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June 9, 1988

34th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L077 - Thu 9 Jun 1988 / Jeu 9 jun 1988

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

SEXUAL ASSAULT

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

SEXUAL ASSAULT

AFTERNOON SITTING

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

PHOSPHATE DEPOSITS

CAMP BIG CANOE

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY

WINTARIO BONUS PRIZES

LIQUOR LICENCE BOARD OF ONTARIO

PORTUGAL NATIONAL DAY

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

HEART AND CIRCULATORY DISEASES

NORTHERN TREATMENT CENTRE

NORTHERN ONTARIO / LE NORD DE L’ONTARIO

APARTMENT BUILDING INCINERATORS

MUNICIPAL ENUMERATION / L’ÉNUMÉRATION MUNICIPALE

RESPONSES

HEART AND CIRCULATORY DISEASES

APARTMENT BUILDING INCINERATORS

NORTHERN ONTARIO

MUNICIPAL ENUMERATION

NORTHERN ONTARIO

HEART AND CIRCULATORY DISEASES

NORTHERN ONTARIO

ORAL QUESTIONS

COMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

CIVIL SERVANTS’ CONFLICT OF INTEREST

REGULATION OF BOILERS

NIAGARA COLLEGE OF APPLIED ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY

RETAIL STORE HOURS

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

CR170 LABOUR DISPUTE

PROTECTION FOR HOME BUYERS

PEEL REGIONAL POLICE COMMISSION

PROTECTION OF OZONE LAYER

LANDFILL SITES

LABOUR DISPUTE

CHILD CARE

PETITIONS

RETAIL STORE HOURS

RESTITUTION TO PROPERTY OWNERS

RETAIL STORE HOURS

TAX INCREASES

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

PITS AND QUARRIES CONTROL AMENDMENT ACT

PETERBOROUGH CIVIC HOSPITAL ACT

ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT ACT

ORDERS OF THE DAY

RETAIL BUSINESS HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

Mr. Breaugh moved resolution 32:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should endorse recommendation 82 of the Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Municipal Elections to the Minister of Municipal Affairs in February 1987, which states that no changes in the method of election or in the composition of municipal councils or school boards be permitted after January 15 of an election year.

Mr. Breaugh: Many of us who have been members of the assembly have also had the opportunity to serve the electorate at the local level. We are familiar with the workings of school boards and municipal councils and we bring that tradition of service with us here to the Legislature of Ontario. It follows then that many members are not only experienced in but very interested in the workings of local government and have a respect for the process at that level. We are often struck by the differences in the ways that different levels of government work.

One of the most startling things that struck me when I first arrived here was to see the budgetary process, having come from a municipal background where our budgetary decisions were made collectively and openly at an open council, where we were used to receiving submissions from the general public about the building of roads, sidewalks, schools, parks, trail systems or whatever and having to face the electorate straight in the eye and say yes or no to the proposal.

One is immediately struck by the very opposite process when one arrives at the Ontario Legislature, where the Treasurer traditionally strikes his budget and makes all his decisions in secret and then announces it, so that even government members, sometimes even members of the cabinet, have no knowledge of what is in the budget. There are great differences between the two processes.

Many of us welcomed this report on municipal elections, in part because it brought an air of refreshing change to the process. I think both opposition critics were invited to attend before this committee. I am aware that they consulted widely in the municipal field, in the formal organizations, and that they invited people who were interested observers and active participants to help them to prepare a rather substantial report on the whole process of elections at the local level.

It was refreshing to see them table a pretty comprehensive document. I do not think it is unreasonable to say that not every member here agreed with every single recommendation, but we did, in large measure, agree with the thrust of that report, that two or three major things were happening.

First, there was finally a recognition by Ontario that municipal governments have evolved over the years into some pretty sophisticated governing mechanisms. One of the things we are struck by when we do even a casual survey of what they are like is the differences that are there. To compare, for example, municipal government in the city of Toronto with municipal government in the township of Vespra is really quite a comparison. There are quite different circumstances in serving a very different constituency and doing so in a very different way.

For many of us who are observers of the municipal scene, one of the great strengths of municipal politics is its ability to adjust, to put together a form of local government that is appropriate to the local needs. There is always some arguing around the edges of whether somebody is overgoverned and whether the response at the local level is appropriate to the needs of its local citizens. But that is the kind of testing measure that is there, and there always will be some tension between how local government is organized and the needs of its citizens, because those are changing all the time.

Where I live, we are probably one of the most overgoverned people in the free world. We have four levels of government that we can readily identify, and if one throws in school boards, we have two more of those. We have an elected public utilities commission, we have an appointed conservation authority and we have an appointed harbour commission. In my community, we can identify about seven different levels of government that are visible, and that is not addressing oneself to the invisible ones which are also there.

We are aware that local government is important to us, that it is increasingly important that our people understand the process and that the process adapts itself on a regular basis to meet new needs. Almost all members who live in growth areas will be able to recount stories of local governments that have changed dramatically in the last four or five years. There are municipalities in the region of Durham, where I come from, for example, that have really gone in less than a decade from being small villages that serve essentially a rural population to being large urban centres.

We can identify little places like Newcastle and the village of Pickering that not very long ago were just that -- villages in a rural area -- and now have a tremendous expansion of urban growth. Those municipalities are trying to respond as best they can to the needs of a new constituency, one that has grown up around an older one. They do try to change the way they represent the population, the way they service the population, the hiring of staff, the way they process official plans, the way they process plans for subdivisions and the way they provide fire protection and a multitude of services. I think all of us have come to have a respect for local government.

This report attempted to identify some changing needs, one of which has come to the fore this year, because in the mystical way that this place works, reports of this nature are tabled one year and then considered by staff of the various ministries for an appropriate period of time and eventually we begin to see legislation come forward which implements some or all of those changes. That is happening now.

When we first saw this report, many of us welcomed it with open arms. There were recommendations here that addressed some long-standing needs at municipal government, particularly those around election expenses where we have had a growing problem. The newspapers are full of it these days, of questions of how people finance local election campaigns. How is it that the mayor in the city of Toronto will probably spend something like $250,000 in many election years now, and in many rural municipalities the mayor or the reeve of a municipality may not spend $100?

There are different circumstances. Part of what this report did was try to identify how to put this wonderful mix of different types of governments together. One of the things they did identify was this resolution that I have chosen to put on the floor of the chamber this morning.

Basically, it was the centre of a great deal of discussion in the preparation of the report; that is, how do you put something together which addresses the needs of the city of Toronto and its urban political environment and a rural township like Vespra or one of the many other townships that are around Ontario that have local government? There are somewhere around 800 different versions of what municipal government will be.

One of the things that they settled on -- and it is the heart of this resolution -- is that very simply, whenever we make changes, we need to provide municipal governments with lots of lead time. When we do that, federally or provincially, for example, when we make one change, when we do a redistribution, change the shape and size of the boundaries and sometimes give them a new name or create new ridings, it is generally held around here that about a year and a half to two years is required to accommodate that change.

We are simply recognizing that we need to give people notice that political organizations sometimes have to regroup and set up new riding organizations, that electoral officers have work to do in preparing the rolls, putting together the boundary maps and setting up new polling subdivisions. We are recognizing that there is a fair amount of advance work that has to be done prior to the change being implemented.

The recommendation I put in front of the members this morning addresses that. Although I suppose we could rant and rave about the evils of government and all of that, I really do not want to do that. What I would like to do this morning is to set the pattern for the future. We can all go into the fact that this government has introduced a number of legislative changes this year that will have an impact on this fall’s municipal elections.

Who cares what the reasons are? Whether it was ministry staff not being able to produce the legislation early enough, whether it was the

schedule of the House business, whether a bright idea came to the floor at the last minute, whatever that reason was, I prefer to set that argument aside, focus on the future and say that from this point on, let’s observe this recommendation. Let’s simply say municipal governments need some time.

Many of us will be able to attest to the simple fact that a lot of our municipalities can take the proposed changes that have been put forward in legislative form this year and implement them. I do not think any of us would give the members an argument about that. We should also put on the record this morning that many of them are going to have difficulty.

They are going to have difficulty responding simply because they are not all set up to do business the way the city of Toronto is. There are many rural areas, for example, where they virtually have no staff, where the staff for the entire municipality consists of a part-time person who keeps records for the local council, and that is it. When we talk about a legislative change in the way they conduct municipal elections this fall and the changes introduced in June of an election year, like everybody else, they have their down times in July and August; so they are really going to have a couple of months to get ready for these changes in the fall.

I hope, and I am sure, all of the municipal councils that are affected by these legislative changes are going to do their best effort to accommodate the changes. They will try as best they can to respond to the changes in a new school board -- one of the changes that has been proposed -- a redistribution of how the local seats are allocated, a reallocation of the number of local seats that are there or a new proposal for election expenses or disclosure at the local level. They will try their best to respond. They will try to accommodate a new enumeration system.

All I am saying is that they are going to have some difficulty in doing that. It will not surprise me, as one member of the assembly who has been around for a while, to hear that they are going to have trouble with that. This fall we can anticipate that there will be some local councils around Ontario that are going to be confused about the process. If it is not the council that is confused, worse yet, it may well turn out to be the electorate.

In Toronto, for example, which is perhaps one of the better ones to choose because there is a full urban, municipal process at work, if you are part of the electorate in the city of Toronto this year, you are going to have to look at a ballot that has a new allocation of seats for both the local council and the school board, which changes the boundaries for the various districts they represent. It is going to cause more than a little confusion. Throw into that mix a new enumeration process and that adds a little more confusion. Throw into that a new election expenses component and there is a little more confusion.

The end result may well be that there will be some widespread difficulty in understanding how all of these changes happened at the same time. The recommendation of the committee basically addresses that. It does no more than simply say, “Give sufficient lead time so that you can implement these changes.” We went through the process, for example, in deciding whether there should be a resolution or bill put forward on the matter. It is difficult to design a bill that would be binding on another parliament; so I thought the most straightforward thing to do would simply be to take the existing recommendation from this advisory committee and put that in front of members.

The purpose is not to embarrass anybody this morning. The purpose is to put on the record some advice for the government in the future, to simply say that timing becomes something that is critical. There are legislative changes here that I, personally, think are long overdue and I regret somewhat that they are put in place in this kind of a time frame. Election expenses is one that comes to mind that I, for a long time, along with a lot of other members here, have been advocating.

We are not arguing that this change should not have taken place. We are simply trying to point out that it is going to be difficult to implement that for many municipal governments. Some can handle that change. Some have been working with the ministry for quite a period of time getting ready for the change. Some will have had a lot of warning and some, I know, participated in the recommendations made to the minister on how those changes should come about. But there are a number of others who are going to have problems with it.

The sad thing is that this puts in front of us a decision that is an awkward one, and that is that there are changes being proposed we would like to see happen, but because they have been brought in at a late date, they are going to cause confusion and cause some problems.

I suggest to members that it would be wise simply to support the resolution this morning. I know a lot of time, effort and work went into the report. It struggled with the notion of the different circumstances that exist in different municipalities. Its solution, it seems to me, was the commonsense one, to simply say, “You can do almost anything if you give enough notice to the municipal level of government and you can implement almost any kind of change with enough notice.” They are not asking for a full year’s notice.

They are basically saying, “If you tell us by the middle of January of an election year what the new rules will be, we can all get ready and accommodate that.” It seems to me that was good advice when the report was tabled and it is good advice now.

We have just gone through a series of legislative changes that, whatever their merits might have been, one of the things that is going to be true about them is that they are going to cause some difficulty in getting into place this fall. I do not believe it was the intention of any of the ministries that proposed any of the changes to cause that problem. My understanding of them is that their overriding concern was to bring forward the legislative change. They hope it has been done in a way that can be accommodated.

Quite frankly, if only one major change had been proposed, I do not believe there would have been any difficulty. The difficulty may simply be that there is a variety of ministers bringing forward legislative proposals that have an impact at the same time. By itself, one change could have been accommodated without question; half a dozen poses a little more difficulty.

I would put the resolution for members’ consideration this morning simply on this basis, that it is a good idea in the future to bear in mind that when the ministry is proposing legislative changes, it gives to the municipal government about as much advance time as it would ask its own government when it implements a redistribution of the ridings, and that is about a year and a half.

For the most part, I do not think there is anyone in Ontario who would argue that if the government put forward one legislative change and we have notice of it by the middle of January, every municipality in Ontario could not accommodate that. The government has made it just a little more difficult by adding to the mix several other changes at the same time.

I hope members contribute to the debate in that spirit. I have tried to restrain myself and not rant against the follies of this government too much this morning. I will do that later on today. I know members are disappointed in all of that; but I do think that it should go on the record here. It is one of the quirks of the way this process works that we have never really had a formal debate on this report, despite all the work and effort and organization that went into it.

I would advocate that it would have been a good idea for us to do that and to take a resolution like this one; to say that, in future, although we do not want to bind the government -- because I think all of us would recognize that once in a while there is going to come a need in the middle of June in an election year to make a legislative change and I do not want to preclude that -- what I want to lay down today is a simple guideline that says, “Under normal circumstances when we are going to make some change that will affect a local municipal election or a council or a school board, we will try to accommodate that by giving reasonable notice.”

That is what the resolution is all about. I hope that members take it in that spirit and I will be interested in their comments. I will save a couple of minutes for a response at the end.

Mr. Cousens: I think we all know that this is an important subject, especially with the number of bills that will affect the municipal elections this fall and that are going to affect everyone in Ontario. I can understand the intention behind this proposition that has been placed before the House by the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh). I am wondering how it all came about.

The member for Oshawa was probably sitting in his office one morning and his secretary called in and said, “Mr. Breaugh, the House leader is on the phone.” When he answered the phone, the member said, “Yes, Sean,” and his own House leader, the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. D. S. Cooke), said: “No, it’s me. It’s your own House leader. I am calling to remind you to get your ballot item ready for the Legislature.”

The member for Oshawa said: “Lookit, I am working on my one-liners for this afternoon. That takes a lot of preparation to get ready for the House, and I am very busy doing that.” His House leader said, “No, you will embarrass the New Democratic Party again if you do not come forward with a ballot item.” He said: “Oh, my goodness, I have not done this. I have not thought about it.”

Then, as he was coming up to the House, who did he bump into on the way but the member for Brantford (Mr. Neumann), the former mayor of that town, and the member for Oshawa said, “I just know what I have to bring up.” When he saw the new upstart, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, he said: “That is where all the bad influence is coming on the minister. The minister is capable of better decisions than he has been working on. What they need to do is have some common sense brought in there.”

Now, we cannot legislate common sense. Yet that is exactly what we are trying to do here, bring some element of control to a ministry that is sort of going out of control. So the member for Oshawa was inspired. It is one of those few moments when he had his opportunity to put something on the record.

There are many important things that members bring forward in the House and he decided that that would be his, to try to bring some kind of limit to a government and what it is trying to do in implementing legislation that is going to have such an impact.

I think it is self-evident to anyone who has been involved in municipal government at any level and at the provincial level that the provincial government should have a period of time in which it allows the electorate and the municipal councils and those governments that are working so effectively within the province at least to get ready for their election campaigns.

All the different bills that have been brought into this House have been a deluge as far as those people who are outside looking in are concerned, and they are saying, “My, what impact is it going to have now?” We had Bill 106 before this House. It was before a committee and it was given third reading yesterday. Bill 106 is going to have a significant impact on the municipal elections this fall, on municipal spending for politicians; yet it was retroactive.

When it was brought into the House it was retroactive to January 1. I mean that really was in a sense saying, “We are going to legislate what we want in this House.” It made no sense at all. Certainly in this party we tried to express that view and the government backed away from making it effective on January 1, but it will be effective when it is proclaimed.

There are so many examples that had to really bother the member for Oshawa. They had to bother myself and they have to bother anyone who is concerned with a strong electoral system. We are a democracy. As a province that has been proud of its democratic heritage and the years in which we have promoted this democratic right, we should at least keep our fingers off that democratic process during election year, unless it is absolutely necessary. In that way, those people who are out there are not going to feel that they are being twisted or pulled or rules are changing while they are in the process of trying to present themselves, present their issues and present a campaign.

That is what we have done in this House this year. The significant bills that have come forward have not been all that well thought out beforehand. The very bill I just mentioned, Bill 106,

An Act to amend the Municipal Elections Act and the Municipal Act, had 30 amendments brought forward in committee by this government. There were 30 amendments presented by our party. There were no amendments by the New Democratic Party. But the fact is there were some 60 amendments to consider in committee.

All 30 amendments by the government passed. That is because they have a huge majority and were able to push it through. They were even able to push through this bill in spite of the many, many letters and people who said, “Please do not try to change the rules of an election campaign and of municipal elections in an election year.”

I just have some of the letters here but I want to put them on record. We have a letter from Gloucester, Ontario: “The public, the politicians and the municipalities must be afforded ample opportunity to reflect, debate and consider the potential impact of Bill 106 prior to its implementation.” They are really asking that the bill not be passed so it goes into effect for this election year.

The Plympton township council asks that there be no changes this year. The corporation of the city of Cambridge wrote a similar letter in which it asked the government not to proceed with the implementation. They say the timing of Bill 106 is ill conceived and they go on to say why it is ill conceived and how it is not good if the Legislature pushes it through so close to municipal elections.

The municipality of Neebing says: “Bill 106 and any other legislation that impacts upon the upcoming municipal elections should be withheld from received royal assent until after the November elections. Should this bill receive assent prior to November, insufficient time would remain for municipal staff to familiarize themselves with the new legislation.”

That is the point. If municipal staff are going to have insufficient time to be familiar with all the new rules and regulations, how much more difficult is it going to be for the general electorate to have time to consider these changes? How much more difficult is it going to be for the candidates who want to run in municipal elections this fall, on November 14, if these changes are coming in at a time when they do not fully understand them? The 130 members in this House have a chance to consider them, but not the eight million people out there in the province of Ontario. Good for the municipality of Neebing.

The city of North York comes forward. They sent a letter as well to the standing committee that was considering this bill. Their first point was that, “The province of Ontario be requested to defer implementation of this legislation until the 1991 municipal election.” I mean, when you get the city of North York coming against the Liberal government, you really start to know that you have hit a hot point.

There are more municipalities in this province that are saying, “Let the municipal legislation that is going to affect elections in the province of Ontario not be changed in the year of election. Let there be a time when you do not have to be looking over your shoulder and anticipating future and other changes.”

I think that is the intention that the member for Oshawa has in his bill. Unfortunately, his bill does not say just that. But fortunately, I was listening carefully to his remarks and he is saying it is more of a bill to state the intention that the government should not, unless absolutely necessary, bring forward changes in the Municipal Act or Election Act that would affect municipal politicians in that election year. Unfortunately, his bill does not say that.

We are talking about a year in which this House has been very busy affecting the future of municipal governments. We had Bill 106, which has now passed, and I think it is going to be a discouraging bill to people who want to run for municipal government, especially when it was almost made retroactive and it is going to affect them so soon before an election.

I also know that Bill 125, which was given royal assent just very recently -- on June 1, I think it was -- again has a big impact on how trustees will be apportioned and represented. We had Bill 77, the trustee representation act, which was passed on April 11. Then, in this year alone, on February 11, the Metropolitan Toronto council was recreated. The seventh largest electoral body in Ontario was recreated in the year in which the election is going to be held in which those people who will run for Metro council will be elected to office.

I know that this government wants to make its mark, but let it make a good mark. Let it do it in a way in which everyone from the province will have a chance to understand the full intentions behind its bills and its acts. Unfortunately, when it leaves so short a time for a bill to be read, has first, second and third readings and be finally approved, there will probably not be the kind of debate on it that should take place. There has been a huge hurry to get it through in this House. I know that creates a problem for the electorate. For that reason, I will be supporting the member for Oshawa’s motion. This should be common sense.

Mr. Neumann: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise and speak to this motion. I commend the member for bringing this matter to the attention of the Legislature. The debate should be an interesting one.

I find it interesting that the official opposition, the New Democratic Party, finds the pace of reform a little too fast. However, I think it is very appropriate that we get on with making the necessary changes to raise the profile of municipal councils, school boards and public utilities commissions across Ontario, that being a very important level of government and the level of government closest to the people.

I found it interesting in looking back through the advisory committee report, which I had read some time ago, and in refreshing my memory on it, that in this report there are actually two recommendations.

Recommendation 82, which is the one before us and says, “The committee recommends that no changes in the method of election or in the composition of municipal councils or school boards be permitted after January 15 of an election year,” actually does not refer to legislative change, which the member seems to indicate. One can go to the interim report, which provided the rationale for this recommendation. I would like to read into the record the leadup to the recommendation. It says:

“Changes in method of election and composition of councils and school boards: In most cases, alterations in the method of election of members of council (ward basis to at-large basis and vice versa) and reductions or increases in the size of a council are made as a result of an application to the Ontario Municipal Board. In one municipality, a change in the method of election was approved in October 1982, which was an election year. There have been several other instances in recent years where changes in the method of election or council size have received 0MB approval between April and August of the election year.

“Section 59 of the Education Act permits changes in the composition of a school board to take place until mid-September of an election year. We believe that changes in the method of election and composition of both municipal councils and school boards should be made well in advance of polling day.”

I would like to raise two points. First, the recommendation the member has borrowed to put into resolution form before this Legislature, which he suggests is guidance to future governments and legislatures, really was intended as guidance to the Ontario Municipal Board and guidance to local school boards and councils in terms of changing their composition. Second, the dates mentioned are August to October of an election year. So even if one concludes that we should be looking at guidance to this Legislature, the dates of legislation are well in advance of the months suggested in the rationale leading up to this recommendation.

There was a second recommendation in the committee report, which reads, “The committee recommends that the Legislative Assembly of Ontario not enact any legislation affecting the local government electoral process within the six months immediately preceding voting day, in an election year.”

This year, the municipal election will take place on November 14, and six months ahead was May 14. I would submit that the government has lived up to the spirit of this initial recommendation, which the member has not chosen to incorporate into his resolution, strangely enough. The item that prompted the recommendation is mentioned in the rationale. It says, “the majority of the respondents felt that the timing of the passing of the bill was inappropriate,” and it refers to Bill 38, which enfranchised persons in psychiatric facilities and required municipal clerks to set up additional polling stations in nursing homes and psychiatric facilities.

The election in 1985 took place on November 12, and Bill 38 was passed and given royal assent on October 28, 1985, so the date of passing of legislation that prompted this recommendation was a bill that passed just a few weeks prior to the election.

In this case, we have enacted several bills relating to the municipal election this fall, as has been pointed out: Bill 29,

An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act, which went through the Legislature in February, was passed well before the six-month guideline suggested in this particular resolution; Bill 125,

An Act to amend the Education Act and certain other Acts related to Education, and Bill 77,

An Act to amend the Municipal Elections Act and the Assessment Act, were passed earlier this spring, and Bill 106 was given third reading yesterday. Mind you, it was after the May 14 suggestion, but first reading was given well in advance of May 14, and indeed, if one looks at the work that led up to Bill 106, there is a considerable history there.

I would take note that Bill 106 had not been developed in secret without input from the people who will be most affected by it. It was adopted after full consultation with the advisory committee, consultation with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and with people across Ontario. Indeed, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs began holding seminars across the province for people interested in running for local government election. These were held early in the year, and the changes proposed for Bill 106 were presented to any of the people who attended.

The changes proposed for Bill 106 were circulated across the province after the minister’s statement last December. The minister made a statement in the House outlining the changes to be proposed in Bill 106. They were sent to all the clerks right across the province, and the seminars informed average citizens and members of council. The only significant change to Bill 106 prior to its introduction was the addition of the option to go for a tax rebate or a donation rebate system. That particular aspect was added to the bill and is optional. No municipal council is obliged to introduce that. They have the option to introduce it, so it is not being imposed upon municipalities.

I would suggest that the rationale being given by the member for Oshawa is an erroneous one. In the first place, the rationale he has used is for a recommendation in the report which he has not incorporated in his resolution.

Second, even if one gives him the benefit of the doubt and says that it is guidance to the Legislature, the recommendation was for six months prior to the election, and the government has adhered to the spirit of that: in prior notice, well in advance of these bills being passed; there was full debate in the Legislature; a couple of the bills went to committee, with hearings and there was ample consultation; the Association of Municipalities of Ontario supported Bill 106.

Indeed, I am puzzled because there seem to be considerable differences of opinion emerging within the official opposition. In the Toronto Globe and Mail on Monday, May 2, Robin Sears, assistant to the leader, indicated that Bill 106 had the full support of the New Democratic Party: “Mr. Sears said the bill will be beneficial to New Democrats ‘who don’t raise money from development lawyers.’ He added that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives are enthusiastic about the new legislation.”

I find it rather strange that yesterday in the House the official opposition voted against Bill 106, despite the fact that the member for Oshawa indicated his support of this kind of reform. There seems to be a moving back and forth within that party.

In fact, the members of the official opposition who represented that party in the committee hearings indicated that they wanted to see the bill passed and that they wanted the committee to deal with it quickly and get it back to the Legislature for speedy approval, so I was surprised to hear that the official opposition voted against this important municipal reform. As I said at the beginning of my speech, perhaps the pace of reform is too fast for the official opposition.

However, we feel that the four pieces of legislation affecting this fall’s municipal election were passed in ample time and that sufficient warning was given right across the province. Consultation occurred with all four pieces of legislation and a great deal of assistance will be given by the ministry to the municipalities in helping them to understand the details of it and to implement it effectively for this fall’s election. Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this resolution.

Ms. Bryden: I am very pleased the member for Oshawa brought in this resolution in order to give this House an opportunity to point out that the majority Liberal government is no different from the arrogant and bumbling Conservative majority government it replaced.

By stubbornly pushing through major changes in the whole electoral process in the province less than six months before the November 14 municipal election is due, the Minister of Municipal Affairs completely ignored the recommendation of the government-appointed Advisory Committee on Municipal Elections that no changes in the method of election or in the composition of municipal councils or school boards be permitted after January 15 of an election year.

The committee consisted of some very qualified people: Anne Johnston, former Toronto alderman; Gerald Parisien, former mayor of Cornwall and past president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and Mary Erichsen-Brown, former trustee from the Simcoe County Board of Education and past vice-president of the Association of Large School Boards in Ontario.

This knowledgeable and experienced group took a year to study the electoral process and made the recommendation we are discussing today. The minister has completely repudiated that recommendation, and we are here to discuss his follies and what may come from that. I do not mean his Folies Bergères; I mean his follies in pursuing this issue.

The changes in the rules for elections are embraced by at least four bills that have come before this House: there is Bill 29 to change all the arrangements for elections and voting in Metro Toronto municipal councils and school board elections; they have also radically changed the rules for all other municipal and school board elections throughout the rest of the province under Bill 106; they have radically changed the method of compiling lists of eligible voters for all councils and school boards across the province under Bill 77, and have radically changed the

definitions of public, separate and French electors in Bill 125, which replaced an earlier bill, Bill 76, when it was found to be so flawed it had to be junked.

These bills were all introduced very late in 1987 or after the opening of the spring session on April 4, 1988. There was no time for adequate public hearings on any of them. There was no time or inclination to make a further study of anomalous situations that were pointed out by interested parties who wrote to the standing committee on general government which was examining Bill 106.

That attitude was: “We have been studying the process for years. We know what is best for the electors of this province. If you say the process is undemocratic or permits gerrymandering or is going to create all sorts of uncertainties, we say you are talking through your hat.” That is really paraphrasing what the minister has been telling us.

The proof that Bill 106, the amendment to the Municipal Elections Act, was seriously flawed came when the minister’s parliamentary assistant had to come to the general government committee and ask one of his trained seals on the committee to introduce no fewer than 30 amendments to the bill before it was ready to be sent back to the House.

Originally, it was brought to us as perfect legislation that had been studied for two or three years and did not need changing, but there were serious loopholes or errors pointed out by the various umbrella groups of municipal associations and municipal clerks; by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and so on. The minister just had to move to close a lot of those loopholes and that was why there were 30 amendments.

One of the important amendments that was brought in was restoring the right of an elector to be sworn in at the polls if he had been left off the list, but was otherwise a qualified elector. That had been removed in the original Bill 106, but fortunately the minister brought back and reinstated that very democratic right.

I predict we are going to have the most awful foulup in our municipal elections this fall as a result of the lack of time for proper study of the bills because of the lateness of their introduction and the lack of opportunity for input by the actual electors themselves. It is all very well to consult municipal clerks and elected people in municipal councils and school boards across the province, but there are the people who just vote for those people and who appoint the people who appoint the municipal clerks.

The government is guilty of sheer procrastination in not getting the process under way sooner. It has been in power for almost three years now. It would not have had to ignore the wise advice of the advisory committee if it had started sooner. Is this the behaviour of a government we should have confidence in? I think not.

We in the New Democratic Party voted against this Bill 106 because we think that the government alone, if it insists on putting through Bill 106 as it has done, should be held responsible for it. We wanted to point out that we did not think it was without flaws, but that we felt that at this stage it was too late to amend it adequately, so we will have to regard the present operation of it in the coming election as a sort of pilot project to show where the errors and loopholes are in it. I hope we will have immediate legislation after the next municipal election to close whatever glaring loopholes are undoubtedly going to emerge in the process of the election.

We agree that we needed municipal election reform and local board electoral reform, but not at the price of creating a complete mess in the coming municipal elections, so we are expressing our regret that we are going to have that mess because of the stubbornness of the government.

The parliamentary assistant says that most of these bills went through or were at least introduced in the six months before November 14. Let me point out that Bill 106 was passed yesterday and that Bill 125, the school board bill, was just passed on June 1 of this year, so they certainly did not get under the six-month requirement. Some of the earlier ones went through very fast, without adequate hearings.

This hasty change in the rules will have disastrous consequences for many electors. Some will be left off the lists. Some will not find out how they can be sworn in or get a proxy before the polls have closed. Some will be disenfranchised through breakdowns in the administration or ambiguities in the law. Many will be inconvenienced and may even make court challenges to the legislation because of the ambiguities and the uncertainties. Many lawsuits may leave the future or the results up in the air.

Another very serious situation I want to mention in my closing minutes is that the school trustee elections are really completely in limbo because of the uncertainty about both the boundaries and the number of trustees who will be elected in each ward. This is particularly true in Metro Toronto. As a result, candidates cannot start campaigns, raise money, get out leaflets or even decide in which ward they are going to run until August 11. I gather that is now the date when they may find out the answers to these questions.

This is completely irresponsible, to put our school board elections into such jeopardy and such uncertainty. This certainly could have been avoided throughout the province if they had started earlier, or it could have been clarified for the November 14 election if they had started earlier.

I am urging all members of this House to support this resolution and to tell the minister that he erred when he ignored the recommendation of the advisory committee, because that is exactly what he has done and that is what we are here to tell him today, as private members. Only a very stupid government would have let these situations arise. The uncertainties will put democratic elections in jeopardy this year.

Mr. Pollock: How much time have I got, Madam Speaker?

The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): You have eight minutes.

Mr. Pollock: I want to say that I am going to support the member for Oshawa’s resolution. I think it is straightforward, quite factual and states it the way it should be, that the municipalities should have a lot of lead time to actually prepare for a general election. There is no question about it: we are rushing into this a little sooner than we should.

He mentioned the small municipalities that have part-time staffs. Of course, in a lot of those municipalities they are certainly just part-time politicians. It takes them a little longer because, in some cases, they only meet once a month to familiarize themselves with any change to the regulations. The municipalities like to inform their voters, their ratepayers, on any changes just as well as any large municipalities. For instance, one way to inform the voters is to send a flyer out with the tax bill.

I have already received my tax bill for this year, and I might mention that in that tax bill there was a little flyer with a little graph showing how my tax dollars are spent. I will just run through that: 67 per cent of my tax dollars go to the board of education, 11 per cent go to the county and 22 per cent go to the local municipality to keep up the roads, the fire department and that sort of thing. I just felt that if there were changes to the Election Act, they could have sent out a flyer itemizing some of the important changes and keeping the voters informed out there.

I might say that I have already had a person come into my constituency office and ask if he could vote. I said: “As far as I know, you’re a property owner.” He said, “Yes, but I’m not a Canadian citizen; I’m an American citizen.” He just wanted to know if that still allowed him to vote. I understand that under the new legislation, the only way you can vote, even in a municipal election, is to be a Canadian citizen.

Anyway, I told the chap I would check to see if he could have dual citizenship. Apparently, a British subject or a Canadian can have dual citizenship, but for an American it is questionable. For instance, you cannot just go out and have dual citizenship. If you want dual citizenship, you have to apply to the American embassy and nothing is guaranteed. They will rule on it.

The point I am trying to make is that if you have to apply to the American embassy to get dual citizenship, that will take a lot longer than 10 months. Even this resolution will not give the chap time to get dual citizenship if he wants to vote in a municipal election.

Those are a few of the things I wanted to put on the record.

I am sure members are aware that you usually get only about a 40 per cent turnout at a municipal election, so I think anything we can do to keep the general public informed about any changes is very important, and we should be doing our level best to do that.

Also, there seems to be some concern over the enumeration. Eventually, no doubt, it will fall into place, but there are certain problems there. I wanted to put a few things on the record in that regard.

Mr. Mahoney: I found it interesting to hear the comments of the member for Oshawa at the beginning, because they were substantially different from the

interpretation of the bill in its actual form. I respect the honourable member and his time in the House and I am sure he knows exactly what it is he is putting forward, but he suggested he was looking for some flexibility. And yet, when you read the resolution, it clearly states “no changes...be permitted after January 15 in an election year.” Frankly, that is not flexibility.

The comments were made that he wanted to be fair with the government and would not attack us on, I guess, the substantive issues in Bill 106, but rather, would we just be a little flexible and try not to implement changes in the municipal elections after January 15 of an election year? That clearly is not what this particular resolution says.

Briefly, too, I want to point out that I found it interesting in the committee work on Bill 106 that the member for Markham (Mr. Cousens) referred to 30 amendments from the government side, many of them a result of the consultation process that took place very substantially prior to it coming to committee. We heard from delegates from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, from the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario and from numerous school board associations across the province that came in and made suggestions on how we could best change it.

Clearly, some did say, “We don’t want it implemented until 1991 ,” but the reality is that if you do not implement it, now that we have implemented Bill 106, and if you look at this resolution and see what the effect would be if this resolution were in place, the effect would be that many of the good and very progressive changes in Bill 106 would not be able to be implemented this year.

I refer members to the change requiring two advance polls and requiring that the advance polls be properly accessible for the handicapped. If the honourable member’s resolution were in fact part of the legislation, then we would not be able to implement those for another three and a half years, and I am sure the honourable member would not want to see that happen.

On the issue of proxy votes, the fact that a seasonal property owner is allowed to go and vote for all voting members of his family who are on the list -- something seen as very progressive, something seen as very valuable for people with seasonal property -- again, we would not be able to implement that if the honourable member’s resolution were put forward. The change, I think, and the difficulty that I hear particularly the members from the Conservative Party talking about, I understand, because frankly, in the many, many years when they were in government, they were used to the status quo.

I, as a municipal councillor for a number of years, was used to the status quo and used to things not changing.

This government is looking to change in all areas of this province and, I think, leading the way with very positive reform. The many bills that the honourable member for Brantford referred to, and Bill 106, are positive and are bills that, as I said, we would not be allowed to deal with in the context of an election year. I think that would be a mistake.

Mr. Breaugh: It perhaps was impossible. I did try to have this printed. It has been in Orders and Notices for almost a month. It is hidden carefully on the top of everyone’s desk this morning. I have listened to members speak about a bill which does not exist. I have listened to them talk about a number of pieces of legislation which are not on the agenda this morning. What is here is a fairly straightforward resolution which was brought forward by an advisory committee of the ministry.

I am somewhat taken aback that some of the government members seem to abuse that group that works so hard for them and would have silly notions. It says nothing at all in the resolution about what a government can or cannot do. It simply addresses the fact that whatever government is going to do, it should get it done by the middle of January in election year.

I do not think that is an unreasonable request. That was simply advice from an advisory committee to a minister that simply said to the ministry, “Get your act together. If you want to propose legislative changes, propose them, but get them done in time that the municipalities have a reasonable opportunity to implement those.” I do not think that was an unreasonable piece of advice from them in 1987 and I do not think it would be an unreasonable piece of advice from this Legislature, as private members, to the government this morning.

It seems to me that is all the resolution calls for. Many of the members who may want to be anxious, I suppose, to defend the government’s record on the matter, do so, but is seems to me that this fall they are going to have to explain to some people why there are some problems with this fall’s municipal election, and they are unnecessary problems. There are lots of things that we would have liked to have supported and would have on other occasions but we are trying to address ourselves, this morning, to the practical matter.

Now, I was somewhat taken aback by the attack by the parliamentary assistant to the member for Brant-Haldimand, and then I reflected for a moment. I knew him when he was waffling to the left and now he is waffling to the right. It is true, there is movement, but he is not going anywhere. There is only one more political party that he has yet to join in the chamber and he will probably join them in a short while. So, I listened to him speak for 10 minutes. He imputed motives to the advisory committee, to me and everybody else in here. He did everything but say whether he was for or against the resolution.

What a pity.

The Deputy Speaker: This concludes the debate on Mr. Breaugh’s resolution.

SEXUAL ASSAULT

Mr. Jackson moved resolution 37:

That in the opinion of this House, the standing committee on social development should be directed to consider and report to this House by November 30, 1988, on the problem of sexual assault in this province;

That the committee should conduct its inquiry in three phases:

(

a) In the first phase, to the extent that it is possible to do so within the bounds of provincial jurisdiction, to consider the attitude of the courts, legal institutions and law enforcement agencies toward sexual assault, and their treatment of its victims, and in particular to consider the attitude exhibited, statements made and sentences imposed by judges during sexual assault trials;

(

b) In the second phase, to consider the provision of counselling, support, crisis intervention and other services to the victims of sexual assault, and in particular to consider the funding needs and other needs of nonprofit and/or volunteer groups and organizations which provide services to the victims of sexual assault;

(

c) And in the third phase, to consider the causes of sexual assault and the prevention thereof, and to consider any other issues related to sexual assault which the committee may deem relevant or wish to consider;

That the committee should have the authority to release its reports during any adjournment or recess between sessions by depositing a copy of the report with the clerk of the assembly and upon resumption of meetings of the House, the chairman of the committee should bring such reports before the House in accordance with the standing orders;

That the committee should have the authority to sit concurrently with the House and during any adjournment or recess of the House, subject to the approval of the three party House leaders;

And that while the committee is engaged in consideration of the problem of sexual assault in the province, the committee should have authority to adjourn from place to place in Ontario, and a full Hansard service should be provided for the committee.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Jackson has moved the resolution standing in his name. The honourable member has up to 20 minutes to make his presentation and may reserve any portion of it for the windup.

Mr. Jackson: At the outset, I wish to make one point about this rather extensive resolution that I have just read into Hansard.

The point I wish to make is that what is at issue here is the principle of taking what is a very serious and traumatic issue in this province and bringing it clearly within full focus and before a committee of this Legislature so that the public, the victims of sexual assault, have an opportunity to present their case clearly before members of this Legislature.

To the extent that they have not been provided with that opportunity, I believe much will be achieved and can be achieved by allowing them an opportunity to present their case directly to elected people, those of us who actually make the laws and who are responsible for the necessary reforms that it is abundantly clear are required.

I now wish to present my concerns and the issue here, and why I feel so strongly about victims in Ontario having an opportunity for this input.

The minister responsible for women’s issues (Mr. Sorbara) has already announced plans for a 13-ministry, interministerial study of the problems of sexual assault. That is a worthwhile venture. It is long overdue and it has the full support of our party. But when I asked the minister whether these civil servants are going to meet with the real victims, to hear their experiences at the hands of the court system, the police, even in the course of certain episodes in hospitals, he indicated they would not.

This answer comes from the same minister who has shown his commitment to the women of this province by leaving vacant the presidency and I believe it is eight seats on the board of the Ontario Advisory Council on Women’s Issues. We are looking for something more solid and concrete from the minister in terms of his commitment to women and their need to have their advocacy role strengthened in this province.

There is money for a $600,000 ad campaign and there is time for a bunch of bureaucrats to discuss the matter behind closed doors, but, according to the minister responsible for women’s issues, there is no opportunity for the real victims to be allowed to talk directly to us as politicians and members of the public about their experiences in the system.

That to my mind is unacceptable and any action, any reform has to involve victim input and an accompanying change in attitude by members of this House. It is essential that input be allowed.

My study of this issue and my experiences talking with victims and women’s advocates and sexual assault crisis workers have shaped and changed my views on this important issue. It is my hope that this committee study will do the same for other MPPs.

The first area of inquiry, the manner in which our legal and other institutions treat victims of sexual assault, shows why an attitude change is required. Members have already heard some of the comments and sentences handed down by judges in Ontario in sexual assault cases. I raised a question with the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) some two weeks ago. Comments from judges like, “No evidence of any permanent injury inflicted upon the complainant.” In this case, it was a 13-year-old girl who had been sexually assaulted.

Or a judge who says that the sentence should not be as harsh because there was no damage to the victim’s clothing. Or a sentence like 90 days to be served on weekends because the accused came from a “good family.”

This was all very well documented by the Metro Action Committee on Public Violence Against Women and Children and they have provided a copy of that document for all members of this House. It has become the leader in tracking and monitoring this crucial issue in this province. Its executive director, Patricia Marshall, deserves tremendous credit for the work and advocacy that she has done.

The fact is, as documented by Boyle in her book Sexual Assault and Nadin-Davies in his book Sentencing in Canada, courts are still not giving adequate consideration to the impact of sexual assault on its victims. When I asked the Attorney General about this during question period, he was unwilling to take any action. He suggested that he would hide behind the issue of judicial independence, claiming that his hands were in fact tied. That answer just simply is not good enough today in Ontario. The rape victims of this province will not buy this hands-off approach.

We all remember 73-year-old Judge Vannini, the Liberal appointee -- I believe it was Lester Pearson who appointed him -- who based sentences on whether or not the complainant was a virgin. While provincial jurisdiction over this issue is limited, as the motion admits, it is about time for a committee of this Legislature to study it for the first time ever.

Attitude problems are not new. As a matter of fact, my intern, who was doing some examination of this subject, found out that there was a passage in the law of Alfred the Great back in 892 AD. I will quote from the law: If a man “seizes the breast of a woman...and lies with her, he shall pay 60 shillings compensation...if another man has previously lain with her, then the compensation shall be half this sum.” It seems this dehumanizing attitudinal problem is more than 1,000 years old.

I am reminded of the Attorney General’s meeting with the people from Metrac, which I referred to earlier, and his statement to them that crown attorneys can afford to spend only 15 minutes with a victim witness before a trial. I find it shocking that this crime, which will leave its mark on victims for years, merits only a 15-minute pretrial meeting in Ontario.

A decade ago, the Provincial Secretariat for Justice held a Consultation on Rape. One of the results was a booklet which advised medical, police, educational and rape crisis workers on how to deal with victims. Perhaps the committee could consider similar materials for court officials and crown attorneys. Why can our law schools and bar admission courses not teach students about sexual assault and the historic attitudinal problem so that we develop a generation of young lawyers and future judges who have no link with the misguided and dangerous stereotypes of the past?

I suggest to members that it will be important to consider sexual assault victims’ perceptions of their treatment by other institutions as well. The Canadian Urban Victimization Survey found that almost two thirds of sexual assault victims do not report to the police, largely because they believe that this will only add to their trauma. The study also found that those who have been sexually assaulted are more likely than victims of any other crime to give police a poor rating on keeping them informed on the progress of their case, on the courtesy they display and on overall performance.

Why is there a dichotomy between hospitals, where reporting to the police is mandatory -- a major psychological trauma for women, who fear the police to begin with -- and rape crisis centres, which allow victims to choose how far they will pursue the crime in the courts? The latter system preserves victims’ privacy and freedom of choice. A legislative inquiry would force the government to create an agenda to address this difference and to make public its true policy approach in this matter. I realize that law enforcement officers are taking steps to deal with these negative perceptions, but I remind members that these perceptions are real and they must be addressed.

With your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I wish to quote from a letter which was anonymously forwarded to me by a woman who describes her treatment before the police. It is actually a letter which was signed and addressed to Clare Westcott at the Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission offices. I quote from the letter.

“I had lived for many years with a violent and abusive man. When this man began to hurt our son, I did what I assume a great many women in this situation do, and that was to decide to try to end the relationship. It took me two and a half years to do this. It involved a great deal of court effort and cost me $30,000. The $30,000 represents all the assets I had from the sale of our home.

“During this time, while we were in court and not living together, this man waged an intensive and vindictive battle against me at every level of court. As well, this man appeared unpredictably and randomly to terrorize us with his threats, violence and explosive rages of temper that left us, if not knee deep in broken glass, with enough shards on the kitchen floor that, for a whole year, no one went barefoot in our kitchen.

“When I called the police, the police could come and I would catch them as they started to ‘keep the peace.’ I remember standing there, often bruised, sometimes bleeding, petrified on one hand, relieved on the other that we were alive, guilty and ashamed of what was happening, wondering how and when this would all end and accepting the whole time that this was part of a normal separation. It never occurred to me that I had the right to be protected and that what was happening was a crime.

“The reason I am writing is not to blame or seek redress. The reason I am deeply embittered of the police is that, in fact, the police behaved no differently than anyone else in my life at this time.”

This is not an academic exercise. We are talking about real pain and real suffering by thousands of women. It is caused partly by societal attitudes. We, as legislators, can play a leading role in changing those attitudes. After all, is not the authoritative allocation of values the essence of what government and representation is all about?

The second area of inquiry would allow the committee to look into support services for women who have been raped or sexually assaulted. When a rapist goes to jail in Ontario, he has at his disposal nearly 100 social workers and 60 psychologists, all paid for with taxpayers dollars, but his victims receive very little, if anything. Long-term counselling is paid for by the victims themselves, except for any money they recover from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. Yesterday, I discussed the fact that even this money comes from the taxpayers. The perpetrators get away scot-free.

Actually, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board can sue criminals to recover the money it has paid out, but it recovers less than two per cent of its total awards under this method. Should victims not be allowed to come forward and address this glaring inequity before a committee of this Legislature?

The only free service is the actual crisis intervention, which is support and counselling provided immediately after a victim has been attacked. But even this help, in Ontario, is threatened. Ontario rape crisis centres right now are hanging by a thread -- not all, but some. Emergency funding keeps alive the centres in Kenora and Oshawa, and this cash was extended only following joint pressure from the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres, the opposition here at Queen’s Park and the media. Meanwhile, the Sault Ste. Marie centre still remains closed as a result of a form of financial starvation.

My discussions with representatives from crisis centres across the province have revealed that their most important need is a stable, long-term funding formula. Members might be surprised to hear that these centres are not allowed to direct any government money towards staffing costs. While over 150 salaried professionals coddle and counsel our criminal population, rape victims are forced to rely on volunteers.

Rape crisis volunteers are being exploited. They are expected to do a variety of things. They are required to meet victims during the middle of the night to escort them to the hospital. They are required to have an extremely good understanding of our legal system here in Ontario. They also have to be sensitive to the issues and the personal impact that a violent rape has on an individual. These are skills that do not come easily. We are placing an unreasonable expectation on the volunteer sector in thinking that the level of support service can be maintained in the environment of a rape crisis centre without that funding.

I would like to quote from the Hamilton Spectator of April 26, 1988. It is a story by reporter Emilia Casella and it quotes Vilma Rossi, the executive director of the Sexual Assault Centre in Hamilton:

“‘They want us to remain volunteer-based, but we have to have a core of staff. It’s imperative,’ to provide training and keep the centres running smoothly, Ms. Rossi said....

“The Ministry of the Solicitor General provides $300,000 to 20 centres in Ontario. Ms. Rossi says the money barely covers operating costs and cannot be used to pay office workers....

“All centres have to secure outside donations to survive. At northern Ontario centres, where fund-raising is difficult, some volunteers have taken part-time jobs to keep their centres open, she said.

“‘We’re almost expecting these women to live at a poverty level,’ said Ms. Rossi,” in order to provide the services that are so critically required in her community. The

article continues, “‘That’s just become a situation we can’t tolerate any more’” in the field, and we certainly cannot tolerate as legislators.

The Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) says funds are limited. I say it is a simple question of setting priorities and spending the existing funds within her ministry more wisely. Meanwhile, the main office costs of Liberal cabinet ministers have gone up by 49.6 per cent over the past three and a half years, two and a half times the inflation rate for that period. The Liberals have their staffing needs looked after. What about the women and children who rely on rape crisis centres in Ontario? When is it going to be their turn to have their staffing needs met?

These crisis intervention centres play a vital role for rape victims in Ontario; therefore, it is essential that they receive the co-operation and the support from this government and from all other agencies.

I am reminded of a situation that took place in my own constituency just last March, involving a 78-year-old female sexual assault victim. She lives alone. She was severely traumatized and she needed counselling and support just to overcome her fear of returning to her apartment alone because her assailant had never been caught.

In my community, we are fortunate to have an active group. It is called Sexual Assault Services of Halton, SASH for short, which is struggling without any provincial funding. With no family in Burlington, it took a friend of this victim to call my constituency office five days later to find the number for this counselling service. Within an hour, they had a counsellor at her bedside. She sat in that hospital alone for five days.

The government clearly should take steps to ensure that there are strong communication links between the centres and others who deal with rape victims, so that those in need of counselling and support can be quickly referred to the appropriate agencies. It should ensure that groups like SASH receive the funding that they need in order to stabilize, so that constituents like my own will have somewhere to turn in their hour of need.

This proposal will not change the way women are treated by our legal institutions, nor will it resolve fully the funding needs of groups which provide services to victims, but it will allow victims to come forward to share with MPPs their experiences through participation in a public inquiry before an all-party committee of this House. As this House and this government move to tackle the problems of sexual assault, we cannot forget to reserve for victims a prominent place at the table. They must be heard and we, as responsible legislators, must listen.

Ms. Collins: I would like to respond to the member for Burlington South (Mr. Jackson) on this motion. The Ontario government is committed to addressing the serious problem. Sexual assault, like other forms of violence against women, is a barrier to women’s equal participation in society. One in four Canadian women is sexually assaulted during her life. Most women live with the fear of being sexually assaulted. Sexual assault is a serious and frequent crime that affects our whole society.

On May 31, the minister responsible for women’s issues launched a month-long, sexual assault public education campaign called Sexual Assault: It’s a Crime. The aim of the campaign is to educate the public about this issue. The first step in prevention of sexual assault is knowledge. As a society, we must know about the problem in order to deal with it and attempt to eliminate it.

The Ontario government is committed to preventing sexual assault and the main theme of this campaign is that prevention of sexual assault is a community responsibility. This public education campaign will increase awareness of sexual assault and the myths that surround it. The government is committed to prevention of sexual assault in the long term and to providing support services for victims now. The campaign is designed to change attitudes about the seriousness of this problem and the need for broader public support for victims of sexual assault.

I would like to outline briefly aims of the sexual assault public education campaign currently under way. One of its aims is to shatter myths. We have heard many myths about sexual assault. One of the most common myths is that sexual assaults take place only in dark alleys, late at night, and that they are committed by someone who is a stranger to the victim. The facts are: more than half of all sexual assaults take place in private homes, and in more than half of all instances of sexual assault women are sexually assaulted by men they know. This includes their colleagues, neighbours, employers, dates or husbands.

This campaign challenges those myths. In so doing, it will encourage us to think about our attitudes and to realize as a community that we need to care and talk about this issue. Everyone has to understand that a woman has the right to say no, whatever the situation. We have to stop blaming victims and instead blame the perpetrators of this crime. Sexual assault will only end when men take responsibility for their violence towards women.

A third component of the campaign is $120,000 in funding which has been issued by the Ontario women’s directorate to 69 community groups across Ontario. These funds are being used for local public education initiatives specific to the needs of local communities. These projects will reinforce the messages of the mass-media advertising.

I want to give a few examples of what this money is doing in local communities. In Chatham, the Chatham-Kent Assault Centre is undertaking a survey and a sexual assault public education display in a local shopping mall and presenting two public forums on the issue. In Kenora, the Ojibway Tribal Family Services is presenting sexual assault workshops led by native female leaders to native women from 14 bands. In Sudbury, the Sudbury Sexual Assault Crisis Centre is producing three pamphlets on sexual assault to be distributed in 65 area secondary and post-secondary schools.

In Brantford, Nova Vita Women’s Shelter has developed a comprehensive information package to be distributed throughout Brant county.

In Fort Frances, the Rainy River District Community Legal Clinic is developing and implementing a local media campaign about community responsibility in prevention of sexual assault. In Ottawa, Maison d’amitie is developing and printing a brochure on sexual assault to be distributed at a series of three workshops for staff and residents of the shelter.

These projects reflect the wide range of sexual assault public education initiatives that are taking place throughout Ontario using these funds. These achievements, which are being realized in Ontario communities and the impact of this major sexual assault public education campaign today reflect the commitment of the government to a comprehensive program that treats effectively the many elements of sexual assault.

To the extent that the member’s resolution implies his personal support for this campaign, I want to welcome that support. At the same time, I cannot agree with his proposal that the standing committee on social development conduct the kind of inquiry that he has outlined. Notwithstanding the government’s commitment to this issue, we are not convinced that standing committee hearings are the appropriate solution. Instead, we are supporting and carrying out an interministerial approach to dealing effectively with this serious crime.

The Ontario women’s directorate will chair the first meeting of the interministerial committee on sexual assault in mid-June. Thirteen ministries will discuss programs and policies to reduce the incidence of sexual assault and to support, in a co-ordinated and comprehensive manner, the victims of this crime.

The advantages of an interministerial approach have been demonstrated by, for example, the work of the interministerial committee on family violence which was successful in developing policies and programs related to family violence in Ontario. An interministerial approach to an issue such as sexual assault will facilitate input from the public through consultation with the ministries represented on the committee.

Let me assure my honourable friend that this government is working hard to make sure that the public understands the tragic dimensions of sexual assault. Sexual assault is a crime. The real remedies to sexual assault lie in action. The time for discovery and reflection in relation to this issue is long past. Yet this is the approach the member’s resolution would have us take. I know, as do the growing numbers of people in Ontario whose personal and professional lives have been touched by sexual assault, that this problem must be solved and soon.

As I have described to the members, the government is embarked on an integrated and co-ordinated approach to sexual assault, an approach that I am confident will result in effective action -- action that will, in the long term, eliminate this serious crime from our communities.

Ms. Bryden: I am afraid the member who put forth this resolution is incorrect when he says his is a first-time-ever proposal for a committee to review the problem of sexual assault. He should have looked at the history of the Conservative regime in this province.

Back in 1982 there was a standing committee which heard many briefs on the question of wife-battering. I sat on that committee. It went on for most of the summer that year and produced a very excellent report. I think it is up to the member for Burlington South to tell us why the Progressive Conservative government did practically nothing to implement this report.

It covered all the issues he wants to cover in this new study and it had some admirable recommendations. The major one was: “The Ministry of Community and Social Services should introduce without delay a bill devoted exclusively to the issue of wife-battering. In particular, the bill should ensure that the capital and operating costs of transition houses for battered women and their children, including the cost of support services” -- that is, counselling and so on – “are adequately funded. Standards for the houses should be prescribed.”

That is one of many recommendations. This committee also interviewed some of the victims, personally, before the committee. Some of them had to be held in camera at the request of the victim. We also interviewed wife batterers and ended up with a much greater understanding of the subject.

I will say that the subject was referred to the standing committee on social development by 20 opposition members standing and saying, “We want this study.” But it shows how little value studies are if nothing happens from them, and I think that is what is wrong with this resolution. However, I will support it because I think we have to focus attention on the problem, but it is the weakest possible response the member for Burlington South could have suggested to this House.

I think the second weakest response is what the Liberal government is doing and what we have just heard about. The spokesperson for the Liberal government has said that the government has shown its commitment to dealing with this problem. How is it showing this? By spending $600,000, throwing away money on ads on the subject.

I do not say we do not need some advertising education, we do; but the real education has to be made at all levels of judges who make the decisions when rape victims come before them. It has to be education among all the law enforcement officers and among all the social service people serving the victims. It needs to educate right down the system; but it also needs to support the victims.

That is where this government is extremely weak. The requests by the rape crisis centres for a long-term funding program that would cover both capital and operating costs and would provide them with a minimum paid staff have been completely rejected to this date by the Solicitor General’s office and they are still negotiating the 1988-89 grants two and a half months after the fiscal year began.

The rape crisis centres are going to the bank to borrow or borrowing from friends. Several of them have threatened to or possibly decided they would have to close their doors. They have laid off staff. They have cut payrolls. They just are being starved out of existence by the delay of the Ministry of the Solicitor General to come to an agreement with them, to negotiate an agreement for 1988-89. They started this negotiation in February and March, presenting long-term plans and proposals for how they should be carrying out their very important assignment of bringing caring service to the victims of rape in this province.

I understand that all the Solicitor General has done is to bail out two that were about to close their doors: Oshawa and Kenora. They have given a little bit of extra money to the people in Hamilton, because they asked for it, to handle the extra request for service they expect will come out of this $600,000 advertising campaign.

I am not saying we should not have some advertising, but at least half of that $600,000 could have been spent to give actual help to the rape crisis centres in an immediate interim arrangement, and there should be a long-term funding plan to enable these centres to continue to operate.

They are the only game in town in many cases. They are the only people who are bringing compassionate, caring service to the victims. They are the only people who are doing any education in many communities, and they need money for education, for buildings, for operating costs. They need help in getting victims rehabilitated in jobs and in housing, but they just cannot do the job with volunteer staff. Their volunteers are burning out every couple of years. They just cannot keep up with answering the phone for emergencies and trying to do all the other things, and then spend half their time in fund-raising as well.

I think what we should have before us today is an action plan, which we should demand of the government in power, to immediately solve this question of how rape crisis centres and transition houses can be adequately funded.

The standing committee rejected the present route of having them partly funded by municipal welfare services. That is why they want a separate act. That is why they want to give the recognition to this service that it is not a service for people who are on welfare and to be dealt with by municipal welfare administrators who do not understand a lot of the problems and are too busy. It should be dealt with by a special provincial body entrusted with solving the problems of the victims of sexual assault and stopping the causes.

We are told that one in 10 women is battered, but we do not have enough research on what the reason is and how it can be stopped. We do not have enough counselling for wife batterers, there are only a few facilities available; and we do not have enough support services for the victims in rape crisis centres and in transition houses.

I think in this debate we should vote for the resolution, but say this is only an indication of what needs to be done. We hope there will be an action program out of the government in power very soon, that it will not be just stopping rape crisis centres from closing their doors and that it will be a long-term program to put them on a basis where they can be recognized in the community and not have to go out begging for funds from every source possible but can get on with the job of looking after sexual assault and educating the public, the judges and all of the other people who need much more public awareness on the problem.

I hope that out of this resolution we will get a much greater commitment from the Liberal government. I hope they will certainly tell the Solicitor General to get a new agreement by, I would say, the end of this month with all the rape crisis centres so they will know where they stand and not have to tell their bank managers: “We are sorry, we cannot pay our bills this month;” and they will not have their volunteers say, “We cannot man the phone around the clock because everybody is worn out.”

We have to get something more concrete out of this government. If we do not, it has failed in its commitment to reform things that were left dormant by the previous government.

Mrs. Cunningham: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise in the House today to support my colleague’s resolution.

Sexual assault is a crime affecting women of all ages. I think it is time the government make a serious commitment to helping victims of rape. There is no doubt about the need for help for these victims and, just as much, for their families.

My colleague’s resolution asks that the standing committee on social development consider the problem of sexual assault and report to the House by November 30. He has also asked that the committee conduct an inquiry in three phases. I would like to take this opportunity to comment briefly on these phases.

The first phase of the inquiry will consider the attitude of the courts in statements made and sentences imposed by judges during sexual assault trials. It is well known by this House, and was referred to earlier, that on January 11, Mr. Justice Vannini handed down a sentence of a mere 90 days to Bruce Glassford to be served on weekends. This sentence was totally inappropriate for this 22-year-old man who beat and sexually assaulted a 27-year-old woman. Mr. Justice Vannini stated that Bruce Glassford “came from a good family” and that “the attack was short in duration.” These words are no comfort to victims, to their families and to the citizens of Ontario.

This 90-day sentence was appealed and a new sentence of two years less a day was passed.

However, in this case and others like it, appeals should not be necessary. Stronger first sentences are required and must be enforced.

Mr. Justice Vannini is not the only judge who has taken the crime of rape lightly, who does not understand the major trauma, the physical and emotional abuse that victims carry with them for the rest of their lives. The standing committee on social development would closely observe the attitudes of our judges and help to ensure enforcement of reasonable sentences.

Obviously, public education is important. It is also important for doctors, for other professionals and educators and, obviously, especially important for criminal and justice system workers. It should be necessary and provided as part of their professional upgrading.

These are aspects of rape that most of us are not aware of, that should be looked at and studied by this committee with recommendations being made for improvement, at least in this part of the study, with regard to professional development of judges and the people involved in working with victims of rape.

The second phase of the inquiry would consider the provisions of counselling support, crisis intervention and other services to victims of sexual assault. In particular, it would consider the funding and other needs of nonprofit and/or volunteer groups and organizations which provide services to the victims of sexual assault.

What a wonderful opportunity to speak to people who are working in the 16 centres across Ontario and to get firsthand advice as to how their centres are working, what they need, what they are accomplishing and how we can provide service to these people.

As I have stated, there are 16 centres in the coalition, including one in my own riding of London North, the Sexual Assault Centre London, to which the citizens of London have access and for which they are appreciative. But what about the other parts of this province? What about small municipalities? What about the north? What about rural communities? Should they not have these same kinds of services? We should not be talking about supporting programs and the services that exist; we should be talking about supporting those programs financially and expanding them.

Currently, these few centres are composed of volunteers. There is not enough money for paid staff. Volunteers are expected to provide all forms of counselling. They escort women to the hospital, sometimes in the middle of the night. These volunteers are often people who must learn these very necessary counselling and support skills in a very short period of time with very little assistance from professionals.

The professionals who are working as volunteers are currently overworked in their own counselling centres and in their own day-to-day jobs as they work with families and women and children, and they give of their own free time to help other volunteers in the professional type of counselling necessary for the victims of rape.

It is difficult to get volunteers for the reason I have just mentioned and also because more women are entering the workforce. It is true of all volunteer services across Ontario. For those volunteers who do have the time, who are committed and who have made this a second unpaid career, they hardly have time to upgrade their skills, since there are very few people available to replace them while they attend the few courses that are provided.

The present funding from the Solicitor General does not allow for staff salaries. Funds must be used to cover the maintenance fees.

It would be wonderful to say that prevention through public education efforts and large advertising campaigns is the answer, but it is a very small part. We still have far too many victims of sexual assault. We commend the government on its sexual assault public education campaign, but we would urge the government to deal directly with the real substance of this tragedy in our society, and it is a very large tragedy. Someone earlier mentioned that 50 per cent of these rapes are committed in people’s own homes; so this is an assault on the family.

The government’s campaign is a legitimate acknowledgement that sexual assault is a very serious problem, but we are saying that much more needs to be done. We have services in place at this moment. Services in communities are very difficult to get started. It sometimes takes two or three years before we reap the benefits of the initial hard work. There is no possible way the centres can provide effective counselling services if they are without professional staff who are paid for the necessary counselling services and other services and who are qualified to train the volunteers to perform some -- not all, but some -- of the support services necessary for the victims.

These 16 centres, and hopefully more, should receive ongoing funding. Programs should be a priority with this government and should be a higher priority than the advertising campaigns. The standing committee on social development would carefully monitor the needs of these centres and assist the government in improving resources and funding available. The 1982 report referred to earlier recommended that rape crisis centres should be adequately funded, and that is capital, operating and support services.

It is fine to blame the past, but I did not notice that this was one of the priorities that came into the accord; so we cannot just blame the government of 1982. Certainly, the accord that existed did not consider rape crisis centres to be a priority and a topic of discussion.

The third phase would consider the causes of sexual assault and the prevention thereof and consider any other issues related to sexual assault which the committee may deem relevant or wish to consider.

I think everyone in the House is in agreement that sexual assault is a very serious crime. We need to take a critical look at prevention and causes in order to understand the psychology behind the crime and thereby establish more effective ways of dealing with sexual offenders and protecting our citizens.

In

summary, there is much work to be done. I support my colleague’s resolution and ask that the standing committee on social development be directed to consider the problem of sexual assault in the province and report its findings to the House.

Miss Roberts: In addressing this resolution, I would like to inform the House of my involvement over the past 20 years as a defence counsel and as a part-time crown attorney dealing with the accused with respect to sexual assaults and with victims and their families. I have also been involved for many years in working with juvenile delinquents, as they were called in the past, and with youthful offenders.

I am also going to be addressing what I consider this government, this province, is doing to recognize the problem and addressing the progress that has been made on the issue of sexual assault.

In considering the first phase that has been put forward by the member for Burlington South -- that is, the inquiry into the attitude of the courts -- I wish to advise the House that it is my experience that the attitude of the courts, legal institutions and law enforcement agencies towards this crime and their treatment of its victims is improving dramatically.

I can recall being in courts back in the late 1960s in which it was a joke to have a victim put on the stand, where I might be the only person in the room who would have any consideration for the victim on the stand. I have noticed a great change in the development of the understanding of the courts and the persons surrounding the enforcement agencies with respect to sexual assault victims. As the Toronto Star reported last Saturday, a crackdown on sexual assault in the 1980s has resulted in a 25 per cent increase in charges across Canada in the past five years.

Rapists and sex offenders now account for one in 10 prison inmates, up eight per cent from 1983. Criminal lawyer Clayton Ruby has acknowledged this shift in the treatment of sexual offenders. He told the Toronto Star: “Ten years ago, the easiest crime to get an acquittal on was rape. You just almost never found a conviction. It was a defence counsel’s dream.” But times have changed, and Mr. Ruby says today that the pendulum has swung the other way. I do not fully agree with Mr. Ruby. I would say the pendulum is swinging towards the other way.

When we are talking about sexual assault, we must consider the principle of the independence of the judiciary. We must consider that governments appoint judges, and the judiciary must be independent from government coercion. That is not to say the government has not taken steps or should not take steps to respond to the concerns about appropriate sentencing for sexual assault. In particular, the Attorney General has taken a number of steps. Crown attorneys have been directed to make sexual assaults priority items when they order their trial lists.

The issue of sexual assault has been emphasized in many training programs for crown attorneys, training not only as to how they should deal with the prosecution but also sensitizing the crowns to this problem. Further, special crowns have been trained in most crown offices to co-ordinate the prosecution of child abuse cases, which are often of a sexual nature. The crowns are beginning to and do reflect society’s increasing abhorrence of sexual assault by requesting more severe sentences than in the past and by appealing sentences which are deemed insufficient in terms of the crime.

The justice system is attempting to meet the problems with respect to sexual assault. The Solicitor General is working towards increasing the understanding and sensitivity of police officers who deal with sexual assault. I have for many years dealt with police officers who have been involved in the investigations of sexual assault. Even in the smaller areas, they now have an officer who is trained and who is able to deal appropriately and properly with respect to helping out the victims of sexual assault.

I also must tell this House there are many other things, not just police officers and members who work in the courts, but there are also many doctors who have to be trained and who have to be sensitized to the problem of sexual assault.

We heard the announcement yesterday by the Solicitor General about attempting to make more officers better trained in dealing with sexual assault and doing away with the polygraph test with respect to victims.

In the brief time I have left, I find I cannot support the resolution of the member for Burlington South. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to debate this and discuss it in the House, but I cannot support the thrust of the resolution. This is not the time for a committee to review and inquire into this particular problem. This is not the time, as my friend has indicated, to allow people to come forward and tell their stories. That time has passed. The issue has been isolated, the issue has been acknowledged and the issue is being addressed. This government is responding. This is the time for action.

This is the time that we as members of the House should recognize all the hard work that has been done by members of the various groups supporting and fighting the battle against sexual assault. We must be in the forefront of this battle ourselves.

Although I cannot support this resolution, I hope that all members of this House will join with me in the nonpartisan political sense and say: “This is the time for action. This is the time for us to ask the government to proceed in the way it has been.” We must realize that sexual assault is a crime and that we must deal with it as such by a positive direction, not by just one more committee.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Burlington South has 90 seconds.

Mr. Jackson: I would like to thank my New Democratic Party colleague for her support, but I would point out that the report of the standing committee on social development was on family violence, not on rape and the government’s attitude and the court’s attitude to such a delicate subject. It would be a first in Ontario and it is long overdue.

The member for Elgin (Miss Roberts) provided a stirring defence of Judge Vannini and other members of our judicial system. Her remarks are truly remarkable. If this Liberal government is going to turn down a simple motion such as this, which would provide an opportunity for rape victims to come and talk to legislators, if it is not going to endorse that, then those issues will have to be raised consistently in this House, and that is inappropriate as well.

Government is expected to lead. It had better start showing some leadership. The member for Elgin must read the report of the Metro Action Committee on Public Violence Against Women and Children, which shows that there is not improvement, that there are still problems associated with certain attitudes, and that is the core of it.

The minister himself, the member for York Centre (Mr. Sorbara), has indicated he wants nothing to do with this kind of public accountability. In fact, in Orders and Notices today, was an amendment to this resolution, standing as resolution 39, which addressed each and every one of the concerns the minister responsible conveyed to me. Yet he and he alone said he would withdraw the unanimous consent necessary to modify the motion. He has absolutely no commitment on this issue and he does not want to have to stand and look at a report so that --

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has now expired.

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

The House divided on Mr. Breaugh’s motion of resolution 32, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Brandt, Breaugh, Bryden, Cooke, D. S., Cousens, Cunningham, Hampton, Harris, Jackson, Laughren, Mackenzie, Martel, Morin-Strom, Pollock, Reville, Sterling, Swart, Villeneuve, Wildman.

Nays

Ballinger, Brown, Callahan, Campbell, Carrothers, Chiarelli, Collins, Daigeler, Dietsch, Elliot, Epp, Faubert, Fawcett, Ferraro, Fleet, Furlong, Henderson, Kozyra, Lipsett, MacDonald, Mahoney, Mancini, Matrundola, McGuinty, Miller, Morin, Neumann, Nicholas, Nixon, J. B., Offer, Owen, Pelissero, Poirier, Poole, Ray, M. C., Reycraft, Roberts, Smith, D. W., Smith, E. I., Sorbara, South, Sullivan, Tatham, Velshi.

Ayes 19; nays 44.

SEXUAL ASSAULT

The House divided on Mr. Jackson’s motion of resolution 37, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Brandt, Breaugh, Bryden, Cooke, D. S., Cousens, Cunningham, Eves, Hampton, Harris, Jackson, Henderson, Laughren, Mackenzie, Martel, Morin-Strom, Philip, Pollock, Pouliot, Reville, Runciman, Sterling, Swart, Villeneuve, Wildman.

Nays

Ballinger, Brown, Callahan, Campbell, Carrothers, Chiarelli, Collins, Cooke, D. R., Daigeler, Dietsch, Elliot, Epp, Faubert, Fawcett, Ferraro, Fleet, Furlong, Kozyra, Lipsett, MacDonald, Mahoney, Mancini, Matrundola, McClelland, McGuinty, Miller, Morin;

Neumann, Nicholas, Nixon, J. B., Offer, Owen, Pelissero, Poirier, Poole, Ray, M. C., Reycraft, Roberts, Smith, D. W., Smith, E. J., Sorbara, South, Sullivan, Tatham, Velshi.

Ayes 24; nays 45.

The House recessed at 12:20 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

PHOSPHATE DEPOSITS

Mr. Laughren: A couple of years ago, the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines commissioned a study to investigate the viability of developing the phosphate deposits in Cargill township, near Kapuskasing, and combining those phosphate deposits with the sulphur from the smelters in northern Ontario to produce fertilizer in the north.

At the present time, all phosphate rocks are imported into Canada and are combined with acids and other things to produce fertilizer. The value of that fertilizer market is in excess of $100 million per year. The consultants’ study indicated that by 1992 there was going to be a demand for more fertilizer in Ontario and other parts of Canada, recommended that the deposits be developed and indicated that the next move was for the Ontario government to commission the final phase of the study.

For years, the Sudbury community has been breathing and eating acid. It is time now to do something useful with it and it is time this government took the lead and used some of the money from the northern Ontario heritage fund to get this project off the drawing board. It is time for a fertilizer plant to be built in the community of Sudbury.

CAMP BIG CANOE

Mr. Cousens: I am pleased to bring to the attention of members of this House and the people of Ontario a great fund-raising campaign that is being launched this summer by Camp Big Canoe. They are having a magnificent canoe-a-thon through northern Ontario wilderness areas with four large canoes. It is an opportunity for the people of Ontario to support a camp that has been teaching children life skills for many, many years.

For over 50 years now, Camp Big Canoe has been in operation, doing a wonderful job helping young people learn more about themselves and more about life. Located on Hart Lake in Muskoka country, near Bracebridge, this is a camp that has a great future but needs financial support at this stage. So a canoe-a-thon is being staged this summer, by which we hope to earn $250,000 towards a goal of over $750,000 over several years. Twelve campers will travel approximately 100 kilometres in northern Ontario wilderness in four canoes.

We just hope that there will be sponsors who come forward and say, “Yes, we too would like to support the work of this great camp.” If they are interested, we hope they will just make note of Camp Big Canoe. They can get more information by writing Post Office Box 415, Markham, Ontario, 13P 9Z9.

I am especially pleased that the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay (Mr. Black) and I are both patrons of this worthy project and hope others will participate as well.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY

Mr. Tatham: Just a wee deoch an doris

Just a wee drop, that’s all

And Oliver Mowat carried the ball.

He fought for autonomy of the province’s rights

Way back in ‘96, that was the fight

Controlling the sale of barleycorn hops

Provincial autonomy came out on top.

And now Peter Newman says in Maclean’s

The pizza contents, oh, what a shame.

Could we lose mozzarella, the Canadian brand,

And help dairy farmers in faraway lands?

The chickens that feather and gain every day,

Do we wave farewell to the Canadian way?

What say you, good friends of the marketing board,

With rifles reversed at the cenotaph stand?

Is this trade agreement the best for our land?

Countervail duties for Canadian hogs,

But that’s free trade, says an Ottawa cog.

The wealth of advice from Simon we’ve heard.

Oh! sez McCain, that wise Florenceville bird,

According to Harrison, our food business will suffer.

He contradicts Reisman, that free-trading duffer.

So prepare yourself well, when soon could it be?

One anthem we’ll sing to the land of the free:

Goodbye to the wine from the grapes of Niagara,

Goodbye to the chickens, goodbye to the cream,

Marketing boards just a faint dream.

Shuffle the cards, deal one, two, three.

Please, sir, may I?

What! say thee.

WINTARIO BONUS PRIZES

Mr. Hampton: The government spends a great deal of money each year promoting the sale of its lottery tickets among residents of the province. In fact, the citizens of the province are literally inundated with television and newspaper ads urging them to purchase Wintario, Lottario and the like. These ads are very successful. Millions of people across the province, including northern Ontario residents, do purchase the $1 Wintario tickets in the hope of winning the big prize, but also in the hope of winning the smaller but significant bonus prize.

Imagine the surprise of all of the residents of northern Ontario when they looked at their June 2 Wintario tickets and found that they would not be eligible for the bonus prize, because to be eligible for the bonus prize, you have to have a Sunoco gas station in your area and there are not any Sunoco gas stations north of North Bay or Englehart.

Amazing, is it not? Amazing. The province promotes the sale of lottery tickets supposedly for the benefit of the province and then offers on the lottery tickets bonus prizes which basically rule out one million people in the province from being able to take advantage of the bonus prize.

It is bad enough that the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) makes our gas very expensive, but it is even worse when the government takes away from the people of northern Ontario a chance to take a little bonus.

LIQUOR LICENCE BOARD OF ONTARIO

Mr. Harris: We have all become familiar with the tendency of the Premier (Mr. Peterson) to speak before he thinks. I would like to remind members, most of whom were not here, about a cheap shot during the 1985 campaign.

For more than three years now, a cloud, a kind of red haze, has been hanging over the heads of employees at the Liquor Licence Board of Ontario. It stems from allegations made during the election by the Premier that inspectors were pressuring licensees to contribute to the Progressive Conservative Party. These charges have never been substantiated. The Premier has had three years to back up his allegations with facts or to clear the names of those government employees.

He has done neither. The minister responsible for the LCBO told the House two and a half years ago he would review the situation and respond in the Legislature. He has failed to do so. The reason is obvious. The Premier’s allegations were false. It was a dirty, political cheap shot by the leader of the Liberal Party to tarnish his opponents at the expense of government workers. The level to which this Liberal leader would stoop does not surprise us, but we all expect more from a Premier of Ontario.

Professional reputations were unfairly attacked. The Premier was wrong. A formal apology, even at this late date, must be made.

PORTUGAL NATIONAL DAY

Mr. Ruprecht: On behalf of the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and my colleagues, I rise for the purpose of recognizing an important event that dates back 408 years and which has been celebrated as Portugal National Day since 1880.

The celebration of the national day of Portugal is special and unique in the pages of history. Unlike some dates which commemorate an important political event such as a declaration of independence, on this historic occasion we ask the people of Ontario to join our Canadians of Portuguese heritage in their remembrance of a great, renowned poet and writer, Luiz de Camoes. Though he passed away over 400 years ago, Camoes left a living legacy of meaningful poetry and immortal beauty that has not withered with age.

Yet, as important as the economic contributions are, the attention of Canadian-Portuguese children today is focused not on the prosperity and wealth that opportunities in Canada create, but on our democratic system of government that allows the people in our multicultural society of Ontario to celebrate a national literary hero of their forefathers’ original homeland as a right.

Indeed, Luiz de Camoes is an intellectual giant whose footsteps have crossed centuries of time and the Atlantic Ocean to implant into Canada a great heritage of love for literature, poetry and education. Therefore, in recognition of this special day, the government of Ontario proclaims --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member’s time has expired.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Mr. Speaker: Just before I call for ministerial statements, on Tuesday last, the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) rose on a question of privilege, stating that he had received information from the translation service regarding the Thom commission report which stated:

“Text received for translation on May 6, 1987, approximately 175,000 words. It was requested July 31, 1987. It was renegotiated to August 21, 1987, and it was returned to the minister on August 14, 1987.”

He also quoted the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hosek) from Hansard on November 16, 1987, as follows, “The Thom commission report is actually in the process of being translated, and when it is, it will be released.”

The honourable member then asked that the House refer this question to the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly to determine whether the minister intentionally or inadvertently lied to the House.

In examining these facts, I have undertaken to determine whether or not they constitute a prima facie case of privilege because that is the only way in which the door can be opened to a motion being put that could send this matter to a standing committee. During comments on this question of privilege, the Minister of Housing had this to say: “My understanding is that the document was translated. Then it went out for proofreading, which took a long time because it is a long document, and when it came back -- this whole process was finished at the end of December -- then it was printed and was ready to be released in January.”

It would appear to me what the House is faced with here is an example of what Beauchesne refers to as “a dispute arising between two members as to allegations of facts.” Beauchesne’s fifth edition, page 12, makes it very clear that this “does not fulfil the conditions of parliamentary privilege.”

Furthermore, my opinion is reinforced by the very words I quoted previously from the Minister of Housing.

It is a well-accepted idiom of our parliamentary tradition and practice that honourable members and the House have an obligation to accept the word of another honourable member. I must therefore declare that I cannot, in this case, find that a prima fade case of privilege exists and therefore no motion can be put to the House to have this matter referred to the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly.

I thank the honourable member for bringing this matter to the attention of the House.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would advise the members of the House that the ruling has been made. They are aware of the rules of the proceedings in this House. A Speaker can certainly be challenged. However, there is no debate on the matter.

Mr. Harris: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I wonder if you could tell me if, in your opinion, there is anything stopping the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly from asking for an investigation into this matter?

Mr. Speaker: I do not believe that is a point of privilege; it is a question. To my knowledge, any matters that go before any committee of this House must be given at the direction of this House.

Mr. Harris: Are you saying, Mr. Speaker, that the Legislative Assembly committee -- I think it is a well-established practice that any matter can be taken to that committee. Are you saying that is not the case?

Mr. Speaker: Order. You have heard my comment on your question.

Mr. Harris: Mr. Speaker, that has not been the case of parliamentary practice over a long period of time. Could I ask you to reflect on that before you make a final decision?

Mr. Speaker: I believe the honourable member heard my comment in that regard.

Mr. Harris: Mr. Speaker, I challenge your ruling.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have no other choice but to ask the House, shall the ruling of the Speaker be upheld?

The House divided on the Speaker’s ruling, which was sustained on the following vote:

Ayes

Adams, Beer, Bradley, Brown, Callahan, Campbell, Caplan, Carrothers, Chiarelli, Collins, Conway, Cooke, D. R., Cordiano, Curling, Daigeler, Dietsch, Eakins, Elliot, Elston, Faubert, Fawcett, Ferraro, Fontaine, Furlong, Grandmaître, Hart, Henderson, Hosek, Kerrio, LeBourdais, Lipsett, Lupusella;

MacDonald, Mahoney, Mancini, Matrundola, McClelland, McGuigan, McGuinty, McLeod, Miller, Morin, Neumann, Nicholas, Nixon, J. B., Nixon, R. F., Offer, O’Neill, Y., Owen, Patten, Pelissero, Peterson, Phillips, G., Poirier, Poole, Ramsay, Ray, M. C., Reycraft, Roberts, Ruprecht, Smith, D. W., Smith, E. J., Sorbara, Sullivan, Sweeney, Tatham, Velshi, Wilson, Wong, Wrye.

Nays

Allen, Brandt, Breaugh, Bryden, Cooke, D. S., Cousens, Cunningham, Eves, Grier, Hampton, Harris, Jackson, Johnston, R. F., Laughren, Mackenzie, McCague, Morin-Strom, Philip, E., Pollock, Pouliot, Reville, Runciman, Sterling, Swart, Villeneuve, Wildman.

Ayes 70; nays 26.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

HEART AND CIRCULATORY DISEASES

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: Heart disease and stroke are the number one killers of Canadians. In Ontario, 40 per cent of all deaths in 1986 were due to heart and circulatory disease. What is more, this group of diseases is a major cause of premature disability; it disrupts lives and sidelines productive individuals.

We know, however, that these conditions are often largely preventable. Lifestyle choices, including smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise, can be major contributors. Worldwide research has shown conclusively that reducing known lifestyle risks significantly reduces the risk of death or disability due to heart and circulatory disease.

In keeping with my ministry’s objective to balance treatment programs with programs in health promotion and disease prevention, I am today announcing a major expansion of our province-wide prevention and treatment program for heart and circulatory diseases.

New funding for the enhanced program totals $18 million and encompasses new initiatives and expanded services. Included are a new $1-million heart health promotion program for community-based prevention and education programs; the appointment of a cardiovascular co-ordinator within the ministry to oversee all programs for heart and circulatory disease; a central registry pilot project for patients requiring heart surgery, and a major expansion of facilities for heart surgery.

The $1 million in new funding for health promotion is in addition to the $1.5-million, three-year healthy lifestyles media campaign we are launching this fall, aimed at reducing smoking and alcohol consumption and increasing nutrition awareness. Recently, I also announced the first health promotion grants in a $1-million program for community-based prevention projects.

The central registry will be established initially in Toronto as a pilot project, with a view to expanding across the province at a later date. As the ministry shifts its focus from being chiefly a funder of treatment programs to planning based on health outcomes, the data collected by the registry will therefore be used in measuring the effect of cardiovascular surgery on the overall health status of Ontarians.

I am also announcing the expansion of heart and circulatory care facilities in Toronto, Ottawa and London.

In Toronto, the three heart surgery units will increase their collective cardiac surgery case load by 400 cases per year to 3,100 almost immediately. Plans for a fourth unit at Sunnybrook Medical Centre will be accelerated. We expect it to be in operation by the end of the year. Initially, the new Sunnybrook unit will handle 300 cases per year.

In Ottawa, the Heart Institute at Ottawa Civic Hospital will receive a base funding increase of $2.9 million to expand its service capacity, including its artificial heart program.

Victoria Hospital and the University Hospital in London will receive one-time grants and increased operating funds totalling $976,000 to expand their heart diagnostic and treatment services.

As I announced previously, services in other centres are already being expanded. Sudbury Memorial Hospital is increasing its heart surgery case load from 300 to 400 patients per year.

In Hamilton, the $80-million redevelopment of Hamilton Civic Hospitals at the Hamilton General site will allow the hospital to increase its cardiac surgery above the level of 500 cases per year.

The initiatives announced today will greatly expand our ability to care for individuals with heart disease and related conditions. We must remember, however, that the answer to premature death and disability caused by these diseases lies largely in developing prevention techniques and programs as well as treatments.

My ministry is therefore committed to renewing the emphasis in Ontario health care on disease prevention and health promotion. This is the direction in which we expect to achieve real measurable gains in the future.

Mr. Morin-Strom: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Hea