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October 24, 1996

36th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

L114 - Thu 24 Oct 1996 / Jeu 24 Oct 1996

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (IMPAIRED DRIVING), 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (CONDUITE AVEC FACULTÉS AFFAIBLIES)

CHILDREN AND YOUTH

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (IMPAIRED DRIVING), 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (CONDUITE AVEC FACULTÉS AFFAIBLIES)

CHILDREN AND YOUTH

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (IMPAIRED DRIVING), 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (CONDUITE AVEC FACULTÉS AFFAIBLIES)

CHILDREN AND YOUTH

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

FINANCEMENT DES INSTITUTIONS D'ÉDUCATION FRANCOPHONES

FAMILY SUPPORT PLAN

ANDREW MCLEOD

CITY OF OTTAWA

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

FRANK PICKARD

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

METRO DAYS OF ACTION

COLLEEN PETERSON

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

ROAD SAFETY

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

ROAD SAFETY

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

ROAD SAFETY

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

VISITOR

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

ORAL QUESTIONS

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

FAMILY SUPPORT PLAN

TAX REDUCTION

PRIVATIZATION OF GOVERNMENT SERVICES

FAMILY SUPPORT PLAN

PRIVATIZATION OF GOVERNMENT SERVICES

SMALL BUSINESS

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

FAMILY SUPPORT PLAN

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

HEALTH CARE FUNDING

PRIVATIZATION OF GOVERNMENT SERVICES

PETITIONS

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

DRINKING AND DRIVING

TAX REDUCTION

WORKERS' COMPENSATION

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

HEALTH CARE FUNDING

SALE OF AMMUNITION

HEALTH CARE FUNDING

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

BEAR HUNTING

VIDEO LOTTERY TERMINALS

GARDE D'ENFANTS

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

ORDERS OF THE DAY

INTERIM SUPPLY

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (IMPAIRED DRIVING), 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (CONDUITE AVEC FACULTÉS AFFAIBLIES)

Mrs Marland moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 85,

An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act with respect to Impaired Driving Offences / Projet de loi 85, Loi modifiant le Code de la route en ce qui concerne les infractions pour conduite avec facultés affaiblies.

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): I am very pleased to open the debate on my private member's Bill 85.

I express my appreciation in advance to the government and both opposition parties for their support of this bill. I know your constituents will be grateful if there are fewer drivers on the road as a result of this bill or similar legislation and will be proud of your vote in support today, as they are proud of you always.

Every year in Ontario over 500 people die in motor vehicle crashes where alcohol was a factor in the collision. If that many people were killed in a plane crash it would be the top headline in major newspapers around the world, yet we are complacent when people are killed, a few every day, by impaired drivers.

Why? Every one of those crashes could have been prevented. They're not accidents. They're crashes which could have been prevented. Every one of those crashes leaves a trail of victims in its wake: thousands of lives that are prematurely snuffed out; families and friends who never fully recover. In fact, every person in this province is a victim because impaired driving costs Ontario $1.3 billion a year in personal financial loss, medical expenses and property damage.

Most of us know personally a family or friend whose life has been forever changed by one of those horrible crashes, like Mrs Janetta Lavery and her family. Mrs Lavery is in the gallery today. She lost her son, Warren, at age 20. We also have the tragic example of Sarah Petroni and Jerry Lynch. They were Brampton teenagers simply walking home from a movie and were struck down and killed by a drunk driver in 1994. They weren't even in another car; they were simply pedestrians.

We also have the incredible example of a male driver who received a three-year licence suspension after he drove while drunk and killed an adult. Within two weeks of this male driver getting his driver's licence back, he drove drunk and killed again. This time the victim was a child.

We are the lawmakers and we have a responsibility, on behalf of all Ontarians, to ensure that our laws and programs prevent these tragedies. Although we have made significant progress in the fight against drunk driving, we still have a huge problem on our hands. Each year in our province over 25,000 people are charged with impaired driving, and these are just the people who get caught. What does this tell us about the actual number of people who are driving while drunk every day?

One of the most disturbing trends is the increase in the number of repeat offenders, who are responsible for the majority of impaired driving convictions. Licence suspensions for a second or subsequent conviction of impaired driving have increased from 50% of all suspensions in 1987 to 65% of all suspensions in 1994. It's a pretty disgusting record. The source of these figures is the Ontario government's publication Drinking and Driving in Ontario: Statistical Yearbook 1994. It concludes:

"The predominance of repeat offenders illustrates (1) the need for new, innovative programs to deal with this group, and (2) the need to identify potential repeat offenders at the time of their first offence so that special measures can be implemented at that time to reduce the likelihood of subsequent offences." That's on page 41.

My private member's bill addresses both of these needs. Some members of this House will remember that I introduced an earlier bill on impaired driving in November 1994. That bill died on the order paper when the then Premier, Bob Rae, did not recall the Legislature before the general election was called in 1995.

Since the election, the Mike Harris government has enacted administrative driver's licence suspension, abbreviated as ADLS. This was one of the key measures in my original bill, and I am extremely pleased that the government's Bill 55, which includes ADLS, will be proclaimed in time for the holiday season this winter. The government will also introduce additional measures against impaired driving, as outlined in the road safety plan which was released one year ago.

My private member's bill, like the road safety plan, proposes remedial measures for convicted offenders. Prior to licence reinstatement, offenders will be required to complete an education program, including alcohol and drug rehabilitation where addiction was a factor in the offence. This will help us identify and treat people who are likely to become repeat offenders.

My bill will also increase the existing penalty for repeat offenders. It will lengthen the minimum licence suspension for a second conviction of impaired driving from two years, the current requirement, to three years, and for a third conviction of impaired driving, the suspension will increase from three years, the current requirement, to five years.

Finally, my bill will permanently revoke a driver's licence after a fourth or subsequent conviction. Based on legal advice, I have included a mechanism for appealing the permanent revocation after at least five years have passed since the licence was revoked.

The escalating licence suspensions in my bill reflect measures that already exist in other Canadian jurisdictions. For instance, Alberta and Saskatchewan also suspend drivers' licences for three years after a second conviction of impaired driving and for five years after a third conviction.

In permanently revoking the licence of hard-core repeat offenders, my bill goes further than the laws in other North American jurisdictions. None the less, there are precedents for permanent licence revocation in European nations, for instance, Finland and France.

I am committed to making the legislative changes needed to take driving privileges away permanently from impaired drivers who have repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to operate a vehicle safely. Isn't there something terribly wrong with our laws if a person can drive drunk, get their driver's licence back and commit the same crime over and over? Eventually we must say, "Enough is enough."

This bill is quite simple and straightforward. It is about rights and responsibilities. It is about the right of every parent walking on a sidewalk with their baby in a carriage not to have to fear that a drunk driver may mount the curb and crush them both to death. It is about the responsibility of every driver to operate their vehicle in a way that does not endanger other people's health and safety. Driving is a privilege, not a right. We must earn that privilege. If we don't, society can and should take that privilege away.

I ask the House to support these measures, and I look forward to hearing the comments in support of this bill from my colleagues this morning.

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): I want to thank the member for Mississauga South for bringing forward this private member's bill. Of course, there would not be one individual in this House who would not be supportive of the fact that drunken drivers should be off the road. Of course. But I also would like at this time to thank many of those groups, especially MADD and many of the community groups, which have been advocating for years to make sure that our highways are safe and that our society is run in a manner in which we can all live peacefully.

In my short time -- I know my other colleagues here want to make some contribution, and time limits us from expressing it as fully as we could -- I would just make a couple of points which I think are extremely important. I strongly believe that it is the communities around us that really make a society, meaning that many of the communities that are non-profit do it voluntarily, go out and make sure that our young people or adults or people who are addicted to drugs are looked after.

I notice too that my dear colleague, with good intention and a good heart, would like this to be moved forward, and of course it is something that I would support, but I think it is so limited in itself. That government itself, that same Mike Harris government has attacked many of the communities that are doing some excellent work, cutting off their funding, making sure that they don't exist -- I sometimes wondered about that -- saying they can exist alone.

But if you don't have good communities doing these things, and expect that legislation will bring forward building bigger jails, greater fines, more police on the road, and that will solve it all, I don't think it will. What we should be doing first is to make sure that those communities and those organizations are supported. Give them funds. Let's put it where it should be. Government cannot do everything alone. They need the support of communities, and sometimes they need money to do so. They need the support of legislators who will give them that kind of support, not really putting them down.

I've just been disappointed in this government in the way they have attacked and approached some of those community groups. In strong support of those groups, I would like to see this government coming forward and giving them the kind of funding that they should get and not cutting back on their funding.

We know the cause itself is not the drunken individual behind the wheel, it is the alcohol itself that's causing it. Can you imagine if we had a society where we are taking alcohol off? One of the biggest distributors of alcohol is the government itself. They own the place. But we would never one day start a debate on whether we should take alcohol out of society. No. It makes too much money, although at a great cost to our society. We have health costs. If you look at the health costs and what alcohol has done, of course, if you look at that and the destruction of families, you would then say, "My golly, what a cost."

With the same energy that we do the attack on cigarettes, maybe we should start focusing and be bold enough as legislators to debate that aspect of it, to wonder whether we should be looking at alcohol as really the enemy, the cause -- many people are addicted to it -- and then, after the fact, looking at whether we can rectify it, or whether we should have stronger laws, enforce them more rigidly. Will that solve the problem? I don't think it will, but I do think that the direction in which the member for Mississauga South is going is just a limited direction itself.

They should start looking at their government and realizing, in support of those community groups, whether to give money there and give it the strong moral support that it needs and stop coming here and talking about "my bill" and "Mike Harris," "my bill." That doesn't help the situation. Let's get some meat into all of this.

Member for Mississauga South, I will be supporting this because it's just a little bit in the right direction, but again, there's a far way to go. Your government should change their attitude towards those community groups. They are very helpful and forceful in bringing a better society for us all to live in.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I'm going to be voting for this bill because I think it's a step in the right direction. I would say to the member from Mississauga -- she mentioned earlier on in her comments when starting off that she knows all of us do a good job -- she got that first hand when she talked to one of my constituents yesterday on my cell phone. That's right.

Anyway, I'd like to make a couple of comments specifically in regard to the bill, and afterwards I just want to make a general comment. As I said, this is a step in the right direction. We shouldn't try to skate away from that. What the member is attempting to do here is to tighten how we suspend licences for people, especially when they're repeat offenders. As it is now, we have a mechanism that we can suspend a person's driver's licence if the person is convicted of an offence while driving under the influence of alcohol.

The member is attempting to toughen those provisions so that once a person is caught for the first time, there would an automatic one-year suspension of the driver's licence. If caught a second time, the person would get a three-year suspension, as I understand it. If caught a third time, the person would get a five-year suspension of that licence.

This is a step in the right direction. But for the record, although this will in the end, as the member said, lessen the number of accidents on the road, there is also another part to it: I think it is a little bit tough with regard to subsection 41.1(3), which I'll come back to a little later when I'll speak specifically to that.

There is one part that I think is not a bad idea. Subsection 41.1(6) says, "A person's driver's licence that is suspended under subsection (2)," -- which is the first, second and third time -- "or revoked under subsection (3) shall not be reinstated until the person successfully completes at the person's own expense,

(

a) a prescribed educational program on the topics related to impaired driving."

I think that's a good idea. If we're going to suspend somebody's licence because they have been caught impaired, we shouldn't automatically give it back to them. I think you'd be defeating the purpose. The person gets the licence back, and statistics show there are repeat offenders. To prevent that from happening, we should be trying to curb the person's problem with a little bit of education.

What's lacking in this bill -- I'm not necessarily advocating that it be in the bill, but as a matter of policy for the government -- part of the problem is that as legislators we're trying to close the doors once the horse has run out of the barn. Although this is a good step, and I don't want the member to take this as a negative comment, this is after the fact, once we've caught the person.

We need to try in a big way to educate people so that they know they shouldn't get in their cars when they've been drinking. Governments prior to the member's -- the Davis government, the Peterson government and the Rae government -- spent a lot of money making sure there were public ads, that there was public education going on that said, "Don't drink and drive." The industry itself and the hotel and restaurant industry got heavily involved with the designated driver's program, where people were encouraged to give their keys to somebody who would not be drinking that evening to be assured that the person leaving who would be behind the wheel would not leave in a state of intoxication.

Although this is good, I urge the member from Mississauga South to go to the Premier and cabinet, hope they'll listen and say, "You may be heck-bent on trying to deal with the deficit, but we need to put some money into education and make sure that young people and other people in our society are always reminded that drinking and driving are not a good thing," and that is what we need to concentrate on.

She and I grew up partly in a time when drinking and driving weren't seen as a bad thing. I can relate stories, as the member for Mississauga South can, where we've seen people in our communities, and even at times people in our families, who would drive under the influence of alcohol because it wasn't seen as a bad thing in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.

Because of public education on the part of governments, and the hotel and restaurant industry getting involved, we've very much changed attitudes, when it comes to drinking and driving in this province, and probably across most of Canada, to the point where it is now not socially acceptable to see somebody walking out of a bar under the influence of alcohol and getting behind the wheel of a car.

Most people in the general public will do whatever they can to tackle those persons, if need be, to prevent them from getting behind the wheel of a car. I certainly have, in the past, stopped people form getting behind the wheel of a car after they've been drinking. It goes to show what you can do with public education, the effect you can have, on reducing the incidence of accidents related to drinking and driving.

The bill is good because if people are under the influence and get caught, I think, "Great, the bill goes in the right direction." But first we need to do public education so that people see it as socially unacceptable and take a personal responsibility as citizens, not just the government, not just the police but people in society, and say, "It is not right to be drinking and driving and it's not something that is accepted." The second

part is that people around them say, "Hey, I'm not going to allow this to happen."

The other thing I suggest to the member for Mississauga South is that RIDE is a very successful program. The RIDE program, as people across Ontario know it, puts up roadblocks at peak hours, when people are coming out of hotels and going on municipal roads and provincial highways, where they spot-check. That is a really good deterrent. How many times have I gone to a function, as an MPP, where's there's alcohol involved and seen people having one, maybe two drinks and that's it. If they have their vehicles they don't even take a chance because (

a) they know it's socially not acceptable, but (

b) they know darn well that the RIDE program is out there. How many times have I heard somebody say to me, as I'm sure it's been said to the member for Mississauga South: "Boy, I'm not going to drink and drive. I'll probably get caught in the RIDE program".

I think those efforts on the part of the provincial government -- and municipal governments, because the RIDE program in other forms is also run by the municipality -- need to be beefed up. We need to make sure we have the budgets to operate those because they are a good investment in saving lives, preventing accidents and preventing the problem from happening in the first place.

I encourage the member for Mississauga South and all other members of this assembly to go to the Premier, to the Minister of Transportation, to the Solicitor General and others and say, "Make sure the RIDE program is beefed up, make sure that it's operating the way it needs to and let's make sure our municipal police forces do the same." This bill, although good, deals with this issue after the fact. Do we need to do that? Of course, and I'm not arguing otherwise; I'm just saying we need to do this way ahead of time.

I say to the member for Mississauga South that I and the other members of the New Democratic Party will be voting in favour of your resolution. I would only be remiss if I didn't say for the record that the member for Welland-Thorold has basically the same motion that was to come before this House next week. I don't know how, procedurally, we're going to deal with this in the House. If it's dealt with in one motion under the bill of Margaret Marland, I wonder how we're going to deal with that next week, because both bills were attempting to do the same thing. I think it shows there's broad party support for this.

The member for Welland-Thorold from the New Democratic Party is coming next week with the same motion, so we'll see what happens next week, if the bill comes back for a second time in a different version, which bill will get the support.

With that, I'd like to leave whatever time is left on the clock for my friend from Nickel Belt, the dean of the Legislature, who I see has returned and has many things to say about this bill.

Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk): It's a privilege to address this private member's bill to amend the Highway Traffic Act with respect to impaired driving offences. For 10 years I went into Burtch Correctional Centre on a monthly basis to talk to inmates locked up for drunk driving. It's my opinion that jail alone is not the answer, hence I'm very supportive of some alternatives presented today, especially those presented by my colleague from Mississauga South.

I wish to pose a question to members of the Legislative Assembly: What if there were no drunk drivers, no alcohol-related car crashes, no motorcycle smack-ups or boating accidents, no snowmobile decapitations from fence wire because the operator was too intoxicated to notice, no resultant injuries, property damage, insurance claims or lawsuits, for example, when a drunk driver puts a victim in a wheelchair for the rest of their life?

We would see fewer premature funerals, less need for police officers, coroners, insurance investigators, judges and lawyers. An Ontario without drunk drivers would be a different world indeed. There would be 47% fewer motor vehicle deaths on our province's highways and back roads. In 1994 alone, 544 people would have lived to see the end of the year.

Some 176 pedestrians killed that year would theoretically be with us today if they or the driver who killed them had not been drinking; half the people killed in snowmobile crashes, motorcycle accidents and ATV crashes would also still be enjoying their sport; and a whopping 88% of the people who drowned or were killed in boating accidents that year would still be alive and would still be contributing members of our society.

It is true that overall in the past 10 years the number of incidents involving drunk driving has decreased by 44%. This has occurred for a number of reasons: Public education campaigns through such groups as Citizens Against Impaired Driving, the Brantford Drinking and Driving Countermeasures Committee down my way, dual enforcement and education programs such as RIDE, mentioned earlier, have brought us a long way.

This, unfortunately, does not eliminate the problem. Every 45 minutes in Ontario, a driver is involved in an alcohol-related crash. Impaired driving is the number one killer of young people aged 15 to 24.

I support Bill 85 and I thank MPP Marland for setting the stage to address this issue: the number one cause of criminal death and injury in Ontario. I also know that Minister of Transportation Al Palladini has already asked his ministry staff to look at these proposals. We truly want to determine the best way for government to get tougher with impaired drivers.

In 1994, 25,520 drivers in Ontario were charged with impaired driving. Of these driving offenders, 65% were released for second, third and subsequent offences; hence the importance of this proposed legislation to crack down on repeat offenders. As explained, the bill calls for a driver's licence suspension for at least one year for the first offence; three years in the case of a second conviction; five years in the case of a third conviction; and on the fourth conviction the individual's driving privileges are revoked permanently.

The message is clear: We want drinking drivers off our roads immediately and we don't want to make it easy for them to come back, possibly giving them the opportunity to injure or kill someone else in the meantime, as we have heard today.

Repeat offenders are the untouched problem in Ontario. Through measures set out in Bill 85, enforcement will be coupled with education, or alcohol and drug rehabilitation if needed. Research shows that alcohol abuse treatment helps to reduce repeat violations. Seven provinces already have education or treatment programs in place for those convicted of impaired driving.

The Addiction Research Foundation, where I worked for 20 years, examined the potential impact of introducing mandatory remedial programs for convicted drinking drivers in Ontario. Their findings: Rehabilitation reduced all-cause mortality by 30%. Therefore, considering that 544 people died in alcohol-related crashes in 1994, the ARF estimates that 77 deaths will be prevented. This figure does not include injuries and does not include non-driver deaths that would also have been prevented.

I believe MPP Marland's legislation has very broad support. Her previous work has now been adopted by our government in the form of the administrative driver's licence suspension. Adopted in 40 US states, Manitoba and Nova Scotia, the 90-day administrative driver's licence suspension has proven to reduce alcohol-related crashes, deaths and injuries by up to 50%. It is a strong deterrent to get drunk drivers off our roads.

The Addiction Research Foundation also has an evaluation of this program. The results: For example, it shows a 4.6% reduction in drivers involved in fatal crashes. Therefore, going back to the 1994 figure of 544 people killed and factoring in this 4.6% reduction, we can see that some 25 driver fatalities alone would have been prevented. I consider this factoring conservative and I reiterate that this does not include reductions in injuries and non-driver fatalities.

The regulatory control of the misuse and abuse of alcohol has been increasing under this current government. Here in Ontario the Ministry of Transportation is leading a working group to develop several options. This group includes representatives from the Addiction Research Foundation, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services.

As many would know, Ontario has extended bar hours to 2 am. Until now, Ontario had the earliest last call in Canada and its bordering US states. Some people were drinking past 1 or 2 am in after-hours clubs or were driving across the border. Car crashes occurred as people travelled to take advantage of more liberal hours in other jurisdictions. Changing bar hours by one hour reduces the number of drinkers who cross the border to neighbouring jurisdictions such as Quebec or New York.

The prohibition of alcohol for 10 days up to and including the May 24 weekend has been established over the years in provincial parks. This ban goes back to about 1978. Since that time parks have been periodically added or removed from the list in response to whether or not there is a problem.

We are committed to working with the private sector for awareness programs; the RIDE program has been mentioned.

I personally have worked to try and decrease drinking and driving for over 20 years now and I'm heartened by an Ontario government that remains very serious and uncompromising in its position on drinking and driving, a position of zero tolerance. This position and the private member's bill today will bring us one step closer to a world without drunk drivers.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I want to join my colleague the member for Scarborough North in supporting the bill standing in the name of Ms Marland. These are tough measures, but it's clear, and all previous speakers have indicated, that the community is increasingly concerned, particularly about repeat offenders. The member for Mississauga South, the sponsor of the bill, has quite eloquently spoken to the statistical data which suggest that in the last seven to eight years the number of licence suspensions for repeat offenders has increased from 50% to 65%.

There is no doubt that there is community concern. All members hear it and feel it; all of us. Speaking for myself, I have a certain conflict of interest here. I live on the roads of Ontario; I have for over 20 years. My principal residence has four tires and it sits out in the Queen's Park parking lot, and I don't laugh when I say that. If you drive 100,000 kilometres a year, you've got to be interested in Mrs Marland's bill.

Laughter.

Mr Conway: Well, I am deadly serious. I heard the member for Norfolk. He makes some very good arguments. This is a conflict for me. I don't take public transit. I live in rural eastern Ontario. I drive to the provincial capital every week. I drive upwards of 100,000 kilometres a year, and when I hear Mrs Marland and others tell me about what's going on on the highways of Ontario I am particularly concerned.

Like all members, I have had friends and relatives who have been killed or seriously maimed by this horror to which bill 85 speaks. I live on the Ontario-Quebec border, as does my colleague the member for Lanark-Renfrew, who is here today. He, like I, will know that one of the real problems we have -- the member for Nepean is here; I heard him very eloquently speaking to this issue on CBC Radio in Ottawa a couple of months ago. If you live in the national capital area, if you live in Pembroke, if you live in Renfrew, this is an issue for, among other reasons, the differential activity between Ontario and Quebec, the differential regulations.

The previous speaker talked about different closing hours. There have been countless tragedies in and around that interprovincial bridge at Pembroke. I'll never forget the night a couple of years ago that four or five young people were killed in a horrific accident -- I think the average age of those kids was in the early twenties -- in one horrific fatality that, as I recall, involved alcohol.

None of us can be indifferent to the issues raised by Mrs Marland in her bill. These are tough measures. I support the measures. I'm sure the courts will have something to say about some of these at some point, but that's not for me to decide.

There are some attendant issues for me. Enforcement is clearly an issue. The intentions here are very good. I think everyone expects this bill to carry unanimously because of the issues we've all recognized, but as legislators we've got to go beyond just good intentions and good principles. Good public policy is about reasonable enforcement.

When I think about what I experience these days on the highways and byways of Ontario, I'm not at all sure that we have or will have the kind of enforcement that is going to be necessary, particularly in rural and northern Ontario, to make these good intentions stick. I hope I'm wrong. My impression, for example, is that the RIDE program -- and for this I give Roy McMurtry and others great credit.

I watched that RIDE program evolve over the years, and there was no doubt in my mind that there came a point some time in the early to mid-1980s when it really cranked up the resources and changed the public perception about your chance of getting caught. When people understood that their chance of getting caught was much greater, behaviours changed. When people think their chance of getting caught is dropping, I suspect the behaviours are changing the other way.

My friend the member for Nickel Belt is going to speak shortly. He and I were chatting just a moment ago about the particular problems in places like rural and northern Ontario. There's no such thing as Mississauga Transit where I come from; there is virtually no public transit. Most people I represent travel by car or half-ton truck 30, 40, 50, 70, 80, 100 kilometres a day to work. So we have to think, it seems to me, what are we saying to people?

And I'm not excusing the bad behaviour that will get them caught in the net of Bill 85, but people, being people, will perhaps consider means and activities that we don't like because the economic imperatives of their lives require that they get to work. So there being no public transit in rural Renfrew or in Nickel Belt -- there being no OC Transpo, there being no TCC -- we've got to be careful that this policy does not effectively impact differentially on citizens across the province. I don't know how you solve that problem, and it is a real problem.

I was saying to my friend Floyd Laughren a moment ago that one of the other issues about enforcement, as far as I'm concerned, has to do -- and I don't know how to put this felicitously, but over the years, in my part of eastern Ontario and western Quebec and in a couple of university towns with which I'm quite familiar, I've seen some absolutely outrageous tavernkeepers. Most are good. Most of the licensed establishments are quite good, but boy, there have been some pretty bad actors over a long period of time. You sit there and say to yourself: "What would they have to do?

How much death and carnage and illegality would that establishment have to engage in before the Ontario or the Quebec liquor licence commissions would actually revoke the licence?"

I think one of the real issues in enforcement might be that if the liquor licence commissions of the various and several provinces, including Ontario, went after some of the really bad actors, the egregious misconducts, and said, "We're going to take your liquor licence away and you're never getting one back, ever" -- because there's more to this than just repeat offenders in terms of drinking and driving. My friend from Lanark may want to comment on this, but there are issues of responsibility that attach not just to drivers; I think that's where the principal responsibility clearly does attach.

Really, it is a draconian measure, but quite frankly, after three or four convictions, yes, I think the member from Mississauga is absolutely right. It is a right, it is a responsibility -- it's a privilege, I guess was the word you used -- it is a privilege and it's not a guaranteed right. I have no difficulty at all; if somebody has been convicted three or four times of drunk driving, then take their bloody licence and never give it back. I'm sure there's some judge who's going to tell me I can't do that, but that's a very serious offence in my view. But it is equally serious that some tavernkeeper consistently breaks the law and encourages the very conduct that we're trying to change.

A couple of quick and final observations. I like the idea that after each suspension there be a mandatory driver education program or drug and alcohol rehab program. Again, my question there is -- I don't want to be partisan lest I offend the now departed member from Caledon, but quite frankly the driver education offices in my part of eastern Ontario are currently just a mess. I presume that's all going to get fixed up, but we can't impose any more burdens on those people at the present time because they can't discharge the responsibilities that they've now got.

It's a good idea, but the current infrastructure, particularly in small-town eastern Ontario, I can tell you, the MTO offices simply cannot maintain their current responsibilities and there's no point in thinking about giving them any more work because it simply won't happen. There may be a way around that, it may be something we want to give to community-based organizations or whatever, but it's simply not realistic to imagine that they're going to discharge that responsibility, though it is a very good idea and I commend the member for it.

I guess a final observation is, I was listening to a legal affairs reporter the other night on CBS News talking about the "three strikes and you're out" initiative in the US. You will recall a couple of years ago the Clinton administration, together with Congress, really got together on what seemed to be a bipartisan initiative to deal with some repeat offenders, and boy, it was good politics: three strikes and you're out. Well, a couple of years after that bipartisan initiative was enacted, it's basically irrelevant. They were using California as the example.

It doesn't matter two hoots apparently, particularly in the courts of California. So again, good intentions, good principles and good public policy, and surely it means that we've got to implement in some reasonable way.

Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt): I am pleased to stand and support the member for Mississauga South in this initiative. I know this is not a Margaret-come-lately initiative on her behalf and that this is something she's had an interest in for some time, and I commend her for that.

I don't think anyone has said anything in debate so far that I can disagree with, which is very unusual in this assembly. When you read through the explanatory note, it does explain it very thoroughly and I think strikes the right balance on penalizing. I commend her for finding that balance, because I think we can get a bit foolish sometimes in our exuberance to straighten out a problem. I think the member for Mississauga South has found a balance here.

I am a bit like the member for Renfrew North, because I drive 60,000 to 70,000 kilometres a year because my constituency runs almost 400 miles north and south and almost 100 miles east and west, and you must drive to those places. There are communities interspersed throughout the riding so I can't just fly to one, and so I drive. So I too have a vested interest in this.

But also I can recall as a youth upsetting a car, turning over a car, a very serious accident, the details of which I can only leave to your imagination, other than to say that it's one reason I'm speaking on this bill today. I'm not alone in that regard, I'm sure. How many of us are pure when it comes to the issue of drinking and driving? We do need to toughen up our laws.

I am concerned about the whole issue of prevention versus cure. It's a bit trite to say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but I think in this case it's true, that if we could find some way -- and I'm not pointing fingers here -- of preventing drinking and driving as opposed to dealing with it after the fact -- now, dealing with it after the fact also is preventive in nature, I understand that, and it's one reason I'm supporting this bill.

I do hope that in this era of fiscal restraint we try to strike a balance on how much money we put into programs such as the RIDE program. That is a good program. We need more promotion in the schools for the designated driver philosophy. I think there's a lot of work to be done with the tavern owners of this world. There's still a lot to be done there. I hope it wouldn't have to be done just through the courts. That's a messy way of doing it and punitive, and perhaps there are better ways of educating our tavernkeepers as well, although the ultimate responsibility lies with the person who gets behind that wheel, and I think we all agree with that.

If there is any one of us who does not know a family that's had tragedy strike because of drinking and driving, I'd be surprised. It may not be in our immediate family, but I would suspect that we all know someone.

I want to leave some time for my colleague the member for London Centre. I simply reiterate that I commend the member for Mississauga South for bringing this bill forward, and she will be receiving our support.

Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak on Bill 85 and compliment the member for Mississauga South for her effort and dedication on this important issue. As the member for Nickel Belt pointed out, this is no last-minute effort by the member for Mississauga South. This bill is a product of her long-standing commitment to this very serious issue in the province of Ontario.

Drunk driving causes deep concern for people in my constituency of Nepean. A number of tragedies in my area have had people in our community very concerned in recent months and over the last year and a half. I think all members have seen the number of petitions that I have presented to the Legislature over the last year on this issue on behalf of constituents. We had a very successful town hall meeting where we had more than 250 people come out to hear the member for Mississauga South, among others, deal with the issue of impaired driving.

In Ottawa-Carleton, we're very privileged to have a new MADD chapter, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In Nepean we have a Nepean Committee Against Impaired Driving and we have work by the Ontario Community Council Against Impaired Driving in my constituency. I think that amount of community support is a recognition of the importance that people in my community place on this very, very difficult issue.

I should say at the outset that I'm pleased to note that we have a very non-partisan debate on this issue, and I commend my colleagues the member for Norfolk, Nickel Belt and Renfrew North for that, because I think this issue is too important to involve partisan politics.

The scope of this problem is very serious. Drunk driving is the largest criminal cause of death and injury in this country. The member for Mississauga South spoke about more than 500 deaths in the province of Ontario each year. If that were two or three airline disasters, this would be an absolute outrage. There would be royal commissions going on on this issue. But the 500 deaths in Ontario do not speak to the problem, because for every death there are countless injuries and for every person involved in an accident there's their family and the community which also suffer.

Every 45 minutes a driver is involved in an alcohol-related crash. It's not a victimless crime. It's a tragedy for families and communities, and these victims have a face.

There was a tragedy in my constituency involving the daughter and grandson of Senator Marjory LeBreton. Marjory wrote me a letter, part of which I'd like to read, with her permission, into the record.

"There is a serious problem of drunk driving in Ontario and too many innocent people have been injured or killed.

"To that list are added the names of my cherished daughter Linda LeBreton and my wonderful and loving grandson Brian LeBreton Holmes.

"I want you to know that you, Margaret and the others, such as MADD, who are joining together to combat this horrendous problem are to be highly commended. I intend to fully and actively participate in all efforts to change and strengthen our laws. I believe that people who have little or no respect for the law and callously disregard the lives of innocent citizens should be subjected to laws that do everything possible to remove their potential to wreak havoc on innocent victims and, by direct extension, the family and friends of the victims."

That's just one face of a victim in the province of Ontario. We look at the tragedy for this family and so many other families.

There's clearly a need for tougher action in the federal Parliament, and I don't think this is a partisan issue. But having said that, hopefully the passage of this bill could send a message to the federal Parliament, to all parties there, that there is a real and sincere need for them to take tougher actions on this issue. Obviously we cannot amend the Criminal Code in this place, which is a substantive answer to some of the problems.

I believe there's an obscenity of repeat offenders and the lackadaisical attitude taken from them. Even the best of us makes mistakes, but the question is, do we learn from them? Regrettably, too often people in Ontario don't. Some will argue the measures in this bill are tough. Certainly I can put on the record that I would like to see this bill go much further, as would people in my constituency. I say, if we're not getting tough after the second offence, then when? Regrettably, there are far too many repeat offenders, as the member for Mississauga South spoke of: 65% of charges are for repeat offenders.

Educational programs have been very successful, but as the member for Renfrew North pointed out, there is a strong need for an active deterrent, for people to fear going out and getting caught, and a need to target the small group causing the problem.

Some say perhaps these are anecdotal. They're not anecdotal. How about Claude Pilon, who was jailed for two years after his 15th offence? That's an obscenity. How about Jean Marc Droulin, jailed for two years for his 10th conviction? Had his licence suspended for three years. That's the maximum today. An obscenity. What about Victor Legros, sentenced to 2.5 years for his 11th offence? There's one case we read about in the Ottawa Citizen in the last six months where it was a 28th offence. This bill can't address the Criminal Code issue, and we hope our federal counterparts in the federal Parliament could seek to toughen their measures to deal with repeat offenders.

Educational programs have been successful with the general public. I think we've got to target, though, the repeat offenders. There specifically is where the problem is.

Mrs Marland's bill specifies that the criminal pays, which I think is important. It gets tough on second and third offences and puts a "fourth strike and you're out" provision. This is a criminal problem, not a social problem any more. This bill places its emphasis on getting tough with the criminals. It moves solidly forward in the right direction. Combined with administrative licence suspension brought forward earlier by the Attorney General last spring, it goes a long way to addressing this problem.

The administrative licence suspension was originally part of Mrs Marland's bill but she withdrew it when the government undertook it as a government measure. It has been enacted and I think will be introduced in the next little while, which is good news for those of us wanting to fight this issue. ALS will ensure suspended drunk drivers do not get back behind the wheel until charges against them have been settled in court. The suspensions will be made by the registrar of motor vehicles at the request of local police.

ALS is efficient, fast and inexpensive, and that will be another weapon in our arsenal to fight drunk driving. To ensure the system is fair and free of abuse, suspected drunk drivers can appeal their temporary suspensions. In most cases this will be a solid response to this issue.

I believe it's important that this House send a strong message from all three political parties that we're going to get tough with drunk drivers. I've been particularly pleased that the debate has been non-partisan in that regard. We can send that message.

This bill not only merits support today, but I believe merits speedy passage through a committee of this Legislature and through third reading.

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): I'm very pleased to have an opportunity to speak briefly today in favour of the member for Mississauga South's Bill 85. She has, as others have said, been most persistent in trying to get some of these measures put into law, and she is to be congratulated on that.

When she brought forward her bill a couple of years ago, we were unable to support it in the form that it was in. Those who were in this Legislature will know there was quite a discussion about some of the legal problems that were in her original bill. I'm very pleased to see that those issues have been resolved in this bill. The possibility of appeal is there. That was one of the legal impediments to the removal of someone's licence after however many offenses there would be. It was felt that unless there was some faint hope, if you like, what we would see is people driving without a licence, and that continues to be a bit of a worry. We will hear people criticize this bill because of it.

It is true that there are some people who are so wedded to their cars that they make an assumption about driving as being a right rather than a privilege. Part of what we need to do as we teach people to drive, as we talk about driving, is to use that language: It is a privilege for us to be able to drive vehicles that have the capacity not only to transport us rapidly from one area to another, but if they are driven recklessly to kill large numbers of people. We license people and we make decisions about whether people are fit to drive or not. That is a privilege rather than a right, and we need to be emphasizing that.

I say to the member for Mississauga South that she has been one of the most outspoken advocates of stronger measures against drinkers and drivers and she deserves to be the one who brings forward a bill that makes this massive change in terms of attitude towards this. I certainly will be supporting her efforts to get this quickly through committee and to be made law, because I think it is very important.

I will say that the administrative licence suspension is not yet in effect. I understand the Solicitor General is making an announcement that it will be in effect by Christmas. The faster it comes into effect the better, because that is probably, with all the studies that have been done, the most effective way to interrupt the driving pattern immediately for someone who has been convicted, to put that lack of privilege into the picture very quickly.

We will be supporting this bill, and I offer on behalf of my colleagues who didn't have an opportunity to speak congratulations to the member for bringing it forward.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): The member for Mississauga South has two minutes.

Mrs Marland: I'm deeply appreciative and deeply humbled by the support of all three parties this morning, particularly to have the support of the two deans of this place, the member for Nickel Belt and the member for Renfrew North. I also very much appreciate the comments from the former Attorney General, the member for London Centre.

Very quickly, I want to emphasize that the bill does address the cost factor for rehabilitation programs. It is my intent that the rehabilitation programs, where they are mandatory for that repeat offender and for the first-time offender who may be a candidate to drive drunk again, would be at the expense of the driver, the person who has violated the law.

Yes, I agree with the member for Cochrane South that educational advertising is still necessary. It has been responsible for a great reduction and it is to get to the source of the problem, which will ultimately eradicate the problem. At the moment, my bill is only one step.

I want to say that I sincerely understand the argument about the additional problems for people in rural ridings. I don't drive 100,000 kilometres a year -- I don't think I could even do that, I say to the member for Renfrew North -- but I can appreciate what that kind of involvement is for people who have to commute in their vehicles. But I want them to be safe, and I want drunk drivers everywhere to know that wherever they drive, it is absolutely unacceptable.

In this debate we focus on the deaths, but we also must remember all the people whose lives are changed permanently, people who now live their lives in wheelchairs, in a great deal of pain, who have contacted me and said, "I didn't die; I wish I had." Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to represent all of those people in this place.

The Deputy Speaker: The time allotted for the first ballot item has expired.

CHILDREN AND YOUTH

Mr Gerretsen moved private member's notice of motion number 28:

That in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should develop a formal process to monitor the progress and development of Ontario's children and youth; and in order to protect children and youth and to ensure that government policies are in fact improving the progress and development of children and youth, the government should formally develop and implement a progress report on children and youth that monitors the following categories of indicators:

Environmental indicators which will identify the ideal environmental elements for the optimal development of children and will include economic security, family structure, physical environment, community resources and civic vitality;

Progression indicators which refer to the general concepts or measures over time and will provide benchmarks of development and will include health status, social relationships/involvement, academic performance and skill development; and

That the government, through a designated ministry, should be required to present to this House annually the findings of this report card as well as an "action plan" to address those areas needing improvement.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Pursuant to standing order 96(c)(i), the member has 10 minutes for his presentation.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): My resolution today calls for the government to develop a formal process to monitor the progress and development of Ontario's children and youth. This will complement the excellent review of the health of Canadian children by the Canadian Institute of Child Health released every five years and the work by Coalition 2000 focusing on the incidence and impact of poverty on Canadian children and families.

Many of you may know that several other jurisdictions have implemented such a process, perhaps the best known being the state of Oregon's benchmarks, and that the Canadian Council on Social Development is currently developing a report card at the national level that will be completed and released annually.

In Ontario, the Premier's Council on Health, Well-being and Social Justice in 1994 recommended that the provincial government develop its own report card to track the progress of children and youth. This recommendation has yet to be acted upon. Why would this process be useful?

First, it would be useful to educate the public about the wellbeing of our children and youth. Second, information collected from this annual process will help us in our role as legislators advance policies and practices that will support Ontario's families and communities and help them to raise healthy and happy children.

This is very important right now, especially since the Legislature is considering significant changes in how the public sector fulfils its role. We must protect children and youth's wellbeing first and foremost and ensure that every child has the opportunity to fulfil his or her potential. After all, our future economic and social security depends on how well today's children grow into tomorrow's productive, responsible adults.

We know systems and attitudes towards helping children and youth simply must change, as the social and economic environment in which our children and youth live has changed. Consider a few of the trends that demand a rethinking of how we approach raising healthy children and youth: the changing structure of families; the changing of our social climate; the different roles that women play in our society; the perception of increased violence; the economic restructuring; and of course the government restructuring that's currently taking place.

A report card process can help us adapt our strategies for helping children and youth. How does this process work? Recognizing the complexity of child and youth development, the progress report would monitor the following categories of indicators.

Environmental indicators, which will identify the ideal environmental elements for the optimal development of children and will include:

Economic security: the assured standard of living that provides families with a level of resources and benefits necessary to participate economically, politically, socially, culturally and with dignity in their community's activities.

Family structure: the characteristics and structure of the family and dynamics of family functioning.

Physical environment: in terms of natural and built environments and threats to safety.

Community resources: resources available to children and families in their local communities, including education and training, housing, health, child and family supports, and leisure and culture.

Civic vitality: the strength of social affiliation within a community, region, province and country.

Secondly, there would be progression indicators, which refer to the general concepts or measures over time and will provide benchmarks of development and will include health status, which refers to the state of physical, mental and social wellbeing; social relationships and involvement -- the strength of individual relationships or involvements with other family members, peers, community members and local institutions; and academic performance and skills development, which would include individual and group achievement in areas of formal learning and non-academic skills.

Much of this information is already collected by various levels of government. However, by making one ministry responsible for its collection and dissemination, these data would be more readily accessible and useful.

Since the Second World War economists and governments have collected a wide range of statistical information about the economy. When government wants to know about unemployment, we look at the unemployment rate. When we want to know about inflation, we look at various rates that are available to us. When government wants to know about population, we look at the population growth rates. But when we want to know about the state of our children, the government is unable to present any clear picture. Children cannot vote and are not represented in the legislatures.

We must ensure that some mechanism is in place that will make governments accountable for the progress that our children are making in our society.

All parties in government in recent years have recognized the need to support and promote the wellbeing of children and youth, whether it was the Davis government when it introduced the Child and Family Services Act, the Liberal government and its report Children First, or the work done by the Premier's Council during the NDP term of office. This is an opportunity for the present government to continue this tradition and to show its commitment to improving the lives of Ontario's youth and children. I think it fits in well with their concern to see tax dollars spent wisely and effectively as it would monitor programs and services to demonstrate their effectiveness.

This government has stated its intentions to identify its core businesses and key programs using a business plan approach. I urge the government to make the wellbeing of our children a core business, fiscally and ideologically. The social and economic health of our society rests with our children. It's common sense to make them a priority.

I hope I can count on the support of the members in this assembly for my resolution and my private member's bill. I will be introducing a private member's bill and I will just read how I feel

section 5 of the Child and Family Services Act should be amended, and of course this private member's bill will be introduced later on. It would include a new subsection (6), which would read as follows:

"

(6) In each year, beginning with the year in which this subsection comes into force, all service providers who provide a service to children in the year will make a report to the minister so designated no later than March 31 of the following year with respect to those children relating to the following categories:

"(

a) their standard of living;

"(

b) the structure and safety of the environment in which they live;

"(

c) the community support services available to them in the community in which they live;

"(

d) the number and type of social institutions and organizations that are active in the community in which the children live; and

"(

e) all other matters relating to the services that they receive as the minister specifies."

Subsection (7) would be added that would state:

"

(7) The minister shall prepare a

summary of the reports received under subsection (6) and lay the

summary before the assembly, if it is in session, and if not, at the next session."

Making Ontario a better place for children will not be accomplished through government policies and programs alone. Families, civic and religious organizations, businesses and local communities all have important responsibilities and roles in the lives of children. But we can make a tremendous difference for children through a government that considers children foremost and invests wisely in their future.

Especially in this time, as the Legislature considers significant changes in how the public sector fulfils its role, we must protect children's and youth's wellbeing first and foremost and ensure that every child has the opportunity to fulfil his or her potential. After all, our economic and social security depends on how well today's children grow into tomorrow's productive, responsible adults.

I would be more than pleased to hear from the other members of the assembly how they feel about this resolution and the private member's bill that will follow, but I feel it's absolutely imperative that we make as a Legislature a statement that no matter what government actions are involved, the children of this province will continue to count first and foremost in the activities that we're involved in in this Legislature.

Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt): I rise in support of the member for Kingston and The Islands and commend him for bringing this forward. I also wish him well in his contest for the leadership of his party. I believe he brings a substantial commitment and presence to that contest and I wish him well, without taking sides, of course.

I recall the Premier's Council on Health had a children's committee, I believe it was called, and I believe that's the source of his inspiration for bringing this resolution forward and leading to the private member's bill which the member is going to be bringing forward.

It's particularly appropriate at this time, when government is effecting cuts -- and I don't think many members would disagree with this -- in the welfare rates, that's already been done, that affects children; health care cuts, that's going to affect children; educational cuts, that's going to affect children; housing cuts, that's going to affect children. All of these cuts that are taking place by the government are going to have an impact on our children and it's terribly important that at this time we develop some kind of indices that will help us measure the progress of our children.

While some people would applaud those cuts I've mentioned, no one out there will applaud if it means that it has a severe impact on the children of this province. You will not get support for that. I hope the members of the government side in particular -- I don't think the opposition will have any problem at all supporting this resolution from the member for Kingston and The Islands, but governments tend to get so defensive on matters like this that I sometimes am nervous as to whether or not they'll support something that's so obviously of such common sense. We'll see what happens as this debate evolves.

I simply encourage members of the government not to be defensive; simply look at the wording in this notice of motion and see if there's anything in there that you can really disagree with, given how much is at stake for the children of this province.

Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): I rise today to speak to the honourable member for Kingston and The Islands, one of the most beautiful ridings in Ontario, as he tells me every time he gets the opportunity. I am certainly not going to speak against this motion, but rather speak to it.

Interjection.

Mr Preston: If that's not sitting on the fence, I don't know what is, but you're going to understand why I'm sitting on the fence before I'm finished. I don't have any trouble with "the ideal environmental elements for the optimal development of children." I hope you forgive me if I refer to that as the optimum situation. It's a little bit of a tongue twister for me. Certainly, nobody can disagree with this. The optimum situation for me to come to work is by the Queen E with no traffic, but we all know that's not realistic. Some of the elements in the optimum situation are just not possible to reach.

It's a wonderful idea. I love to shoot for the stars and hit the moon. That's not a bad situation either.

Mr Gerretsen, by way of his resolution, would ask us to set up more bureaucracy that really is going to point out what this government is already doing. I believe there are three things that should go on a list for the optimum situation where children or youth are concerned: good food, good education and caring parents -- or caring family, let's say it that way. This cannot be achieved unless the providers in that family have a job. All of the elements add up to: have a job. This government is doing more to promote that than any government in the past 15 years.

The intent of the resolution on the surface is great, but the realities are somewhat different. The resolution asks that this government form a progress-establishing committee to find out how far children have come, how far they need to be. I believe those situations are already in place, in my experience. He talks about his provision for the new amendment that lays out that caregivers will have to lay out the situation the child is living in, the community situation, the availability of services to this child. In my situation, that's done once a year already.

Every time one of these caregivers is licensed, the exact situation that you have gone through is done. I know that from personal experience.

Children are a priority of this government. I thought I heard that children were not represented in this House. I would like to correct that. I've been involved in youth work for the past 30 years and I am certainly interested in youth and certainly interested in representing them in this House. I am particularly interested in those children that, for a variety of reasons, need specialized care. I've been involved with youth with specialized needs. They are called "hard to service." As a matter of fact, if they have nowhere else to go, if they've been refused by everybody else, they end up at the ranch.

One of the priorities for these children is to get them to relate to animals, and then they follow by relating to people. The biggest problem with the disfranchised or disoriented youth of today is a lack of ability to relate to people. That comes from a lack of respect for self. Respect for self is learned in the home. They can't learn respect from their family caregivers unless those caregivers have respect. Those caregivers cannot have respect for self unless they have a job. The whole thing comes back to provision of jobs. The caregivers must have respect for self. They must have meaningful employment. This government is working towards that.

Recently, in a quote to the Ottawa Citizen, Archbishop Marcel Gervais and Bishop François Thibodeau said, "To think that almost one Canadian child in five lives in poverty in one of the richest societies in the world is nothing less than a damning indictment of the present socioeconomic order."

I believe what they say is true. We must remember that the socioeconomic order we have today did not come overnight. It's been going on, growing, feeding on itself for the past 10 or 15 years. I put the 15 years in there because everybody doesn't do everything right, and everybody doesn't do everything wrong. The clock's right twice a day, even if it's not working.

I agree with some of the things the honourable member is trying to do. I don't believe he's going about it in the proper way. I think we can be much less bureaucratic and, as Thoreau said, "Simplify, simplify."

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I'm pleased to rise in support of the resolution of my colleague the member for Kingston and The Islands. I'm pleased that my colleague is putting children first in this Legislature. I'm pleased that my colleague is saying that he wants us, as a society, to care enough about our children that we're prepared to look honestly at how we're treating them and how they're doing. I believe that this examination of us, of our society, of our success or indeed of our failure in ensuring that we are providing the support for the healthy development of our children, is needed now more than it has ever been needed before.

The kind of report card indicators that my colleague is calling for have been called for for some time, and they've been called for because there have been real concerns about how well our children are doing in the past. I'm not going to take the time to go over all of the indicators of concern that we've seen before but just a couple: 1987 to 1993, when referrals to children's aid societies increased by over 250%; 1991 to 1994, when referrals to children's mental health programs increased by 90% and there were long waiting lists for treatment; in 1990 there were 270,000 children dependent on welfare; and in 1995 there were more than 500,000 children on social assistance.

None of those indicators would make any of us feel good about how we are providing support for our children. There are some areas in which we have absolutely no indicators at all, areas like the sexual abuse of children, where we keep no central statistics, maybe because we don't want to see the full reality, we don't want to take account of it all because it might force us into action.

My concern as we approach this resolution today is:

Where would children be found now on any of the indicators that we would want to look at to see if indeed we are supporting their healthy development? Where would the children be today who are on social assistance and whose families have had a 23% cut in the budget they need to provide food and clothing for those children?

Where would we rate ourselves on a scale of feeding our children properly when we see more and more families dependent on food banks to put food on the table for their children?

Where would we rate ourselves in our ability to provide decent housing, basic shelter, for our children, when so many families are in substandard housing or in motel rooms because there's no affordable housing being built any longer because government no longer sees that as part of its responsibility?

Where would we rank ourselves in nurturing children through early education when the so-called child care reforms are going to leave us with less quality as well as with less access to child care, or when 27 boards across this province have already cancelled junior kindergarten programs because of government cutbacks?

Where would we rate ourselves in our ability to meet children's special needs when we see education cuts forcing the cutbacks in special education support programs or indeed the elimination of many programs? Where would we rate ourselves in providing support for families caring for special needs children when the special services at home budget is stretched so far that no family can get even the basic level of support they need to cope, and cope well, with their children?

Where would we be in ensuring that our children are at least literate, as cuts to libraries are forcing families to face the possibility of fees to read? It won't hurt my grandson because I've already bought his books for Christmas. But what happens to the children of families who can't afford the library fee, let alone the books?

What happens to our ability even to protect our children as budgets of child protection agencies and children's mental health agencies and family counselling agencies are cut again and yet again?

I don't think we would fare very well on any of these measures today and I don't think our children are going to fare very well in the future if we don't stop hurting them today. The government says it is acting for our children's future. I say that they are not. They are hurting our children now, and the fact that they are hurting our children now will make their future absolutely impossible.

This resolution calls on the government to face this issue with some honesty, to at least seek some objective way of measuring and assessing what is happening and reporting it so that we can all understand what is happening to children. It doesn't force anything else, just an honest examination of how we treat our children.

I suspect it will not have the government's support. If they do, it will be out of some sense of shame or the politics of not being opposed to it. But I don't think the government will act on it because it doesn't want anything to interfere with its agenda. An honest examination of what we are doing to our children, of how our children are doing, might open the eyes of this government. They might be forced to act. That would get in the way of the agenda, and that is the real message, I suggest, from the member for Quinte. What my colleague is calling for probably will not happen, but it should.

Mr Tom Froese (St Catharines-Brock): The honourable member for Kingston and The Islands is presenting a resolution that suggests that the government of Ontario should develop a formal process to monitor the services the government provides for children and youth. The member is specifically recommending a progress report that would provide specific categories that would identify environmental indicators and developmental benchmarks. According to the resolution, as it is stated, the rationale for such a report card would be to ensure that the Ontario government provides appropriate policies.

Certainly no one in this House could possibly be against helping the children and youth of our great province. I am personally very concerned about children and youth issues, as my wife and I have four children. However, agreeing to a resolution that only promotes more government bureaucracy I believe would not help children and youth at all. The opposite would be the case. In fact, the Ontario government, both now and historically is doing an excellent job of providing policies and programs that both directly and indirectly affect all of our children and youth and in providing accountability.

Children and youth are part of a family unit, whether traditional or non-traditional. Therefore, if the family unit is caught in a cycle of poverty new ways of dealing with that cycle need to be looked at.

When we talk about setting up environmental indicators or benchmarks for development with respect to health status, family structure, physical environment and civic vitality, we're talking about personal life choices by parents, choices that are not measurable by government policy.

There is an assumption in this resolution that Ontario is not doing enough for the children and youth of our great province. That simply is not the case. In financial terms, Ontario has the second-highest minimum wage in Canada, second only to BC. Our social assistance rates for families with children are higher than the average rates for the other nine provinces.

But without a doubt, simply giving more money to parents and agencies will not stop the cycle of poverty. If that were true, we would not have poverty at all. Moreover, the notion of simply recording the progress of Ontario's children and youth will not help them in the short term or long term either.

The best measure to improve economic security, health and development is to break that cycle of poverty. The best measure to protect the children and youth of this province is to make sure that their parents have jobs. The best measure to make sure that parents have jobs is to create a climate that encourages investment and economic growth, real jobs, not simply jobs financed out of government spending initiatives.

Implicit in the honourable member's resolution is that somehow we need new indicators to measure whether or not the government policies are translating into helping children and youth. The Ontario government already has accountability built into every level and it has historically had those assurances, the checks and balances that make sure our service agreements and transfer payment agencies are delivering services to our children and youth. However, it's worth repeating some of those checks and balances.

For example, there are the provincial audits. The primary responsibility of the Office of the Provincial Auditor is to audit all of the government's programs and activities. In fact, the Provincial Auditor concluded in the 1987 report, at the time the member's party was in government, that:

"In general, the path to improved accountability was seen to lie in the establishment of a committee (or committees) with stable membership who could develop expertise in financial issues...to take an in-depth look into government financial plans."

A new standing committee resulted from that recommendation, namely, finance and economic affairs. Moreover, the annual report put out by the Provincial Auditor is referred to the standing committee on public accounts under standing orders of the Legislative Assembly where certain sections receive in-depth examination. Therefore, another area of accountability is the standing committees. Once the Provincial Auditor refers his or her report to the committee on public accounts, further auditing is carried out on specific topics, such as the effectiveness of the programs in achieving their stated objectives.

As such, an all-party committee can check out whether or not programs and services for Ontario's children and youth are reliable and appropriate.

There are also internal audits. There are some 40 directives currently enforced under the jurisdiction of Management Board. Those directives are also subject to audit and outline very specific administration of principles, requirements and responsibilities.

So, again, there are accountability mechanisms in place to monitor the success of programs for Ontario's children and youth.

Furthermore, there is transfer payment accountability. The directive for this form of checks and balances was issued in 1988, also when the Liberals were in government. That directive established principles to ensure that each ministry had an effective framework for transfer payment recipients to account for their management of public funds. Transfer agencies that enter into service agreements must report in a timely manner whether or not they achieve their program objectives and what type of corrective action, if any, is required. Agencies must also show proper authorization for all moneys spent.

Therefore, this forum of accountability can also determine the success and viability of delivering services to our children and our youth.

Also, there is ministerial accountability. In this area, the government has started to issue business plans with clear objectives and expected outcomes.

Another point is that there is a major restructuring under way in the Ministry of Community and Social Services to ensure that social service agencies do not duplicate services to children, youth and others in need, and that there is a results-oriented approach to services provided, whether direct services or through our transfer agency agreements.

In closing, I want to say that this government is proud of its accomplishments. We're moving forward. We are providing a climate for investment and we're providing jobs. That is the best way to ensure that Ontario's children reach their potential.

Therefore, I will be voting against this resolution.

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): I rise in support of my colleague's resolution. I think of the words of Sir Winston Churchill when he said, "There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies." I think that's all the member is asking: He's asking for the nurturing and the protection of children. How can anyone not support that?

In my 30 years in education, I have seen the changes in children and youth, the changes in their attitudes, the changes in their expectations and the changes in their educational opportunities. But some things over these years have remained constant, and they are: the need for children to experience stability, the need for children to experience success, the need for children and youth to be affirmed and the need for children and youth to feel secure.

If the goal of the Common Sense Revolution was to create a demand for products and services, I'd be the first to stand here today as a former school principal and say, "Yes, Mike Harris and the Conservatives have created that demand for products and services." But unfortunately the demand which is being created is the result of cuts that will damage the fabric and human potential of our province, and very specifically, every community in our province. This human deficit is the education, the health and the safety of Ontario's children.

Within the last 16 months, we've all discussed the impact of budget cuts, job losses, transfers, restructuring and downsizing, privatization and, of course, tax cuts. Most of us instinctively think of our local economy and the provincial deficit, but at a second glance, these ideological and fiscal decisions have had a tremendous impact on hundreds and thousands of private citizens responsible for Ontario's most precious resource: its future, its children.

Not only have parents and guardians been affected but hundreds of child and family service agencies and school boards responsible for such necessities as children's mental health services, children's health and safety intervention, early childhood education and child care services have been affected.

When you see this deterioration of our social safety net, one must ask: What effect is the government's ideology having on Ontario's children? To provide an answer to that, you have to look at some of the Common Sense Revolution decisions that have been made by this government. We only have to look at the cuts to social service agencies and in particular to children's aid societies, we only have to look at the new direction for the family support plan to realize that the agenda, although well focused for the bottom line, hurts people, hurts children in particular.

For any government member to believe these changes will help children in Ontario, I suggest they call a 1-800 number quickly for personal and immediate assistance.

Unfortunately the picture only bleakens when we take a look at the state of children's mental health care services and children's education programs. New Common Sense changes include the elimination of mental health residential services for children, as well as reduced treatment services for individual children, in exchange for an increase in group mental health care services. If we look at the government's interests in children's education, we quickly discover that investing in children's education doesn't make common sense to this government.

Our Minister of Education has not only decided that junior kindergarten programs should be optional for school boards, but that these programs should no longer be funded by the province. Let me tell you, when a school board has the decision of accepting a program, an option that isn't funded, or it's supported by the Minister of Education and by the ministry, the options become painfully obvious.

Having served this community as a teacher, vice-principal and principal for all these years, I understand the importance of early childhood education programs and early childhood initiatives. I suggest they are not spending money, they are an investment in the future of our children. That's why my colleague's motion is so important today. That's why my colleague's motion has to be supported. I suggest to this government and to Mike Harris that he and they would do well to listen to the words of Jonathan Swift when he said, "Don't set your wit against a child," and support this resolution.

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): I'm pleased to have an opportunity to discuss this resolution this morning, because I think it is very important for us to focus our attention on our children and youth and to look at what we are doing through government policy, through our community actions, through our individual actions, and how that is affecting children and youth.

I think any resolution that reminds us of the necessity for us to constantly be monitoring the effect on children and youth of the actions that we do is extremely important. I congratulate the member for Kingston and The Islands for bringing forward this resolution and giving us an opportunity to talk about the realities of our failure to measure, to test against the wellbeing of children and youth every public policy that we bring forward. I think that is an extraordinarily important principle.

The reality is that the mechanisms by which to accomplish a report card such as the member talks about were already developed under the previous government's Premier's Council. The subcommittee on children and youth developed a very strong process, whereby these measurements would be done not by government but by the community itself, by all those in the community involved with children.

It's a very interesting document that I would encourage all my colleagues in this House to read, because what the subcommittee on children and youth did was to go out and talk to the affected communities, talk to the professionals, to parents, to children and youth themselves, to look at service delivery and to look at a way in which we could look at how our children and youth are actually doing.

Indeed, the language of indicators the member talks about was very much the language of indicators that was adopted by that committee. We knew that children go through a number of very crucial transition points in their lives and that how they manage to get through those transition points often is an indicator of how they will do at the next stage of their life.

I congratulate my colleague on using the developmental model for children, because that is what we need to do. We need to look at the development of all of their skills, their personality, their self-esteem, their ability to solve problems, their ability to take hold of themselves as active members of the community.

The subcommittee of the Premier's Council on Health looked at those transition points as being various: First of all, the transition from pre-birth to the post-birth period; in other words, what do we do to make sure that children develop well when they are in their mother's womb, how do we ensure they get the nutrition they need, how do we ensure they are protected from adverse environmental effects at that stage, and then, how does the birthing process and the bonding process with the significant others in their lives actually happen in that very early period of time? That's one period we need to look at.

We need to look then at the next period, which is that preschool period in which children are rapidly learning and growing and forming the basis for decision-making later in their lives; then the transition to formal schooling and how children manage to adopt an attitude towards a broader world which takes them into a more formal and institutionalized approach. How do they cope with that approach, what are the supports that we need to give them, how can we help them to get through that transition period in the appropriate way?

The next stage is the stage into young adulthood, what we tend to talk about as the adolescent stage, that time of life when there are rapid physical changes, rapid changes in the breadth of the horizon for young people, rapid changes in their goals and the development of long-term goals. Then finally, of course, is the transition into the workplace, into being a productive citizen at all stages.

Those stages are different for children because their developmental levels are different and the ways in which they develop are different, depending very much on the environment they have. The subcommittee developed a report card that would look at health indicators, at educational indicators, at safety aspects, because we know that abuse of children is a very serious problem in our community. It gets identified again and again, and yet we seem unable to assimilate into our public policies ways that will really keep our children safe.

We need to look at their relationships. One of the things we heard from very young children, as well as young adults, older youth, was the importance of those relationships, the support of those relationships, the mentorship and the feeling of security that comes from having a significant other who is there in an unquestioning way to support you. That was one of the most important things they were looking at.

Cultural development is very important because we know we have a diverse community. Unless children are able to appreciate their own heritage and how that heritage equips them to be good citizens within our community, it is difficult for them to feel the depth of roots that children also talked about as being important to them: "`Who am I?' involves more than just me. It involves my community and that involves my cultural community as well."

The committee also believed that spiritual aspects were important. The committee very clearly said that the concept of self within the larger world, within the broader universe, the sense of whether or not children were going to feel extraordinarily alone or whether they would feel that they had supports often depended very much on their sense of belonging to some religious or spiritual kind of community. That was particularly true for some of the most disadvantaged children: native children, who very often grow up in communities where that connectedness to the great spirit is becoming again, with the revival of native spirituality, a very important aspect of their development.

That work was done and that report card was developed and there was a whole network of groups that were prepared to go into the community and to actually assist the community in doing this kind of information gathering on the health and wellbeing of our children and how they fit into our communities. It's a real tragedy that with cancelling the Premier's Council the work of that committee appears to have got lost. The momentum that was gained appears to be lost and I think that's a real tragedy.

I hear the government members talking about heavy bureaucracy and bureaucratic structures to get this reporting, and I agree with them that that kind of reporting usually is a self-reporting. All the agencies would report on how well they were doing rather than how the children were doing. I don't necessarily think that having this kind of report, which I support very much, is going to be best accomplished through agencies reporting to the government. I think it needs to be broader than that. The agencies are part of the picture, but the rest of the community needs to be involved as well.

So I would say to the member that if the reporting is to be reported in this place through a designated ministry, that's fine, but that doesn't mean that ministry needs to then take on the responsibility for absolutely every program or that there needs to be a bureaucratic reporting function outside of the financial reporting.

I think the resolution very clearly is open to that kind of a proposal, because the member says, "through a designated ministry" to report. What we had always planned was that once this report card that was being developed by the subcommittee on children and youth of the Premier's Council was developed, yes, of course there would be a report through to the Legislature so this became a part of the permanent record which we could be proud of in this community, and it would become a template against which we could measure further social policy changes and so on.

But I would say to the member that doesn't necessarily have to imply the kind of bureaucratic structure that his bill that he is going to introduce would necessarily imply.

I also say to the member that the action plan idea is very good. The whole point of doing a community report card is to see where we need to do better, not to blame people for not doing well enough but to say: "Okay, as a community, we do not seem to be providing sufficient supports for the children of our community in this area or this area.

What can we do to do that?" The whole purpose of the subcommittee on children and youth's report card was to galvanize communities to take responsibility for giving that kind of support to children, youth and their families, to on a very local level and a very clearly accountable level say, "We are responsible for all our children, and we are prepared, as a community, to be a more welcoming and a healthier place for our children."

While we are going to be supporting the member's resolution, I do not think we will support his bill, simply because under the Child and Family Services Act that kind of reporting he is talking about we do not think is going to accomplish what he wants.

We think, first of all, the Child and Family Services Act is specifically looking at child protection issues and child protection agencies. The whole issue of the indicators of health, safety and security for children is far broader. We need to be talking about all those who educate our children, all those who do recreational activities with our children, all those who are working in cultural and in spiritual areas, all those who work in direct and indirect health areas. We need to learn how to all become part of the team that is focused on supporting our children and youth to attain the kind of indicators that we now know, from the studies that have been done, are very important.

Yes, we need a report here. We need some way to measure how we're doing. We need some way to find out where we have deficits and how we need to fill those. We need to be very aware of every action that governments take that impinges directly on the health and wellbeing of children. I suggest to the government that this kind of report card needs to be done on the changes you have made to the health, wellbeing and social justice for children in this province.

Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): I am pleased to fully support this resolution put forward by my colleague the member for Kingston and The Islands. Especially when the government continues to employ cuts that affect children, this is all the more reason why it's important that we know how our children are faring. We need to know how they are doing on many fronts and all of the developmental stages, from the transition to life, from life to the work roles in the workplace to community and family life.

Some of the indicators that are important to look at, and we could choose from a variety of examples, would be: How many mothers are receiving good prenatal care? How many children are in licensed and regulated child care programs or have access to early childhood education programs? How many are ready to learn when they arrive in school? What social skills do they have? How many are growing up in poverty? How many become involved in violent incidents in schools or outside of schools or with youth crime? How many are abused and neglected? How many have disabilities? How many participate in their communities in recreational activities, cultural activities, sports activities?

I could go on and on. The interesting point is that generally this information is already available. The first choice of indicators does not have to be extensive. The joint vision of a report card by the Premier's Council and the Laidlaw Foundation would have had only eight or nine indicators. Standards for measuring statewide progress and institutional performance have been used in a number of states for some years now in the US. Perhaps the best known of these are the Oregon benchmarks. Oregon was the first Legislature to adopt measurable indicators to guide and monitor a state's progress.

Benchmarks are indicators of the progress that Oregon has set to achieve in its strategic vision, and children and their progress are part of that.

In Canada there have been a number of initiatives that have attempted to establish a report card mechanism. Until the Ontario Premier's Council was axed a year ago, its children and youth committee was working in partnership with the Laidlaw Foundation's children-at-risk program to develop a report card on healthy children and the outcomes at the local and provincial level.

This was the implementation of their report, Yours, Mine and Ours, which is here. It was the only report of the Premier's Council to be released in the House and it's an excellent report. At the national level the Canadian Institute of Child Health, a non-profit organization, has published two profiles. The focus of their health profiles of Canada's children represents a shift away from illness to health in its broadest sense, a recognition that the determinants of health are broader than simply health services.

At the national level there is also a new initiative of the Canadian Council on Social Development, a new annual publication called The Progress of Canada's Children. The first year's findings will be released shortly. The goal of this publication is to develop measures that track the wellbeing of children and families in Canada. It discusses the influences of shaping the lives of children ranging from the economic security of families to the resources available to families.

At the provincial level, the private Laidlaw Foundation has a children-at-risk team that has been working for over five and a half years now. The focus of this project is to develop and test new perspectives and practices intended to contribute to the improved life prospects of Canada's children and youth.

All of this research is available to us. We need to pull it together. Surely now we can take it and roll it into a provincial model or piggyback it on other research indicators for ourselves to monitor our children.

I wish to thank my colleague the member for Kingston and The Islands for putting together and putting forward this resolution. It's a very important one. It's a motion on behalf of children in this province. Children obviously are our future, not just demographically, but in every sense of the word. Good information helps good decision-making, and what decisions are more important than how our children are growing up?

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): The member for Kingston and The Islands has two minutes to wrap up.

Mr Gerretsen: First of all, I'd like to thank my colleagues, the members for Fort William, Sudbury and Ottawa Centre, as well as the members for Nickel Belt, London Centre, Brant-Haldimand and St Catharines-Brock, for their input into this matter.

First of all, this was a non-partisan attempt to bring this issue forward. There were a couple of comments made, particularly by the member for St Catharines-Brock, to the effect that there was an assumption in this resolution that government is not doing enough. That is not so. The resolution is to determine whether or not government is not doing enough, but there are absolutely no assumptions built into it at all.

It's also interesting to note that if we're talking about value-for-money audits, according to the Coalition for Children, Families and Communities, they estimate that for every dollar that is spent on high-quality preventive children's services, it saves society $7.16 in remedial education, health, policing, court and custody costs.

The attempt here is to simply get a collective view as to how children are doing in our society at any one given time and whether the individual government programs that are out there, not on an individual basis but on a collective basis, are helping children in society. That's what this is all about. It is not so much about financial accountability but the accountability each of us in this Legislature owes to the children of this province. That's what it's all about. I would urge the members of this assembly to support the resolution.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (IMPAIRED DRIVING), 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (CONDUITE AVEC FACULTÉS AFFAIBLIES)

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): We will deal first with ballot item number 43. Is there any person opposed to a vote on this motion at this time?

Mrs Marland has moved second reading of Bill 85. Is it the wish of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour, say "aye."

All those opposed, say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

There will be a five-minute bell after we deal with the other item.

CHILDREN AND YOUTH

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): We will deal now with ballot item number 44. Is there any member opposed to taking a vote at this time?

Mr Gerretsen has moved private member's notice of motion number 28. Is it the wish of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour, say "aye."

All those opposed, say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members; there will be a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1203 to 1208.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (IMPAIRED DRIVING), 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (CONDUITE AVEC FACULTÉS AFFAIBLIES)

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Second reading of Bill 85: All those in favour, please rise and remain standing.

Ayes

Arnott, Ted

Flaherty, Jim

Maves, Bart

Baird, John R.

Ford, Douglas B.

McLeod, Lyn

Barrett, Toby

Froese, Tom

Munro, Julia

Bartolucci, Rick

Galt, Doug

Parker, John L.

Bassett, Isabel

Gerretsen, John

Patten, Richard

Beaubien, Marcel

Gilchrist, Steve

Phillips, Gerry

Bisson, Gilles

Grandmaître, Bernard

Preston, Peter

Boushy, Dave

Grimmett, Bill

Ramsay, David

Boyd, Marion

Guzzo, Garry J.

Rollins, E.J. Douglas

Bradley, James J.

Harnick, Charles

Ross, Lillian

Brown, Jim

Hastings, John

Runciman, Robert W.

Brown, Michael A.

Hudak, Tim

Sampson, Rob

Carr, Gary

Johns, Helen

Shea, Derwyn

Carroll, Jack

Johnson, Ron

Sheehan, Frank

Christopherson, David

Jordan, W. Leo

Silipo, Tony

Chudleigh, Ted

Kells, Morley

Skarica, Toni

Churley, Marilyn

Klees, Frank

Smith, Bruce

Colle, Mike

Kormos, Peter

Stewart, R. Gary

Conway, Sean G.

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

Tilson, David

Crozier, Bruce

Laughren, Floyd

Tsubouchi, David H.

Curling, Alvin

Leadston, Gary L.

Wettlaufer, Wayne

Danford, Harry

Marland, Margaret

Wood, Bob

Doyle, Ed

Martel, Shelley

Wood, Len

Elliott, Brenda

Martin, Tony

Young, Terence H.

Fisher, Barbara

Martiniuk, Gerry

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 74; the nays are 0.

The Acting Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

Pursuant to standing order 94(k), the bill will be referred to --

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): To the justice committee.

The Acting Speaker: It is agreed. The bill is referred to the standing committee on administration of justice.

There will be a 30-second delay until the next ballot.

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): Where did the cabinet members go? Why did the cabinet leave?

The Acting Speaker: There is nothing out of order.

CHILDREN AND YOUTH

The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Ballot item number 44, private member's notice of motion number 28: All those in favour, please rise and remain standing.

Ayes

Arnott, Ted

Doyle, Ed

Martin, Tony

Baird, John R.

Fisher, Barbara

Martiniuk, Gerry

Bartolucci, Rick

Ford, Douglas B.

McLeod, Lyn

Bassett, Isabel

Gerretsen, John

Munro, Julia

Beaubien, Marcel

Grandmaître, Bernard

Parker, John L.

Bisson, Gilles

Guzzo, Garry J.

Patten, Richard

Boushy, Dave

Hastings, John

Phillips, Gerry

Boyd, Marion

Johns, Helen

Preston, Peter

Bradley, James J.

Johnson, Ron

Ramsay, David

Brown, Michael A.

Jordan, W. Leo

Rollins, E.J. Douglas

Carr, Gary

Klees, Frank

Ross, Lillian

Christopherson, David

Kormos, Peter

Shea, Derwyn

Churley, Marilyn

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

Silipo, Tony

Colle, Mike

Laughren, Floyd

Wettlaufer, Wayne

Conway, Sean G.

Leadston, Gary L.

Wood, Len

Crozier, Bruce

Marland, Margaret

Young, Terence H.

Curling, Alvin

Martel, Shelley

The Acting Speaker: All those opposed will please stand and remain standing.

Nays

Barrett, Toby

Froese, Tom

Sheehan, Frank

Carroll, Jack

Galt, Doug

Skarica, Toni

Chudleigh, Ted

Gilchrist, Steve

Smith, Bruce

Danford, Harry

Grimmett, Bill

Stewart, R. Gary

Elliott, Brenda

Hudak, Tim

Tilson, David

Flaherty, Jim

Maves, Bart

Wood, Bob

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 50, the nays are 18.

The Acting Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

It being 12:20, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 this afternoon.

The House recessed from 1217 to 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

FINANCEMENT DES INSTITUTIONS D'ÉDUCATION FRANCOPHONES

M. Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa-Est) : Je voudrais inviter le ministre délégué aux Affaires francophones à réfléchir en ces jours où une

partie importante de la population s'apprête à montrer au gouvernement Harris qu'elle en a assez des réductions budgétaires sauvages.

Depuis l'arrivée des conservateurs au pouvoir, les francophones de l'Ontario subissent des réductions budgétaires qui ont des conséquences graves sur leur communauté.

Prenez le cas de la Cité collégiale, du Collège Boréal et du Collège des Grands Lacs, qui ont été créés très récemment. Ces collèges francophones sont en période de formation comme les collèges de langue anglaise d'il y a 25 ans. Ils apprennent à servir leur clientèle répartie sur un immense territoire. Ils ont la tâche très difficile d'offrir des programmes à jour à une clientèle minoritaire.

J'ai une question pour le ministre : vaut-il vraiment la peine d'imposer des reculs à la population francophone, comme vous le faites, uniquement pour donner une réduction d'impôts aux plus riches ?"

FAMILY SUPPORT PLAN

Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East): I want to focus on problems with the family support plan caused directly by this Conservative government's decision to lay off staff and close regional offices.

Last Wednesday the Sudbury office closed for good. Ten boxes of unopened mail were transferred to Toronto to be dealt with by someone somewhere at some point. No doubt the boxes contained support payments needed by many women who are calling my office because their cheques are late. They used to receive their support payments on a regular basis until the government cuts in August. We know the delays will continue.

It appears that some local Sudbury employers have not been told that payor deductions should now be sent to Downsview for processing. Yesterday our office received a copy of a support deduction notice to a local employer which was dated October 7. It advised the employer to remit the payment to the Sudbury office on Cedar Street. The payment is due November 1. The Sudbury office was closed one week after this notice was sent to the local employer.

How many other local employers will forward payments to the closed Sudbury office, only to have these forwarded to Toronto to have the cheques sent back to families in Sudbury? How could such information have gone out to an employer one week before the Sudbury office shut down?

In September, 13 women had to apply for temporary assistance from social assistance in Sudbury because their support cheques had not arrived. These women used to receive their payments on a regular basis. They and thousands of other women and families in Ontario are now facing financial hardship directly because of the cuts made by this government.

ANDREW MCLEOD

Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): It gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today as the member for Scarborough Centre in order to recognize the exceptional achievement of one of my constituents.

Recently, Andrew McLeod of Scarborough was awarded the Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship. This award recognizes exceptional acts of selflessness, generosity and kindness and outstanding contributions to community life. It is the highest recognition of good citizenship that can be bestowed upon an individual and allows for the designation "OMC" to be attached to the recipient's name.

This year 12 exceptional Ontarians were chosen from 120 nominations by an advisory council and were presented their medals by my honourable colleague the Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation.

Andrew McLeod OMC has a long history of combating racism. He has worked with many Scarborough organizations to ensure that all people, particularly young people, have opportunities to participate fully in society. Andrew played an integral role in the decision to form Scarborough council's community and race relations committee.

As well, Andrew has served on the Scarborough Human Services Race Relations Committee, the Human Services Board, the Tropicana Community Services organization, the St Bartholomew social committee and the Scarborough Initiative Coalition.

On behalf of every resident of Scarborough, I wish to publicly thank Andrew for his dedicated and selfless efforts.

I'd also like to say hello to my friends from northern Ontario who are in the gallery today.

CITY OF OTTAWA

Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): I rise today to say a few words about a city that my colleague the member for Etobicoke-Humber earlier this week seemed to take pleasure in not seeing on a list for being considered one of the finest cities in the world. Therefore I would like to tell him something about the fine city of Ottawa.

First of all Ottawa is thriving with high-tech industry. It's called Silicon Valley North; within the very small area of Ottawa-Carleton over $2.5 billion worth of software is sold around the world. It makes a tremendous contribution. In spite of the downsizing that took place in the Ottawa-Carleton area, Ottawa has one of the lowest unemployment rates and is one of the fastest-growing job creators in all of Ontario.

It is a dream for those who like to participate in skiing, and skating and sailing on the lakes and rivers that surround the city. Ottawa has fine museums and some great places in which to live. It is a beautiful city full of lovely parks and green spaces.

I would like the member to know that I am proud to be a Canadian; I am proud to be an Ontarian. I am proud of every part of Ontario and every city. I'm proud to live in Ottawa. I think it's a great city of the world.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): Among the multitudes who will be attending Saturday's Days of Action protest against the Harris agenda will be many thousands of Metro residents who are angry that this Tory government is systematically dismantling Ontario's environmental regulatory framework and laying off thousands of staff whose job it is to protect our environment and our health.

Why might they be angry? Here's a partial list: The Premier weakened the Planning Act to allow urban sprawl, opened the door to widespread garbage incineration, weakened dozens of regulations pertaining to the pollution of our air and water, weakened the scope of the Environmental Bill of Rights, cut back citizen involvement and allowed intervenor funding to expire, eliminated energy efficiency programs, cut funding to the green communities program, eliminated funding for the blue box program, cut way back on forest management and started to open up the Niagara Escarpment to further mining and development, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The Premier continues to comfort himself with the notion that Ontarians don't care about the environment these days. But Ontarians know that when we talk about environmental protection, especially when we're talking about pollution of our air and water, we're essentially talking about our human health. That is not a special interest. That's a concern of every Ontarian and every member in this House.

FRANK PICKARD

Ms Isabel Bassett (St Andrew-St Patrick): I rise today to note the death of Frank Pickard, the visionary president and chief executive officer of Falconbridge, Canada's largest mining company. He died on September 25 at the age of only 63.

Frank Pickard was a miner's miner. His career with Falconbridge began in 1950, when he was only a high school student. After graduating from Queen's University he officially joined the company and worked his way up to the position of president and chief executive officer in 1991. His tenure at the top led to Falconbridge's return to public markets, its bid for Voisey's Bay and its mine developments at Raglan in Quebec and Collahuasi in Chile. These are but a few examples of the scope of Frank Pickard's vision for the company he loved.

In June this year Frank Pickard's contribution to Canadian mining was recognized by Laurentian University in Sudbury, which granted him an honorary doctorate in business. A scholarship fund is being established in his name to ensure that his legacy continues.

My memories of Frank are of a giant of a man with a warm, generous heart, boundless energy and an enormous love for and pride of his wife, Audrey, who is in the members' gallery today, and his daughters, Beverly and Barbara.

He will be greatly mourned by all of this country.

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Today is the last day for our current student pages. Unlike other pages before, this group was part of some unique history. The election of our new Speaker will certainly be one of this group's lasting memories of their experiences here.

Unfortunately, because of the poor business practices of this government, this group will also be the first to not have their pictures taken individually with the new Speaker, the Lieutenant Governor or the riding members. The reason is simple. The photographer was terminated to save dollars. But when the government pursued outsourcing for this service, they found out it would cost 600% more. The common sense solution? Cancel the pictures. No longer will the pages have this lasting tangible memento of their experiences here at Queen's Park. Beat up again by a government that doesn't care about our children, our future leaders.

Congratulations to our Sudbury student ambassador and page, Stephen Kingerski, a student at St Francis separate school, and all the other pages for their fine dedication to service in the Legislature. Certainly some of the parents and grandparents are in the galleries today, and we want to thank them as well for setting such a fine example for these young leaders, these future leaders in our province.

METRO DAYS OF ACTION

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I rise today to speak ever so briefly on the very important demonstration that's going on in this community over this last week and to really come to a head tomorrow and Saturday in Metro Toronto, and that's the Days of Action.

There's some question from members across the way and from some of the press out there as to the legitimacy of this kind of democratic expression of concern and frustration with a government that frankly is not listening, and I want to just speak about two things in respect to that.

One is the very destructive and radical agenda that we have watched imposed on the people of Ontario over the last year and some few months: the imposition of major cuts in welfare, which hurts those who are most vulnerable in our communities: Bill 7, the changing of the Labour Relations Act; Bill 26 and the way that bully bill was put through; the Fewer Politicians Act; and the process that was used to implement those very drastic changes to the way that we do business in Ontario. That's what this demonstration is about.

Who's coming? People from across Ontario, ordinary citizens, your neighbours, your family members, people who work in your communities who provide services and people from Sault Ste Marie -- four or five busloads, hundreds of people from Sault Ste Marie coming to Toronto to express their frustration with this government.

COLLEEN PETERSON

Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): I am honoured and deeply saddened to rise in the House to pay tribute to a great country and western singer.

Colleen Peterson, the 45-year-old international recording star, who was the winner of a Canadian Country Music Award and a Juno, who toured and recorded with Neil Sedaka, Gordon Lightfoot, Sylvia Tyson and Michelle Wright, recently passed away due to cancer.

Colleen Peterson was truly a remarkable person, both inside and outside of the music industry. She dedicated her talents to helping those within her community of Peterborough. Three years ago, she held a benefit concert to raise money for a $100,000 church renovation project.

In 1995, she donated her time to write and perform a song to help promote the United Way campaign. Colleen was also very active in the local humane and animal societies. Colleen displayed one of the most courageous and heroic outlooks on life. As Rev Addison noted while visiting her in the hospital, Colleen wanted very badly to live and never talked about dying of cancer but of living with cancer. Colleen Peterson was a remarkable and a very rare individual. Her love of life and true spirit of optimism should be an example to each of us.

On behalf of myself and all of my constituents in the Peterborough riding, I send my regrets and deepest condolences to the Peterson family.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

ROAD SAFETY

Hon Al Palladini (Minister of Transportation): I rise today to report back to the people of Ontario on this government's achievements in road safety. One year ago today, the Harris government introduced a package of short- and long-term measures to make Ontario's roads safer. Last year we set ourselves an ambitious agenda, but this government's road safety plan is a plan of action. Let me tell you about our many achievements to date.

Last year we promised to get tough on drinking drivers. We promised to create a law to automatically suspend the licences of drunk drivers. We have. We promised to continue to fund RIDE spot checks. We have.

We also said we would target specific driving problems and make traffic enforcement more effective. To do that, we said we would install video cameras in Highway Ranger cruisers -- we have; remove certain seatbelt exemptions -- we have; and make suspended drivers pay to have their licences returned -- we have.

Just as importantly, we said we would set u