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November 16, 2000

37th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcript 2000-Nov-16 (PDF)

L103 - Thu 16 Nov 2000 / Jeu 16 nov 2000

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

PROTECTION OF CHILDREN ON SCHOOL BUSES ACT, 1999 / LOI DE 1999 SUR LA PROTECTION DES ENFANTS DANS LES AUTOBUS SCOLAIRES

PROTECTION OF AGRICULTURAL AREAS

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES

ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY

MEMBERS' COMPENSATION

DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD OF NIAGARA

VALLEYS 2000

PROFESSION D'ENSEIGNANT / SCHOOLTEACHERS

KARLA MARIA VEGA

SCHOOL BUS SAFETY

PUBLIC SAFETY

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

COMMISSIONERS OF ESTATE BILLS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

CONTINUED PROTECTION FOR PROPERTY TAXPAYERS ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 POURSUIVANT LES MESURES DE PROTECTION DES CONTRIBUABLES FONCIERS

REMEMBRANCE DAY OBSERVANCE AMENDMENT ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR L'OBSERVATION DU JOUR DU SOUVENIR

HUMAN TISSUE GIFT AMENDMENT ACT (TRILLIUM GIFT OF LIFE NETWORK), 2000 / LOI DE 2000 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR LE DON DE TISSUS HUMAINS (RÉSEAU TRILLIUM POUR LE DON DE VIE)

GIOVANNI CABOTO DAY ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR LE JOUR DE GIOVANNI CABOTO

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

ORGAN AND TISSUE DONATION

DEFERRED VOTES

TOUGHEST ENVIRONMENTAL PENALTIES ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SANCTIONNANT PAR LES PEINES LES PLUS SÉVÈRES DES INFRACTIONS DE NATURE ENVIRONNEMENTALE

ORAL QUESTIONS

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

ONTARIO REALTY CORP

LABOUR LEGISLATION

PHARMACARE

LABOUR LEGISLATION

ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY

HYDRO RATES

FORT HENRY

SCHOOL EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

PROPERTY TAXATION

REMEMBRANCE DAY

CANCER TREATMENT

ABANDONED MINES

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANT

FLU IMMUNIZATION

PETITIONS

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANT

REGISTRATION OF VINTAGE CARS

SCHOOL FACILITIES

EDUCATION LABOUR DISPUTE

REGISTRATION OF VINTAGE CARS

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANT

REGISTRATION OF VINTAGE CARS

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

REGISTRATION OF VINTAGE CARS

ORDERS OF THE DAY

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Would it be appropriate at this time to move a motion that the salaries of the cabinet members would be-

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): That is not a point of order. This is private members' hour.

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

PROTECTION OF CHILDREN ON SCHOOL BUSES ACT, 1999 / LOI DE 1999 SUR LA PROTECTION DES ENFANTS DANS LES AUTOBUS SCOLAIRES

Mr Hoy moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 24,

An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act to protect children while on school buses / Projet de loi 24, Loi modifiant le Code de la route en vue de protéger les enfants lorsqu'ils sont dans des autobus scolaires.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): The member has up to 10 minutes to make his presentation.

Mr Pat Hoy (Chatham-Kent Essex): Every school day, more than 810,000 primary and high school students and their parents put their faith in the owners and operators of Ontario's school buses. Every school day parents trust the traditional school bus to transport their children to a place of learning and to deliver them home safely, and every school day more than one family's confidence is shaken by more than one careless driver.

Too many drivers are approaching a stationary yellow school bus with no more consideration than that given to a yellow traffic light, and too many children are paying the price for such reckless behaviour through personal injury or death.

That is the tragedy which shocked my riding, as I know it has shocked several of the ridings represented in this House.

In January 1996, 17-year-old Ryan Marcuzzi, the youngest daughter of Colleen Marcuzzi, who is with us today in the members' gallery, was boarding her school bus when she was struck and killed by a car travelling 80 kilometres an hour. The driver ignored the bus's flashing red lights, extended stop sign and blaring horn from the school bus driver, who was helpless to prevent the impending tragedy.

Twenty-six years ago, Ed and Ginny Loxton faced the same tragedy when their five-year-old daughter was killed by a reckless driver. I am deeply honoured that both families are present here today in the gallery.

With the encouragement and support of both families, the Marcuzzis and the Loxtons, I present Bill 24 for second reading. But I caution the House that Ryan's and Tracey's deaths were not isolated incidents.

Since October 1974, five children have died in my riding at the hands of careless drivers who have ignored the flashing red lights of a school bus. In the past 13 years, at least 13 children have died and more than 80 have been injured in school bus accidents in Ontario. Those children were going to school to prepare for their futures. Instead, their futures were tragically snatched away from them.

Ignoring school bus lights is not a rural Ontario versus urban Ontario problem. It is an Ontario problem.

The last survey carried out by the Ministry of Transportation shows that when a car meets a school bus there is a better than 1-in-20 chance that the driver will attempt an illegal pass.

A bus watch program that operated in the Hamilton-Wentworth area received approximately 40 to 60 complaints per month about motorists who had failed to stop for school buses that were loading and unloading their passengers, even though the red flashing signals were activated. But Hamilton-Wentworth's conviction rate, like similar conviction rates across the province, is only a fraction of what it should be, because the Ontario Highway Traffic Act fails to adequately provide for the safety of children using the school bus system.

The barrier to a conviction is identification. Current law requires that the face of a driver passing a school bus be clearly identified before charges can be laid under the Highway Traffic Act. School bus drivers and other witnesses can often identify the licence plate number, make, model and colour of the offending vehicle, but most cannot see the face of a driver long enough to make a positive identification.

The province of Ontario claims to be tough on lawbreakers and crime. It's time for the Ontario Legislature to protect its children, as they get on and off their school bus, by sending a clear message to drivers that violations of the laws governing the passing of school buses will not be tolerated.

Bill 24 sends that message. Bill 24 attempts to correct the long-standing problem of identifying the drivers of vehicles who recklessly endanger children boarding or leaving school buses. This bill imposes liability on the owner of any vehicle that fails to stop for a school bus with flashing lights.

How serious is the problem? Every year we see story after story of careless drivers who ignore the school bus warning lights. In 1996, a ministry spokesperson told the Toronto Star that 1,100 convictions over a two-year period showed that the problem is being taken seriously. But that's only 550 convictions per year across the entire province. It's nothing but the tip of the iceberg. A 1998 survey in London, Ontario, showed 218 vehicles that passed buses illegally during a four-day police blitz. No, increased fines alone are not a deterrent.

In 1997, in the midst of great publicity about my bill and pressure from parents and school boards, the Minister of Transportation introduced higher fine levels, but with no conviction mechanism, higher fines are left meaningless.

The Ontario Police Association supports my bill. Officers know they don't have the resources to follow 16,000 school buses around their routes twice a day. A local police chief from my riding said that for the safety of students, vehicle plate identification should be allowed for police to link some responsibility to the owner.

The excuse the Minister of Transportation has offered for refusing to protect the children of Ontario is not founded. The minister says he cannot give police powers to school bus drivers, but bus drivers already have those powers under the existing law if they can see the face of the driver clearly enough to identify him. A police officer told me, "This is a red herring." He said there is no reason bus drivers should not have the authority to identify careless vehicles that endanger the lives of children.

Because the ministry does not compile statistics on reported violations, we do not have an accurate ratio of convictions to violations, but school bus drivers tell us that they are passed illegally twice per shift. There are 16,000 school buses in Ontario. At two violations per shift-I'll leave it to the House to do the math. You can see for yourselves that the ministry does not have a hand on the problem. They barely have their finger on the pulse.

With limited resources, the police are stretched to the limit and cannot mount the type of regular blitzes needed to catch violators under the provisions of the existing Highway Traffic Act. They cannot follow 16,000 buses around daily. That's why the Ontario Police Association supports Bill 24. They say my bill is "a positive step toward ensuring the safety of school children in Ontario".

The principle of vehicle liability is not new to Ontario. All parking tickets are issued using the principle of vehicle liability. Photo radar worked on this premise. Not only that, but the collection of tolls along Highway 407 works on the same principle of vehicle liability, as do parking violations, and all commercial vehicle infractions are enforced through the principle of vehicle liability. The precedent has already been set by this government by the implementation of red-light cameras. Justice will not be denied because of vehicle liability. It is simple enough to show your innocence if you are not guilty.

Owners must act more responsibly to identify the driver who has endangered the life of a child. If this government can consider making a parent responsible for the actions of their child, how can it refuse to make an owner responsible for his or her own vehicle?

The question then becomes, how can we justify the idea of vehicle liability for collecting tolls, parking fines, red-light cameras or flying truck tires if we're not prepared, as legislators, to extend the practice for the protection of our children?

Owning and operating a motor vehicle remains a privilege and not an automatic right in the province of Ontario. With this privilege comes responsibility and accountability. In instances such as those outlined in Bill 24, vehicle liability is both fair and just in asking that the vehicle owner either accept responsibility for operating their motor vehicle or identify the driver who was operating said vehicle at the time of the violation so that the province can seek accountability.

Bill 24 does not attempt to unfairly penalize a vehicle owner. The vehicle itself must be properly identified to the satisfaction of the court, and an owner who can prove that a driver other than himself was in control of the vehicle would not be charged. Only owners who fail to identify a driver will face a fine. Drivers will face the government's increased fine levels, plus the crown will be permitted to ask for application of up to six demerit points under the provisions of the existing law. In either case there will be a conviction, and only then will there be a real deterrent.

Bill 24 is not an attack on civil liberties. Ask the parents of a dead child whose liberties have been breached when an offender is shielded by an inadequate law. Nonetheless, the bill has been carefully written under the exact same language as other government vehicle liability bills.

The law specifically states that when a vehicle approaches a school bus with red lights flashing from either the back or the front, the vehicle must come to a complete stop. It does not say, "Proceed with caution," nor does it say that the driver may proceed if he or she believes the road to be clear. It says, "Stop." But the law is virtually unenforceable without the changes in Bill 24. It serves the overriding public interest because it protects a particularly vulnerable group. Bill 24 will result in the protection of Ontario's children who are riding buses, without eroding civil rights of Ontario drivers.

These are our children calling for protection. I ask the members of this House to answer that call and pass Bill 24 into law.

Mr Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North): It's a pleasure to be here this morning, allowing me the opportunity to speak to Bill 24. I would like to thank the member for Chatham-Kent Essex for continuing to bring this issue to the forefront of this Legislature. I know this is the second time the member has brought forward this bill, and I think it is an excellent bill at helping to improve the safety of our children.

The reason I say that is, as I mentioned to Mr Hoy a few weeks ago, my family had a tragedy concerning a school bus as well, and I would like to put on Hansard just a bit of the history behind it and why I feel we always have to continue to improve the public safety, particularly with respect to school buses. It happened 30 years ago. I had a seven-year-old sister. Her name was Jill; in fact, I named my daughter after her. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon in February. The roads were clear. Five children were getting off the school bus at this one location-another sister and brother, and two neighbour children.

It was on Highway 12, a fairly busy highway even in the winter, but today that highway has been bypassed and the 400 extension goes up that way with a four-lane highway right through to, I believe, close to Parry Sound now.

Five kids were ready to get off the bus, and my sister, the one who was seven years old, was the first off. She jumped off the bus and immediately a car, at high speed, passed the bus on the passenger side and killed her instantly. If there was a good thing about the story, it is that there could have been five children killed at that point. I wanted to bring that to the attention of the House. I know my parents never really got over that time, and I can sympathize very much with the people in the gallery today, the loss they've had.

It was a terrible tragedy, particularly when it was one of those weekends that we were all ready to go out to a hockey tournament over in Elmvale, which was like a local war area with hockey wars. It sort of destroyed that weekend, but it took a lot out of our whole family for a lot of years.

I have been an advocate of public safety on school buses. When I see Mr Hoy's bill, I think any attempt at all at helping to improve public safety with respect to school buses is very important.

Through rural Ontario, we have literally hundreds of thousands of miles of roads where school buses travel for different boards of education. I think there are close to a million children in Ontario who travel on school bus routes on a daily basis. I've heard of cases even on side roads, small concession roads, little township roads or county roads-I'm not even talking about highways-many times where accidents have almost happened. I wanted to put that on Hansard this morning.

I think Mr Hoy deserves credit for trying to bring forth improved legislation. I know there are problems in some of the technicalities that we may or may not agree with as a government, but I want you to know that I support the intent of this legislation this morning. I congratulate Mr Hoy for bringing it forward, and I appreciate the opportunity to put on Hansard the story of my own personal loss with respect to public transit and school buses in our province.

Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex): I'm pleased today to have an opportunity to participate in the debate on my colleague's Bill 24, an attempt to amend the Highway Traffic Act as it affects school buses.

I'm touched by the story that was just told by our colleague from Simcoe North. We have the Marcuzzi and Loxton families with us here this morning, so we have three very graphic pieces of evidence as to why we should support this bill. This bill has been debated twice in this Legislature. It has been presented four times by my colleague, and each time it has died a death on the order paper.

I think it's time we thought about what my colleague has said, the reasons for this bill, and more will be said about it as we debate over the remaining part of the hour. But it's time we made that attempt all of us feel should be made. What we're going to need, of course, is the support of not only those of us in the Legislature this morning-because I suspect that if this bill has passed once on second reading, then there's no reason why it should not pass again. But beyond that, we need the support of each of us, and we need to contact other members of the Legislature to get this bill through committee.

We know that on private members' business there can be on a number of occasions good intent expressed and yet the initiative seems to die there. We can't let this happen to Bill 24. We have to encourage each of our colleagues to encourage the House leader of the government to see that this bill passes through committee and comes back to us for third reading.

My colleague has pointed out the apparent concern of the government with the operator liability side of it, and yet has given very simple examples that we all understand where drivers aren't identified when it comes to offences as simple as parking tickets. We had photo radar a couple of years ago where tickets were issued and convictions and payments made for those offences through a case where there was no driver identification. Right now we have cameras on 407. More recent was the introduction of red-light cameras. Technology has to be used.

We're in an age of technology, and to use this driver identification as an excuse I don't think is one that each of us really wants to show much support for.

It is time we got to the real intent of this, and that's the safety of our children. I've even had some mention to me-and I spoke with my colleague-that a management person from a bus company down my way suggested, "Well, rather than putting the onus on bus drivers to carry out such a law as this, we should put some of the onus on children." I agree we should continue in our schools to educate our children about bus safety.

I'm sure that goes on all the time and I'm sure these students go out with that knowledge, but my wife often told me, as our children were growing up, that it's difficult to put an adult's head on a teenager's shoulders or on a younger person's shoulders. In fact, because we have evidence of passing school buses, I'm not so sure that adults even have this on their minds all the time.

Along with education, we all have to get behind this bill. It's a good bill. It doesn't deserve to die on the order paper again because, as it sits, our students, our children, our young people are at risk. All we're asking for is everyone's co-operation so that we can make our streets safer for our kids. Support this bill and help this get through committee so we can bring it back and pass it.

Mr Rosario Marchese (Trinity-Spadina): Because there are only a few members in the Legislature this morning, I want to speak to the Ontario electorate directly. You will remember that when this Conservative-Reform government wants to go after some scapegoat, they have no problem being tough and establishing themselves as the real law-and-order government. They've got no problem going after squeegee kids, as they did a couple of years ago, when we in Toronto and I in my riding had a lot of squeegee kids working for just a couple of pennies. Peter Kormos would give them a buck or two. Others would give them a quarter. No problem.

The Tories came here talking about, "Oh, my God, the problems we've got with squeegee kids. We've got to clean the streets of the squeegee kids." No problem getting tough on them. Then they passed a Victims' Bill of Rights because, they said victims need protection. We have a ruling from Judge Day, who said there were no rights in the Victims' Bill of Rights. In fact, their own government lawyers admitted that they were simply statements being made in that so-called Victims' Bill of Rights but no rights specifically. Their own lawyers argued like that. They've got no problem saying, "We are for victims," pretending they're giving them rights, and then they get nothing.

They have no problem being tough, again, when they say imitation guns are a problem, but 18-year-olds can buy them and then carry them, as if that doesn't pose a threat to a policeman when he sees some imitation gun or something that in his mind is a gun. It doesn't matter whether it's a 12-year-old or an 18-year-old; it's an imitation gun that looks like a gun. Peter Kormos quite correctly said, "Get rid of the"-

Hon Margaret Marland (Minister without Portfolio [Children]): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The standing orders require that we speak to the matter before us. This member has not yet mentioned either the bill or the subject of the bill, and I ask you to bring that to his attention.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. Of course it is a point of order that you need to speak to the bill. I thought the member was.

Mr Marchese: Thank you, Speaker. I appreciate the ruling. She wasted a couple of minutes of my time, but that's OK. She was making a point for me. I appreciate that.

So an imitation gun is an imitation gun, and it's dangerous to the police men and women working in the force, because they can't distinguish between an imitation gun and a real gun. So quite correctly, Peter Kormos said, "We've got to get rid of all imitation guns if they are dangerous, no matter who buys them and no matter how old they are." Oh, but not for this government. They were going to be tough. Now, as my good buddy Peter Kormos once again said, we've got Project Pee against the welfare recipients.

We're going to test them, and we're going to make sure they're not on drugs, and if they are, oh, man, are we going to go after them, because we're here, we love them and we want to help them. Project Pee at work; tough on crime, once again.

The Conservatives hate this kind of way of addressing the issue, because they want to be seen as the real law-and-order types, the ones who really fight for victims. Yet we've got a bill here from the member for Chatham-Kent Essex, a bill that's designed to protect kids, and the government says, "We can't support that." One member stood up and said, "Yes, I had experiences of this in my life, and I think it's important. We're going to support this." Where is the rest of the government? This bill was introduced in 1996. It went to committee and was never dealt with. It was deferred and deferred and never dealt with.

When the government prorogued the Legislature at that time, they passed three of their own private members' bills, but they couldn't find it in their own hearts to worry about the children and support the bill the member for Chatham-Kent Essex introduced. They couldn't find the time to do it. They found it in their hearts to be able to pass three private members' bills introduced by the Conservative government, but not that bill.

So it comes back, and I'm convinced we'll have more than one member saying, "Oh, this is a very good bill. It's an important bill and I support it personally." But they can't collectively, as a government, pick it up and make it their own instead of making it die, putting it in limbo, in committee, and never calling it forward to be debated.

What a shameful piece of work this Conservative government is, this government that is so tough on crime. Yet when they get a bill here-it's an easy bill to understand: the bus driver stops, there's a stop sign, a whole lot of people go through it, endangering the lives of many people and-

Interjection.

Mr Marchese: What is it? I couldn't hear.

People drive through that stop sign, drive by that bus when kids are getting on and off, endangering the lives of those children, and the government doesn't see fit to pass it, to give the power to the driver to be able to simply identify the licence plate, as opposed to the existing law that says not only must you identify the licence plate but you must identify the driver.

How is a bus driver able to identify a passing driver who goes at a quick speed through that stop sign, when the driver is so concerned and so worried and horrified about what might have happened that he or she has to lift his or her eyes at the spur of the moment from the accident to where the car is, 20, 30, 40 yards away or farther, and identify the driver? How is the driver able to identify the offending person? They can't. That's why there are no charges laid. That's why there are, if any, a few charges that have been laid.

I'm not sure many have been laid, because nobody can identify the offending person who drove through that stop sign, but that's obvious.

What's so profoundly obvious is when you look at the hypocritical response with what this government has done with the red-light cameras that the Conservatives allowed Toronto Mayor Mel to install; they work the same way. The licence plates of cars running a red light are identified and car owners are then charged. It's the same principle. The Tories are not listening, the few who are here, but it's the same principle. That's why I speak to you directly. They've permitted Mayor Mel to have the power to deal with red-light cameras for those who speed through red lights.

Mayor Mel was on television the other day saying, "You weren't the driver, your car, too bad." That's what Mayor Mel said. The same principle ought to apply here. The same principle these Reform Tories permitted Mayor Mel to have, which is a good thing, I argue by extension should be permitted here with the proposal brought forth by the member from Chatham-Kent.

It is even more hypocritical, I argue, that Conservatives have no problem with the for-profit Highway 407 operators photographing vehicle licence plates and then assessing user fees against the vehicle. It is the same principle. That's why I argue it is hypocritical when M. Turnbull, the minister, is quoted as saying, "The bill is well-intentioned, but the idea of giving police powers to the bus drivers I don't think is appropriate." That's what he said.

It is appropriate for some person to run through that stop sign, endangering the lives of children in many cases. We know that in the past 13 years, at least 13 children have died and over 80 have been injured. That's OK. It is OK to go after squeegee kids. It is OK to introduce a victims' bill of rights that has no rights. It is OK to do a number of other things that you have done, like the red light cameras that contradict the position you are taking and continue to argue, as Mr Turnbull, "It is well-intentioned, but the idea of giving police powers to the bus drivers I don't think is appropriate." It offends me that Mr Turnbull argues this way.

You offend me, government members, that you weren't able to pass this bill in 1996. I'm convinced the six of you who are here will pass this bill today, and I'm convinced it will go to committee once again. But I don't know whether you will do what you did in 1996, and that is not bring it forward for debate once again. That's what frightens me.

I'm surprised that there aren't more of the victims who have been able to convince you that what you are doing is wrong, that what you are not doing is profoundly wrong, that so many victims have been able to persuade you to do things so that you can claim how tough you are on disorder, on acts of violence against victims, where in actual fact you do so very little.

Here is an opportunity to say to the families who are here, the Marcuzzi and Loxton families, that you are profoundly committed to the idea that this thing can be avoided, these incidents and these tragic deaths can be avoided and that you are going to be taking steps to make sure this thing will never happen again. I hope these families have been able to convince you in some small way, and I hope other victims will keep on calling you to expose your contradictions and to expose your hypocrisy. But I hope on this matter you will do something.

I'm going to be leaving three minutes of my time to my colleague from Niagara Centre so that he can then complete this debate.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate? The member for Brampton-Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford. I am very sorry.

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is always a pleasure to speak in front of you. I certainly understand what the member is trying to accomplish here today. When I started out this morning, the first thing I did was I drove my children to their bus stop, my two young daughters, and made sure they got on the bus and made sure I looked at who was behind that bus to make sure they weren't doing anything and traffic wasn't coming forward. It is a very important issue.

As the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education, I want the public to know that under the Education Act school boards are not obligated to provide transportation for their students. But where a board does provide transportation, the province makes funding available to the board to help support that service. Boards are responsible to parents, students and taxpayers for setting their student transportation policies, because it's a very important issue.

The member is proposing a bill to amend the Highway Traffic Act to increase fines and place liability on vehicle owners rather than the drivers in instances where drivers pass school buses illegally. What we're dealing with here is obviously a matter of form and a matter of procedure.

Safe transportation of Ontario children is a priority of this government. Over 920,000 students travel in school buses each day. It is a tragedy whenever a child is killed or injured in this province and we need to do everything we can to keep children on school buses safe. Our government has taken a leadership role in targeting drivers who illegally pass school buses. We have doubled fines for illegally passing a school bus from July 1997. The first offence is a $2,000 maximum; a subsequent offence is a $4,000 maximum, possible imprisonment and a loss of six demerit points.

The issue is that as we shift liability to vehicle owners rather than the drivers, it would ignore the use of effective sanctions such as demerit points and increased insurance rates, but that's something that has to be considered. That is something that is to be looked at in the overall scheme of what we're trying to accomplish here, because the overall accomplishment here-and I respect the member from the other side-is to ensure the safety of our school children who travel on buses.

To shift the liability to vehicle owners, to make them responsible, is not as direct as to make the driver responsible, in terms of changing the behaviour of the driver who is responsible. This government believes that the illegal passing of school buses is a form of aggressive driving, and changing driver behaviour is critical to improving road safety. That is why the Ministry of Transportation created the Advisory Group on Safe Driving. Representation in this group comes from a wide range of road user-safety groups. The advisory group provides advice on aggressive driving.

They look at matters related to public education and marketing, a review of the rules of the road and aggressive driving research programs.

There are community safety programs that have been set up between communities and bus drivers to report incidents of illegal passing. There is also a bus watch program in Hamilton-Wentworth and a road watch program in Durham; the member from Durham is going to be speaking on this shortly. School bus operators, school boards and police work co-operatively. Letters are sent to owners of vehicles seen passing school buses illegally. Additional enforcement options include visits by police, charges and increased police enforcement at problem locations.

The member opposite obviously feels strongly about this. We all feel strongly about this. I think the process that has to be followed is to make sure that what we put in place is the most effective means. This is another measure that I know the member opposite is looking to put into place. It has to be reviewed. It has its pros and cons in terms of whom you're targeting. But certainly anyone who has a child, anyone who is responsible with respect to the safety of anyone on the road, must take this situation seriously. We must look at all measures to make sure we get at the party who is responsible for this. Obviously there is a vehicle and obviously there is a driver that's involved in this.

I want to say this personally: the member's intentions are respected. This is something that has to be considered very seriously. I'm going to give up my time to the member from Durham. I know he takes this issue very seriously. I want to reiterate that this is a priority of the government: the safety of school children who use our public transportation system via the school board or via the municipality.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands): I really don't know what the last member was saying. Is he in favour of the bill or is he not in favour of the bill? It is totally erroneous to suggest that there is a shifting of responsibility here. If you read the bill itself, sir, it clearly states that only in those cases where the driver cannot be identified is there a vehicle liability on the owner.

There is not a shifting of responsibility; there is a placing of the responsibility in cases where drivers cannot be identified. In those cases what this bill is saying is that the owner will be held responsible and on a first conviction will be fined $1,000 to $2,000, and on a subsequent conviction $2,000 to $3,000.

I've got to congratulate the member from Chatham-Kent Essex for bringing this forward. He has brought this bill forward four times in the past four years; as a matter of fact almost four years to the date this House unanimously endorsed the original Bill 78. It went to committee and it died on the order paper. He brought it forth on two subsequent occasions, in 1998 and 1999, and now he is bringing it forward again.

I hope all of us collectively will put pressure on our House leaders, that if this House is convinced that a bill is worthwhile putting into law, we get away from this notion that just before the House prorogues, we only approve two government bills and two opposition bills. If bills make sense, if they are for the welfare of the people of Ontario, and if this House is in favour of the bills, why don't we just pass them all? There shouldn't be these artificial limits at the end of a session whereby we say, "I guess we will pick two from the government side and two from the opposition side and two from the NDP, and that's it."

This is a good bill. There are already many other examples where there is vehicle liability in effect. As we've heard, it applies to parking tickets, toll roads and commercial vehicles. Why don't we do it in the one area where it's going to save the lives of our children?

I was very much taken with the comments that were made by the member from Simcoe North. What he said was so correct. Those of us who haven't been involved in those kinds of situations can't even imagine it. He said his parents were affected for the rest of their lives by the death of their seven-year-old daughter, who was run over as a result of a car passing a stopped school bus; his young seven-year-old sister died some number of years ago. Those of us who haven't been involved in those kinds of circumstances can't imagine the tremendous, traumatic effect it has on the lives of the individuals who are affected by it in one way or another.

Surely if there is one thing we can do to bring home to the general public, more than has been the case in the past, that there is a responsibility not only on the driver of a vehicle but also on an owner of a vehicle, it is that when they allow somebody else to drive that vehicle, there's a responsibility on them that that vehicle will be driven in a safe fashion, and if that's not the case, then maybe the owner of the vehicle should be held responsible.

Let me make it absolutely clear that the gobbledegook we've heard from the other side so far, other than from the member from Simcoe North-"Yes, we're all interested in the safety of children, and yes, we're all interested in a great education system," and whatever else they said-is all true, but this bill is about one thing and one thing only, and that is that if a driver of a vehicle who passes a stopped school bus with its flashing lights on cannot be identified, only in those circumstances, the owner of that vehicle will be held responsible for the actions of that vehicle at that time.

It is not shifting responsibility but it is putting responsibility on the owner of a vehicle if a driver cannot be identified. That's all this bill is about.

I would urge the members of this House to support this bill once again, as we did in 1996, and to put individual pressure on our House leaders to make sure this bill gets third reading. As the minister of children's services-who was in the House earlier and I know will be back shortly-said earlier in a comment to the member from the NDP, this is a good bill. If this is a good bill, I urge her to fight within cabinet for the children she represents in her ministry and get this bill passed, given third reading and effect.

Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): First, I applaud Mr Hoy for his tenacity, his perseverance and his passion around this issue. I deplore the inaction with respect to this issue, which has been raised time and time again by Mr Hoy.

I listened very carefully to the comments of the member from Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford, who is the parliamentary assistant to something. I read between the lines, and quite frankly I'm not overwhelmed by what I infer from what he had to say. This government's response-we're talking about little people. We're talking about kids. We're talking about youngsters like those kids up there. And we're talking about people who, surely, when they ignore those flashing lights and the stop signs, are culpable of attempted murder or, at the very least, criminal negligence. That's what's happening and that's what has happened and that's what's going to continue to happen.

What does this government do? They want to send letters to the owners of the cars saying, "Please, don't do this any more." Good God, kids have gotten whacked, taken out, killed, and so many others maimed and injured.

Clearly the bussing of children has increased dramatically, not just in rural areas but in urban areas as well. The age of youngsters using those buses, because of preschool and junior kindergarten and so on, has become younger and younger. The phenomenon of road rage and aggressive driving has become more and more critical.

Enough playing around with our kids' safety and well-being. Enough treating this offence as if somehow it ranks along with other provincial misdemeanours like maybe speeding by five kilometres an hour or going through an amber light when you should have stopped. Let's treat this immediately as the incredibly serious thing it is, and let's send a message out there to drivers and vehicle owners that in Ontario we care enough about our kids to get really tough on people who endanger kids' lives while those kids are doing the most innocent of things, to wit, disembarking from a school bus.

It is not unprecedented to have this form of vicarious liability within the Highway Traffic Act. It exists in several other sections. In this instance there's a rebuttable presumption because the owner can testify and/or prove that he or she wasn't the driver, and in the course of that identify the driver, as they should.

Let's get with it. This government has got to do more than play the political game of saying, "Oh, yes, we think it's a good bill; however, it's going to disappear into legislative orbit," which is what they've done so often with so many good bills from opposition members. Pass the bill. Send it to committee, one day of committee hearings, and get it passed into law.

Mr John O'Toole (Durham): I would first like to pay my respects to the Marcuzzi and Loxton families in the gallery today. You have my complete understanding.

With respect to Mr Hoy's bill, I've watched it, as has been stated, over the time it has been here. This is the second time it has been debated. Certainly no one can disagree with the emotional intent.

On a technical level, I'm only going to raise one small point in the brief time I have. I think the member from Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford mentioned it, but the member from Simcoe North attached the real sentimental value to the bill that I want to remain as my observation and support of the bill.

On the other side of it, when the member from Trinity-Spadina was talking in political jargon and rhetoric, he mentioned the point that the driver who passed the bus-in fact, that's the whole issue of this bill, and the problem I have with it is that it's like Big Brother. Let's keep in mind here that we don't want a society where there's a whole computer-model, red-light radar, whatever, looking after us. We need to take responsibility personally. It's a matter of enforcement in this particular case.

So the issue that is defined here is, are we after the vehicle or are we after the driver by stopping the vehicle, the wrong vehicle? I want to address very briefly that issue. Once I've been accused of something I get a lawyer, and I then spend money defending my rights. If it's a civil or criminal issue, those responsibilities to defend yourself aren't taken lightly. In most cases there are police officers, sworn officers of the court and of the judicial system.

To have a lay citizen in a case where there's an accusation made who is spending money defending-that's the whole issue here-and he is found to be exonerated, who pays the lawyer's bills? If somebody maliciously wants to impugn him by saying, "Your driver's licence was noticed at this sign," and seven years later, after the legal fee battle is over, they find out that wasn't the case, it was a mistaken identification, then you really end up with a situation-

Mr Kormos: Weasel words.

Mr O'Toole: They're not weasel words. In fact, your words are weasels. I believe that we are after the driver, the irresponsible driver.

Mr Hoy, I do support the sentiment of the bill. But by the same token it's the very same thing that, if you mentioned it, red light running, the particular case that Mr Colle will be addressing, in my view is a case where there is some opportunity to increase public safety.

The photo radar issue: clearly, putting police on the road and stopping aggressive driving is the more important solution.

With the 407 technology that Mr Hoy used, the Big Brother technology, there isn't somebody's life at stake. I believe it's about enforcement.

I believe that the debate this morning is very interesting. I'm going to give the rest of my time to the member for Etobicoke North so he can address the issue of convictions.

Mr George Smitherman (Toronto Centre-Rosedale): Unlike the last member, I hope to do justice to the issue that is before us.

In starting my comments, I want to pay respect to the Marcuzzi and Loxton families and also to our colleague from Simcoe North, Garfield Dunlop, who tells a very personal story about the impact of this. I cannot offer in the brief time I have more compelling words or arguments in support for this bill.

It seems that we see this change in the government's attitude: this bill had previously been supported, although the government allowed it to languish and die. But we see the wet blanket brigade has been sent out by the government: the member for Durham, and the member for Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford, who was more upset that the Speaker got his riding name wrong than that his position on this issue is wrong.

It seems to be wrong in terms of signalling the government's intention not to embrace the opportunity that this issue presents to further protect 900,000 kids who rely every single day on school buses for their mode of transportation to and from their educational opportunities. I challenge the government not to act in such a foolhardy way and not to do anything but embrace this initiative and give life to it.

The member for Mississauga South, the minister responsible for children's issues, earlier was talking about how this issue is of importance from her standpoint as someone who is in the cabinet to advocate on behalf of children. I throw down to her the challenge that she act on behalf of the government and, on behalf of children, within the government to try and be a strong and more forceful advocate than she's been able to be on this issue in the past. Too many opportunities have been passed over on this very issue, as brought forward by my colleague the member for Chatham-Kent-Essex. I say this is the time is to act.

Private members' hour has too often become something where we embrace an initiative and spend a lot of time and personal energy on it. We work hard to gain the support of our colleagues, only to see the government manipulate the process in such a way as to not give full effect to the views of private members. I think that this is an issue where historically, in this House, we've been able to find support for it.

So I say to the government, and to that minister in particular, embrace this and advocate for it and make sure the government acts on it. We have a responsibility, it seems to me, to do everything we can to offer meaningful protection to kids, 900,000 of whom ride school buses every day.

I want to point out that some people view this as an issue which is essentially a rural issue. My own riding, perhaps the most urbanized riding in Ontario, has many kids who are accessing school buses as their mode of access and transportation to school. There is very broad police, school board and parent support in urban areas for it. I would pay tribute to Ila Bossons, a member who recently retired from Toronto city council, who served the Midtown ward, including part of my riding, and worked very hard as a member of the Metropolitan Toronto and city of Toronto councils to try and ensure that this issue was embraced.

In looking at the stats that were provided by the then-Metropolitan Toronto Police Service here in the city of Toronto, we found that the incidence in urban areas is twice as high as it is reported in rural areas. We know from past debates in this place about issues like gridlock, about issues like road rage and about red light running, that my colleague from Eglinton-Lawrence has worked so hard on, that many people in the urban environment are frustrated by transportation gridlock and by the challenges of getting from point A to point B who are rushing about and in a careless way endangering the lives of children.

This protection would send a very clear message that you will be penalized if you don't take the responsibility for all of our children more seriously. This is a bill that is one step, I think a significant step, toward trying to offer those protections. The member from Chatham-Kent Essex has invested an extraordinary amount of his personal energy. He's to be commended for that.

We would be failing not only ourselves but our constituents and the 900,000 children who every day access school buses. I would encourage members of the government to find a way to embrace this and for the minister responsible for children's issues to get her government to act on this.

Mr John Hastings (Etobicoke North): I think this bill from the member for Chatham-Kent Essex is good because he believes in it. He has introduced it at least three times. What I find most curious about the bill, though-and he made a statement himself in this debate-is that increased fines are not the answer. That's certainly evident in the bill. If it should go to committee, one of the things that needs to be debated and focused upon is why the member would have a lessened fine for repeat offenders for this offence.

That's a very troubling matter and something that needs to be corrected because, as it stands now, the ministry has in place fines that are higher than what the member for Chatham-Kent Essex has proposed in his own bill. Enforcement is the issue, and he wants to change the focus of the enforcement. You would think he would want to focus on increasing the fines if he believes as strongly as he does in this bill.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate? If not, the member for Chatham-Kent Essex has two minutes to sum up.

Mr Hoy: I want to thank all those who spoke on Bill 24: the members from Simcoe North, Essex, Toronto Centre-Rosedale, Kingston and the Islands, Trinity-Spadina, Durham, Niagara Centre, Etobicoke North and Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford. I want to say to you that my sole purpose in bringing forth this bill is to protect the children who ride the 16,000 school buses that travel our roads, some more than twice per day, in Ontario. I'm here to protect children from injury and death. There are over 800,000 who ride our school buses each and every day to and from their schools.

I want to say to members opposite, in regard to some of their criticisms, that we are looking here at an eyewitness account of an infraction of the Highway Traffic Act-not a machine, not a camera, but an eyewitness account. That eyewitness account will come from the bus drivers of Ontario, in whom I have so much faith and for whom I have tremendous respect. Currently, the government must remember that bus drivers in Ontario have the ability to identify the face of a driver who passes a school bus illegally.

The problem is that regardless of how big the fine is, there is no conviction mechanism. It is nearly impossible to identify the face of a person who passes a school bus illegally. There are many reasons for that, and I won't go into them, but there are many reasons. The public knows what the law is currently. They are passing school buses, as reported to me, with their hands beside their face so the bus drivers won't know who they are. For the sake of our children in Ontario who ride school buses daily, I ask for the government's support of Bill 24.

The Deputy Speaker: The time allocated for this ballot item has now expired. The decision will be taken at noon.

PROTECTION OF AGRICULTURAL AREAS

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I move that this House request that the provincial government, through provincial policy, provide long-term protection for the unique agricultural areas both within the Niagara Peninsula and throughout the province.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): Mr Bradley has moved private member's notice of motion number 27.

Mr Bradley: I want to say initially that this is truly a private member's resolution. I don't intend this to be a partisan issue because I suspect there are people in all three parties who have a great concern about the disappearance of agricultural land wherever it happens to be in Ontario.

It's not my intention to point fingers; it's not my intention to talk about whether government policy at the present time is ill-advised. What I'm here to do this morning is to encourage members of this Legislature to try to develop some plans that will help us to save agricultural land in this province, and if I may be parochial, specifically within the Niagara region.

Throughout my career as a person in municipal and provincial politics-that's since 1970-I have had as a major issue the preservation of agricultural land. One of the reasons is obviously that I live in an area of the province that has "unique soil" and a "unique climatic condition." That combination is so remarkable that it allows us to have both tender fruit and grapes grown there. If you look at the Niagara Escarpment-I remember this from a grade 12 geography course-there are 27 more growing days below the escarpment than there are above the escarpment. It's the lake effect that allows us to do that.

It's a microclimate that allows places like the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, and the Niagara Peninsula-and southwestern Ontario, I must say as well, has some of these areas. I think it's extremely important that we preserve agricultural land in this province.

I'm afraid that in our desire as a province, as people in the province, to see development take place, development has taken place very often in the wrong places. That's understandable, because when people want to have development for commercial or residential purposes, often it's easiest to put it on good agricultural land; it's conducive to that kind of development. I think that we have to make a decision in this House, that we have to make a decision as government, to ensure that we instead allow development to take place where it would be most beneficial to us and where it allows us to preserve the agricultural land.

I think the problem is too serious and too urgent to engage in partisan bickering over whether one government is wrong or one party is wrong on the issue. I would imagine the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of the Environment have a concern about this as well and I hope that is reflected in support for my resolution today.

The resolution actually arose out of a decision, I think an unfortunate and an unwise decision, by the Ontario Municipal Board in July of this year to allow over 500 acres of agricultural land to be converted to land for residential, commercial and business development purposes on what's called the Fonthill kame. The Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society fought that at the Ontario Municipal Board hearing but was unsuccessful. I would like to see the provincial government overturn that particular decision and I would like to see the provincial government invoke controls that will preserve agricultural land.

The reason I say this is that having served on a local government, I know how difficult it is for local politicians, local elected representatives, to resist the lure of development. There's always a case to be made for it, that it's going to produce jobs, at least in the short term, and that it's going to produce economic benefit. I think we must look at the millions upon millions of dollars that the agricultural industry in the Niagara Peninsula produces for this province and for this country and for the communities in which it's located.

Judy Casselman, who is a councillor, presented this resolution to the St Catharines city council. That's where I got the idea for this resolution. I wanted to reflect something happening in my community, a concern of my community, in this House. The resolution at city council read as follows:

"Whereas, the unique agricultural lands in the Niagara Peninsula capable of growing tender fruit and grapes are a limited and irreplaceable resource; and

"Whereas the availability of land is considered to be a major limiting factor in the expansion of the tender fruit industry; and

"Whereas in recent years we have seen tremendous competition between tender fruit growers, grape growers and greenhouses which is forcing fruit growers to look at lower-quality lands outside of the Niagara region; and

"Whereas in 1997 the provincial government removed the protection for unique agricultural lands and provided opportunities for municipalities to expand their urban areas if there were no reasonable alternatives; and

"Whereas pressure for continued urban growth is placing tremendous pressure on our limited supply of unique agricultural land; and

"Whereas other jurisdictions in North America such as Napa Valley in California are recognizing the need to preserve their unique agricultural lands for the long term;

"Be it resolved"-and then they said, in their case-"that this council request that the provincial government, through provincial policy, provide long-term protection for the unique agricultural areas both within this region and throughout the province."

I think it's a reasonable cry.

These are urban politicians. During our recent municipal election campaign, most of the candidates talked about the need to preserve agricultural land, but that can only be done if the provincial government takes that role.

I would like to see, for instance, a select committee of this Legislature deal with this issue in depth. Send the whips away, send the House leaders away, and allow the members who are concerned about preserving agricultural land to check their partisan hats at the door and try to find ways to save that land, because I think we recognize, particularly those of you in this Legislature who are farmers, that if you want to save agricultural land, you have to save the farmers.

We have to have programs which assist farmers, such as when they have a problem with the plum pox virus in the Niagara region and many trees have to be torn out, so that there is compensation that takes place.

It's very attractive for farmers, most attractive, to sell their agricultural land for a huge price and get that money immediately than it is to sell it to another farmer. What's happening is that the price of land is going up so much that a person like Don Ziraldo, who is the president of Inniskillin Wines and a person considered to be one of the foremost people in the wine-producing industry, has asked the Premier of this province to establish an agricultural preserve in the Niagara Peninsula similar to what they have in the Napa Valley.

I think that would be a very progressive step on the part of this government and I think it can be done. The fact that Don Ziraldo would ask for this I think adds weight to it, because he has recognized that if we allow development to continue on the Niagara Peninsula the way it has in the past, we're going to lose those lands and we're going to drive up the prices so that farmers cannot afford them.

I look at places like Vineland, Beamsville, Niagara-on-the-Lake, St Catharines, Grimsby and Stoney Creek, which have development taking place that frankly is in the wrong place and is the wrong kind of development. I really think that should have been kept for agricultural purposes.

The value of the tender fruit and grape industry is tremendous to our area. I commend to members of this Legislature an issue paper from March 1991 by Jerry Richmond and Anne Anderson of our legislative library called The Preservation of Agricultural Land. It has a lot of good ideas on what other jurisdictions have done to try to preserve that agricultural land.

We recognize as well that it's a tourism attraction. People don't come to the Niagara Peninsula to see wall-to-wall development. They come to the Niagara Peninsula because there are large tracts of rural land and they really enjoy that. We've had wineries grow up in that area. So many wineries have grown up, and the member for Niagara Falls and the member for Erie-Lincoln and I see them throughout our ridings.

Dr Joseph Kushner and I, when we were on city council together, fought hard against the expansion of boundaries. We were both urban politicians within the city and there was always pressure on us. We fought against that. Dr Kushner has produced some reports demonstrating that residential development, for instance, isn't always a net benefit to communities in terms of the assessment that is there.

We have a huge land mass in Canada and Ontario. Only a small amount of that is arable land or land where the combination of the climate and the soil enables us to grow products. If we have to import, we can be assured that those imports will be very costly and we will not have those products available for us.

The land often will be allowed to lie vacant, so the argument will be made, "Well, it's not being used for agricultural purposes, so you may as well develop it." That's what developers do: they purchase the land, they let it lie there and then people will allow that argument to be made. I think we have to make it viable for farmers and that's what I hope happens here.

I think most members would agree that severances are not the answer, that that's death by a thousand cuts when you allow severances to take place and intrude into the farmland.

We have to ensure that our farmers get the appropriate amount of money for their products, and I think the select committee process is the very best way of doing this.

I remember hearing a statement by Will Rogers, a US humourist, who once said about farmland that they're not making it any more so we should be saving it. I say, indeed, and I hope members will support my resolution as a result.

Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): I support the resolution in its entirety without hesitation. My predecessor, the great Mel Swart, and Mr Bradley, during their contemporaneous careers here, had always been strong advocates for the preservation of agricultural lands in Niagara and were raising this matter in this Legislature over the course of their respective careers on a regular basis.

It's trite but it needs some reiteration that we're dealing with a non-renewable resource, one that once it's paved over, you never get it back. We're also dealing in Niagara with some of the most dramatically unique agricultural lands in all of Canada and in all of North America. We're not talking about the huge tracts of land that, for instance, you find in California, with the huge, mega-acre pieces of land that are used for farming. You're talking about some very specific, some very identifiable and some extremely high-quality pieces of farmland, both below the escarpment-the microclimate talked about by Mr Bradley-as well as on top of the escarpment.

We're also talking about an incredible and bizarre obsession by some municipal leaders-at least one of them was defeated soundly in the municipal election earlier this week-who have bought into the need for constant urban expansion, constant growth, constant development.

I've got to tell you that the real tragedy is to witness farmland that developers have taken hold of and created some of the most mundane, tedious, boring and from time to time downright ugly housing tracts that one could ever observe. That, I suppose, for me is the real tragedy, in that the utilization of this incredibly scarce resource has been done so callously and cynically-we know the motive, generating profits that are pocketed and then that developer moves on to any other locations that are ripe for the picking. This is why it's important.

I'm extremely grateful to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. I know Mr Bradley deals with them on a regular basis, as I do. We were at their annual general meeting in St Catharines for the Niagara North Federation of Agriculture just a couple of weeks ago. Niagara South had their annual meeting down at the Wainfleet community centre.

You see at these AGMs the incredible cross-section of farmers and types of farming that take place in Niagara region from north to south, from the Niagara River on west. It's incredibly diverse. The most commonly known, provincially and nationally, are of course the vineyards, great vineyards, and the tender fruit, but as well there's a huge diversity, a huge range of agricultural use of land, as represented by these farmers, incredibly hard-working people, who are participating, and let's understand it, in the second-largest industry in Canada. The auto industry is number one. Second to auto is agriculture. It's something that a whole lot of Ontarians don't really appreciate, but it's true.

It's also the process of feeding the community. I despair of the day when Ontario, Canada can no longer feed itself, when it becomes reliant upon out-of-country sources of food. I tell you, that is a very dangerous situation to put ourselves in. But the rapid attack on agricultural land makes that a very distinct possibility-in fact, an inevitable reality-unless the brakes are put on promptly.

Speaking further to the issue of farmers, I think it's important to understand that farmers in Niagara, and indeed across this country, are producing some of, if not the lowest-priced food anywhere in the world. It's something we had better understand as well as Ontarians and Canadians. We pay less for our food than any other country. I'll put it to that absolute: we pay less than any other country.

The fact is that our inexpensive food, the price that the consumer is being accommodated with, is being subsidized directly by the farmers in terms of their low return on their incredible investment and the incredible amount of labour that's put into running what are, in Niagara region, primarily family farms.

Our farmers have been ill served by the federal government and by the provincial government-I'll put it in the plural: by federal governments and provincial governments-as they're called upon to maintain their production and to compete internationally with jurisdictions where farming is appreciated and where farmers are acknowledged for the incredible contribution they make to the economy and welfare of their national communities and receive support from their levels of government that is in no way equalled or even come close to by levels of support from federal governments and provincial governments.

Last summer, the summer of 2000, was a tough one, let me tell you, for farmers in Niagara. I should probably talk about the plum pox virus, along with the incredible rainfall. For whole crops-tomato crops, hot pepper crops, cucumbers-there simply was no harvest. Farmers were going out there and seeing their fields flooded day after day after day, when in fact they should have been anticipating the process of harvesting and moving that produce to the various industries, to the processors, or to their kiosks along the roadside or the farmers' markets in St Catharines or in Welland, and there were simply no crops.

Farmers paid a huge price this past summer in terms of the weather conditions which devastated their crops. Nobody in the community is saying, "Farming is sufficiently important that we should be protecting farmers against these devastating losses."

I also understand, and I want people to understand very clearly, that the farmer and his or her family have huge investments in the lands and in the equipment they use to sow crops and maintain them and harvest them, and that farmers don't have pension plans. Farmers feel hard pressed and hard done by, and quite legitimately so, by the fact that there is no consideration of the farmer's investment being entirely within his plot or plots of land and in the capital investment and that there is marginal marketability of those plots for farming use, for agricultural use.

We see farmers working lifetimes of incredibly hard work, feeding their communities, be they livestock producers, poultry producers, egg producers or growing crops or be they the farmers who grow our tender fruit and produce our tender fruit, or the vineyards that have excelled and attained international recognition for the quality of product, the grapes that are being grown in Niagara, reflected very much in the outstanding Niagara wines, increasingly from the small, family-run, specialized, low-volume wineries-any number of them. You can go down there. People come from all over to do the wine tour.

It's mapped out. You can visit a half a dozen wineries. Henry of Pelham, young Mr Speck was the king of the grape festival at the end of the summer, in the fall, as St Catharines celebrated its annual grape festival.

I commend the people at Henry of Pelham for an outstanding winery, and one worth visiting on a Sunday afternoon. It's a short drive from Toronto or any other number of parts of Ontario. Drive down to Niagara, visit Henry of Pelham, take a look at what's going on. They'll show you the processing, they'll show you the wine manufacturing. They've got a wonderful boutique there at a historic location. You can sample wines, you can buy yourself a bottle or a case to take home-along with any number of wineries along Highway 8. You'll see the signage along the QEW.

But it's this industry that is very much at risk. I echo again the difficulty that municipal and regional levels of government have in effectively establishing policies that are going to meaningfully preserve the farmland as well as ensure that the farmer or owner of that farmland isn't punished by virtue of being a farmer and being in possession of this very scarce and very worthy-of-protection resource, those farmlands.

That's why, yes, it's got to be provincial government that accepts the responsibility for preserving farmland. Regional and municipal governments can be too readily pressured by the developers, who don't give a tinker's damn about the survival of farmland. They'd pave it over in a New York minute if they had the chance, and the proof is that when they do have the chance, they do. There's no regard on the part of developers driven by profit for the sanctity of this incredible soil and climate-none whatsoever. They couldn't care less.

They move in with their bulldozers, take off the topsoil, sell it, knock down the peach trees or the cherry trees, pave it, pour your concrete and then they move on to the next development.

The corporate developer couldn't give a tinker's damn about the survival of farmland. Once again, the proof is that when they can take it over and develop it, they do it.

Oh, they may pay some historic reference to it by names to their subdivisions that reflect the historical reality of that area, of that piece of Niagara, but they're not interested, not motivated and certainly have no intention of participating in the fight to preserve farmland and to ensure that farmers are adequately compensated where farmers' futures, especially their retirement futures, are impaired by any interference with the ability or the opportunity to subdivide their land and have it picked up piecemeal by the profiteers, by the developers.

Having said that I also want to commend a whole lot of municipal and regional leaders in Niagara, because not all of them fall into those obsessed with the profit goals of developers. But we find those people increasingly overwhelmed by the huge pressures that can be put on municipalities and the regions to encourage development. Again, development is always pursued and presented as if, if you don't have this development, somehow you are being anti-progress, you are being reactionary; your feet are stuck firmly in the mud.

Well, that's poppycock. It's foolishness, isn't it, Speaker? You understand what I'm saying. You know exactly what I'm saying. It's foolishness to take that sort of attitude, because the progressive position is to recognize the unique qualities of those farmlands in Niagara region; to recognize the incredible contribution of farming and agriculture to the economy of Niagara region; to recognize that it's those farmlands and their produce that make Niagara region the attractive place it is, the envy of so many people in Ontario.

That's why people are moving to Niagara from places like Toronto and other big cities in Ontario, to enjoy the incredible quality of life that Niagara has the potential to offer. They aren't moving there to live in suburban Toronto townhouses, spread out over acre after acre of land. They aren't moving there to tread on concrete and mile after mile of asphalt. They are there because of the incredible diversity of Niagara; urban, small-town Ontario, granted, the kind of Ontario that constitutes most of Ontario and the kind of small-town Ontario that creates some of the best qualities of life, but also very rural and very agricultural.

I encourage all members to support this resolution so that this province feels compelled to move promptly to establish a process whereby some provincial policies can be established that are fair, that recognize the incredible value of this agricultural land in Niagara, that recognize the historic role of agricultural lands in Niagara, and indeed in other parts of the province, and policies that can be put into effect to ensure that Niagarans and people across this country continue to benefit from the incredible fruits of the labours of farmers on that very unique land.

Mr Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North): Thank you very much for allowing me the privilege to speak this morning to this resolution brought forward by the member from St Catharines on the issue of development on agricultural land in the Niagara region. I know the member has a long and detailed record of statements in this House related to the farmland in the region, and I'd like to thank the member for bringing this issue up in this House. At the same time, I'd like to thank our members from Niagara Falls and Erie-Lincoln for continuing to raise the importance of the agricultural industry to our caucus, especially on the preservation of unique agricultural lands.

I have to say I totally support the resolution. I travel a lot to the Niagara region, basically as a tourist, and we always enjoy going to small communities like Jordan, Beamsville and Niagara-on-the-Lake. We've watched those communities grow a certain amount, and I've always enjoyed the wine tours. In fact, I've gotten to know a few owners of some of the smaller wineries that make some unique wines. At one point, I think it was just a year ago, I was told there were something like 24 new applications in the Niagara region for additional wineries.

I always find it very alarming, as a member of this caucus or as a resident of Ontario, to think we would ever be in a position where huge amounts of those lands were being plowed under to develop more housing or more industry. I think it is very unique.

One of the things that comes to my mind with the Niagara region is that we have a program called the rural job strategy. I think everyone has heard of that. Two ladies in my community were fortunate enough to receive funding to develop a company called Chelsea Chocolates, and they actually use different icewines from around the province.

Mr George Smitherman (Toronto Centre-Rosedale): Are you giving us samples?

Mr Dunlop: No, of course not. There are no samples to go out.

It's a very unique business. A lot of people in Ontario are very proud of the fact that we have a great assortment of wines from that particular region. I've been in restaurants with a number of members of my caucus, and if they're going to have a bottle of wine or a glass of wine, they demand that it be from the Niagara region, although I admit some of them drink beer.

As a member of the Premier's task force on rural economic development, I had a chance to meet with people from across this province on this and other issues facing agricultural communities. I remember that in intensive agricultural areas in southwestern Ontario concern for the protection of land was high, while in other areas of the province there was less support for restricted development on marginal farmland. It is because of this wide range of support for the protection of farmland that I feel these decisions should be made as much as possible at the local level.

With that said, the region and local municipalities possess a number of tools and the ability through their official plans that I would expect to prohibit development on specialty cropland. Again I go back to the reason; I heard of the 24 applications that were in for new wineries. I've learned that the region of Niagara has already begun this by drafting policies which designate agricultural areas with the highest priority for protection of "good grape" and "good tender fruit areas" followed by "good general agricultural areas."

I don't have a lot of time this morning. A number of our caucus would like to speak. I do appreciate an opportunity to say a few words toward this resolution.

Mr Smitherman: It's my pleasure to join this debate on the resolution by the member from St Catharines. I'll be supporting the resolution.

We all know well of the member's commitment to his region. This issue of the preservation of important and significant agricultural land is something he has a long record on. It's interesting that this issue comes before us today. It's extraordinarily timely, falling as it does in a week when municipal governments had their elections here in Ontario, and the election results seem to speak, at least in the greater Toronto area, and I think in other places as well, to a great uncertainty on behalf of many constituents who see the diminishing agricultural land eaten, as it has been, by this unquenchable thirst for urban sprawl in so many centres here in Ontario.

I had an opportunity this morning to speak to my federal member, Bill Graham-we were out campaigning at bus stops-who is more of a wine connoisseur than I am. I mentioned that I'd be speaking to this issue, and he immediately said that this is very important, because the Beamsville bench is a world-renowned wine-producing area, irreplaceable because of the microclimate which produces the best icewine in the world. I think that helps to highlight the extent to which, and the fact that this member is from Niagara region, the Niagara region is so well known for its agricultural production and they help to focus on this issue.

We've talked a lot about the land and about the appetite for urban sprawl. I think it's really important to note that it is not just agricultural land that is at stake but in fact it's an agricultural way of life which has been so important in terms of Ontario's development. We have I think a very important responsibility, as a consumer society, to restrain ourselves when our activities run the very real risk of eliminating what has been a very important piece of history.

I say that as someone who represents probably the most urban riding in Ontario, but I'm very proud of the fact that in the centre of my riding is the Riverdale Farm, where the city of Toronto works very hard to provide people, and kids especially, living in urban areas an opportunity to see the importance of agricultural production there, so the importance of this is not lost on them. We can't take these things for granted. To a certain extent, I think the province giving away some of the mechanisms that have the powers over planning where they have simply shrugged their shoulders, is causing a multitude of problems with respect to urban sprawl.

In the greater Toronto area on Monday, we saw many races where a primary issue, a defining issue in the municipal election, was the protection of agricultural land.

Mr Mike Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence): King City.

Mr Smitherman: King City is one example. My colleague mentioned that a 53% voter turnout occurred in that community, an extraordinarily high turnout. The debate there really was around the nature of King township: would it continue to reflect its agricultural roots with very modest growth or would it have a faster rate of growth brought on by the big pipe? In Georgina the mayor, who went down to a narrow defeat, was viewed to have been a force in favour of more development.

Similarly, I think there are exciting occurrences out there where municipal leaders are trying to get Ontario to take an interest in the issue of protection of lands and make sure that the development we have is more sensible, because we know it is not sustainable to continue down the path we are on. The issue of gridlock in the greater Toronto area is, in large measure, brought on by failure on the part of the provincial government to seize its responsibilities and link the protection of the natural environment, agricultural areas, planning and transportation.

The mayor of Burlington is one example of a mayor who's working very hard to try and improve the way that community accommodates growth. The mayor of Scugog, Doug Moffatt, who was re-elected on Monday night, has been an extraordinarily effective leader and a very strong spokesperson for the protection of these lands. He very often feels at odds with this government and with the member from Durham, who is supporting policies on the part of that government that are leading to this increasing sprawl.

Let's remember one thing as we approach our vote on this debate: there is a developer in York region who was quoted in a Toronto Star piece six months ago or so who said, "In the spring we plant sewers and in the fall houses pop up." That is using an agricultural analogy, but it helps to highlight the problem we've got. Let's keep one thing in mind when we talk about agricultural land: we're not building any more. We have a responsibility to protect it and to accommodate our growth in a more practical and responsible way.

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford): I'm very pleased to join in the debate with respect to the resolution from the member from St Catharines. The wording in the resolution is fairly clear. It's looking for the provincial government, through provincial policy, to "provide long-term protection." I don't really know what the meaning of "long-term" is. I thought maybe the intent of what he's looking for is permanent protection if we're trying to protect our agricultural areas.

The province's role in land use planning is focused on defining issues of provincial significance and establishing policies to address them. Municipalities at this point in time "are required to have regard to provincial planning policies." That's already in existence. Under the current regulatory legislative scheme, the Planning Act and the accompanying provincial policy statements, also called the PPS, provide protection for prime agricultural lands, including specialty crop areas such as those present in the Niagara region.

The Planning Act also mandates five-year reviews to determine any revisions to the policy statements, with the next scheduled for review in the year 2001, which is upcoming.

Section 2.1 of the PPS, the provincial policy statements, notes that "prime agricultural areas will be protected for agriculture. Permitted uses in these designated areas include agriculture, secondary uses and agriculture-related uses." Underlying the policy statements is the recognition that the agricultural land base provides economic, social and environmental benefits.

The sustainable management of this resource is a key provincial interest. Provincial policy statements are complemented by local municipal policies regarding matters of local interest as designated in official plan documents which are the responsibility of, prepared by and passed by local municipalities.

The region of Niagara has drafted policies which designate agricultural areas. The highest priority for protection are "good grape" and "good tender fruit" areas followed by "good general agricultural areas." It should be noted that, in late July 2000, St Catharines city council asked the provincial government to ban development on Niagara's unique farmland. The region and local municipalities possess the ability, through their official plans, to prohibit development on specialty cropland.

Let's bring this into context. The official plan and the zoning bylaws of any municipality, whether through the region or whether through the municipality, are what people who own the land and want to change that land are subject to. But the municipalities or the region are also subject to the provincial policy statements, and any application for a rezoning or official plan change would also bring into the situation the municipal affairs ministry, also OMAFRA-the agricultural ministry-and the environmental ministry, where necessary, as watchdogs to deal with that particular issue.

I understand the intent of the member's resolution. I certainly understand that he wants a provincial role. That role is already there. The long-term protection is somewhat unclear, somewhat fuzzy. I would have thought he was looking for permanent protection, but be that as it may, that's how it was drafted.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands): I certainly support this resolution that has been brought forward by the member for St Catharines, who has had a long-standing interest in the Niagara Escarpment and the agricultural land that is located in that area. As we know, there are 27 extra growing days possible on that side of the escarpment, which is not so elsewhere in Ontario.

I found it rather interesting that the last Conservative member who spoke talked about the local decision-making process. Let me go on record as fully supporting the local decision-making process of planning boards, councils etc. However, to suggest that currently the provincial policies have the same effect on local decisions is totally incorrect.

As we well know, that was changed some time ago last year, when in effect the government changed the wording of that by saying that local decisions no longer had to be consistent with provincial policy, but rather only had to have regard for provincial policy, which changes the entire focus and emphasis. I believe that even though local governments ultimately make the individual decisions in particular situations, it's up to the province to set the standards and it's up to the province to clearly set out what kind of development and what kind of rural lands we want to maintain in the future.

I get very disturbed when we get a document from the government's own ministry, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, which indicates from a tender fruit survey that was taken in the Niagara area that there has been a decline in tender fruit trees in that area in the last five years of 25%. There are 25% fewer trees in the tender fruit category that produce such fruits as peaches, pears, plums, nectarines, apricots, prunes, sweet and sour cherries and French hybrid and vinifera grapes than there were five years ago.

When we see that the projections are that we expect the population of the GTA to grow from 4.6 million to 7.5 million over the next 30 years, one can well imagine the tremendous ongoing pressure there is going to be on the rural lands to turn them into subdivisions, turn them into residential areas.

That leads one to believe that there's even a greater emphasis or a greater need for the provincial government to set out clear-cut policies and to make sure that municipalities have to pass local zoning bylaws that are consistent with the provincial policy statements, not merely having regard to those policy statements.

This is a very important issue, and I think the future generations, such as our pages who are with us here today, the future young people we have in this province, demand that we take this issue seriously and demand that the province take an extremely strong stand to make sure that the tender fruit areas, the special agricultural areas that are located within the Niagara Escarpment area, are going to be maintained for future generations. Some 75% of all of the tender fruit growing areas in the entire country of Canada are located in this area. When we see that over the last five years there has been a decline of 25%, that's simply not acceptable nor sustainable in the future.

I urge the government members to support this resolution so the various ministries can get together and come up with a strong provincial statement that municipalities will adhere to.

Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): It's a pleasure for me to rise and speak to this motion from the member for St Catharines. Let me just say at the outset that I can agree with the sentiment expressed in the member's resolution, that we want to see agricultural lands stay as agricultural lands and be farmed productively and successfully as agricultural lands. But that's about the only thing I can agree on with the member opposite, and I can't support this resolution.

One of my main problems with the resolution, quite simply, is that the resolution assumes that farmers don't want to farm their land, that farmers want to get out of farming and sell off their land for residential, commercial or industrial purposes. I think nothing could be further from the truth. The farmers that I know and the farmers in my riding, principally in Niagara-on-the-Lake, have farmed all their lives, and their families before them farmed, and they want their children to continue to farm. They are not interested in getting out of that business.

So when we assume that there is going to be a rush to rezone land, to get land moved into industrial and commercial, I think it's a bad assumption. They, more than anyone in this room, want to remain in the business of farming.

Therein lies the crux of this issue. In the last four years, if you went up and down the lines and concessions of Niagara-on-the-Lake in my riding, you would have seen more farmland than ever before put into production. For many years, a lot of that farmland sat idle and was not utilized. But now that farmland is being put into production by those farmers. Why? Because it's economically viable for them to do so.

I think one of the most important things that we're missing in this is that the problem with farming in Ontario today quite often comes from subsidized competition from other countries. If our federal Liberal government is not going to do anything to help-and I'm not making this a partisan issue, but trade is a federal issue.

I've been visited by many people in the agricultural community, by the federations of agriculture, by my local farmers, and when product comes in subsidized from European countries or South American countries or the United States that depresses the prices that our farmers get for their food, it makes it a lot less economically viable for our farmers to continue to farm and stay on the land. Remember, for them their farms are their pension. Their farms are their retirement.

If we lock up their farms and say they can't be used for anything else but agriculture, they can't sever a lot for their retirement and pass the rest of it on to their son, if we put so many restrictions on them, when those prices get depressed, they go bankrupt. They lose their farms. They lose their families. It has happened; it's in the history of Ontario. So we have to be very, very careful when we tread in this area.

I think it's more important for us to ask, how can we continue to help the farmers? We've done a lot, this government, since we've been in office, to do that through taxation changes. How can we continue to make them economically viable? If they are economically viable, and they have been for the past four years especially, the farmers, more than anybody else in this province, will continue to farm their property, will stay on the farms. I think that's the important point we have to make.

I could go on quite a bit longer. Mr Ziraldo of my grape growers-I have the greatest respect for Mr Ziraldo, who has spearheaded this move in my area. Many years ago, Mr Ziraldo, I'm told by my grape growers, severed parts of his farmland in order to raise capital to invest in his winery. He is now a very successful winery person, and I can understand why he has this position of protecting this agricultural land. My grape growers reminded me of that fact many years ago. Doing something like this limits that flexibility for those farmers today and may not be fair.

I can't support the resolution. I appreciate the sentiment of the resolution, but I think there are a lot of other ways the farming community would rather approach this problem. As I said, our farmers, more than anybody in this room, want to keep their land agricultural, but this is not the right way to do it.

Mr Colle: I'm shocked by the member from Niagara Falls, first of all attacking one of Canada's most famous wine producers, Mr Ziraldo, and also denying my colleague's initiative here, which is non-partisan. The member from St Catharines is saying he wants the government, in a non-partisan way, to look at ways of implementing provincial policies to protect these very precious agricultural lands in the Niagara region. I'm really shocked the member from Niagara Falls would not take that olive branch from the member from St Catharines, no pun intended.

The point here is that this government is standing on the sidelines and is missing in action as we're losing one of the most precious resources we have as Canadians, as Ontarians, and that is our farmland, our prime farmland. As the member from St Catharines said, in the Niagara region we have, next to the Okanagan Valley and the Annapolis Valley, some of the most precious lands in North America, which are being jeopardized by the greed of developers who want to pave and put these cookie-cutter subdivisions over this precious farmland.

I look at the young pages here, and I hope they take up the battle to preserve our farmland, because I think a lot of our young people presume that all our agricultural products, our fruits and vegetables, are imported from the United States or Mexico. They don't realize some of the most precious vegetables and fruits and some of the best-tasting fruits and vegetables, not to mention our wines, come from the Niagara region.

If we don't listen to the alarm being sounded by the member from St Catharines, we will lose these precious lands. I know we are losing thousands of hectares a day in the greater Toronto region. Some of the most precious farmlands are being paved over by greedy developers. This government stands by and encourages this. They even weakened the Municipal Act; it used to be tough, and municipal laws had to be consistent with provincial legislation.

They weakened it and now have this wishy-washy "have regard to." So they are basically just listening to developers who want to make a quick buck and jeopardize these precious lands that we have, which are not only going to provide good fruits and vegetables for us today but for generations to come.

Once these lands are paved over, we can't get them back. They're gone forever. So unless the municipal affairs ministry gets off its rear end and stops allowing this free-for-all on farmland, we are going to lose these farms forever and ever. These are not just ordinary farmlands, by the way, as the member from St Catharines said. These are some of the most sensitive in all of Canada. The member also mentioned a very disturbing decision made by the Ontario Municipal Board. The friends of developers-the Ontario Municipal Board-allowed 200 acres of very precious farmland in the town of Pelham to be paved over.

Mr Bradley: It was 500.

Mr Colle: Now it's up to 500 acres. That was a landmark decision where the Ontario Municipal Board-again, the friends of developers, the OMB-allowed this land to be paved over. It's incredibly insensitive to the agricultural needs and the environmental sensitivities of that land in Pelham. The OMB allowed this to be paved over.

This government is not doing its job. It has no policies. It is again as I said, standing on the sidelines allowing development to take place indiscriminately. We are, on a daily basis, losing farmland. This farmland will not only provide good food, it's also good economic activity. Our countryside provides not only good farmland, it's a great tourism area. Look at the great tourism in the Niagara region. They don't go there to see the cookie-cutter townhomes being built. People visit the Niagara region to see the beautiful grape vineyards. That what they go for. Inniskillin-I was there just a few months ago.

I know that one of Canada's greatest architects is going to build another winery in that area for Jackson-Triggs.

Good farming, good food, good water. I don't know why this government is allowed to get away with this, why they're allowed to basically let this precious resource be destroyed by a lack of any protections. Whether you're in the Oak Ridges moraine, King City, Uxbridge or the Niagara region, whether you're near Welland, Essex county, the wonderful tomatoes of Leamington, this government should be ashamed of itself for doing nothing but listening to developers.

Mr Toby Barrett (Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant): I agree with the sentiments of this resolution in the sense that as a society, to quote the resolution, we need "long-term protection for the unique agricultural areas."

Generally speaking, I support measures to keep high-quality agricultural land in production, but I point out to the House that there is a wide variance in agricultural land across this province. There is a wide variety of soil types and a wide variety of topography, even across farmland in my riding, even across my own farm. In my region we have clay in the east and sand in the west. To the north of my riding, dairy farmers in Oxford have a much different view, a view of more restrictions on urban development and severances, than many farmers to the south in my county of Norfolk.

Certainly farmers in the rich agricultural counties in Kent, Essex, Lambton, Perth and Huron often take a very different view from farmers in Grey and Bruce, a different view from people who own marginal land in eastern Ontario.

So I have a concern with this resolution. Ontario, let alone rural Ontario, is not a homogeneous zone. One size does not fit all. A top-down, centrist approach driven by Queen's Park is not the answer.

I point out that we went through this with the Toronto-oriented Sewell direction in this area-John Sewell, the ex-mayor of Toronto. This came up in consultations during the Mike Harris Task Force on Rural Economic Development, where they travelled the province and heard very clearly the disgruntled feelings and opinions on that Toronto-oriented provincial approach to what should be local land use planning.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for St Catharines has two minutes.

Mr Bradley: I want to thank the members of the Legislative Assembly who have contributed to this debate. There has been some good discussion of a very important issue, which I believe is urgent at this time.

I must confess to being somewhat surprised by expressions of opposition to the resolution because it's worded in a very moderate, non-partisan and reasonable way. In fact, this is a resolution that emanated from St Catharines city council, and there are people on St Catharines city council who might well want to see their boundaries expanded, but they recognize the problem that exists with preserving agricultural land.

As I indicated during my earlier remarks, I believe you have to have a viable farming business. This means that those of us who are decision-makers should be prepared to assist farmers when that assistance is necessary. I mentioned the plum pox virus, I mentioned other catastrophes which hit farmers, and I am certainly supportive of policies that will help them in terms of their ability to farm in this province.

I had actually hoped there would be unanimous support for this resolution. I didn't word it in a partisan way. I said I didn't want to get into finger pointing or things of that nature because I don't think it's productive. The problem is too important to get into that kind of partisan exercise.

There is one change I would recommend a committee look at, for instance, and that's the policy statement which says "have regard to" as compared to what it used to be, "be consistent with," because I think "have regard to" allows the kind of flexibility that means we're going to see more and more of our farmland disappear. I know there are people who are uncomfortable with "be consistent with." That's why I really think that, as you had in the days of minority government, a select committee on the future of agricultural land would be a marvellous opportunity for members of all parties to deal with a very complex issue.

The Deputy Speaker: The time for this ballot item has now expired.

PROTECTION OF CHILDREN ON SCHOOL BUSES ACT, 1999 / LOI DE 1999 SUR LA PROTECTION DES ENFANTS DANS LES AUTOBUS SCOLAIRES

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): We will deal with ballot item number 47. Mr Hoy has moved second reading of Bill 24. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All in favour will say "aye."

All opposed will say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

There will be a five-minute bell, but first we will deal with ballot item number 48.

PROTECTION OF AGRICULTURAL AREAS

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): Mr Bradley has moved private member's notice of motion number 27. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All in favour will say "aye."

All opposed will say "nay."

In my opinion, the nays have it.

Call in the members.

PROTECTION OF CHILDREN ON SCHOOL BUSES ACT, 1999 / LOI DE 1999 SUR LA PROTECTION DES ENFANTS DANS LES AUTOBUS SCOLAIRES

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): We will call in the members for second reading of Bill 24, ballot item 47. It will be a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1201 to 1206.

The Deputy Speaker: All those in favour will please rise and remain standing until their name is called by the Clerk.

Ayes

Arnott, Ted

Baird, John R.

Barrett, Toby

Bartolucci, Rick

Bountrogianni, Marie

Boyer, Claudette

Bradley, James J.

Bryant, Michael

Caplan, David

Christopherson, David

Chudleigh, Ted

Coburn, Brian

Colle, Mike

Conway, Sean G.

Cordiano, Joseph

Crozier, Bruce

Curling, Alvin

DeFaria, Carl

Di Cocco, Caroline

Duncan, Dwight

Dunlop, Garfield

Ecker, Janet

Gerretsen, John

Gilchrist, Steve

Gill, Raminder

Guzzo, Garry J.

Hastings, John

Hoy, Pat

Jackson, Cameron

Johnson, Bert

Klees, Frank

Kormos, Peter

Kwinter, Monte

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

Marchese, Rosario

Marland, Margaret

Martel, Shelley

Martiniuk, Gerry

Maves, Bart

McLeod, Lyn

Munro, Julia

Mushinski, Marilyn

Newman, Dan

O'Toole, John

Ouellette, Jerry J.

Patten, Richard

Pupatello, Sandra

Runciman, Robert W.

Ruprecht, Tony

Sampson, Rob

Smitherman, George

Sterling, Norman W.

Stewart, R. Gary

Tascona, Joseph N.

Wettlaufer, Wayne

Wilson, Jim

Witmer, Elizabeth

Wood, Bob

Young, David

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 59; the nays are 0.

The Deputy Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

Pursuant to standing order 96, this bill is ordered to the committee of the whole House.

Mr Pat Hoy (Chatham-Kent Essex): Mr Speaker, I ask that Bill 24 be sent to the general government committee.

The Deputy Speaker: Is it agreed? Would the members who favour having the bill referred to the standing committee on general government please stand and be counted.

All those opposed?

A majority is not in favour. The bill will be referred to the committee of the whole House.

We will open the doors for 30 seconds before we deal with the next ballot item.

PROTECTION OF AGRICULTURAL AREAS

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): Would the members please take their seats. We'll now deal with ballot item number 48.

Mr Bradley has moved private member's notice of motion number 27. All those in favour will please stand and remain standing until the Clerk calls your name.

Ayes

Arnott, Ted

Baird, John R.

Bartolucci, Rick

Bountrogianni, Marie

Boyer, Claudette

Bradley, James J.

Bryant, Michael

Caplan, David

Christopherson, David

Coburn, Brian

Colle, Mike

Conway, Sean G.

Cordiano, Joseph

Crozier, Bruce

Curling, Alvin

DeFaria, Carl

Di Cocco, Caroline

Duncan, Dwight

Dunlop, Garfield

Ecker, Janet

Gerretsen, John

Gilchrist, Steve

Guzzo, Garry J.

Hastings, John

Hoy, Pat

Jackson, Cameron

Klees, Frank

Kormos, Peter

Kwinter, Monte

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

Marchese, Rosario

Marland, Margaret

Martel, Shelley

McLeod, Lyn

Molinari, Tina R.

Munro, Julia

Mushinski, Marilyn

Newman, Dan

O'Toole, John

Patten, Richard

Pupatello, Sandra

Runciman, Robert W.

Ruprecht, Tony

Sampson, Rob

Smitherman, George

Sterling, Norman W.

Tascona, Joseph N.

Wilson, Jim

Witmer, Elizabeth

Wood, Bob

Young, David

The Deputy Speaker: Those opposed will please stand and remain standing until their name is called.

Nays

Barrett, Toby

Chudleigh, Ted

Gill, Raminder

Johnson, Bert

Martiniuk, Gerry

Maves, Bart

Stewart, R. Gary

Wettlaufer, Wayne

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 51; the nays are 8.

The Deputy Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

All matters relating to private members' public business now being completed, I will leave the chair to return at 1:30 of the clock.

The House recessed from 1212 to 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES

Ms Caroline Di Cocco (Sarnia-Lambton): My statement today is to bring to the attention of this House the fact that the St Clair Child and Youth Services in Sarnia-Lambton will have to shut down its intensive child and family intervention services in March if the Ministry of Community and Social Services does not provide the ongoing, annualized funding.

The minister announced $20 million of new funding for such programs. The St Clair Child and Youth Services began a much-needed, intensive intervention service with the understanding that the funding would not be a one-time allocation, but would be long-time funding.

Unfortunately, the Sarnia-Lambton community was not among those slated for ongoing funding. What is unfair about this matter is that some centres in the province, providing the same service, have received annualized, ongoing funding to support intensive programs. Surely the need that led the Ministry of Community and Social Services to fund the intensive service on a provincial basis is as pressing in Sarnia-Lambton as it is across the province.

Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal caucus believe that the retention of the intensive child and family service on an annualized, ongoing basis is essential and that the funding should be applied equitably across this province. I ask Minister Baird to do the honourable thing and provide this ongoing funding.

ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY

Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph-Wellington): I'm very pleased to draw the attention of the House today to the fact that this is the second annual Environment Industry Day at Queen's Park. This is an excellent opportunity for representatives of Ontario's environment industry to meet with elected officials. The event is organized by the Canadian Environment Industry Association-Ontario, in partnership with the Ministry of the Environment.

Roughly half of the Canadian environment industry is located right here in Ontario. There are more than 2,000 companies in this sector, employing upwards of 60,000 people. The industry has grown by 25% since 1995, and according to Statistics Canada generates some $6 billion in annual revenues.

Before I came to this place, I was part of an organization called the Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy. Like so many people, I understood at the outset that environmental protection and sustainability go hand in hand with economic prosperity. The people involved in this organization know this full well. They have a tremendous resource of expertise. They are creators of innovative products. They produce products that are sold all around the world and they enable governments like Ontario to ever improve our standards, to provide services that benefit all our citizens with a cleaner environment.

The Ontario government is committed to working with the environment industry sector to ensure that it flourishes at home and in the international market for these products and services.

We are joined by several members, and I ask my colleagues to welcome them today to the Ontario Legislature.

MEMBERS' COMPENSATION

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): The last few years have been very difficult for many Ontarians, particularly northerners who have been forgotten by the Harris gov ernment. When it comes to our severe doctor shortage, hospital underfunding, health care apartheid, the crisis in education, the failure to develop economic diversification for the north, huge municipal restructuring costs, the effects of downloading, all this and more has been dumped in our laps courtesy of our part-time Premier, Mike Harris.

But today I stand to congratulate Ontarians on their recent victory. We've seen over the past few days the effect that a strenuous united lobby can have. We, the people of Ontario, have forced Mike Harris to reluctantly back away from the trough and to cancel his plan for an obscene 42.2% pay raise. This is a tremendous victory when you consider that the democratic process has been sharply eroded under Mike Harris. It was not a sense of fairness that caused the Premier to blink; it was

an act of self-preservation and political survival, pure and simple. But the damage has been done.

We were once environmental leaders; now we're second only to Texas as the worst polluters. Millions of taxpayers' dollars are being frittered away promoting Mike Harris. Labour fairness is a thing of the past, and Mike Harris wanted a 42% pay raise for a job well done. His job hasn't been well done. The people of Ontario have won this round and I congratulate the people of Ontario.

DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD OF NIAGARA

Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): The people of Welland must have their democratic right to elect their trustee to the District School Board of Niagara. Don Reilly, a long-time educator, trustee, board chair, was the only candidate to file prior to the deadline for filing papers seeking a position. Tragically and regrettably, Don Reilly, at a great loss to the community, passed away before the election. That means there is no runner-up. It means there is a vacancy without an election and the board so far has received some very ambiguous messages from the Ministry of Education.

The suggestion is that the new board will merely appoint a representative from Welland for the full three-year term. That quite frankly is unacceptable to the people of the city of Welland. It is grossly undemocratic and it does not serve the district board or the educators or the students in Niagara well.

I'm calling upon the Minister of Education to address this matter immediately. One of the issues, of course, is the funding that would be necessary to have an election. There are candidates eager to compete for the position. It is essential because these positions become more and more important with the megaboards; to wit, in Niagara a board that covers all of Niagara region, the Niagara district board.

We must have this Minister of Education involving herself to ensure that the people of Welland have the right to democratically elect their trustee on the Niagara district board of education.

VALLEYS 2000

Mr John O'Toole (Durham): There never seems to be a lack of positive things happening in my riding of Durham. I think everyone here would agree with that.

Today I want to tell the people of Ontario what one dedicated group of individuals is doing in the town of Bowmanville to help preserve our natural environment. Reverend Frank Lockhart is the moving force behind one of the province's millennium projects called Valleys 2000. He and other local residents like Al Strike, Carl Schenk, Dave Lawson and Bob Simpson are working hard to ensure that everyone can enjoy the valley lands adjacent to Bowmanville Creek. To date, 600 trees have been planted and two public trails have been created.

The project's chair, Reverend Lockhart, committee member Carl Schenk and several volunteers have spent a considerable amount of time clearing brush and making trails accessible for hikers. This is just the beginning of a project that has captured the interest and imagination of many local residents who want to be part of the vision. Local businesses are also involved. Blue Circle Cement has donated crushed rock for the trails, and Watson's Farm has given the group several large boulders to be used as lookout points.

Stopping erosion on Bowmanville Creek was one of the main goals of Valleys 2000. People would like to be able to walk into the area. Organizers hope to eventually extend the trail to Soper Creek. This is an environmental initiative, taking care of our environment.

With respect to that, I want to thank the members of the environment industry who are here in the gallery today for the work and the private sector people who protect the environment we all enjoy.

PROFESSION D'ENSEIGNANT / SCHOOLTEACHERS

M me Claudette Boyer (Ottawa-Vanier) : J'aimerais aujourd'hui parler de la situation qui prévaut actuellement dans notre système d'éducation. Présentement, comme vous le savez, il y a des enseignants et des enseignantes qui sont en grève et d'autres qui en font la ménace.

It is documented that in the industry sector the average number of people on long-term stress leave is seven per 1,000. Within the Ministry of Education's own department, that number is 10 per 1,000. But most troubling is that the number of teachers, yes, teachers, on long-term stress leave is an unacceptable 17 per 1,000. These are the people whose job it is to teach our children the basics, and yet they cannot do this to the best of their ability because school boards are underfunded, resources are mismanaged and the demands placed upon them are overwhelming.

En faisant la grève, il ne faut pas penser que cette situation est la faute des enseignants et des enseignantes. Non, ce ne sont pas eux qui sont trop demandants. Ce qu'ils demandent, c'est simple. C'est un respect pour leur travail, des ressources convenables, un salaire adéquat et un climat de travail stable où le gouvernement travaille avec les enseignants et les enseignantes, un climat propice à l'apprentissage. Avec Dalton McGuinty et mes collègues, je me range du côté des enseignants et enseignantes pour dénoncer l'arrogance et l'incompétence de ce gouvernement.

KARLA MARIA VEGA

Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener Centre): I rise today to pay tribute to a young local hero in my riding, Karla Maria Vega. Ms Vega was a recipient of a fire safety award on Friday, November 3. These are handed out annually by the fire marshal. She received her award because of an incident involving a fire in her townhouse earlier this year.

What happened in that fire-understand that her parents came here from Colombia 10 years ago and their first language is Spanish-is that when the fire broke out in her townhouse, her mother panicked. When she dialled 911 to speak to the fire department, she immediately started speaking Spanish. She panicked and spoke Spanish and they couldn't understand what she was trying to report. So young Miss Vega, 10 years old, took the phone from her mother and translated for her. After the phone call she immediately went out and started knocking on the doors of all the neighbours.

The next-door neighbours were asleep, having worked the night shift. She knocked on the door, woke them up and got them out. Her main concern was the parents of her friend next door. So I'd like to have all the House join with me in paying tribute to our young hero, Karla Maria Vega.

SCHOOL BUS SAFETY

Mr Pat Hoy (Chatham-Kent Essex): Today I want to pay tribute to Larry and Colleen Marcuzzi and also to Ed and Ginny Loxton. They have taught me the meaning of courage, selfless commitment and determination. Both these families lost daughters who were killed by reckless drivers who ignored the school bus warning lights and snuffed out two young lives.

The Marcuzzi and Loxton families have been willing to come forward to share their pain with the public. They have allowed an intrusion into their very private grief in order to spare any other family the lifelong ache to which they have been sentenced. They support my school bus bill and they have done more to advance vehicle liability than anyone could reasonably expect.

They are normal people, not political or partisan, but they were heartsick and horrified here today to see the hypocrisy and political games employed by members of their government as they voted in favour of my bill before they sentenced it to death. They want the members opposite to know that the battle is not over; in fact, it has probably strengthened our resolve. We hope the arrogance and sheer duplicity of the members opposite will ultimately make it easier for us to convince the public that such indifference to the children of Ontario cannot be tolerated.

Thank you to both families from the bottom of my heart. We will not give up. We will prevail and Ontario schoolchildren will be protected by vehicle liability.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Mrs Julia Munro (York North): I rise today to speak about my community's concern over public safety. We all have the right to be safe from crime. We should be able to walk in our communities, use public transit, sleep in our homes and send our children to school without fear.

Our government has made law enforcement a priority. We now have 55% more crown attorneys to prosecute criminals and clear the backlog of cases that were allowed to build up by the Liberals and NDP. We have hired 1,000 more front-line police officers in our communities and have provided support to the men and women who risk their lives to protect ours. We're investing in technology to make the justice system more efficient. We're closing old jails designed for minimum security and replacing them with modern, new jails built to maximum security standards.

But there is still more to do. Next week I will be introducing a private member's resolution that will address an issue that is of concern: the frequent use of alcohol and drugs in our correctional institutions by inmates. Many inmates in correctional institutions are found to have some degree of drug/alcohol dependency. The presence of illegal substances in the institution increases the danger to and compromises the safety and security of staff and inmates.

Having drugs inside institutions also makes it more difficult for offenders undergoing treatment programs to successfully overcome their addictions and recover. Our goal is to ensure that inmates can successfully integrate back into the community.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES

Hon Chris Hodgson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet): I have a message from the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor, signed by her own hand.

The Speaker (Hon Gary Carr): The Lieutenant Governor transmits supplementary estimates of certain sums required for the services of the province for the year ending 31 March 2001, and recommends them to the Legislative Assembly.

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): I beg leave to present a report from the standing committee on general government and move its adoption.

Clerk at the Table (Mr Todd Decker): Your committee begs to report the following bill as amended:

Bill 119,

An Act to reduce red tape, to promote good government through better management of Ministries and agencies and to improve customer service by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting two new Acts / Projet de loi 119, Loi visant à réduire les formalités admin