program to monitor the disease to gain a better understanding of how it progresses and the factors that affect long-term survival.

With regard to the aboriginal community, a steering committee made up of representatives of off-reserve and urban aboriginal organizations will very shortly distribute a strategy to the community for consultation.

We promised to assess the network of outpatient clinics and their ability to meet needs. That project led to a comprehensive needs assessment that is now helping us refine existing programs and plan for the future.

This morning I was pleased to attend the official opening of the new Wellesley Health Centre. A major component of the centre is HIV care. Each year more than 1,000 people with HIV and AIDS will be able to get one-stop access to medical and to non-medical resources.

I was also pleased to announce the establishment of a new, joint HIV social-behavioural-epidemiological studies unit. This will be run in collaboration with the University of Toronto at a total cost of approximately $300,000 a year. Its studies will help us better understand risky behaviours and prevent the transmission of the virus.

In closing, I would like to encourage members of the House to wear a red ribbon. Red ribbons have been used for a number of years to symbolize awareness of issues related to AIDS, support for those who have it and remembrance of those who have died. Wear them proudly, but wear them with respect.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): I am very pleased to be able to rise and join with the minister in marking international World AIDS Day. I believe the red ribbon has become a symbol of our compassionate awareness of the toll that this tragic disease takes and of our common commitment to doing something about it.

In this regard, we have welcomed the government's indication that it is prepared to extend drug coverage to those who are needing prohibitively expensive medication. We believe that is a necessary step for government to be taking.

But let me also commend the tremendous efforts of individuals, whether family members or friends or volunteers, people who are in communities across this province who provide that essential support needed by AIDS victims. They are truly in the forefront in responding to the challenges and they reaffirm our faith in a caring society.

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): I too want to commemorate World AIDS Day and to share in the views expressed by the Minister of Health and my leader and to acknowledge that in many ways we as legislators and all of us in Parliament have been pushed to respond by the work of people in the community. It's activists and advocates and consumers who have forced all of us to respond.

I can think, for example, of my friend James Thatcher, who died just a little under two years ago, who was a friend of mine for a long time and died of AIDS and who was an activist and chained himself to the door, I think, of the former Minister of Health. Today, wherever he is, I think he's probably smiling that some of what he fought for is starting to come. I think the grin will hopefully get wider on April 1 when we see the details of the program.

I want to acknowledge many of the other volunteers, activists in my community and others who have pushed all of us so hard: in the AIDS Committee of Toronto, Bill Flanagan, who's been a friend of mine for 10 or more years, and Carol Yaworski, the executive director, and in AIDS Action Now, Glen Brown, who has been a very strong and vigorous advocate, the many people in the From All Walks of Life fund-raising campaign, people like Rod Kelly, George Smitherman, Markus Wilson, Max Beck, the husband of the new mayor of the city of Toronto.

There's Canfar. There's a new group called Aid for AIDS, which is a charity for children who have HIV and AIDS. There are many other community activists with the Casey House hospice, June Callwood, the PWA Foundation -- the list goes on and on, and they have all pushed us to act.

I want to talk briefly about the toll this has taken, and the minister mentioned the 15,000 people who we believe have become infected with HIV. I believe as many as 7,200 people have died in the last 10 years, and that's a tragic, tragic toll.

I know that the intention is in the next six weeks to work out the details of the program, and I hope we do see very positive details. I know there was a mention of a floor and a sliding scale of contribution. What I have said to the activists is that in fact they have a bit of a hammer in the negotiation because the details have to be worked out before the election is called, and so I suspect they might get a better deal than they might otherwise have had.

My hope is that it will be a deal that recognizes that many individuals can't afford the incredible price that the drugs for catastrophic illness cost, thousands and thousands of dollars a month, and that it will be of benefit to the individuals not to have to quit their jobs and go on welfare, that it will improve their personal health and their ability to survive in better health for longer to be able to continue working while getting the drugs.

I do hope t