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April 9, 1984

32nd Parliament, 4th Session

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Hansard Transcripts

PARLIAMENTARY LANGUAGE

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

TEMPORARY ABSENCE PROGRAM

DEVELOPMENTAL CENTRES

ADHERENCE TO INFLATION RESTRAINT

VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

FUNDING OF THE ARTS

ALLOCATION OF HOUSING UNITS

SURVEY ON ARTS FUNDING

OSAP APPLICATIONS

TESTING OF BACKUP BATFERIES

TECHNICAL EDUCATION

FUNDING FOR POLICE TRAINING

CORRECTION OF RECORD

PETITIONS

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

USE OF FORMER GOVERNMENT PROPERTY

HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENTS

MOTION

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTIONS

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONCLUDED)

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

PARLIAMENTARY LANGUAGE

Mr. Speaker: On Friday last, as members may recall, I made a ruling that found the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid) and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) to be equally responsible for an infraction of the rules of the House. The Minister of Labour has withdrawn his statement. I would ask the member for Rainy River to withdraw his statement, please.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I hope you will allow me, since my statement is prepared, to rise on a point of privilege at the end of question period to clarify some of these matters; but in the meantime I will withdraw the comment.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

TEMPORARY ABSENCE PROGRAM

Hon. Mr. Leluk: Mr. Speaker, the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) posed a number of questions regarding the Ontario Board of Parole and my ministry's temporary absence program. I believe these questions stem from the review of the operations of the parole board by the standing committee on procedural affairs.

I want to say to the honourable members at the outset that the temporary absence program is not replacing or superseding the role of the Ontario Board of Parole. Parole and the temporary absence program are totally separate in their functioning, although their ends are somewhat complementary.

The honourable member asked whether we are releasing inmates outright within a day. This is not correct. However, in relation to the immediate temporary absence program, judges can recommend immediate temporary absence for inmates who are gainfully employed and who are serving sentences of 90 days or less. We make community checks, employment checks, etc., and in many instances the inmate is released within 24 to 48 hours to take

part in the temporary absence program, but with stringent reporting restrictions, the same as those that apply to other temporary absences.

It was also asked if it is true there are no limits to the temporary absence program. There are many limits to the temporary absence program. For example, temporary absences may be granted for periods from one to five days; from five to 15 days; for terminal release up to a maximum of 15 days; and for placement for periods over 15 days for employment, academic or medical reasons which entail the daily release and return to an institution or community resource centre.

Another question asked was, is it true there are 15-day recurring temporary absences? I can assure the member that this is not the practice in the temporary absence program. Let me assure the honourable member that the mandate of the temporary absence program does not exceed that of the board of parole. In fact, persons serving their sentences in an institution or a community resource centre who are on temporary absence may apply for and be granted parole.

Finally, the honourable member suggested that inmates should have the opportunity for an independent hearing instead of relying on the decisions of unnamed civil servants using unspecified criteria. I cannot support the view that inmates are released on temporary absences on the basis of unspecified criteria. In fact, the temporary absence procedures are extremely well established, and the criteria that are used for the selection of inmates for temporary absence are definitive.

A committee of three institutional staff members make a recommendation to the superintendent after checks with the police, judiciary, employers and our own probation and parole staff. In addition, the previous criminal record of each applicant, his or her temporary absence plans, the individual's domestic situation, previous possible use of drugs and/or alcohol, the type of offence that was committed and current behaviour in the institution are reviewed carefully. Let me assure members that all these factors are taken into consideration in detail before a decision is made.

I draw to the attention of the honourable members that the process I have just described has operated with a success rate of approximately 98 per cent for almost 16 years.

May I clarify for honourable members the mandate of the Ontario Board of Parole and the temporary absence program regulations. The Ontario Board of Parole exercises parole jurisdiction for all prisoners sentenced to provincial institutions and for any federal offenders serving a sentence in provincial institutions as a result of a transfer.

Inmates can be considered for parole upon the completion of one third of their sentence. Those serving sentences of less than six months must apply in writing for consideration. Those serving six months or more are scheduled automatically for a hearing with the board unless they choose to waive their right to a hearing.

The temporary absence program was introduced in 1969, allowing an inmate at any point in his or her sentence to request a pass to be absent from a correctional institution for medical, educational, humanitarian or rehabilitative purposes. As I noted earlier, the inmate's application is reviewed in detail, and the resulting overall success of this program is extremely positive.

This ministry's published goals and principles state that, wherever practical, correctional programs should be community-based. In this context those inmates who display motivation towards positive personal and social adjustment are most likely to be released into the community. Let me assure honourable members that inmates are released in the community not to relieve overcrowding but to meet the ministry's expressed mandate.

Public security is at all times the prime concern of my ministry. The emphasis of our programs is on applying the appropriate degree of control necessary to protect society and to provide institutional programs for those persons either clearly dangerous to the public or not sufficiently motivated for immediate return to the community. Our aim is to control the release of inmates either through careful selection for programs such as temporary absence or parole, or through rehabilitative institutional programming and subsequent release at the expiry of their sentences.

I can assure honourable members that the Ministry of Correctional Services is fully cognizant at all times both of the rehabilitation of the offender and of public safety.

Mr. Breaugh: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I take it the chair would rule that the minister has just made a statement as opposed to answering a question previously asked.

Mr. Speaker: He did indeed, and he did it with my concurrence. Inasmuch as it was much too long to be taking up the time of question period, it was suggested he do it as a ministerial statement, and the rules provide for that, as you are probably aware.

[Later]

Mr. Breaugh: On a point of order: Mr. Speaker, since you directed the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Leluk) to give his reply in statement form, I am sure you will be gracious enough to allow me one small supplementary question now.

2:10 p.m.

DEVELOPMENTAL CENTRES

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, during the implementation of the Education Amendment Act, 1980, commonly referred to as Bill 82, concerns have been raised by school boards and parents regarding the special needs of severely retarded school-aged children in developmental day care centres under the Day Nurseries Act. The concerns expressed have centred primarily on the provision of services which extend beyond what might reasonably be expected as educational services.

I want to assure the members of the Legislature that over the last several months these issues have been jointly addressed by the staff of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Community and Social Services.

As a result, I am pleased to inform the members today of the following additional measures the government will be initiating to assist school boards to comply with the requirements of the Education Amendment Act, 1980, to ensure that all school-aged children have access to education, regardless of their exceptionalities.

With respect to severely retarded children now enrolled in developmental day care centres registered under the Day Nurseries Act, school boards are expected to continue planning for the enrolment and placement of these children as required under

section 5 of regulation 274 and to present a plan for the approval of the Minister of Education.

However, rather than bringing all these children out of the developmental day care centres, a school board may, because of special circumstances, request the approval of the Minister of Education to appoint teachers, effective September 1, 1985, to provide an educational program within the centre.

Mr. Nixon: That is the Bradley program.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: No, it is not. That is not what he suggested.

In such cases, with the approval of the Minister of Community and Social Services, that ministry will continue to provide services to school-aged children remaining in the centres until, as the number of children decreases, the provision of service is no longer required.

Where a board receives the approval of the Minister of Education to provide the educational program in this way, the board will be permitted to add the number of pupils so enrolled to the board's total enrolment of trainable retarded pupils and, thus, will qualify for the applicable grants for the education of trainable retarded pupils.

The board will be expected to affiliate such classes in such centres with an appropriate school within its system, under the supervision of the principal of that school and with access to the board's full resources and services.

Any new admissions of school-aged children accepted into such a centre after August 31, 1985, will be made by the parents through the school boards in full consultation with the administrator of the centre and the area office of the Ministry of Community and Social Services.

Regional offices -- or area offices, as applicable -- of both ministries will jointly review the arrangements annually in order to facilitate the provision by the school system of the appropriate educational programs.

The Ministry of Community and Social Services will provide the Ministry of Education with an annual profile on preschool children in each developmental day care centre. Thus, the school board will be responsible for the education component in the centre's program, while the Ministry of Community and Social Services will continue to provide all other services.

I should like to assure members that nothing in this special arrangement should detract a school board from pursuing its plan of providing education for some or all of these children within the school system rather than in the centre.

School boards and local associations will be informed as soon as possible of the full details of these arrangements. In the meantime, my colleague and I are confident these steps will ensure that the mandate of the special education legislation will be met by September 1985 and, at the same time, ensure that the special needs of this group of children will be addressed in the best possible way.

ADHERENCE TO INFLATION RESTRAINT

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could rise on a point of privilege at this time since statements seem to be completed.

On Thursday, April 5, 1984, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) sought to throw up a smokescreen about Dr. Wolfson's billings in order to cover up ongoing deficiencies in the way his department manages public funds.

The attached document, which I am tabling with the Clerk, outlines in some detail internal contradictions in Dr. Wolfson's statements, the ministry correspondence and the minister's efforts at self-justification in the Legislature. Those facts speak for themselves.

Today I would like to focus on some key findings of the internal and management audit branch about the ministry and its agencies' management practices, which the minister neglected to highlight in his statement.

The ministry did not seek "date-specific" billings from Dr. Wolfson until after February 1982, seven months after he started work. Dr. Wolfson claims he "acted in good faith" in the way he billed. "Until early in 1982, it was never indicated to me that I should submit my accounts in a different manner," he said.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I have no objection to the honourable member rising on a point of privilege, provided it is about privilege, and tabling the documents he said he was going to table. However, there is no order and no provision in the standing orders to allow a member to stand up and make a statement.

Mr. T. P. Reid: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I believe it is a matter of privilege. The minister read a 12-page statement in this Legislature last week in which he called into doubt the way I personally as a member operate in this Legislature and in these environs, and he questioned my integrity.

You required him to withdraw some of the statements he made in that statement. If that is not a matter of privilege, I think it is time you told us what is, when a minister can take the time of this House to attack another member, who has no recourse except to sit here and take it, according to your ruling. I am not prepared to do that.

Mr. Speaker: I have dealt with matters of order and privilege on many occasions in this House. I suggest the member refer to the copies of Hansard that deal with them. I dealt with this matter on Friday last, as I said earlier. Unfortunately, the member was not in his seat, but at that time the minister did withdraw his remarks.

Earlier I had asked the member to withdraw his remarks, which he did.

With all respect, I do not think what you are doing falls within the criteria or ambit of my understanding of what constitutes privilege. As I said earlier, I allowed you to rise on a point of privilege and to make your opening statement wherein you said you were going to table certain documents. That is fine, but there is no provision allowing an individual member to rise and make a statement. As you will recall, the minister made his statement under the proper standing order of ministerial statements.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I again ask the question: Are you saying, in effect, a minister of the crown can come into this Legislature and under ministerial statements make what I consider to be an unwarranted personal attack on my integrity as a member of this House and that I have no opportunity to respond? You allowed him to go on for 12 pages and for some 20 minutes. It was very clear the minister was attacking me. You are now telling me you will allow that, but you will not allow me an opportunity to defend myself.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, on the point of privilege, you indicated in your ruling just a moment ago that on Friday you had requested the two members to withdraw their statements. I do not believe that was entirely correct because I thought you quite properly indicated that the implication of presenting an untruth to the House had to be withdrawn. I understand now that both members have done so. But that does not mean the Minister of Labour has withdrawn his lengthy statement in which, point by point, he was personally critical of the actions taken by my colleague the member who is before you now.

My own feeling is there is no opportunity for the member to defend himself in this House. We are at the end of the throne speech debate. We do not know what items will come after that; supposedly, we will be dealing with bills. I expect he will have no recourse but to try to persuade the members of the press gallery they should pay attention to his comments outside the House. They may well do that. But surely on a matter where the minister gets up and spends considerable time in detailed criticism, which is a mild word indeed, of my colleague, and then there is no opportunity for him respond, there seems to me to be something of an injustice.

2:20 p.m.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I want to support my friend the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon). If a member is accused of something in here, we must have an opportunity for that member to redress it or to defend his integrity.

The rules now allow for ministerial statements to be made, to which there is no response, particularly if the member has made his comments in the debate on the speech from the throne or something like that outside question period; and we cannot very well stake out our position via the avenue of questions.

I would ask that the Speaker send this matter to the standing committee on procedural affairs, but at the same time I would move that the member be now heard.

Mr. Speaker: I think that motion is out of order and I cannot accept it, with all respect.

Mr. Martel: Might I comment on that, Mr. Speaker? Standing order 19(

b) says, "When two or more members rise to speak, the Speaker shall call upon the member who, in his opinion, rose first in his place; no debate is permitted on the Speaker's decision, but a motion may be made that any member who has risen 'be now heard,' or 'do now speak.'"

I suggest to you that this is what the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid) was attempting to do, and I again ask you to consider the motion I presented to you.

Mr. Speaker: Of course, you did not read the whole item. Rule 19(

a) and the rest of it has regard to rules of debate; it says so very clearly, and we are not at this time engaged in debate.

Mr. Nixon: Just let him make his point of order by agreement if by nothing else.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, if you are not prepared to let the member speak, a decision with which I respectfully disagree, surely the member is entitled to know from you when he will be allowed to make a statement clearing his name if he feels he has been wrongfully accused of something by the minister. Surely that is a point of privilege.

Among ourselves here as members of the House, if another member has made an allegation that the member feels is untrue or is not founded in fact, or if he is making allegations with respect to motives that are quite unfair, surely at some point in the proceedings of this House the member should be permitted, on the unanimous consent of the House or however you want to do it, to stand up and make a reply that this member feels is part and parcel of the defence of his or her integrity.

I hope you will give the member for Rainy River some indication. If he is not to be heard now, when is he to be heard?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, may I make a comment on the various pieces of advice that are flowing to you at the present time?

First of all, it should be very clearly understood that the statement made by the minister was a proper ministerial statement and was not an attack on the member. As he said, it was a defence of a very loyal and respected public servant of this province, a public servant who had been criticized and who has no recourse to speak in any other manner but through the minister through whom he is responsible. That point should be made very clear.

Mr. T. P. Reid: That is not the point.

Hon. Mr. Wells: It is the point, with great respect. We would be remiss in our duty, as the member opposite would be remiss in his duty if he were sitting on this side, if we did not speak on behalf of that public servant if we felt the facts were not correct. That is precisely what the minister did.

Mr. Speaker, we sympathize with you that the rules really do not cover this kind of occurrence. The ministerial statement was very much needed and very much in order, but we would have no objection to giving concurrence to let the member make his point at this time if you so rule.

Mr. Speaker: Quite obviously, as members have recognized, there is no provision in the standing orders for the Speaker to allow this type of rebuttal.

Mr. Foulds: Unless you saw it as a point of privilege, which it legitimately is.

Mr. Speaker: With all respect, I would rather see it as a point of order than as a point of privilege.

Mr. Nixon: Just ignore the interjections.

Mr. Speaker: I shall indeed. That sounds like a familiar instruction.

However, as the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) has suggested, and as I was on the point of suggesting, perhaps it is a matter for the standing committee on procedural affairs to address, to allow a member who feels he or she has been offended to have some course of action to defend himself or herself.

Obviously we have the concurrence of the House, and I am prepared to hear the member for Rainy River.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, would you like me to start at the top?

Mr. Speaker: Yes.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Thank you.

On Thursday, April 5, 1984, the Minister of Labour sought to throw up a smokescreen about Dr. Wolfson's billings to cover up ongoing deficiencies in the way his ministry manages public funds.

The attached document, which I am tabling with the Clerk, outlines in some detail internal contradictions between Dr. Wolfson's statements, the ministry correspondence and the minister's efforts at self-justification in the Legislature. Those facts speak for themselves.

Today I would like to focus on some key findings of the internal and management audit branch about the ministry and its agencies' management practices, which the minister neglected to highlight in his statement.

1. The ministry did not seek "date-specific" billings from Dr. Wolfson until after February 1982, seven months after he started work. Dr. Wolfson claims he "acted in good faith" in the way he billed. He says, "Until early in 1982 it was never indicated to me that I should submit my accounts in a different manner." This is a direct reflection on the lack of monitoring in the ministry to maintain conformity with government practice.

2. "In some instances, the informality of records maintained by the Advisory Council on Occupational Health and Occupational Safety administrative personnel...makes it somewhat difficult to establish a clear audit trail." That is also from an internal audit memo.

3. "Per diem claims for ACOHOS are not always verified with appointees and in no case do the appointees verify, by signature, the accuracy of statements submitted for payment."

4. "Dr. Wolfson's records...because of their incompleteness, could only be partially relied upon in reviewing these payments."

These are statements taken from ministry documents, not from any correspondence or anything I dreamt up.

To improve the accounting services' ability to monitor payments for all appointees, the director of the internal audit branch made a number of recommendations about signed claims. When one gets past the bureaucratic accounting language, the message is altogether clear and disturbing. The Ministry of Labour was prepared to pay bills without proper monitoring or verification. In fact, Dr. Wolfson's initial repayment only occurred after we had raised the issue with the ministry.

Thus, it appears clear that through ministry negligence and sloppy administration, the taxpayers' moneys have not been supervised carefully. As a result, if Dr. Wolfson has suffered any embarrassment, it is a result of his ministry's sloppiness.

The minister also refers to there being "another" order in council. This information contradicts the information received from his ministry. Copies of the relevant letters from his ministry are also being tabled with the Clerk. I ask the minister to table this "other" order in council, namely, OIC 794/82, which he referred to in his statement last Thursday.

The question of Dr. Wolfson's integrity is not the issue in this case. Again, I wish to emphasize that what I was pointing out was that when it came to the workers of this province, the government used an iron heel, but it seems to be flexible, and even sloppy, when it comes to enforcing the rules for its own.

If one looks at Hansard, the person who does the headlining of the topics in Hansard used the headline "Adherence to Inflation Restraint." That certainly was the point I was making.

If any apologies are owed, they should be from the minister; first, to Dr. Wolfson for failing to ensure his billings met accounting procedures; and second, to me for providing inaccurate information to me, if such it is, and for misrepresenting my specific questions to the House.

In closing, I want to make it clear to the ministers, the Premier (Mr. Davis) and this House that I will not be intimidated from discharging my responsibility as a member of the official opposition in this Legislature.

2:30 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Before proceeding, and with the concurrence of the House, I ask all honourable members to --

Interjection.

Mr. T. P. Reid: That is dirty pool.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Rainy River will resume his seat.

VISITORS

Mr. Speaker: Now we have a rather pleasant little interlude to greet some visitors in the Speaker's gallery. I ask all members to join with me in recognizing and welcoming the three members of the Special Committee to Study the Relationship of Government and the Arts in Ontario established by the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture: Mr. Robert W. Macaulay, who is the chairman, a former member and a former cabinet minister; Mr. Peter J. Day, who is a vice-chairman, and Ms. Geraldine Sherman, a vice-chairman.

ORAL QUESTIONS

FUNDING OF THE ARTS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I join you in welcoming the distinguished members of the committee. I am surprised they are not sitting on this side of the House after their condemnation of the sorry state of arts funding in this province.

In that regard, I have a question for the appropriate minister, the Minister of Citizenship and Culture. She has no doubt had an opportunity to review the report by these three distinguished people in the gallery leering down at her. The bottom line of that report is relatively simple. What they are saying is that the minister is starving the arts and fattening her own bureaucracy.

How can the minister justify the sorry state of funding of the arts in this province when she is at the same time inflating her own information budget? It doubled last year to some $2.4 million, which is providing absolutely no productivity for artists and the arts in this province. It is accomplishing nothing.

Hon. Ms. Fish: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson) doubtless knows I was very pleased to announce last week grants in excess of $73 million to the Ontario Arts Council and several other of the arts and cultural institutions of my ministry, representing considerable increases to those agencies.

I was delighted to receive correspondence on April 6 from the chairman of the Ontario Arts Council regarding the proposed funding for this year, which indicated, "I sense that we have embarked upon a new era of commitment and confidence, and can assure you of the OAC's continuing co-operation with the ministry in fulfilling our shared mandate."

That is the clear commitment of this government, as documented time and again in a report that took 10 fine months of study and is now before us all.

Mr. Peterson: I have now solved my problem. I now know what the information department does in Citizenship and Culture. They write answers to questions whether they are asked or not. They are spending $1.2 million writing answers to questions that have not been asked.

I will ask my question again to see whether she can wing this one on her own. How can she justify the fattening or inflation of her own bureaucracy, with her own main office increase going from $1.2 million to $2.4 million in information services, when at the same time the arts are considered to be in such a sorry state for funding? The committee itself said the ministry can get the best value for its investment in the arts by exhibiting restraint in its own operation. How does she justify that inflation to this House?

Hon. Ms. Fish: I thought we were looking at a study that has taken, as I noted earlier, some 10 long months of very careful receiving of briefs and careful consideration of views presented by the public all across this province. It was not an analysis that was done in haste, nor was it an analysis that was pre-prepared for the reading of those who might come forward.

If the honourable member were to take the time to read the report, I would be very surprised if he reached the incredible conclusion that for 20 years the arts in this province have not been funded and funded well. The point that is made and underlined here is the strength of the arts in this province, of the expansion of facilities, of the support to the Ontario Arts Council. I was merely citing for the member the commitment this government has to the arts in this province and its willingness to expend in excess of $73 million to that end in this fiscal year.

Mr. Allen: Mr. Speaker, the minister may gesticulate grandly and sweepingly about the grand performance of this government with respect to the arts --

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Allen: I would like to ask the minister whether she herself has read all the graphs in this, which show declining real dollar support of the arts over the last several years to the point where this committee has had to report that this province spends only nine per cent of the actual expenditures on the arts in this province, the others coming from other levels of government; that it is the lowest of any province in Canada, and that it is in fact 50 per cent of the average level of the other nine provinces in this country.

In the light of the survey sponsored by the committee, which discovered that 53 per cent of this province is prepared to spend up to $25 per person per annum more on the arts in taxation, will the minister not now reverse the devastating policy of the last several years and engage in an aggressive policy of arts support in this province, which the arts in this province deserve?

Hon. Ms. Fish: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member who waved a copy of the report shows clearly in his question that this is a very extensive and very complex report.

I look forward, as I am sure the member does, to a very careful review of all the recommendations that are housed therein. I would note, however, that the central charge to the committee was to review the relationship between government and the arts during the past 20 years and to chart a course for the future.

The future course that has been charted in this report, as I believe the members will know readily, is not a course that will be settled simply by putting dollars to a problem. I am sure the member is aware that there are suggestions for tax change, for the consolidation of facilities and for internal reviews of the priorities of the Ontario Arts Council, among others, all of which, taken together and analysed, will assist us in guiding the future. I hope to be able to respond to the full report in some considerable detail in the very near future.

I want to come back to the point of saying that fundamental to the finding is the fact that there has been extraordinarily positive growth in the arts in this province in the last 20 years, and the challenge before us is to continue to underline this and to maintain it. I repeat again that just at the close of last week we have shown the beginning of this continued commitment in announcements made of the support that will be provided to the arts in this coming year as a minimum.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Speaker, I know one thing: The present minister will never receive any awards in the Academy Awards for her performance today in trying to defend her position on this question.

As the member from the New Democratic Party mentioned, this province spends the lowest share of any province in this country on the arts, and our figures show that the arts have decreased their spending by more than 20 per cent since the 1978-79 levels. To quote a comment made in this report:

"We believe that unless there are increases in the provincial subsidy to the arts, in part to correct the erosion caused by inflation, we could lose some of our most exciting talent and we will have squandered much of our sizeable investment in the arts."

What does the minister propose to do to improve this position that has been illustrated by this commission?

2:40 p.m.

Hon. Ms. Fish: Mr. Speaker, I repeat, the report dealt with a number of complementary recommendations that, as I understand them, cannot be dealt with in isolation. To do justice to three very dedicated people who did not take their chore lightly, either in examining the relationship of government and the arts or in charting recommendations for the future course, it would be inappropriate in the extreme to simply move upon a particular finding without an analysis of how that fits with others.

In so far as the basic thrust is concerned, it is clear there has been strong support for the arts and expensive, extensive growth. It is my wish to examine the findings in detail and to respond in accordance with those.

I know the honourable member would also welcome an opportunity to consider, among other things, the recommendations there which put before us a considerable dilemma. Does one concentrate on excellence or does one distribute resources broadly in the community? The very question the member has put was in the discussions on previous estimates. Those are the kinds of things that cannot be taken in isolation because they are integrated recommendations.

ALLOCATION OF HOUSING UNITS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing concerning the nonprofit housing allocations, which have no rhyme or reason. He will be aware that the Metropolitan Toronto area has demonstrated the greatest need for nonprofit housing, given a vacancy rate of less than one per cent and the fact that 5,000 families are on the waiting list for municipal nonprofit housing. That list is growing by some 70 families per week.

Given the fact that Metro Toronto's waiting list for seniors is close to 3,000, why is it that Metro got no units on the basis of the last allocation? What kind of priorities does the minister have when he ignores the area of greatest need in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, at the time I made the announcement on the allocation of municipal nonprofit units, which was in the latter part of February, it was in direct relationship to the fact that in its initial allocation for nonprofit units for municipalities or a province, the federal government through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. had given 1,400 units to Ontario.

The 1,400 units, down from 2,200 last year and from 2,800 the year before, left us with a very limited opportunity to allocate to communities. I said very clearly in my announcement we were giving them to the city of Ottawa and to various other communities across Ontario where there had been commitments, both federally and provincially, to provide for municipal nonprofit housing.

I went on to say I was looking at the second allocation that would come from the federal government. Clearly, they said that was the initial allocation and they wanted us to indicate how we could use additional units. We did just as the federal minister asked. We indicated that with the first allocation of 1,400 units and spelled it out community by community.

We then went to whether we were going to be on rent geared to income or rent supplement on those 1,400 units. We clearly spelled that out to them. That was to respond to the fact that the federal government said the province was not paying a sufficient portion of cost relating to providing rent-geared-to-income housing. We thought the rent supplement program responded positively to the federal minister's request.

We wrote to the federal minister, saying the additional federal allocation would be principally for Toronto and Metropolitan Toronto. We asked for 1,400 additional units. We said 1,100 of those would go to Toronto and Metropolitan Toronto. We clearly understood there would be a second allocation and I trust the Leader of the Opposition is aware there was an announcement this morning.

Mr. Peterson: I ask the minister again, because as he knows the second allocation depends upon the first allocation and its perceived success, why Metro has been ignored, when by any standard he wants to mention it represents at least 36 per cent of the need in Ontario. The minister is not responding to those needs.

He talks about Ottawa. Ottawa got 25 units even though there is a need for some 1,600 at present. There is no rhyme or reason to his allocations. How does he expect the federal government to respond to a program that is so cockeyed in most people's judgement?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, it might be cockeyed in the Liberal leader's opinion -- he has exclusive rights to that particular field -- but let me suggest, clearly and honestly, he extrapolates figures to his own benefit. To correct the record and make it very clear and easily understood, Ottawa was given 225 units, 25 of which were for municipal nonprofit organizations to construct and 200 of which were in the rent supplement program. One hundred per cent of the 200 units will be used for people who require them now and these units are being provided through the private sector.

If we look back a year, one of the criticisms of this minister and ministry was that we did not take up the rent supplement units in Ottawa. The opposition cannot have it both ways. We are working on one allocation from the federal government, which can be used either for construction or for rent supplement programs.

Last year we used it in the construction field in Ottawa. This year we put the principal sum into the rent supplement program, which brings the units on stream relatively quickly. One hundred per cent of the allocation is for rent-geared-to- income housing, not 25 or 35 per cent as it would be if units were constructed.

I realize the pressure in the city of Toronto. I felt that by showing the situation in Metropolitan Toronto to the federal government it would be easier for them to understand the pressures and the needs in the second allocation. The strategy was very clear. We could spell it out to the federal government. It is much more visible than in some of the other communities and we felt we had gone through it.

This morning, in this community, Mr. LeBlanc announced an allocation factor of 500 units for Metropolitan Toronto and said he was doing that on his assessment of need. They had gone through an analysis and their people, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., felt 500 would meet the requirement. That is the implication in his letter and his press release this morning. The other 80 units they gave to the province went to the city of Ottawa.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, will the minister undertake to approve, as he is required to, the allocation of 80 units for the Gloucester-Nepean project in the central part of Ottawa which was announced by the federal authorities today?

Can the minister explain why he is apparently trying to kill municipal nonprofit housing in Ottawa by allocating only 25 units the last time around and by asking for almost none in the most recent allocation? Why has the minister not been prepared to ensure that publicly provided nonprofit housing is there in addition to private enterprise housing?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, first, the allocation of 80 units was made directly by the federal minister to a municipal nonprofit corporation in the city of Ottawa for a project in which there is, I understand, some association between CMHC and the municipal nonprofit in the construction of that project, on land ownership and few of the other things.

I take it Mr. LeBlanc felt it was a project he wanted to move ahead at this time. I doubt very much whether there will be a further allocation, but I am going to see any further allocation from CMHC for Ottawa, Metropolitan Toronto, Toronto itself or other jurisdictions in this province. There was, as the member likely knows, a fairly substantial allocation from the federal minister this morning to both the private nonprofit and the co-operatives in various communities across the province, something like 1,300 or 1,400 in the Toronto and Metro Toronto area. A fairly substantial number of units was also allocated under those two programs in Ottawa.

Let me come to the second part of the question, which relates to whether we are trying to kill the municipal nonprofit. That is not our intention at all. I repeat, last year when we allocated the construction program to the Ottawa nonprofit housing corporation, it accepted it. The criticism from local politicians and others was that under the Ontario rental construction loan program we had not taken up the units we could get from the private sector under what we call a rent supplement program. We were criticized because we had not taken them up and we should have.

2:50 p.m.

I emphasize that an allocation from CMHC can be used for one of two purposes. I have explained this in my estimates report and I will do it again today. It can be used in one of two ways: either for a rent supplement program, renting from the private sector or from other organizations, or in the construction of municipal nonprofit units. Last year, as I said already, we used it for construction in Ottawa.

This year, because of some of the criticism that came our way a year ago, we decided to take up the units that were available from the private sector on a virtually immediate basis to respond to those people who were on our waiting list. We can do that now without waiting 12 or 18 months for construction.

The member cannot have it both ways. Either we are going to use the allocation --

Mr. O'Neil: Subsidizing $900-a-month rents in some cases.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: The member's friends in Ottawa designed that program, not me. Is the member saying we should not take up those units?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Peterson: We do not want it both ways. We just want some action. The response to real needs has been so dismal.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: What is the minister going to do for Barrie with a zero per cent vacancy rate, or Kingston with a 0.01 per cent vacancy rate, or Sudbury and Guelph with 0.04 per cent vacancy rates? The minister knows there is a crisis in almost every metropolitan area in this province at present. Surely it cries out for greater action. Would the minister not agree? What is he going to do to make sure we move forward to meet this need?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: It is always interesting to hear people talk about the dismal program in Ontario responding to the needs of the public, those in the lower-income groups. Dismal? In the 20-year period of the Ontario Housing Corp. we now have in place in this province more than 120,000 units for the less fortunate, both families and seniors, costing the taxpayers of Ontario and Canada over $1 million per day. One out of every 10 rental units in this province is either under lease to the government or we own it as taxpayers. In metropolitan areas, it is one in seven.

We have moved aggressively and positively over that period of time to respond to the social requirements of this community of Ontario. Indeed, we have done it without the taxpayers throwing any kind of abuse at politicians on all sides of the House for having provided those units.

I have said to this House before and I repeat it today, if we are to deliver this program in the various jurisdictions of Ontario, we will not be doing it singularly as a provincial government. For a long time, we have agreed that the response to this program is provincial and federal. It is a co-operative program.

For some weeks now I have asked the federal minister, Mr. LeBlanc, for a meeting to go through it with him point by point to see if we can amend some of the federal and provincial programs to try to bring a greater number of units on stream. At this point, I have not had the opportunity to meet with him. Indeed, I could not meet with him this weekend although I did have the opportunity of meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, did the minister get to shake hands or did he curtsy?

The minister said in February that according to his own calculations Metro Toronto alone needed 1,100 units. Mr. LeBlanc announced this morning there would be 500 units allocated to Metro. What does the minister intend to do about that 600-unit shortfall this year?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I think I concluded my last comments by saying I had asked to meet with the federal minister to review some of these programs. I want to draw the attention of the leader of the third party to the press release and to some of the other information Mr. LeBlanc gave out. He indicates clearly in his telegram to me this morning that the reason for the 500 units is because of his or CMHC's analysis of the need of the Metropolitan Toronto area.

He did not relate to the need we had expressed as a ministry, which was very clearly spelled out in letters to him on several occasions and in meetings between CMHC and people representing the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing over the last number of weeks.

He says in the telegram that according to his analysis, this is what he believes is required in the marketplace. I will say, in fairness to him, he does follow up by saying there will be a further 1,372 units going into private nonprofit and co-op housing. I guess with the combination of figures, he believes he has responded positively to the need.

Mr. Rae: The fact of the matter, as the minister knows, is there are 18,000 people still on the waiting list for Ontario Housing. There are thousands more who are on the waiting list for nonprofit and co-op housing. There is a tremendous need which the federal announcements have done nothing to meet.

The minister has been out of the housing business since 1978. How can he justify continuing to refuse to get into the business of providing housing when the need is so great? The minister should stop blaming Ottawa and start acting himself. Is the minister prepared to introduce a program himself to deal with the tremendous shortfall that clearly still exists?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: The leader of the third party knows very well we have not been out of the housing business. It is correct that we have been out of direct construction, as has the federal government and every province in this country.

Very clearly, we have all been involved in an agreement we signed back in 1978 with the federal government, which said we would participate in the delivery of a municipal nonprofit program and we would cover the cost or a portion of the cost.

I acknowledge the fact that the percentage we as a province are meeting in relation to the rent-geared-to-income housing in the nonprofit sector is relatively small, but I want to emphasize to this House that it was in keeping with the agreement with the federal government. One of the points I have made to Mr. LeBlanc is that we are prepared to negotiate some changes in that agreement if he would like to sit down and go through it with us.

We appreciate that the waiting list is lengthy and we have tried to respond through the various programs. The Canada rental supply program will bring 1,200 additional units on stream in this province this year. One of the things Mr. LeBlanc had to say this morning, and I was delighted to see it, comes back to the co-ops and the private nonprofits.

On the allocation agreements for Metro Toronto, he said he wanted to see the major cities move the rent-geared-to-income portion of their units to 35 per cent plus five per cent, which is the very offer I made last August to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario in trying to resolve some of the problems of the municipal nonprofits in the various jurisdictions of Ontario. Few of them have taken up the opportunity, because they do not like to work from a common waiting list.

This morning Mr. LeBlanc said, and I thank him for it, that he wants the municipalities to move that 35 per cent and five per cent. Indeed, I hope he is also taking under consideration, maybe as a result of his being the federal minister responsible for the private nonprofit and co-op housing, that he might suggest that 35 per cent and five per cent of those allocated units also become available to the people on the waiting lists established by the local housing authorities. That will respond more positively to the waiting list than anything I can think of at the moment.

Mr. Peterson: Is it not true that in these negotiations the minister has bargained using Metro as a pawn, and indeed he has lost in the bargaining and now Metro has lost?

I understand the Premier (Mr. Davis) is meeting with the mayor tomorrow. What is he going to offer the city of Toronto in order to meet the great need?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I do not believe we lost in the bargaining. If I listened to some of the remarks coming from that party going back to the end of February, they said there would be no second allocation. The province obviously had a second allocation of 580 units. The opposition did not believe we would ever get a thing. It figured we were at the end of the road at that time. I had greater belief in the member's Liberal friends in Ottawa than he had and we got 580 units.

Regarding the meeting tomorrow, the request for the meeting came from the mayor of Toronto. We were not asked to present any program, but it was he who asked for the meeting with the Premier and myself. Indeed, we are going to meet with him and we will review whatever he has to say.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, the minister just said he acknowledged that Ontario's contribution to nonprofit housing construction programs since 1978 is relatively small. Does he remember the figures he gave to the estimates committee last year? Since 1979 the federal contribution to nonprofit housing construction in Ontario has been $93.5 million and Ontario's contribution has been $1.8 million. That is to say, Ontario has contributed less than two cents on the dollar since 1978 towards the construction of nonprofit housing.

Does the minister intend to continue this idiotic policy which has resulted in critical housing shortages for low-income people all across the province? When will the minister commit this government to return to the cooperative spirit of housing in evidence before 1978, when Ontario contributed at least 50 cents on the dollar? Why does the government not set up its own loan guarantee programs and its own Ontario house construction programs and get back into the house-building programs it abandoned in 1978?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: First, Mr. Speaker, we did not abandon the program. It was the result of an agreement with the federal government which wanted to get out of the mortgaging business. That was very clearly spelled out and the member knows it. If not, he should go back and read some of the reports of that date.

3 p.m.

We have gone along with the agreement; we have participated fully in it and have tried to satisfy the market. Because we made a good agreement, all of a sudden it becomes a detriment to us. If we had not made a good agreement I would hear the third party criticizing us for spending more money than the federal government. I have offered to sit down with Mr. LeBlanc and review with him the costing of these programs and how we might expand them into new programs by the province participating more fully.

Let me suggest that we overlook one very simple fact. In all units that were built before 1978, we do pay 50 cents on the dollar for their operation. Indeed, not so many years ago 7.5 per cent of the cost was unloaded from the municipalities on to the provincial government. While we are not participating beyond five per cent in municipal nonprofit housing at the moment, in the long term our commitment is there because, as the cost of operation goes up, the commitment by the province will become greater.

The members opposite do not like to hear that obviously, but that is the position in which we find ourselves -- a long-term one. Once again I want to suggest to this House today that, as Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, I am prepared to meet Mr. LeBlanc to see if we cannot expand the program to cover even a greater portion of the field that is our responsibility, with a greater participation by the province. I make that offer in this public forum this afternoon. Maybe now I will get a positive response from him and we can sit down and do something in a productive way.

SURVEY ON ARTS FUNDING

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Citizenship and Culture if she can explain the following circumstance.

Chapter 3 of the report of the committee describes a survey which apparently was put out by the Ministry of Treasury and Economics and was shown to the committee. One slide of the survey showed that 61 per cent of the public allegedly recommended that if reductions were necessary in the Ontario budget, the arts should be the first to be cut.

Upon request to see this survey in order to see what the questions were, the government refused to allow the committee to have access to that information; it refused to allow the survey to go to the committee. As a result, the committee had to fund its own survey with respect to public attitudes towards arts funding.

Can the minister explain why there was a coverup of that survey and the questions asked in it? Can she explain how the results of the survey carried out by the Macaulay committee are so dramatically different from the results that have been circulated within government and which resulted in the initial statement made by her predecessor, the member for Armourdale (Mr. McCaffrey), when he referred to the need for a change in circumstance?

He said: "The availability for government funding for the arts has reached the point of maximum expansion in the past two years." That statement clearly reflects that attitude towards cutbacks which led to the establishment of the Macaulay committee.

Can the minister explain why there was a coverup with respect to the initial survey and why the results of the two surveys are so dramatically different?

Hon. Ms. Fish: Mr. Speaker, first, let me say I am not aware of any coverup whatsoever. The first I had heard of an approach by the committee members in regard to some information on a budget consultation was when I was perusing parts of the report, having received it, as I did, late on Friday.

I have no further information about that piece of information, nor do I know upon what it was based. As I said, I think the report does accurately reflect that the information was part and parcel of what might be described as a prebudget consultation designed specifically for a large number of agencies and clients of the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture.

Some possible confusion might be left to someone listening to the juxtaposition of points in the question of the leader of the third party and in the suggestion that information on the one matter led to a survey on attitudes towards the arts being undertaken by the committee that might otherwise not have been undertaken.

That examination of attitudes towards the arts was viewed as an important component in the committee's research and in its efforts to try to reach out to a population beyond that which was coming in and presenting briefs. Allowance for that was provided in the budget of the committee, and I was pleased to ensure that was the case. The results of that survey, the questions asked and the findings, as the member knows, are now public.

If there are further questions with respect to some information, I would suggest the chairman of the committee or committee members might choose to ask them directly. I was not made aware of any problem, save and except a passing reference in the report, and that was not drawn to my attention until this weekend.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, the report states: "We realize...how damaging this particular statistic or survey could be to any argument put forward for equitable funding for the arts." It is intriguing that a damaging statistic and the background to that damaging information were not made available to the committee but were obviously circulated widely within the government and were part of an official presentation to the committee itself by the Ministry of Treasury and Economics.

The Treasurer's (Mr. Grossman) own advisers were clearly trying to tell the committee what kind of direction they thought the committee should go in; that is clearly the way the government is operating. Then, having told the committee which way it wanted them to go with respect to cutbacks, it refused even to give them the question, which would have allowed the committee to come up with an independent answer.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: Luckily, the committee did take its own survey. Can the minister simply confirm the survey, which showed that Ontario spends 22 cents out of every $100 on the arts and on arts funding and that when people heard this information their attitude with respect to arts funding changed dramatically? Can she explain why so few people know how much or how little money Ontario really spends on arts in the province?

Hon. Ms. Fish: Let me repeat that the presentation in question was a prebudget briefing. It was not closed; it was not specially for the committee. It was for a broad range of agencies and clients of the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture and it included a wide range of questions and opportunities for response that were available.

I repeat that the purpose of undertaking the survey in question was entirely positive.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Ms. Fish: It was for the committee charged with reviewing where we have been with the arts in the past 20 years and considering the future to examine this question in clear form. This survey has now been made entirely public; indeed, the contents of the survey as well as the questions asked are available to anyone who is interested in them, and they are published. I wish to make clear that the committee indicated, quite properly, that responses to questions clearly depend on the question that is asked.

With respect to the question about how many people in this province know precisely the amount of money that is spent on the arts, how can I deal with that?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Ms. Fish: When increases in the communications budget are put forward, we are pilloried. We are told we cannot provide information, that such activity is inappropriate. How, then, can I deal with a suggestion that inadequate information is before the public?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Speaker, the minister cannot possibly believe what she has just said because it is a bunch of hogwash. If the minister has been told this by some of her ministry officials, it is wrong. When Mr. Macaulay started out, he went out thinking the same thing she has just said. I think he has changed his mind. The arts are underfunded in Ontario, and we need to have some changes made.

What is the minister going to do to give increased funding to the arts throughout this province?

Hon. Ms. Fish: Mr. Speaker, we already have. I announced it last week.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

3:10 p.m.

Mr. Allen: Mr. Speaker, I think if the minister would care to turn to 8.9 in the report, she would see there a table that lists the various proportions of support for the arts in Ontario from the various government bodies. We find the municipalities support it at a level of five per cent, the federal government supports it at a level of 24 per cent and the province supports it at a level of nine per cent.

I would submit it appears to us that the province, in giving the razzmatazz to the public about the level of provincial support that is offered, is hiding behind federal moneys which go to agencies which ought to be much more substantially supported in this province than they are.

Mr. Speaker: Now for the question, please.

Mr. Allen: May I ask the minister if she will abandon the grandiloquence and the gesticulation? Will she please stand up and simply tell us whether she is going to turn around the pattern of her ministry's behaviour and funding in the past? Will she indicate that the public support that exists for the arts will be followed by substantial action by this ministry?

Hon. Ms. Fish: Mr. Speaker, I have already indicated that I look forward to a very careful review of the report, with an opportunity to respond in detail over the next few weeks. The general position taken by that particular report and its conclusions are clear.

I say again there have been very strong commitment and support to culture and the arts in this province in the last 20 years and that commitment continues in the strongest possible way. I would be pleased to engage in a more detailed response when we have had an opportunity to consider all the interrelated recommendations over the next few weeks.

OSAP APPLICATIONS

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, last Thursday the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) asked whether the rumour he had heard was correct. I would like to know whether the rumour I have heard is correct, and that is that his erstwhile federal leader is going to appoint himself Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

TESTING OF BACKUP BATFERIES

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Energy regarding the class 1 emergency power supply at the Bruce nuclear generating station. The minister is certainly aware that each plant has a dual backup system. One is the large diesel generators and the other is huge banks of batteries that are expected in the first instance, as we draw on the batteries in the event of a breakdown of any kind, to be used to supply power for the relay switches, valve maintenance and reactor cooling system.

We have some concern about the testing of those battery banks. The Bruce B safety report describes their capabilities; so I will not go into that in detail. Having looked into the question, does the minister feel confident the class 1 emergency battery system has been properly maintained and would be in appropriate working order in the event of some kind of a breakdown?

Hon. Mr. Andrewes: Mr. Speaker, in response to the member for Niagara Falls, it is my understanding that two out of the three banks of the Bruce generating station common service batteries have been recently tested. The results of these tests indicate the actual performance exceeds the requirements of the batteries. The third bank was due to be tested on April 6, 1984.

Mr. Kerrio: We have received a reply to a request for an Ontario Hydro report on that system. One can point out in the report that inspection readings of battery voltages were not recorded as required, that full load tests were not conducted after five years of installation and that, if I could read one line from a report from Ontario Hydro, "Further load testing of the batteries should be carried out as a priority item to determine the loss in capacity with time."

The minister can appreciate that unless Ontario Hydro determines the life expectancy of that very critical area of backup at one of the nuclear stations, we could be in serious trouble if we call on those batteries to provide interim capacity for doing the very important functions in conducting an orderly shutdown of the reactor.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Kerrio: Will the minister look into this matter and satisfy himself that we can put in place a kind of auditing or monitoring of the testing and, in particular, that there will be a report to him and to this House that it has been done in a way that will give us satisfactory reliance on the system?

Hon. Mr. Andrewes: As I reported earlier, two out of the three banks of the common service batteries have been tested. I would like to elaborate a little further on the quality of those tests.

For bank 12, for instance, performance requirements are 310 amps for a duration time under a test of 40 minutes. The test results indicated the current amps at 715 for a duration time of 63 minutes, almost double those requirements. For bank 13, the performance requirements are 90 amps over a duration time of 40 minutes. The actual test verified 175 amps over 58 minutes. Those test results were obtained on April 1, 2 and 3.

I also want to tell the honourable member that further testing is scheduled on bank 4 for May 1984, bank 3 for the fall of 1984, bank 2 for the fall of 1985 and bank 1 for the spring of 1985.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION

Mr. Allen: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Education. As the minister knows, grade 8 students in the education system have filled out their option sheets and those have now been analysed by a great many school boards across this province. I would like the minister to respond to the severe and alarming pattern of statistics that is building up, not least of all in my own city of Hamilton.

For example, the projected enrolments for grade 9 in the coming year from those grade 8 option sheets -- they are virtually complete and there will be relatively little change in them -- now indicate there will be a decline of 32 per cent in the technical courses chosen, a decline of eight per cent in the arts courses chosen, a decline of eight per cent in family studies and a decline of five per cent in music.

Now that this evidence is coming in, what is the minister's reaction to the criticisms that were made in the course of the development and the implementation of this program by concerned teachers and headmasters across this province who, to the very end in late October of last year, continued to be opposed to the implementation of Ontario Schools, Intermediate and Senior Divisions in 1984?

Are those statistics not alarming with respect to those options and the implications they bear for the programs of those students and the programs that will be affected in the coming year?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member is obviously privy to statistical information in Hamilton which, if it is factual, would be of some concern. I do not know that is so at this point, although I have heard from a number of representatives of the Ontario Teachers' Federation that it is their understanding there is a decline in applications for technical programs.

3:20 p.m.

The rationale for this seems somewhat obscure, since for the very first time in the history of the province the requirement is mandated for a credit in technical or business instruction for all students within the secondary school program.

Are the secondary school students declining to participate in that program in grade 9 because they think it would be better for them to do it in grade 10? I cannot tell the honourable member that.

It is also factual, and the member will agree, that for the very first time there is a mandated requirement for a credit in the arts. The student who was looking to develop an appropriate secondary program might well consider that those credits could be achieved in grade 9 within the secondary school program.

We will look at it very carefully when the factual information is provided to us by the boards in June. That is the time at which we do have recourse to that full set of facts, and we shall look to see what is happening.

I remind the member that the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation expended the sum of approximately $100,000 in October to persuade the boards of this province not to participate in the implementation of OSIS in 1984. Because the boards have that option, they could simply request a delay for a year in that implementation. To my knowledge, not one board in this province has suggested that it would like to delay the implementation.

Mr. Allen: Of course, all boards want to get in on a new thing. The minister gave it such a fancy buildup that it looked as if it was a great thing to go with.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Allen: The minister knows that selecting a technological option really did not make a great deal of difference. The way the compulsory credits were laid out, by the time you patterned out your four years of high school, there was almost no room to go anywhere with technology anyhow, except for that one part --

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Allen: What is the point? The minister is so downplaying the technological program that she is only giving it one shot in the whole of four years, and now she is telling us it is surprising that these students have not opted for it.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Allen: What does the minister propose to do, in the light of the fact that it is not just in grade 9 that those statistics will hold? In grade 10 there will be a 22 per cent drop in technical program options, in grade 11 an 11.6 per cent drop and in grade 12 a 10.6 per cent drop.

What does the minister propose to do now? June will be too late. What does she propose to do right now to forestall a major disaster in technical education in Ontario schools next year?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am not one of the prophets of gloom and doom, as the member for Hamilton West seems to be. I believe the member and others should understand there is no rule that says there are not 14 other credits available to all students in the secondary school program. There are additional credits that could be utilized by students in all of those four years -- or five years, if they choose to participate for five years.

In addition, there are possibilities for the acquisition of music credits outside the school system, a factor that has been a part of our program for some time and was demanded by a significant number of the members of that party at the time the secondary education review project was being examined in this province.

I believe encouragement will be given to a significant number of students at least to try their hands at technical or business education at all levels within the school system. I believe that will provide opportunities for all those children.

In spite of the leader of the third party's misnomer of the system as elitist, what we are attempting to do is provide educational programs relevant for all the students in the system.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education made reference to the possibility of avoiding this by not implementing it in 1984. In the light of that, will the minister not admit she indicated in the estimates that it would be mighty difficult for boards of education to opt out of the implementation of OSIS in the fall of 1984? Will she not admit that directors of education across the province naturally do not want to be left behind the rest of the province in the implementation of OSIS?

Will the minister investigate some of the proposals being brought forward by individual teachers to alleviate this problem by setting up potential patterns for students taking subjects? Besides those who are expressing alarm, there are some who are coming up with some positive positions that may be helpful in overcoming this problem.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I was heartened by a response to what I guess one could call a bearpit session I had with teachers in the honourable member's own riding about three weeks ago. The leader of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation in that area suggested what teachers really needed to do was to sit down and talk to their principals about scheduling within the school program that would make it more flexible and, therefore, more adaptable to the needs of students.

That is precisely what needs to happen, and I would be delighted if I could say this was happening across the province. I am sure it will. It is something that is being considered by thoughtful leaders, teachers and technical teachers right across the province.

There is technical capability within the school system, and we think all the students should avail themselves of it. We feel very strongly that students at all levels should have at least one opportunity to try a technical course to see whether their talents lie in that direction or to determine whether there is something else they might consider making their career pattern.

The member suggested I said it would be mighty difficult. I simply said the boards would have to give a compelling reason for doing it. With a compelling reason, I would most certainly consider it, and that has been my position all along. As for the opinions of directors of education, I never presume to judge what their opinions may be.

FUNDING FOR POLICE TRAINING

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Solicitor General, who has just got up to stretch his prerogative. I will let him get back to his seat. The question concerns his intransigence on the issue of payment by municipalities of police officer candidates during their training.

In an effort to save many millions of taxpayers' dollars and to get in line with the training practices in the case of other professionals, the mayors of many municipalities have requested the minister's permission to allow candidates at the Ontario Police College to pay for their own tuition. The minister has continually refused to grant this permission.

We know the mayors' proposal works perfectly well without the slightest compromise in police standards in many other jurisdictions in this country. Why will the minister not allow the municipalities this significant saving?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, on this matter the present policy and legislation is that individuals who are employed by the several municipalities and by the Ontario Provincial Police are sworn in as police officers. It is the mandate of this ministry, through the Ontario Police Commission and funded by the province, that when they are sworn in as police officers, they take a training course at the police college at Aylmer.

The police college at Aylmer is in two parts, part A and part B, consisting of nine weeks and six weeks respectively. When a police officer is in attendance at the police college, the province pays for the education by funding that college. The room and board, and in some instances transportation, of individual police officers is paid for by the province so they can maintain a standard. That has been the wish of this province over a period of time.

Each municipality hires its own police officers through the Ontario Police Commission. I cannot see how, although I have heard the suggestion many times, there would be a saving to an individual municipality if we were to charge tuition fees for its police officers to attend our police academy. I think the associations would assess the situation very quickly and bargain for that paid tuition.

3:30 p.m.

It is a decision by the commission of each local municipality to employ whom it wants to employ. One requirement, which is not compulsory, is that the police officers attend police college and receive their instruction. Whatever arrangement the individual municipality wants to make with its police officers -- whether it does not want to pay them during the time they are at the police college or whether it wants to make some other arrangement with them -- is entirely the concern of the individual local municipality and its board of commissioners of police. It has nothing to do with the province. If we were to charge for tuition, there would be an increased payment by those individuals.

There are other features too. These individuals are usually mature individuals. They have --

Mr. Speaker: I think that is a complete answer. Thank you very much.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: An exceedingly complete answer, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Van Horne: Such a complete answer could beg about a dozen supplementaries. Let me submit to the minister that this year the Sarnia police commission hired four new constables who were trained at their own expense in the Maritimes. The province -- or the Solicitor General, if you will -- 17 months ago refused admission to London's probationary recruits. The mayor of London has again written to the minister recently on this issue, looking for some positive direction. My understanding is that the minister has not responded directly to him.

I also understand that another member of the London police commission, in the person of Robert Robarts, the brother of the late Premier of this province, has said, "It looks like we are going to have to force this issue."

Will the minister please reply directly to the mayor of London, who is seeking some very straightforward answers on this issue from him, not from a subaltern?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I have on more than one occasion, directly and indirectly, answered the mayor of London and police commissioner Mr. Robert Robarts. The reply to that is the same as I have given in this House, that they may do as they wish as long as they are sending to us police constables who are sworn in on the force of London or, indeed, of Sarnia.

I would like to add that Sarnia did go out of the province and obtain as employees people who had graduated from the police academy. When the member is carrying the message here to the mayor of London, if he studies the police college in the Maritimes, he will discover that in its arrangements with the federal government it is totally subsidized by the federal government for non-employed individuals who, between the province and the federal government, do not even pay for tuition at that college which Sarnia has so proudly said is superior to ours.

I disagree with the chief of Sarnia. We have a very admirable program at the police college here. Indeed, the program is an excellent one. We are looking at it at present to make some variations. When we get around to making those variations, we may see some changes, but until that time the policy still is that they do not pay for tuition.

CORRECTION OF RECORD

Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Speaker, I would like to rise to correct the record. On Friday morning during the throne speech debate, there was a brief interjection from the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) to the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh). The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk asked whether there was a definitive answer to the bell-ringing problem. The member for Oshawa said, "Yes, we do have an answer designed by the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg), who put together one of the most extraordinary" --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Would the member please resume his seat. You can only correct your own record, not another member's record.

Mr. Rotenberg: I would like to rise on a point of privilege.

Mr. Speaker: It does not really matter. You can only correct your own record.

Mr. Rotenberg: I want to rise on a point of privilege. Can I do that?

Mr. Speaker: On another point?

Mr. Rotenberg: On a point of privilege. I just want to point out that the member for Oshawa on this point did misquote me. I was not the father of this whatsoever.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the record too.

Mr. Speaker: I hope it is your own.

Mr. Breaugh: It is my own. I would certainly like to rise to correct the record. I did not mean to imply that the member for Wilson Heights did something useful. I would never make that allegation.

Mr. Speaker: So much for that.

PETITIONS

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

Mr. Kolyn: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Drea), I would like to present the following petition:

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas women in Ontario still earn only 60 per cent of the wages of men;

whereas women are still concentrated in a very small number of occupations; and

whereas unanimous approval of the concept of equal pay for work of equal value was expressed in the Ontario Legislature in October 1983,

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to amend Bill 141 to include equal pay for work of equal value and to introduce mandatory affirmative action."

It is signed by three constituents of the minister's riding.

Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from 31 school teachers who come from various schools in the riding of Kent-Elgin:

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas women in Ontario still earn only 60 percent of the wages of men;

whereas women are still concentrated in a very small number of occupations; and

whereas unanimous approval of the concept of equal pay for work of equal value was expressed in the Ontario Legislature in October 1983,

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to amend Bill 141 to include equal pay for work of equal value and to introduce mandatory affirmative action."

USE OF FORMER GOVERNMENT PROPERTY

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table a petition signed by 258 people that reads as follows:

"We, the undersigned, are petitioning the Lieutenant Governor against the possible plans of construction for what used to be the old Ministry of Transportation and Communications area in Downsview.

"Many people have heard different stories of possible low-rental high-rise apartments being built in the area. Residents of this area are not in favour of any of these buildings being constructed. The area has always been a very quiet, respectable one, and the above would cause quite a change.

"Please let us know as soon as possible how this situation stands. The above may all be rumours, so please confirm it with any facts that you may have."

HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENTS

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"We the people of Ophir Lake, Poplar Dale, Leeburn and surrounding districts do hereby request of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications that the 13 kilometres between the two paved sections of Highway 638 be upgraded and surfaced because of the promise that it would be completed in 1980, increased tourist traffic during the entire year requires upgraded road surface, people commuting daily to work, the possibility of work for the unemployed in the area, several dangerous hills and curves of this highway need to be upgraded and the road surface has deteriorated appreciably in 1982-83."

This petition is signed by 414 people from Rock Lake, Patton Lake, Echo Bay, Desbarats, Bruce Mines, Bar River, Sault Ste. Marie, Thessalon, Iron Bridge, Heyden and various other communities in other regions of the province and Canada, including Vancouver.

MOTION

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTIONS

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that the following substitutions be made on the following standing committees: on the standing committee on general government, Mr. Eakins for Mr. Epp; on the standing committee on members' services, Mr. Boudria for Mr. Wrye.

Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONCLUDED)

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I might indicate it has been agreed that we will split the time for the remaining three speakers in the throne speech debate and that the vote will be called at 5:45. I wonder whether we could have consent that the table keep time for the speakers.

Mr. Speaker: That shall be done.

3:40 p.m.

Resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, speaking to the speech from the throne, I will be calling on Isaiah and John Yaremko to try to convince all members of the House that the two motions in opposition to this throne speech and its vacuousness are in order and should be supported by all members.

It is surely an inappropriate throne speech in this year. In rising to speak about the throne speech of 1984, one has all sorts of images of Big Brother, a government in absolute control, peeping into all our lives, knowing exactly what it is doing and making sure we do not have any access to what it is doing. Part of this is true. I think it is true the government does not share its information. I think it is true it peers too much into the lives of many of us. I myself am on a number of lists I am sure other members of the House are not on at this point.

The only point where I disagree is that I think the government seems to be totally out of control. It does not know what it is doing, has no vision of the future and is relying on past Conservative views of how life is ordained for those who "have" in Ontario. That will not lead us well. The speech from the throne was one of business as usual. It was brought to us by the people who did not bring us the auto sector's decline but who took credit for the auto sector's recovery. The people who had nothing to do with the rape of our natural resources are telling us they brought us Hemlo and the recovery of the natural resources base of northern Ontario.

In my view, we have a government that is amoral, bankrupt of ideas and is trying to quiet the deep, fundamental insecurity of the times that many people are feeling with soothing words of yesteryear, harking back to things such as a notion of the family, which may never have existed and certainly does not exist today, instead of confronting the future with new ideas, new solutions, new approaches, and admitting that all it has done has not worked.

The government masks a recovery-dependent analysis with a notion of some things it may want to do. Everything it is saying is based on some recovery taking place that we can all tag onto. It is saying very little about where it will lead us and what it thinks are some of the major questions of the day, including what I consider to be the major moral question of the day: Will we continue in this province and country with the politics of abandonment? Will we continue with the politics of alienation and with the disfranchisement of a certain sector of our population as long as the rest of us continue to benefit?

Will this moral base or immoral base --

Mr. Sargent: Which is it?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: It is immoral, but it is an ethical question. That is why I am raising it.

Will we change and consider that we have to have a different ethos, or will we continue along the same lines? This government has decided we will continue along the same lines. By doing so, it is drawing lines between us as a people, it is dealing with class politics, it is dealing with the politics of greed, and it is dealing with politics that have nothing to do with the basic ethics our society is based on, ethics of social responsibility and some idea of egalitarian mobility that we all thought was part of the Canadian way of life.

It is not only this government. There are many governments in the country that have fallen into this vacuum of ideas and allow some people to suffer greatly while the rest of us get by. The politics of abandonment say that structuralized poverty -- that is, maintaining a certain number of poor people in our society -- is acceptable. In today's age, adding even more people to that group is still acceptable as long as the rest of us get by.

This policy comes from a government that continually tries to pacify the majority, continually responds to polls and never considers the minority at all and the devastation that can take place for the majority if the rights of the minority in this situation, those who are being abandoned, are not taken into consideration.

Our elections and this whole notion of politics in this province is one of a 38-day period where we go out and try to sell ourselves to people so they make a choice saying: "Who serves me best? Who is going to look after me best?" There is no concept of looking at major social issues and at directions of our time. Between elections, we also deal with the power of the lobby and the power of the poll. If people do not have power in our society, we do not listen to them. That is particularly true of this government. If one does not have to listen to them, then one can ignore them.

Until the Catholic bishops stood up a couple of years ago and said the fact we would decide to have high interest rate policies and allow high unemployment is unconscionable in human terms, we as legislators did not take it seriously. I suggest the government is still not taking it seriously.

There is a group in Nipissing known as Isaiah 58. I had no idea what this was until I read a little story about it the other day. This is a group of people who have decided they are fundamentally offended by the ethics of our society as embodied by our governments which keep people in poverty. They are going to take the words of the prophet, take direction from our Judaeo-Christian structure and ethos in this society and take responsibility themselves for poor people in their society and among their neighbours. They have drawn on this particular saying, and if I might quote from Isaiah:

"And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday.

"And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not."

As members know, I am not the kind of person who quotes Isaiah, the prophets or religious tracts very much, but it seems to me there is a message there for government. There is a presumption by government that if it looks after the poor, somehow there will be retaliation against it. There is a presumption that if it finally brings in equitable social welfare programs for people, somehow people will respond negatively to it; because the politics of greed are so imbued, people will respond against that and say, "We are being overtaxed."

There is a presumption that by doing that somehow the government is throwing away money that it cannot get back to help us. The message from that prophecy is that we will all benefit if we look after the poorest among us. If we open ourselves and make our major priority those who are disadvantaged, instead of abandoning them and looking after ourselves, we will be protected, our society will grow and we will have wealth for all of us.

I would suggest if we do not act now, the seeds for our own destruction as a society are among us. Our destruction will either come because of the fundamental immorality of what we are doing as we glean the profits and riches of our society while others suffer, or those people who have been held down and the new people who are among them, and I suggest to the government there is an anger growing, will take it out on all of us. Our society will no longer be the safe place it is. We will have the guard-dog society of those who have been protecting themselves in real hard terms with dogs and their gates closed, instead of an open society. We will all suffer a great deal.

I think there is some resonance to this call at the moment. That is why groups like Isaiah 58 have been established and the church is speaking out more. The reason is there are more poor people now, not fewer poor than in the past. In hard terms, more than 300,000 children in this province are in poverty. The latest statistics show that 500,000 more people last year were added to the ranks of the poor in terms of any of the various poverty lines one wants to choose.

3:50 p.m.

The other reason is there is a new poor and it is a poor we all know and see. These are people who never expected to be poor in their lives. They did all the right things, went to the right schools, thought they had good jobs, belonged to unions, and thought they were protected from layoffs. Those people are the new poor. What they have done is bring a whole new vulnerability into our society. There is a whole new sense it is not just the predictable groups that are poor and that we can just take for granted, but it could be any of us or our sons and daughters. That is why there is a new resonance and a new acceptability for government to move in this area.

Who are the new poor? First, they are invisible in our society because we have developed a structuralized welfare state keeping people in perpetual poverty, but with just enough. We do not have kids with distended stomachs. We do not have people who dress so differently, except for very marginal people such as the bag ladies and bag men on the streets of Toronto. Except for those people, one does not see them.

At a meeting I was at, the member of Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg) said he did not think the problem of the homeless was as serious as people thought it was, because he did not see them. It is true; one does not see them.

When I leave my home and drive through the Beaches, I do not see them. I see them when I am on Dundas Street around Sherbourne or Parliament streets. This is where I see the very poor, the only visible poor in our society. The rest are living in Ontario Housing Corp. housing and therefore are out of our way; or they are living piled up with neighbours, in homes with families who do not have the resources to look after them but who have to look after them because there is no housing for those people. Then we do not see them.

Because of the stigma we place on people who are poor in our society, they do not make themselves evident. They want to hide, because what they believe, and everything they are told in our society, is that if you do not succeed here you will succeed nowhere and therefore you are a failure. They are told this is the land of milk and honey and if they would show some gumption they would do fine. Therefore, they do not show themselves.

They are the same poor they have always been. They are women. They are disabled. They are people on welfare. They are ex-psychiatric patients. Now, as well, they are older workers who have worked for many years, never expecting to be laid off. They are young people who have never had a job in the three years since they have been out of the education system and who now do not believe the beer ads they see on TV that tell us we all can and should have homes away from home in the Muskokas with every kind of gizmo imaginable to rely on.

They are also the new vulnerable people. The new vulnerable people are linked to the new poor. They are steel workers who do not know what is going to happen to their plants. We have seen plants shut down that no one ever suspected would be shut down. They wonder if they are next.

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America wonder the same thing. There are the machinists. They are highly skilled people who thought getting that skilled trade would provide them with some kind of security, and they no longer have it. They are public servants who, when they see what has happened in other provinces, wonder when it is going to happen here.

I want to talk about two phenomena. One is the government's abandonment and the other is the government's permissive allowing of parasites in the system, parasites on the poor, taking no action to stop them victimizing the poor in our society.

The first major thing I want to talk about is housing. I will not go into it in much detail because of what the members have already heard today; a small number of new housing starts announced. We have no way to meet the incredible waiting lists of people who are suffering around this province. They are living in intolerable conditions.

The waiting lists for public housing are so long now that just to get those people who are on them into the present spaces would take three years to clear the lists. This government should have announced a major move in construction of public housing in the throne speech. There is no reason why it could not have done so.

Let us look at government abandonment of these people in terms of their incomes. I raised with the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea) a couple of days ago the ludicrous situation of having people who look after children who are not being cared for by their own families given more money than families in economic difficulties who look after their own children.

I pointed to the fact that in Ontario a mother with three children at the maximum shelter allowance would receive $699 a month if she were on general welfare and $800 a month if she were on family benefits. Yet, if her child were taken from her for a number of reasons, many of which, as children's aid societies will tell us, are founded on money and the incapacity to find other options, and she gave those children over to a foster parent and they had no other exceptional problems, that foster parent would receive $1,239 a month to look after those kids. The difference in a year is $5,268.

Think of what that mother could have provided for her children. Think of how the home could have been stabilized. Think of the services she might have purchased in order to be able to keep those children with her in the natural home, and yet we do not have that kind of an emphasis in our policy.

I also want to mention the whole anomaly of the handicapped and the single elderly in what we give them in pensions. How is it that at this stage in 1984 we can still find it acceptable for the handicapped single to receive $150 to $160 a month less than the single senior citizen to live on? They are going to be handicapped for the rest of their lives, just as senior citizens will be old for the rest of their lives.

They are in need of more money because they have special kinds of problems. We provide prosthetic devices for some but not for others, and then we pay only three quarters of that amount.

I have a case handed to me by the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) of a person who was working with the March of Dimes in a work program. She was injured on the job. She fought for and got compensation payments. Those compensation payments are only three quarters of the earnings she had while she was working with the March of Dimes and she had an income there that was so low it was supplemented by family benefits. Because she is now on Workers' Compensation Board benefits at three quarters of what she received, she is not eligible for that family benefit. She has been cut off from it now. It is an absolutely ludicrous kind of anomaly in terms of basic income support needs.

We have the case of a welfare system that needs a total overhaul, where a welfare administrator in one community can provide the first and last month's rent to help people with housing, yet in the next community a few miles away an administrator will not give either the first or last month's rent but will put all sorts of impediments in the way of an applicant.

When I was in London, there was a debate in city council of the notion that if we were to increase our welfare rates and discretionary powers to aid the people who were there, people would flock to us from other areas and we would have all the poor to look after who were not our poor there in London, the home of millionaires. This kind of ethic develops at the municipal level.

We have a welfare rate system based on the property tax, which is ludicrous and which keeps it low at all times. We have the question of support services being cut back to the point of abandonment. Not only do we leave these people with less money than they should have, we also do not provide them with proper services.

I am thinking of the takeover of the Family and Children's Services of the District of Kenora under the ruse of children being at risk -- very much the ruse of them being at risk. We had the government move in because the two parties were in financial disagreement. All the work done since then by the minister's people has been to investigate financial problems. They are doing very little to investigate quality of care. The same kind of threat is being put to the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa-Carleton. The Children's Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto cut back programs it did not wish to cut.

Just at a time when we need more programs for the people these societies are servicing, we are having cutbacks.

Who is it we are cutting back from? I refer again to the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto analysis of whom it works for: gross annual family income under $8,000, 66 per cent; more than $20,000 a year, 0.34 per cent of its clientele. We are taking away money from the poor when we take away money from these kinds of support services. We continue our process of abandonment.

I see the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) is gone. We have now taken away Ontario student assistance for people with grade 9, grade 10 or grade 11 education who want to go to community colleges to get upgrading, to take courses that will equip them for life in the modem world. As a result, the following is the situation in London. Because of these cutbacks, they now must depend only on the Canada Manpower capacity to get into these programs. The waiting list is 16 months to 18 months long for these people, who are probably the least equipped educationally in terms of participating in our modern society. It is the least equipped we take money away from.

4 p.m.

I would like to refer to our abandonment of the older workers. SKF Canada is a very hard thing for me to deal with because I deal with it on a regular and personal basis in regard to people in my riding who come into my office on a regular basis. The latest information on those people who lost their jobs two and a half years ago is as follows:

Thirty-six per cent of the employees are still without full-time work. Their average age is now 53. Sixty-three per cent of the women are without full-time work after two and a half years. We have abandoned them. Sixty-four per cent of these unemployed workers are receiving no assistance at all from government. They are eating up their family savings and digging into their registered retirement savings plans. One welfare administrator told me recently that to get welfare one of these older workers would have to give up his RRSP, which is his future.

These people are going through incredible stress. It is not only the ones who are unemployed, but also the ones who are employed because they have no job security, which they thought they had before. They have gone through an incredible deskilling. Fifty-five per cent of those who are working are using fewer skills than they used to use at SKF. Only 21 per cent are at the higher skill level.

What does that mean in terms of families? It means 36 per cent of those people are without any kind of hope for the future. They have now been almost three years without anything, and there is no sign that government gives a damn about them. They are now being sloughed off like the rest of them. They are eating up everything they have worked for in those years because they are not eligible for any kind of government assistance. They are expected to be happy and they are not. Their families are disintegrating, their health problems are increasing at a very frightening rate and we have abandoned them.

If one looks at the working poor and how we have abandoned them, one has to go no further than the people my leader the member for York South (Mr. Rae), the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) and I have pointed out. They are the people who are already relatively lowly paid, the nursing home workers in Ontario who now, through contracting-out processes, are perhaps being asked to come back to jobs at $4.50 an hour because the nursing home owners do not want to pay the $7 or $8 an hour they finally earned after many years when they became unionized.

The government is doing nothing to help those women. It wants to wait for the Ontario Labour Relations Board to make decisions rather than understanding that the situation is totally unjust and that we should amend the Employment Standards Act immediately to stop it. Again, the most vulnerable worker is being left with nothing.

What are we doing in terms of the working poor with regard to their access to a better tax system to help them, to give them some incentive to work, if we think the work ethic is so important? What are we doing in terms of premium assistance? Many of them are not eligible for it. Many others who are eligible are not told about it and are left to languish.

We have the ludicrous situation now in many municipalities across the province of unemployed workers and people on welfare going to their local transportation committees and corporations and asking to travel half-fare or with passes for the unemployed because they cannot afford to go out and look for work. They cannot afford to buy the tickets. Does this government do anything for them? No, it does not. It allows them to be left without protection.

It is not only a passive government we have here in terms of not providing for the poor, but also a government that allows people to victimize and prey upon the very poorest in our society. If there is one thing this government should be ashamed of and should be acting immediately to try to redress, it is what it has allowed to take place over the past years, namely, the development of a whole network of parasites in our society who are feeding off those who are most disadvantaged.

The other day I raised in the House the question of National Money Mart for people who cannot afford to wait two or three days to cash their cheques or who do not have very much identification because of the transient nature of their existence. These people have to go to places to get their cheques cashed and it costs them six per cent to do it. That should be illegal in our province. Why do we not have the Peel example of social assistance cheques deposited directly being used systematically across Ontario?

The basic problem here, of course, is why we do not give them enough money so that, like us here in this chamber, they can make the choice without pressure and without coercion from the financial stress they are feeling to go to one of these places to cash their cheques.

The member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) raised the question of what is happening with this illegal rent rebate system, in which a company has actually set itself up and is allowed to operate in Ontario by charging 50 per cent of what people are legally entitled to get back because they have been overcharged by some landlord who knew exactly what he was doing.

How can we think this is just? I believe the figure the member raised was $150,000 that this person has already made from these people. I do not know how many of those people are poor; I do not know how many of them are among the majority of the poor who are struggling to get by in private housing because they cannot get into public housing, but a number of them must be. Yet we allow it to continue.

Mr. Philip: It shows how many illegal rents there are.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: As the member for Etobicoke says, it also shows how many illegal rents there are.

There is Jobmart. Jobmart is now finding itself to be relatively unsuccessful. This is a job location firm that has been operating around Ontario that charges people a fee for finding them a job.

This government has done nothing to try to put them out of business. What put them out of business is the fact that word of mouth got around that they were not any better at getting them jobs than Employment and Immigration Canada was, so why go and spend the extra money? Or it may have been because workers in London went and picketed in front of those offices on a regular basis and then said they would set up a free service for people, and that put them out of business.

But the government allowed it to take place. The government did not see anything wrong with developing this kind of profiteering system in Ontario, with this kind of parasite coming to leech off those people who were feeling most vulnerable, who were most desperate to try to get themselves some work and who were not being properly assisted by government programs, federal or provincial.

We have the situation where Workers' Compensation Board victims go to people for assistance and find out, as they do if they go to the Disabled Workers of Ontario, that there is a membership fee of $20 to be paid and then there is an initial consultation of $50 to be paid; then they will take the person's case and charge him 10 per cent of what he gets back, of what he deserved in the first place. It is not happening just with that group; there is a group in Hamilton as well, the Independent Workers' Consultants, that uses a similar kind of system.

Why is this happening? It is because we are not giving enough money to the community legal clinics to provide them with enough staff to help these people. These people should not have to pay anything; they should not have to pay for what they rightfully will be getting back. These parasites should not be able to feed on them.

I learned just recently of three cases in Ottawa, of which the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) is well aware in that he received letters from the social planning council there many months ago about a blacklisting operation which promises to tell landlords who are the bad tenants and who are the bad risks. They do it on a computerized list and mail it out to everybody. It operates in Vancouver now, it is in Montreal and now it is coming into Ontario as well.

A great ad was placed in one of the local papers, which stated: "Landlords, before you let, protect against renting to tenants who might pass bad cheques, create excessive cleaning costs, harbour unauthorized tenants, cause you lost rent, damage the building, leave the building without giving the traditional 30 days' notice." This kind of service, this kind of blacklist that is available to landlords in Ottawa is a notion of what this service would be, and it will no doubt spread around the rest of the province without anyone having access to the list to know if his name is on it and with no expungement process even if there is something about it that is unfair and inequitable.

The government has not moved. The government allows these kinds of parasites to continue to exist and to proliferate in Ontario. Why do we not have laws to protect workers who, as I found out in Thunder Bay when I was there, applied for a full-time job at a restaurant, but because there were 250 applicants, the owner decided to change the full-time job to a couple of part-time positions with no benefits? How is it that we allow this to take place in Ontario?

Victimization is taking place and is happening to women on a systematic basis across this province at the moment.

4:10 p.m.

We allow sheltered workshops to exist where people are paid a pittance, even if they are capable of earning much more than the minimum wage, in order to subsidize private enterprise. Companies go there to get things packaged for very minimal cost so they can make a profit in the novelties' field or something around the province.

The government is in league with businesses that pay young people terrible amounts of money -- $100 of provincial money a week on the Ontario career action program. It has not changed that for years. It pays young people $100 a week to work for somebody for a limited length of time. After that time the employer gets rid of that person and then becomes eligible to hire students again. We support that kind of process, as does the federal government with its program of supposedly helping people with affirmative action.

Once it is no longer economically viable totally or partially to rip off that system, the employer stops. Often the employer goes back to the head of the list of those who can employ again. Our government supports that kind of thing.

The other thing I would raise with the minister, who has just entered, is the whole question of what is usury in real terms? What are we going to do to counteract the use of credit cards and the push for those who cannot afford it to use credit cards that is being promoted in our consumer society? We heard cases from credit counsellors across the province where department stores like Woolco were charging people 32 per cent interest. That is not usury in the definition in the law books, but by god, it is total victimization of people who cannot afford that sort of thing.

We have credit counselling agencies for the new poor who are on social assistance. If the new poor come in with debts, the agencies throw up their hands and say: "There is nothing we can do. All we can do is write your creditors and tell them you cannot afford to pay anything." There are credit counselling agencies funded by this government that do not even allow people on social assistance in the door because they do not believe they can help them when they have been victimized and caught in the system of the economic disasters that have been brought on us.

The government will argue there is no money there. We have heard it any number of times. They argue they cannot afford to continue to dump money into poverty programs. The percentage amount we put into poverty programs has not changed over the last decade; it has not changed one iota. This government can talk about building a domed stadium at the same time that it does not continue to dump money into poverty programs. The percentage amount we put into poverty programs has not changed over the last decade; it has not changed one iota.

This government can talk about building a domed stadium at the same time that it does not give money to the poor. This government can actually talk about its one major housing project, fallout shelters, so we can all incinerate ourselves together if there is a nuclear war, but it does not have money for the poor.

We have money for the salaries of members, to protect ourselves from the cost of inflation. We have money for doctors, who have the most powerful union in this province, but we do not have enough money for the poor. We have money to put into family time capsules. That is probably a good thing because if we do not provide real family support services to families around the province, all we will have is a memory of what families were by the year 2010 or whenever it is those are supposed to be dug up. We can remember the year of the Loyalists and spend money on that, but we cannot redress the basic inequality in our system.

I would suggest the trickle-up system is as good as the trickle-down system. We are not going to have people who are being given this money spending it in Florida on condominiums or outside the country in other kinds of investments, as we see when we give breaks to big business. I would suggest it is time we had a major redress of that situation.

In my research I pulled out an interesting document, thanks to the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) who keeps these things on the public file longer than most. This is the last thing I ever saw the government do on poverty in any major way, without some of the fiddling it did later. It was a presentation to the Senate committee on poverty made by the Honourable John Yaremko and his deputy minister. Although a lot of it was a cover-your-posterior kind of approach to why, at that point, the government was not doing as much as it could on poverty, there were some incredible lines in it.

This is a definition of poverty. "A social assistance payment based on need is also a definition of a minimal acceptable standard of living or a poverty line." In other words, the government decides on an appropriate social assistance level. Anybody below that is in poverty, but anybody above that is fine. That means we would have no poor. I think that policy has obviously been followed up.

It is fascinating as well in that he talked about education as being the means of getting kids out of the cyclical poverty line, We know that has not happened. Children from the same families are the same poor, and education by itself has not done that.

One major thing he talked about, which I thought was useful and which was never acted upon, was the need to have a greater interaction between the working poor and the taxation and social assistance system. He also said it was time for "a re-evaluation of the existing income maintenance structure."

I say to the minister it is now time to do that. It is time to get rid of all the anomalies and anachronisms in our social assistance structure. It is time for us to look at some real ways of providing incentives to the working poor, so they will want to continue to work and continue to persist in the hope of gaining what the rest of us have, and to help those who are on public assistance to fare better.

It is time to start talking about a new balance of a fair share and a fair chance in global terms. We have not been doing that; we have not addressed that. We have got by through throwing money at groups and not re-evaluating our systems and why they have not worked.

It is time we should have seen in the speech from the throne a challenge to society to set up a new social contract and to get back to a sense of social responsibility. We should not just look after our own best interests. We should understand we have this role and need to look after those who are less fortunate in our society.

Besides a total revamping of the social assistance system -- and I have called for a public review of that in the past -- I again call upon the minister to have that initiated at the earliest opportunity. It should not be a private one done in the ministry. It should be something that is done publicly where we can all look at why the system has not worked and why there are so many who are poor and who are left disadvantaged and abandoned.

We need to have a major increase in our family support programs. We need to bring in flexible retirement ages, as my leader has said. If we brought in that, it would open up all sorts of job opportunities. It would be a new kind of sharing that would take place so that those who wish to retire would be able to afford to.

We need to bring in fully portable pensions, not as something we are going to re-examine for another couple of years, but as something we should be looking at right now. We need to look at some special programs immediately to protect older workers. How can we sit here two and a half years after the SKF workers were laid off, productive members of our society who for 25 and 26 years paid their taxes, knowing