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May 7, 1987

33rd Parliament, 3rd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L007 - Thu 7 May 1987 / Jeu 7 mai 1987

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

ONTARIO ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACT

DANGEROUS GOODS

ONTARIO ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACT

DANGEROUS GOODS

AFTERNOON SITTING

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

MINING ACCIDENT

PROVINCIAL PARK

CITY OF TIMMINS

DIALYSIS UNIT

FARM LABOUR

PROPERTY SPECULATION

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

PROVINCIAL-MUNICIPAL SOCIAL SERVICES REVIEW COMMITTEE

RESPONSES

PROVINCIAL-MUNICIPAL SOCIAL SERVICES REVIEW COMMITTEE

ORAL QUESTIONS

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

HOSPITAL FUNDING

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

MINING ACCIDENT

UNEMPLOYMENT IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

MINING ACCIDENT

NURSING HOMES

BEEF CATTLE MARKETING

AIR QUALITY

MINING ACCIDENT

RECYCLING

GASOLINE PRICES

PENSION FUNDS

PETITIONS

CLOSING OF ROAD

DIALYSIS UNIT

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

MOTION

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTION

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

MINISTRY OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS ACT / LOI DE 1986 SUR LE MINISTÈRE DES INSTITUTIONS FINANCIÈRES

VICTIMS OF CRIME BILL OF RIGHTS

CLEAN WATER ACT

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

ONTARIO INSTITUTE OF THE PURCHASING MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION OF CANADA INC. ACT

MOTION TO SET ASIDE ORDINARY BUSINESS

NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The House met at 10 a.m. Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

ONTARIO ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACT

Mrs. Grier moved second reading of Bill 9,

An Act respecting Environmental Rights in Ontario.

The Deputy Speaker: The honourable member has up to 20 minutes for her presentation and she may reserve any portion of it for the windup.

Mrs. Grier: It is with some pride that I move second reading of this bill and join this debate. I would like to thank the many individuals and environmental groups that have indicated support for the principles of this bill. I do not imagine there will be any objections. I cannot see how there possibly could be, but just on the off-chance that there are I will reserve some time at the end to rebut any arguments.

This is not the first time that bills giving environmental rights have been debated in this House, but I think this debate is occurring at a time when public concern about the environment has never been higher. With that increased public concern and heightened public awareness has come an increasing desire on the part of the public to be part of the process. As citizens become worried about what is happening to their environment, they find that they have very little access to the system and that they have no environmental rights. They find frustration at every turn when they seek to play their part.

They have an increasing desire to play that part and to do their bit to keep their environment clean. The question I am most frequently asked by people is: "What can I do? What can individuals do?" There is a willingness to assume responsibility to keep the environment clean and this bill allows people to do that and to play their own part.

I have called this an environmental bill of rights. In 1980, my colleague the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) introduced an environmental Magna Carta. The purpose is very similar and is very clearly spelled out in

section 2 of the bill:

"2(1) The people of Ontario have a right to clean air, pure water and the preservation of the natural scenic, historic and aesthetic values of the environment.

"

(2) Ontario's public lands, waters and natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come, and, as trustee of those lands, waters and resources, the government of Ontario shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of present and future generations.

"

(3) It is hereby declared that it is in the public interest to provide every person with an adequate remedy to protect and conserve the environment and the public trust therein from contamination and degradation."

Simply put, this bill establishes the right to a clean environment and makes citizens participants in maintaining that environment and gives them the tools to do the job. It gives citizens the right to go to court to protect the environment where damage is being done. It allows citizens to ensure that decisions are not made or approvals granted without notifying the community and without people having the right to a public hearing. It guarantees people access to information relating to environmental issues, such as the toxicity of chemicals.

It sets up funding for interveners where there is a hearing before an administrative tribunal. Finally, it protects workers who report acts of pollution from reprisals from their employers.

I think it is important also to say what it does not do. It does not take away from the minister any of his responsibilities to maintain the environment. In fact, it supplements the role of the minister and the role of the government. Our legislation in this province gives the government the power to act to protect the environment but it does not give it the duty to do so. This bill ensures that if the government fails to act, citizens can.

Unfortunately for all of us, pollution control in Ontario is a history of regulations written and violated and of compliance deadlines extended and postponed. It is a history of negotiated deals from which the public has been excluded, but it is the public that has been put at risk. In any risk analysis, we seem to have three sides. We have those who create the risk, those who regulate the risk and those who experience the risk. In our system, the risk makers and the regulators have had all the power and the risk takers have had none. This bill attempts to redress that balance.

I am not sure whether members of the government party are going to support this bill. Their comments in the press have indicated they perhaps feel much that what this bill does has already been accomplished. I hope that is not going to be their position today because it would be unfortunate if the government reacted defensively to what I am suggesting. There is no doubt that this government has been more open than its predecessors with respect to allowing access to the decision-making process. It has provided ad hoc funding for intervener groups. We have had improved fines and penalties legislation.

We have had Countdown Acid Rain and the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement. But none of these moves has put citizens on the level playing field. This heightened public awareness can be expressed not only by pressure on the government to do things for them. The public is not only saying, "Do it for us." It also is saying, "Let us play our part." That is what this bill does.

The environmental problems that we face today are so numerous and so complex that I hope the government will be willing to have this army of citizens anxious to play their part, citizens who are ready and willing to monitor the environment, inspect the environment and report on violations of environmental legislation. I hope the government will support arming those citizens to do the job because it is no good admitting citizens to the process if they do not have the price of admission. If they are not armed with the tools to do the job themselves, their participation has to be less than complete.

If you have to go cap in hand for intervener funding or to argue for months that you are entitled to intervener funding, as did the citizens of Haldimand when they were fighting Consumers' Gas and its liquefied natural gas project; if you have to prove before the courts your right to standing as are the citizens of the city of Toronto and the Canadian Environmental Law Association in the case against Toronto Refiners and Smelters; if you have to worry that you may lose your job because you have reported that your employer has been violating the environmental legislation; if you have to do these things, then you are not able to play your role.

It is like sitting at the bargaining table without having the right to strike.

This bill gives citizens the right to go to court and this gives citizens some clout. If this statement gives rise to the fear that somehow the bill opens the door to a whole series of lawsuits and a great deal of frivolous action or delaying tactics, let me reassure the members.

Section 5 of this bill clearly states that it is possible to have security posted for costs if a citizen takes an action.

In addition, there are the very natural safety valves that are provided by the onerous task of even going to court. Going to court is always

an act of last resort. The costs of doing so, the time involved in doing so and the effort of doing so are indeed daunting.

Other jurisdictions have legislation similar to this. In Michigan, a bill was introduced and passed in 1971, and in Minnesota in 1973. In neither of those situations has there been an avalanche of court cases that has clogged up the already busy courts. In fact, when legislation was introduced in Quebec in 1978 to allow class actions, there were so few cases that the government had to set up a fund to encourage people to take advantage of the legislation.

This government likes to boast of its leadership on environmental issues. Support for this bill gives it an opportunity to demonstrate that leadership. If this bill is supported today and goes to committee, we will have an opportunity for public hearings. The public can come before a committee of this Legislature and say quite clearly what its concerns are about the environment and what it thinks we in this House ought to be doing about it.

By supporting this bill, we have an opportunity to open up the decision-making process and to allow the public access to the judicial system as well as access to the regulation-making process.

A government that is truly anxious to achieve a clean environment must surely welcome this initiative. After all, if the job our government is doing is as great as it likes us to believe, then it has absolutely nothing to fear. If it and the citizens can work together, it is ensuring that we not only have the right to clean air and water but in fact possess clean air and clean water to bequeath to further generations. That is what this bill will help us to do and that is why I hope today it will have support from all sides of this House.

The Deputy Speaker: The member is reserving nine minutes and 40 seconds for her wrapup.

Mr. Knight: At the outset, I want to mention to the House that I certainly support an environmental bill of rights in principle. I believe that the citizens of Ontario should be able to enjoy and protect a clean environment. Indeed, they should have the right to a clean environment for themselves and for future generations so that we can have future generations.

I notice, however, that Bill 9, which was originally proposed by the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Elston) and now is being introduced by the member for Lakeshore (Mrs. Grier) has been overtaken by events since its first introduction in 1979 by the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Smith. I notice that the member for Beaches-Woodbine is here today. I understand she spoke in support of the bill at that time. I am sure she will take an interest in the proceedings this morning.

Some aspects of the bill that is being introduced today have been acted upon since the Liberal government assumed power in June 1985, and one was even acted upon by the previous government.

I wish to take a few minutes to review some of these points.

Bill 9 contains measures authorizing public interest funding. Under Bill 9, public interest funding would be provided from an environmental hearing assistance fund to participants appearing "before any board, tribunal, commission or court, or any appeal or review thereof."

The throne speech of April 1986 committed the government to ensuring that groups and individuals seeking to intervene in the public interest before administrative tribunals would be assisted. In conformity with this, the Ministry of the Environment has continued to make funds available on a case by case basis for interveners and proceedings that take place pursuant to Ministry of the Environment legislation.

The minister has expanded the funding for public groups wishing to participate in environmental hearings. Groups appearing before the Tricil Sarnia landfill, the 3M London energy-from-waste facility, the Consumers' Gas liquid natural gas storage proposal in Cobourg, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications' Highway 416 project in Ottawa, and one that is of special interest to me, the Halton regional landfill, were provided with intervener funding. Funding will be provided to groups wishing to appear at the Ontario Waste Management Corp.'s West Lincoln landfill hearings.

This policy of funding citizens' participation in environmental hearings results in better, more democratic decision-making and will be actively continued. The government is committed to a progressive approach to intervener funding that would apply to other ministries and their agencies, boards and commissions as well as the Ministry of the Environment hearings.

However, intervener funding raises a question as to who should pay, the proponent or the government. I believe the principle that those who profit from an undertaking should pay for all of its associated costs means the proponent should be responsible for the funding. This government supports the fundamental concept of public interest funding and will continue providing funds on a case by case basis until the legislative proposal being developed by the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) is approved by the Legislative Assembly.

The Liberal government is firmly committed to full, public participation in environmental matters. Here are some examples.

In July 1985, it was announced that the Ontario Waste Management Corp. would be subject to the full requirements of the Environmental Assessment Act. It was exempted by the previous government by order in council. In July 1985, the ministry announced the creation of a spills regulation advisory panel to conduct a public review of the spills bill regulations that were proclaimed on November 29, 1985.

In September 1985, it was announced that mobile polychlorinated biphenyl destruction facilities would be subject to full hearings under the Environmental Protection Act. In January 1987, the ministry released a report on public responses to the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement, MISA, white paper tabled in the Legislature in June 1986 and the ministry's responses to the public comments. More than 100 public interest groups, municipalities, industries, industrial associations and individuals participated in the 70-day public review period.

The recycling advisory committee was created in December 1985 to advise the minister on the new program to promote the establishment of the multimaterial source separation program on material use.

Returning for a minute to the funding issue, the ministry is increasing the amount of funding it gives to environmental interest groups. In the 1986-87 fiscal year, $631,914 was given as 34 grants paid to 30 environmental interest groups. This is up from 20 grants amounting to $406,000 that was paid to 17 environmental groups in 1985-86. The funding given to environmental groups in the 1984-85 fiscal year was $255,000 to 11 groups.

The environmental bill of rights also increases public access to environmental information. Public access under Bill 9 would be available to government information concerning emissions, most government licences, permits, approvals and orders, including applications therefor, and to any government reports on inspections and analyses. The minister could refuse access where it would hinder law enforcement, reveal personal information or disclose trade secrets. Such a refusal would be subject to appeal to an environmental assessment board, with a subsequent appeal to the Divisional Court on a point of law or jurisdiction.

Bill 34,

An Act to provide for Freedom of Information and Protection of Individual Privacy, was introduced in the Legislature by this government and obtained first reading on July 12, 1985. It has since obtained second reading and has been referred to a committee. The environmental bill of rights devotes one

section to access to environmental information. Bill 34, in 60-odd sections, presents a comprehensive, up-to-date view of the public's right to government information of all sorts, balanced with numerous provisions to protect the privacy of individuals.

In addition to the provision of access to environmental information, environmental concerns are singled out for special treatment in

section 11, which obliges a minister to make public, as soon as practical, information revealing a grave environmental health or safety hazard to the public. Provision is made for the appointment of an information and privacy commissioner to whom appeals will be made. The decision of the commissioner is final.

The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) has shown his support for Bill 34 and since becoming minister has ensured that the Ministry of the Environment practises open government. All reports are promptly released, including several that for one reason or another had been gathering dust on some bookshelf in the ministry. The minister believes strongly in freedom of information and that an informed public is a strong advocate for environmental protection. His consistent policy has been to provide freedom of information at the Environment ministry and he has delivered on that policy.

Bill 9 would also make it an offence for an employer to dismiss or otherwise harass an employee for reporting environmental contamination. The 1983 amendments to the Environmental Protection Act introduced by the then Minister of the Environment, the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt), gave an employee who is dismissed or otherwise harassed the right to a remedy before the Ontario Labour Relations Board. It is also implicit in the 1983 amendments that it is an offence to intimidate an employee. Therefore, this

section of Bill 9 is already in place.

At the outset, I indicated my support for an environmental bill of rights in principle. I have indicated a couple of the things that have been ongoing since this government has taken office to implement some of the concerns addressed in this bill, and some had already been introduced. Although the bill of the member for Lakeshore contains some things that have already come to pass, it is a start. The province should have a right to a clean environment, and I will be voting for the bill and would like to see it referred to committee.

Mr. Gillies: I do not want to sound as if I am repeating everything that has been said, but as Environment critic for our party, I am very pleased to indicate that we will be supporting Bill 172 --

Mr. Laughren: Could you repeat that?

Mr. Gillies: My friend the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) is having trouble hearing. Perhaps the speaker system could be adjusted to meet his requirements.

Mr. Laughren: No; comprehending, not hearing.

Mr. Reycraft: He has trouble believing. He can hear but cannot believe.

Mr. Laughren: Who said, "Once a Tory always a Tory"? It is not true.

Mr. Gillies: Mr. Speaker, I am being harassed from the left flank.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Nickel Belt will please constrain himself.

Mr. Gillies: You know how easily I am distracted, Mr. Speaker.

I want to congratulate the member for Lakeshore for bringing this bill forward. The history of the bill has been discussed already, and I will touch on that, but I particularly value this opportunity, my first as Environment critic for the official opposition, to speak for a few moments this morning about some of these issues here in the Legislature.

Through the first couple of questions I have asked during question period and through the position we are taking this morning, I hope to be sending out a very important signal.

The signal I wish to send out is that there is a very strong concern within our caucus and within our party on questions relating to the environment, that it is my intention to be perhaps even more aggressive and diligent in the pursuit of these issues and that we believe it a basic Conservative principle that we would wish to join with people of goodwill of whatever political stripe in the conservation of a clean and healthy ecology within our province. We see that as part of our mission as a party, and I intend to be pursuing these issues very aggressively.

I would say also, just by the by, that in the first few days of assuming this responsibility I have had the opportunity of having a number of discussions with the minister. I believe we share a number of concerns and will be able to co-operate in a number of measures. I have also thus far enjoyed a very good relationship with my counterpart in the New Democratic Party, somebody of whom I would say -- at the risk of having this quoted back in an election brochure -- I have an extremely high regard and whom I believe I would be able to work with on a co-operative basis on a number of issues.

I guess what I am saying is this. This bill would have passed anyway with the support of the two opposition parties, but I am very pleased to hear that the Liberal Party will also be supporting the legislation and that it will pass unanimously. That having been said and with my assumption or understanding that this bill will pass this morning, perhaps we should look beyond that as to what will happen next.

We have had several private members' bills come out of this chamber in recent months that have gone either to the committee stage or even to third reading and have demonstrated the power of private members' hour to influence the course of legislation and the course of policymaking in this province. I urge the government and government caucus members here present to support the immediate referral of this bill to a committee -- the select committee on the environment might be as good a forum as any, I suggest -- and during the long tenure of this Legislature we could even see it called for third reading and passed into law.

Mr. Philip: Liberals do not call opposition bills for third reading; they have shown that.

Mr. Gillies: I am hearing misgivings expressed in this regard by my friend the member for Etobicoke (Mr. Philip). It is very easy for all of us to stand on a Thursday morning with all the pious hopes we have for a clean environment and for the rights of citizens with regard to their environment; it is all very well for us to mouth these truths if the next step is not taken and we do not see the legislative changes made that we would wish. I leave that as the responsibility of the government to call the bill as soon as possible.

As has been mentioned already, this bill is back in a third incarnation, having first been introduced in 1979 by the then Leader of the Opposition, Dr. Smith, as Bill 185. The bill came in again when the opposition critic of the day, the member for Huron-Bruce, now the Minister of Health, brought it back in. I want to quote because I think the Minister of Health cited the case as well as anyone. In speaking to his own bill on June 1, 1982, and I quote from Hansard, he said:

"Citizen groups in Ontario spend as much time and money fighting the Ministry of the Environment as they do fighting polluters....These obstacles to fighting a court battle against a polluter, coupled with the recognition of the legal fees involved and the fear of having court costs awarded against the plaintiff if the case is lost, are enough to cause even the most ardent environmentalist to back off."

Clearly, one of the most important features of the bill before us is this right, the right of people to access public hearings on major projects and to receive intervener funding to assist with that venture. I want to make a point on this, and I hope the Minister of the Environment will either hear or see these remarks.

Under the minister's regime, there has been an ad hoc application of intervener funding, but I do not consider that to be sufficient. It came as a surprise to me on assuming my critic's responsibilities to find that there is no policy per se, at least none that I could detect, on the question of intervener funding. It has been the right, the prerogative and the judgement of the minister to determine what group will receive intervening funding with regard to what project. That is not sufficient. It leaves too much discretion in the hands of the minister to determine who is worthy of this funding and who is not.

It leaves room for a minister, not necessarily this one, to fund those groups with whom the minister of the day agrees but to prevent intervener funding from flowing to those who are in opposition to the minister's point of view. We need a policy that guarantees free and equal access to this for all of our citizens who wish to make points on environmental projects. That is a very salient and a very appropriate feature of the bill of the member for Lakeshore.

Frankly, several features of this bill are implicit in legislation anyway, but I believe the bill of rights is a good step because for the first time it will assure the right, not the privilege or the hope, but the right of our citizens to a clean environment. It will assure them of the right to make their point of view known to the courts, to the ministry or to society if they feel that right is being trampled upon.

As a member who has worked extensively in the labour area of late, I am intrigued by the proposal that there will be some protection against reprisal for workers if they see fit to report to the appropriate officials should there be a pollution situation going on through their employer, perhaps covertly or otherwise. I read that

section very carefully and I believe it is an appropriate feature of the bill. We are not talking about an employee having the right to shut down a business, even on a temporary basis, because of some problem he or she has detected. That is not what I read here; what we are seeing is simply the right of workers to be protected against reprisal should he or she report it to the appropriate officials. That should be the right of any citizen within our society, whether an employee or not.

Access to information is an important feature of the bill. Based on my first couple of weeks' work in this area, I fear we may be seeing more verbiage and rhetoric from the minister on the question of openness and flow of information than we are seeing in fact. I may bring to the attention of the House in coming days a situation that has been brought to my attention where a serious pollution problem occurred in one of our constituencies and was not reported by the ministry to appropriate officials; in fact, the particular problem I am being briefed on was not made public.

I will not bore members with the details now, except to say we are not getting a full public airing of all the environmental problems and environmental challenges we face as I believe we should.

I am very pleased that we will be supporting this bill. I am pleased that the member saw fit to bring it forward. Again, I urge the government members to take the next very important step and see it referred to committee and for third reading and passage by this House.

Mr. Charlton: I too rise to support Bill 9 from my colleague the member for Lakeshore. It is a bill which I think goes in a direction that this Legislature has not chosen to follow on any issue that relates to people, human health and the environment. It is a bill which addresses a problem that exists across a whole range of areas we have discussed on a rather lengthy and frequent basis in this House.

I start out by saying that we appreciate the support of the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) and presumably his colleagues; and that of the member for Halton-Burlington (Mr. Knight) and presumably his colleagues as well. Having said that, I listened carefully to the member for Halton-Burlington and his comments on the bill, and in spite of his support he does not appear to fully understand the importance of what this bill is about or the importance of the kinds of problems, as I said across a whole range of areas not just the environment, that have to be addressed in terms of rights for people.

The member for Halton-Burlington mentioned that the government had significantly expanded the expenditure on intervener funding. As the member of Brantford said, there appears to be no clear policy on intervener funding. I think that is a fair comment. Even if there were a clear policy, policies are things that can be changed from year to year or withdrawn without reference to this Legislature in the future.

The right to intervener funding is what we have to address here in this debate today; not whether intervener funding exists or whether dollars have been expanded over the last two years from $200,000 to $700,000, or whatever the numbers were, but whether the availability of that funding may disappear after an election when the government gets a majority or with a change of party in power. What we have to address here is whether the people of this province have the right to intervener funding, a right that has to be enshrined in legislation.

The member also made reference to the fact that we have a piece of freedom of information legislation in the works. That is fine. We hope it will pass, but again that is not the point. The point is that freedom of information legislation will be incomplete because it is universal and general and there are some areas where there are greater requirements for withholding information than there are in others.

It is our contention that in the case of the environment, in the case of occupational health and safety and in the case of a number of other areas like that where human life is at risk, we have to have maximized access to information. That may not be true in terms of Treasury documents about future tax increases, but it has to be true in cases where human life and human health are involved. Whether or not that freedom of information legislation passes, we need the toughest standard when it relates to the environment.

There is another aspect of the question of freedom of information, or access to information, which is irrelevant to whether or not there is good, tough general legislation in place. One of the biggest failings in terms of this Legislature and the laws we turn out is that because freedom of information is in one act and this is in another act, and a right is over here, it becomes very unclear to the general public how those pieces of legislation fit together.

Perhaps the government members can tell us in their next round of comments, if they are committed to freedom of information, what is wrong with saying that in a number of pieces of legislation, so that when it comes to environmental rights or occupational health and safety, it is clear that freedom of information applies.

What has to be said here today is that above all the questions that have been discussed by the member for Halton-Burlington and the number of issues that are addressed in this bill, such as freedom of information, intervener funding and access to hearings, the most important aspect of this legislation is the right of individual people and groups of people to have a mechanism to protect themselves and their environment above all else, to seek redress when the Ministry of the Environment does not act or in their view acts inappropriately. That is the most important aspect of this bill.

We have seen and we credit the present minister and his ministry with having taken actions against some polluters against whom the previous government failed to act. We have also seen many cases that we have raised in this House where there continues to be inaction. In some cases, that inaction drags on for a year or two years; in some cases, it drags on for 10 and 15 years. The people of this province have to have the right to find redress when their government fails them.

One of the other things that is going on in the area of the environment when it comes to setting standards, emission limits, exposure limits or any number of other aspects of the environmental discussions we have had, both around the environment and around occupational health and safety, is that we have scientists, bureaucrats and politicians setting those standards and, in so doing, assessing what they like to call "acceptable risk." No matter what one defines as "acceptable risk," the fact that the word "risk" is involved in that definition means that there is some level of risk involved in the standard that has been set. The standard has not eliminated risk.

Citizens have the right to know what is going on in that process, what the politicians, the bureaucrats and the scientists are deciding is an acceptable risk, a risk that they, as citizens, are going to be exposed to. They have to have the right to challenge that acceptable risk if they feel that the acceptable level of risk which has been chosen by the politicians or the bureaucrats is not an acceptable level for them, because they happen to live downwind from the plant in question or because their exposure over a shorter period may not be as much of a problem as it is going to be for their children.

With all the unknowns we know exist in environmental decisions, most of the environmental decisions we make relate to the short term and not to the long term. The citizens of Ontario in a democratic society, in what we all like to call a free society, have to have the right to challenge and to fight for themselves, their families, their neighbours and their friends when they feel the government has made a bad decision, when they feel the information has changed the circumstance and the government is not acting to make that change or when they feel the government has failed to proceed in prosecutions.

We need these rights, and I urge all members to support this bill.

Mr. South: It is an honour for me to rise today to support, in principle, Bill 9, an environment bill of rights first introduced by the Liberals in 1979. This is beginning to sound like, "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride."

The underlying principles of the bill are ones that must be supported by anyone who cares about the environment we live in and the legacy that we will leave to our children. However, the bill, in its present form, like any bill at this stage, can be improved. Parts of the bill would require co-ordinated action by several ministries for two reasons.

First, because the bill applies to public lands, water and natural resources and to forms of use apart from pollution which are regulated by other ministries; second, because the rights and procedures set out in the bill apply to statutes such as the Conservation Authorities Act, the Planning Act and the Drainage Act, administered by other ministries, as well as to statutes administered by the Ministry of the Environment.

In addition, there are several matters which may be more effectively addressed in statutes of general application because the issues raised are of importance not only in the environmental context but also in the context of civil liberties, consumer protection and human rights. These issues include access to government information, class action and locus standi or standing.

I would like to focus my remarks today on two fundamental points expressed by Bill 9: standing and the right to a clean environment. The word "standing" refers to the right to pursue remedies in the courts and to appear before administrative tribunals. With certain exceptions, our legislation does not create any rights to environmental quality; instead it imposes obligations and duties on operators of facilities capable of causing pollution and gives power to government officials to enforce those obligations. Standing must be viewed in the context of the administration of those obligations and duties.

The bill creates a right to a clean environment and provides standing to sue for that right. At present, in the context of our legislation, the ministry has the standing to issue or refuse to issue licences, permits and certificates of approval. However, if the applicant appeals a refusal or imposition of condition or conditions, the applicant and the ministry have standing before the Environmental Appeal Board but the neighbours of the facility or other concerned parties do not unless the board, in its discretion, grants this standing.

Traditionally, members of the public had no right to challenge government action or legislation even if it were unlawful, unless they could show they had a special interest in the matter. Moreover, of direct interest in the environmental context was the fact that members of the public concerned about public nuisance, that is the pollution of public resources such as air, water, fisheries, public highways and public parks, had no right to take action to stop the nuisance without the consent of the Attorney General.

This naturally has been subject to criticism because it precludes access to the courts, not on the basis that no law is being broken but on the basis of who the person is, and, in effect, it sanctions law-breaking.

Standing is an issue in our legislation in two areas. First, only the Attorney General or the Minister of the Environment has standing to seek injunctions of violations of the environmental protection legislation administered by this minister; second, standing to appear before the Environmental Assessment Board and the Environmental Appeal Board is not clearly spelled out.

I support amending the environmental legislation to provide specifically for standing of others before the Environmental Assessment Board. Environmental groups have asked for this over the years and, in this regard, we have the support of the chairman of the Environmental Assessment Board.

In regard to the right to a clean environment, failure to comply with an approval, order or other statutory duties is an offence. Every member of the public has standing to prosecute under our statutes. There is no barrier to private prosecution. The ministry has always supported private prosecution, including a statement to this effect in our abatement policy.

In

summary, I support this bill in principle. I think it is very worth while. In spite of what we may do in this House, our environment is affected very much today not only by what our neighbours to the south do but also by what happens on a global basis. We are affected not only by the fact that there are coal-fired generators in the Ohio valley which create much of our acid rain problem in Ontario, but also by the fact of what happens to the rain forest in the Congo.

We must, as we always have in this political jurisdiction of Ontario, trail-blaze. I believe we have the best environmental legislation anywhere in the world and we have the best technical staff for ensuring that people in this area comply with it. What we must do is sell the message to our neighbours to the south and to the world at large.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): The member for Lakeshore.

Mrs. Grier: Mr. Speaker, the member for Brock is going to take five minutes of my remaining time.

Mr. Partington: I would like to thank the member for Lakeshore for permitting me to join in this debate. I am pleased to join in this debate in support of Bill 9,

An Act respecting Environmental Rights in Ontario. As I read that, I hoped that the word "respecting" not only meant "about" but also meant "pay tribute to," "focus on," "enshrine."

I looked at

section 2 of the proposed bill, subsections (1), (2) and (3), and thought how important those sections are, how necessary the thoughts and the principles contained in them are to the future of our society. Subsection 2(1) says: "The people of Ontario have a right to clean air, pure water and the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and aesthetic values of the environment."

It is only a short time ago that people settled in North America in the Great Lakes basin because of an abundance of good land, plenty of wood, unlimited quantities of fresh water and a very moderate climate. The Great Lakes area and its people prospered and grew in numbers and strength as a result of that. But that very prosperity, that very growth has undermined and weakened the very reason for its being.

We have attacked the environment; we have laid waste our pure water and our clean air. We read daily of the polluting of our environment, be it the poisoning of our soils, the degradation of our water or the attack on the very air we breathe, as we have recently learned with respect to the acid rain threat to us all. Only this morning, in the Globe and Mail, we see a headline, "Mist of Niagara Falls Carries Toxic Chemicals, U of T Researchers Say."

The mighty Niagara River, once a symbol of greatness, energy, strength and certainly nature's magnificence, has become, in a short time, an example of our folly, our environmental destruction, wantonly and with disregard to the safety and the livelihood of us all. Some day, we may through our concentration change that and make Niagara River a hope; may reverse the destruction of nature we have gone about.

I would like to say with respect to this bill and how important it is to us, that John Jackson and Tim Eder of Great Lakes United's Water Quality Task Force, in a

summary they did of the water quality agreement, state, "The Great Lakes residents insist on being much more directly involved in decision-making that affects the quality of the lakes and the quality of their lives."

In another brief to a federal water inquiry, it has been indicated that there is an immediate concern for health in the face of increasing pollution and insidious toxic contaminants in drinking water. There is concern about the waste treatment and cleanup for our cities, our farms and industries; others worry about impact on fish and wildlife. Truly, the people of North America, the people of the world, are concerned as never before about environmental concerns.

The bill that the member for Lakeshore introduces today goes a long way to ensuring that we recognize those rights to clean air and a clean environment as fundamental, not only to good living but also to survival. It guarantees that the people of Ontario and, hopefully, others will take a lead, that they have a direct right to interfere. They do not need to leave it to others or to government; they can interfere in court action.

Clearly, given the reference to intervener funding, they do not have to come to the government and hope that they might get money to intervene and represent the citizens. There will be a fund and a board set up, and they will have a right to go there, provided that they bring to the hearing a focus in the interest of all. Money will be awarded so that they can clearly represent their interests and the interests of the people they support.

I think this bill is essential for Ontario today and for the citizens of Ontario. I am very happy to support it.

Mrs. Grier: I would like to thank most sincerely the members who have participated in this debate today, not only for their participation but also for their support of the legislation. I truly feel that we can move on and perhaps see enshrined in legislation the kinds of rights this bill envisages. That is the important thing.

While it has been pointed out that some of the aspects of the bill may be appearing in other legislation or may already exist in some form in other places in our law, what this bill does is establish the fundamental right of the people of the province to a clean environment. I have certainly found that people are very surprised to discover that they do not already have that right, that nowhere is it said, "You have the right to a clean Ontario." I am sure that many members of this Legislature will be supporting, and have been approached about the issue of enshrining property rights in legislation.

How much more important it is to enshrine environmental rights. That is what I welcome the support for doing, and I hope we can proceed.

The member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. South) has pointed out the need for co-ordination and the diverse places in which environmental legislation is found. That is one reason we need a bill like this that will pull together all the various environmental rights and privileges and access and participation and mechanisms that people need. By having it in one piece of legislation, we will have certainty and we will have a mechanism.

The member for Halton-Burlington points out, quite rightly, that this government has provided intervener funding and has been more open to access and has provided more money to groups who want to participate in the process; but they have not set down any guidelines, they have not enunciated a mechanism and they have not given groups the certainty that they will have funding available to them if they want to participate.

When you embark on opposition or on participation in some hearing and you do not know whether you are going to be funded, it severely limits your ability to participate. A true environmental funding policy would lay down the rules, let you know where you stood, what you were going to get, when you were going to get it and you could plan your activities based on that certainty. As the member for Brantford pointed out, in the absence of that certainty and in the absence of those rules, we might be subject to the whim of the government as to what group it was going to fund and what group it was not going to fund.

I have raised this matter of intervener funding at question period on many occasions in this House, and I am surprised, once again, to hear from the member for Halton-Burlington that we are awaiting legislative proposals from the Attorney General. When I last raised the issue with the Attorney General, I pointed out there was a very clear set of guidelines for intervener funding that he himself had enunciated during the hearings into the Mackenzie Valley pipeline. I do not know what we are waiting for and why we cannot put those in place and at least do that.

I urge the members of the government not to delay other pieces of intervention in proceeding towards an environmental bill of rights, merely because this bill today has passed second reading. There is a lot to be done. If they can proceed with intervener funding, if they can proceed with access to information, I am not for a moment suggesting that they slow down that process. What I am saying is, let us put it all together, let us enshrine our right to a clean environment.

I urge the members to support sending this out to a committee. I urge the government to allow us to have hearings early and quickly into the actual sections of the bill and then to call the bill for third reading so that we can say that this minority Legislature has truly accomplished something for the environment.

DANGEROUS GOODS

Mr. Jackson moved resolution 1:

That, in the opinion of this House, recognizing municipalities have vital concerns with the movement of dangerous goods within their boundaries and that Ontario is the only province or territory in Canada that has not taken steps to control the movement of dangerous goods within municipalities, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, in consultation with the Ministry of the Environment, with the technical and public input from affected municipalities, enact specific legislation to control the types of hazardous goods and routes within municipal boundaries.

Mr. Jackson: I am both pleased and honoured to place before this assembly this resolution which would call upon the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in consultation with the Ministry of the Environment and with input from the affected municipalities, to enact specific Ontario legislation to control the types of hazardous goods and their routes within municipal boundaries in Ontario.

In recent years municipal councils and the public at large have been made increasingly aware of the potential for major disasters within our municipalities resulting from the transportation of dangerous goods and materials by road and by rail. This new awareness has led to the expectation that the flow of dangerous goods through urban municipalities should be regulated in order to minimize the potential for such incidents resulting in the loss of life and property. Indeed, action has been taken in all provinces but Ontario to establish some form of dangerous goods truck routes.

At present Ontario municipalities can regulate heavy truck routes within their boundaries, but the Ministry of Transportation and Communications has repeatedly stated, as it did to the city of Burlington on December 2, 1985: "Ontario currently allows municipalities to pass bylaws establishing routes for trucks under the Municipal Act. This bylaw-making power refers to any commercial vehicle and is not commodity specific."

In that correspondence from the manager of the operation, policy and standards office with the MTC, Mr. Brennan stated further: "To date there has been a reluctance to approve commodity specific routing since the government does not want to economically hinder the movement of goods any more than is necessary as long as public safety does not suffer.

Any extension of the present bylaw powers should have to take into account economic factors such as local pickup/delivery patterns, connecting routes between municipalities and between the highway and other modes of transport, as well as connections with federal properties. These economic factors would have to be weighed against the object of public safety."

I suggest that the movement of pressurized hydrogen or chlorine or radioactive materials through a municipality are in fact issues of public safety that should be addressed by this Legislature, even if the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Communications is unwilling.

If a truckload of milk overturns outside a hospital or in a densely populated residential area there will be traffic lineups as a result, but if a truckload of pressurized hydrogen overturns in the same spot there are substantial risks presented; yet truck routes under current legislation do not treat one any differently than the other.

It was the early morning of October 18, 1985, when a truckload of pressurized hydrogen overturned on Lakeshore Road in Burlington. There were 140,000 cubic feet of hydrogen in that truck in 12 cylinders, and one of them split. It forced the evacuation of many residents in east Burlington. Had the truck been half a block further down the road it would have been in one of the most densely populated areas of my community. That truck should not have been there. The driver was lost. Yet he was there and the area had to be evacuated.

As Burlington Fire Chief Warren Corp pointed out to the city council, it was, in his opinion, the unsuitability of the route for the transportation of dangerous goods that needed to be looked at. Fire Chief Corp was concerned because there was a growing incidence of these kinds of situations, some of them occurring in very crowded, densely populated areas.

The aldermen, primarily Alderman Barry Quinn and Alderman Jim Ryan, were quite disturbed to learn that at that point there was no authority with the municipality or with the province to regulate in such an instance. So Burlington council agreed on March 10, 1986, to send a resolution to the municipalities of Ontario and to this Legislature. That resolution stated:

"That the Association of Municipalities of Ontario be requested to petition the government of Ontario to reconsider its position on the transportation of hazardous goods and to enact specific legislation enabling municipalities to control the types of hazardous goods and routes that these goods take within municipal boundaries."

The government should have listened to Burlington council because there is a growing support among municipalities across Ontario for the need to act on this vital issue. The councils of Oakville, Markham, Mississauga, St. Catharines -- the home of our Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) -- Toronto -- the home of our Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Fulton) -- and the regions of Halton and York have endorsed this resolution. Indeed, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario has endorsed this resolution, as amended in its operating paragraphs, and I quote briefly:

"That the Association of Municipalities of Ontario be requested to petition the Ontario government to reconsider its position on the transportation of hazardous goods and to enact specific legislation to control the types of hazardous goods and routes."

Indeed, the Ontario Traffic Conference, after consultation with municipal delegates, completed a final report with their position on dangerous goods truck routes in September 1986 and filed the following resolution:

"That the province establish guidelines for the control and movement of dangerous goods on public roadways; and that with both technical and public input from the affected municipalities, the provincial government designate dangerous goods routes through and around municipalities, using a permissive system, which regulates but does not prohibit the movement of dangerous goods to any area within the municipality."

Also, the council of the Municipality of Metro Toronto endorsed the position adopted by the Ontario Traffic Conference on September 30, 1986. There seems to be a common concern across Ontario that this province finally establish guidelines for the control and movement of dangerous goods on public roads. The case for a routing control to ensure greater public safety is a compelling one and it makes good common sense.

For example, dangerous goods routes would make it easier for our officials concerned with safety and emergency procedures to plan responses to possible accidents which could be very serious and require immediate action. As many traffic hazards as possible could be eliminated from the planned routes. For example, level crossings, limited manoeuvring room such as tight turns and narrow bridges, excessive pedestrian traffic, or subways or tunnels where gases collect, present extra hazards in the transportation of dangerous goods.

Preplanned routes would facilitate policing of the regulation as all of the traffic would be more easily identified in accordance with the limited regulations under the Dangerous Goods Transportation Act. Preplanned routes could be designated to direct dangerous-goods traffic away from emergency resources centres, such as our hospitals, fire stations, police stations and other emergency facilities that would be necessary to control and to respond to those kinds of accidents. This response would be greatly inhibited if the facility itself was actually involved in the incident.

Also, preplanned routes could be designed to direct dangerous-goods traffic away from heavy density institutions such as schools, plazas, commercial areas, hospitals and nursing homes. Preplanned routes could make it easier for our planning departments to plan use of the community with the knowledge of where these materials would be travelling. For example, industrial zoning could be encouraged on hazardous-goods routes and institutional uses discouraged.

Clearly, it should be realized that the lack of dangerous-goods truck routes in Ontario is a growing problem. Not only are hazardous chemicals a growing problem, but also hazardous biological material and, yes, nuclear waste.

Currently, notification of routes for some highly dangerous radioactive materials to local emergency planning authorities is required. However, these officials, our fire and our police chiefs, have no input as to what routes would provide the least risk to life and property. It is completely unacceptable, but unfortunately sometimes true, that they have been notified after the radioactive materials have passed through their communities. This is a growing problem that requires our immediate attention as legislators.

The issue of the concentration of chemicals or hazardous goods corridors should also be mentioned at this point. In September 1985 the Ontario Waste Management Corp. selected as its preferred site the township of west Lincoln in beautiful Niagara Peninsula. Although this site may not be operational for several years, plans call for an annual treatment and disposal capacity of over 300,000 tons of toxic material per year.

The Queen Elizabeth Way will become a toxic waste freeway. The increased concentration of hazardous waste traffic will present a significant and greater risk to communities like Mississauga, Oakville and Burlington as traffic proceeds over the Skyway bridge and on to Stoney Creek, Saltfleet and then Grimsby.

A comprehensive set of regulations governing the transportation of dangerous goods must be implemented here in Ontario before that Ontario Waste Management Corp. site becomes a reality. The provincial government has the authority to implement this resolution in the interests of public safety and in response to the very legitimate concerns being raised by our municipal leaders across Ontario.

My resolution calls upon the provincial government to enact specific legislation. It calls for consultations and municipal input. I ask all members to join me in support of this resolution. The issue today for us as legislators is not who controls this regulating authority. The issue today is that we agree that regulations are required and are approved for a safer tomorrow.

The Deputy Speaker: The member has reserved seven minutes and 50 seconds for the windup.

Mr. Charlton: I rise in support of the resolution of the member for Burlington South (Mr. Jackson). I think it is appropriate that this debate occurs immediately after the debate on Bill 9 which we dealt with earlier this morning because they are issues that are directly connected.

The member for Burlington South made it clear that what he wants this morning is support for this resolution and not for the specifics of who should have the control and the regulatory authority ultimately. His resolution is silent on that matter. His resolution calls for the need for legislation.

However, in terms of my comments, I want to insert into the debate some aspects of this situation which go beyond those which have been raised by the member for Burlington South. I will start that out by saying that I happen to agree with the member for Burlington South that preplanned hazardous waste or hazardous substance routes are a useful approach for part of the problem because those preplanned routes can then be policed in a way that we cannot now police the movement of hazardous substances.

What we have at present is a situation where, although there are some regulations around the types of equipment and containers in which hazardous substances will be moved, there is virtually total freedom of movement of hazardous substances. The member mentioned that municipalities have the right to designate truck routes through their municipality, but they do not have the right to regulate use of those routes. Even more than that, they do not even have the right to know what substances are ultimately using those routes.

I do not mean to belittle the member for Burlington South but I want to tell him that Highway 401 north of Toronto and the Queen Elizabeth Way from Toronto to Buffalo are already a hazardous substances freeway, and have been for many years now.

We have a situation where hazardous substances can go virtually anywhere. There is no advance notification. There is no ability on the part of the local authorities to be prepared for the kind of accident the member described in his own riding. There is no knowledge on the part of the local council, or more important on the part of the local citizenry, of the contents of those vehicles transporting hazardous substances.

This is where the connection comes between the previous debate this morning and the debate we are having now. Even the establishment of preplanned hazardous substances routes will only deal with part of the problem.

Because of the ineffective way we have done our development planning over the course of the last 100 years, we have industrial complexes and in many cases individual industries isolated in inappropriate communities where, in order to get their hazardous substances to the plant or out of the plant, they are going to have to take routes that are inappropriate as preplanned hazardous substances routes because they are going through residential communities to get to the designated highway or whatever the case happens to be.

Because of that and in that context, we have to insert into this debate the question of environmental rights that we talked about in the last debate. We have to start informing municipalities, whether it is the province that ultimately regulates or whether it is the municipality that ultimately regulates. We also have to start informing citizens, because regulatory bodies in making their judgements in terms of regulating the movement of hazardous substances are going to make decisions, decisions which inevitably are going to contain an assessment of risk.

The way in which they have approached that assessment of risk is something that has to become public knowledge, and the public ultimately has a right to respond to it.

I guess what I am saying is that not only does the movement of hazardous substances have to be regulated, but also ultimately we have to give the right to municipalities and communities within municipalities to fight to stop the movement of a particular hazardous substance through their community when it feels it has not been fairly dealt with in terms of the determination of what is an acceptable risk.

Many would say that kind of process could throw all kinds of economic consequences into the industrial arena in southern Ontario. I spent four years as the environment critic for this caucus, and I want to tell the members those four years became the most intensive learning experience of my life. I learned a lot of things about a lot of dangerous substances, but I also learned a lot of things about the need to use those dangerous substances.

There have been a number of studies done around the world, in North America, and by organizations right here in Toronto, about pollution, hazardous waste and the need for pollution and hazardous waste; and even about making profits from pollution prevention. The studies show that in most cases the hazardous substances that are taken into a plant and then removed from that plant in a dirty state can be recycled, reused and cleaned by the addition of certain processes in the plant itself to reduce or eliminate the need to move that hazardous substance in and out of the plant on a regular basis.

It has also been shown that the additional technologies to make those kinds of things happen can often produce a profit. We find a number of things happening. Sometimes hazardous substances are shipped in and out because of habit, because the operator of the industry does not know there is a cost-efficient process for cleaning and reusing that substance. Often, the operator is using a particularly toxic or hazardous substance because it is slightly cheaper than a less dangerous alternative. Often you have combinations of both, where a change in process and a change in the substance you use can resolve the problem of the need to transport those dangerous substances right from the outset.

The ability of the public -- the individuals past whose homes these hazardous substances are being moved, the risk-takers in this society: the people who work in the plants, the people who live on the routes where the substances are transported -- to bring pressure to bear to stop the movement of that hazardous substance can be resolved in a number of ways.

It can be resolved by finding alternative routes; it can be resolved by finding an alternative substance; or it can be resolved by forcing the industry to look at an alternative process in the plant itself. The solutions are not simple, but if we do not give the public the right to bring that kind of pressure to bear, old habits, old routines and the urge to reduce costs between a more hazardous substance and a less hazardous substance will ultimately leave us in the lurch. We have to deal with those questions in the legislation the member is talking about.

Mr. Haggerty: I wish to join in the debate this morning dealing with the resolution of the member for Burlington South, particularly on the matter of who has responsibility and authority in directing the movement of hazardous goods through a municipality. I concur with the previous speakers on the matter, because it is a serious problem out there in the municipalities.

I represent the area of Erie, which has a number of trucks carrying radioactive waste from the American side on through to Detroit. I always understood that when these particular trucks would move through a community the municipality was notified of the movement of that hazardous material.

Sometimes, some place along the line, somebody forgets to notify the local emergency task force, such as the fire department, in the municipality. That is a great concern when we put all the responsibility upon municipalities, particularly fire departments and those who are in the emergency task force in a community.

There is often a cost to bear. I think in his comments the member for Burlington South mentioned the Ontario Waste Management Corp. locating in west Lincoln. There have been reports to say that about every three minutes there will be a truck going through the little village of Vineland, a quiet community there. That is through the day, I understand from what they tell me, and I suppose if we look at that we could have a backlog of trucks from the site all the way right through to the Queen Elizabeth Way.

They could be parked on every street in those communities without some rules that apply to say, "We want to reduce the possibility of an event, an accident or even the potential risk of an accident."

I am concerned about that; but then again, when I look at the regulations we do have, the Dangerous Goods Transportation Act for the province that parallels federal legislation, and then we come in with deregulation of the trucking industry from the American side that is supposed to parallel federal legislation on the American side, then we can come back and take a look at the spills bill act. Just take a look at it though; I am trying to bring a point home here.

Take a look at all those laws, acts, legislation and regulations that somebody back in a municipality has to be concerned about. I suggest that a number of members visit local fire departments and see what efforts they are trying to make to catalogue all the toxic chemicals that may be transported on our highways and even through the Welland canal, because it is an area that they really cannot cope with, yet we are willing to shove more responsibilities on municipalities.

The member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Charlton) mentioned recycling as an area the government should be moving into to neutralize some of the toxic chemical waste of these plants. Often, the argument comes forward on the matter of trucking, and even the matter of locating the Ontario Waste Management Corp. in the Niagara region.

The reason it is located there is that it is central. It will cost too much to move it to some remote area in Ontario. "You have to put in the cost factor," that is what they tell us, which I cannot agree with; but I am suggesting to members, although there are regulations under

section 210 of the Municipal Act, they can do that.

Of course, I give credit to the local politicians. They are clever enough to say: "Yes, we know there is hazardous material here. We can designate that as a truck route." For example, in the former county of Welland, the Webber Road going through Vineland and into Welland was there to generate the truck route into the heavy industrial sector; the Niagara region, we might say -- Niagara south.

But I want members to take a look at a bill that perhaps many of us have forgotten. This followed the derailment that took place in Mississauga. It is the Emergency Plans Act. This was put forth by the Solicitor General at that time, Mr. Taylor.

He said, "Municipalities, of course, have initial responsibility for responding to an emergency situation. They have hospital, ambulance, fire, police and other essential services located within their boundaries."

I thought one particular paragraph in there should be of interest to all of us. He said:

"I believe this is a valuable piece of legislation which will assist municipalities in making immediate and effective response to emergencies. I also wish to mention that the bill complements the laws regulating the transportation of dangerous goods and the program in place to protect the environment from adverse effects of spills and other accidents."

When I take a look at that bill, what he is saying, the intent of that bill, is that the municipalities have a right to designate a preplanned route for moving hazardous materials or goods in municipalities.

The whole point is, if we keep on bringing in more legislation and more legislation, by the time those who have to respond to that crisis or that event look down to see what action they should be taking, the response time could be delayed considerably.

I agree with the intent of this, and that is more initiatives should be given to the emergency plans of the municipalities.

This afternoon I will be introducing my own bill, the Good Samaritan Act,

An Act to relieve Persons from Liability in respect of Voluntary Emergency Medical First Aid Services. If we are going to have such plans as are already on the books and if we want to complete a sound emergency plan, then we are going to have to give relief in other areas.

When you get an event of the nature of what happened in Mississauga, if you have an accident of that nature -- and a spill of toxic chemicals could happen again anyplace -- you have to muster every human resource that is available in a community or municipality to be able to respond to that event. For example, we have to look to St. John Ambulance to respond. We should be looking for nurses, people who are well qualified in medical first aid treatment and our hospitals to respond.

Until we get into an area to say that we want a complete emergency plan in an event, the government of the day -- and the government of the past should have done so -- should come in with a Good Samaritan Act so we can put all our resources together in the event of a spill or an accident. I suggest that legislation is there now if we want to respond to it.

I know the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications are always reviewing the transportation of dangerous goods throughout Ontario. I suppose when one looks at that, they are going to be coming up with some new ideas, new programs or new plans. I think one of the areas they should be looking at is designating a truck route that can carry hazardous materials. I suggest the more deeply we get into this thing, we see that recycling is something that perhaps should be looked at in some areas. The government should be moving in that area.

I think of the Ontario Waste Management Corp. locating in the peninsula between two large bodies of water. Just think of what the consequences would be if there was ever a spill, an accident or an event occurring there. It could get into either of those lakes. We talk about the serious problem on the Niagara River and the pollution in that area; just think of what could happen there.

I believe there is enough legislation under Bill 2, the Emergency Plans Act, 1983, that the municipalities can move in that area to control the movement of hazardous materials.

Mr. Gregory: I am very pleased to stand and speak in favour of the resolution of my colleague the member for Burlington South. He has read the resolution. I want to touch for a minute on the real dangers we face and some of the results we have had from toxic waste spills.

I recall very clearly the evening of November 10, 1979. I had the pleasure to speak in St. Catharines at a nonpartisan meeting, and I was the designated speaker. I left for home shortly after 11, between 11 and 12, and driving home from St. Catharines on the Queen Elizabeth Way, my daughter, who was with me, and I spotted across the lake a very bright light.

From that distance, my first reaction was that this was the burnoff from the petroleum storage area down in Clarkson. Of course, as we got a little closer driving along the highway and kept seeing flashes, this got larger and larger. We started speculating with some trepidation about what this was. The immediate reaction we both had was that surely a jet had crashed at the airport, which is just north of my riding.

Naturally, as we got closer and closer to the area and kept seeing these flames getting higher and higher, we began to get very concerned. It was not until we got home and caught some newscasts that we began to get little glimpses of what it was. This, of course, was the infamous Mississauga rail disaster. This has nothing to do with roads, but it does not much matter when you are in a situation like that whether it is a railway tank car or a truck tanker exploding. The results can be just the same.

In this particular instance, what happened was that the tankers derailed and some exploded. As a matter of fact, I found out the next day that some tank cars were blown 200 yards through the air, if one can imagine this, into adjacent fields. That is a long way for a tanker to have gone sailing through the air, farther than most of us can hit a golf ball.

We have quite often heard Mayor McCallion refer to the Mississauga miracle. Perhaps that language is a little strong, but when one considers that had the chlorine gas escaped -- chlorine gas was used during the First World War because it clings to the earth and travels with the earth and goes down with the valleys into the shell holes and that sort of thing -- with the wind patterns in Mississauga the wind would have blown the gas directly and primarily in a southeast direction and the gas would have covered the Queen Elizabeth Way.

It is a proven fact that when automobiles drive through chlorine gas, the chlorine stops the automobile. In other words, it comes to a stop. I do not know the mechanics or the chemistry of that, but that is exactly what happens. One can imagine that had that chlorine gas covered the Queen Elizabeth Way going through Mississauga, with the many thousands of cars that would travel late Saturday night -- most of us have driven at some time on Saturday night and we know what it can be like -- one can imagine the horror of that happening or the horror if the gas had blown towards the residential areas, which were not too far from it.

My friend the member for Erie (Mr. Haggerty) mentioned the Emergency Plans Act that was brought in by the former Solicitor General. One example of the success of that occurred during the hurricane in Barrie. They give credit to that act in the setting up of an emergency plans committee for the control of the disaster, the saving of lives and that sort of thing.

We did not have that sort of thing enacted at the time of the Mississauga disaster, but between the Peel Regional Police and the Mississauga Fire Department, with a lot of help from surrounding communities' police forces and fire departments; and with very active leadership from the Attorney General at that time, Roy McMurtry, from her worship the mayor, the chief of police of Mississauga and the chief of the fire department, the result was not one loss of life; not one person lost his life as a direct result. I believe there was one as a result of some senior citizen being moved, but that had no direct relationship to it.

The miracle that caused that was that when the tank car exploded the majority of the chlorine gas was blown into the air. I do not know but I guess chlorine dissipates in the air, and I do not think there were any bad results from that. Rather than spreading along the ground in every direction imaginable, it blew up into the air so that the risk of that chlorine gas was removed.

One cannot imagine the psychological feeling on Sunday morning, which was the first opportunity I had to go to the site to see it, and then coming home about an hour and a half later to find that my whole district had been evacuated. As I drove along the street and attempted to turn into my subdivision, I was stopped by a police officer. I was able to prove who I was and ask, if the area was evacuated, that I at least be given the opportunity to evacuate my family, which I had to do.

A hundred thousand people were evacuated from Mississauga that day. They were placed in school gymnasiums, in community centres, in what hotel space there was available, and it was very difficult to do. I was fortunate I have my parents in Toronto and I was able to move my family there. I am not trying to relive that, because we all heard about it. In fact, it made Mississauga famous and certainly did not do Mayor McCallion any harm either.

The fact of the matter is it became a very well known city, ironically because of a disaster. The point of the whole exercise is that whether it is a railway tanker or a truck tanker that goes up, the results can be basically the same. When we see these tankers going around, in the few instances that my friend the member for Burlington mentioned about actual happenings, about spills, we realize this could happen in just the wrong area.

If the Mississauga disaster had been planned, it could not have been planned better, because it happened in an area that was approximately two miles from the nearest housing subdivision. There was room even for the tanker car to blow 200 yards and land in the middle of a field and for the gas to be blown upwards so that it did not affect the community. It truly was a miracle. We cannot count on this happening again. If a tanker truck full of chlorine gas were to have an accident in the middle of a subdivision somewhere, could we hope for a second miracle? I think not. It becomes a matter of time.

The resolution is an intelligent one. This matter has been approached before and previous Ministers of Transportation and Communications have said they could not do that. In the two years since there has been a new government nothing has been done either, so I do not think it is a matter of casting blame for its not being done. I think it is time it was done. I really feel it is important, because I do not think we can generally give every municipality the right, the authority to set those routes for hazardous trucks.

I think we have to be very careful. For example, we cannot give the council of the village of Podunk, wherever that is, or Pumpkin Corners, which sits on the Trans-Canada Highway, the right to reroute transport trucks off the Trans-Canada Highway, around the village and back on to it again. I think that would be carrying things too far. However, with some discretion, the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Transportation and Communications can, on a selective basis, give municipalities that right, and this is precisely what this resolution is directed at.

Mr. Speaker, I think my time has run out. Thank you very much.

Mr. Reville: I am delighted to rise to speak in support of this resolution. I do so with a great deal of history behind my wish to support this resolution, because as an alderman in the city of Toronto I had cause to be concerned about the transportation of dangerous materials.

I am sure there has been much discussion of the Mississauga disaster. I can think of a disaster in my own ward, when I was an alderman, which, thankfully, was not a fatal occurrence. It related to the transportation of nitrocellulose between two warehouses. Unbelievably, there was an entrepreneur who was speculating in nitrocellulose, which is the main ingredient of dynamite.

Somewhat more than 100 drums of this material were transported from one warehouse to another, where subsequently they caught fire. The whole southern portion of what are currently the ridings of St. David and Riverdale were evacuated. The firefighters were particularly concerned that there might be loss of life, not only of residents but also of firefighters. It was a very serious situation that points up the pressing need for mechanisms to regulate the transport and, indeed, the storage of hazardous materials.

I remember a very urgent conversation I had with the fire chief at that time, who was obviously worried that many of his firefighters might lose their lives in that situation. I think it is even more important when we are thinking of volunteer fire departments, because they do not have access to the kind of database that a Toronto fire department might have with its computers and what not. We are sending out volunteers to deal with situations they may not have any information about at all. There are placarding systems and routing systems that could deal with many of these very grave dangers.

I must say that both the current and previous governments at the provincial level and at the federal level have been derelict in their responsibilities of protecting the safety and lives of not only innocent passersby but also those whose job it is to go into hazardous situations day by day. There is, indeed, a federal responsibility in this regard, and I hope that should the resolution pass, which I assume it will, the mover of the resolution will want to include consultation with the federal authorities, because they have jurisdiction in the transportation of goods across provincial boundaries.

One of the things I think the resolution points to quite sharply, and I am sorry it has not been mentioned, is the failure of both the current government and the previous government to deal seriously with the whole question of right to know.

I am talking about not only the right to know in the work place, so that workers know what kinds of hazards they are exposed to, but also the right to know in the community, so that people who live around industry to which dangerous goods will be transported and in which dangerous goods will be stored and processed can know what kinds of dangers they are exposed to and appropriate measures can be taken to prevent not only worker injury but also threat and injury to the community.

I think it is absolutely shocking that our Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye), in this as in so many other regards, has been foot-dragging shamefully, has been goofing around with work place hazard management information systems, which really does not tell anybody much about anything, rather than serious right-to-know legislation, rather than a labelling kind of approach.

There is a whole question of toxicology that needs to be addressed seriously if there is a spill of naphtha on Highway 401. What is that going to do if there is a chemical cocktail, as often happens when particular chemicals are exposed to other chemicals or to the elements? What kind of hazards are we as residents of Ontario, and as police officers and firefighters, going to be exposed to?

When I was still an apprentice plumber, I had an employer who sent me out to deal with a drainage problem in a public housing project. This points up two problems. One is the way in which public housing projects are constructed and the other is the way in which employers treat their employees.

I was sent out with this material to try to unclog the drainage system. I put the recommended amount into the drain and immediately got a 40-foot cloud of vapour and poison. I still have scars on me today. I was given no protective equipment whatsoever --

Mr. Haggerty: You did not read the label.

Mr. Reville: It was quite interesting; the label said absolutely nothing. The label said: "Do not eat this. It has MSG in it." I did not eat any.

Mr. Haggerty: I thought that was the position you were in. You did not know what you were doing. You were not an expert.

Mr. Reville: We are getting some good advice from across the hall from a person who has absolutely no knowledge of the subject. That is fairly typical and I do not find it unusual at all.

I find it regrettable that it is well known that many of the products we are able to create in our society come without instructions that even a simple apprentice could understand. In some cases, apprentices are more simple than others, but they deserve to be protected from the known effects of substances, as do all the people who abut highways. The communities through which the highways unravel should be protected.

I am delighted to see the resolution by the member for Burlington South. I presume one of the reasons the resolution is before us is that there are a number of high-traffic roadways that go over the bridges and down the lanes in that area of the country. For any of us in Ontario and in the rest of the country for that matter, we need to be really serious about the transportation of dangerous materials. We need to embark on the consultation process that has been recommended here.

I believe there is much we can learn from the residents of the municipalities and the local representatives of municipal councils and township councils who have to deal daily with the concerns of their constituents about what may be lumbering through and what those spooky signs mean on the backs of various kinds of tankers and other vehicles.

There are a number of issues. I think the issues have been well canvassed here today. Let us get on with the real work that would flow from this resolution. I urge other members of this Legislature to support it, notwithstanding that I have accused both the Liberals and the Tories of dragging their feet on it. Now is the time for them to stop dragging their feet. The New Democrats, I believe, will be cheerful to support this kind of initiative.

Mr. Jackson: At the outset, I would like to thank my colleagues from the third party, the member for Riverdale (Mr. Reville) and the member for Hamilton Mountain, for their kind and generous comments of concern with respect to the safe passage of this resolution.

It was particularly appropriate today when we have also had on the morning's agenda the bill of the member for Lakeshore (Mrs. Grier). I believe there is a connection between the two. In fact, the whole area of right-to-know legislation, of responsibility to inform our citizens, particularly of problems with the transportation of nuclear waste, is an issue I am pleased to see has not escaped the attention and concern of all the members of this House.

I want to thank my colleague the member for Erie for what I guess I should stylize as his cautious and somewhat conditional support for the resolution.

I note with interest that the member for Scarborough East who is the Minister of Transportation and Communications is unable to be with us in the House today. He is recovering from a very serious illness and I know all members of the House will join me with wishes for his safe and complete recovery. I know he would be in the House today to listen to this rather important resolution affecting his ministry. However, I am disappointed the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) was unable or unwilling to be here to respond to both of these resolutions.

The member for Erie briefly mentioned the spills bill. I have to remind the member that it is not a document that at least the official opposition felt was the proactive type of legislation required for Ontario in the 1980s and the 1990s. That bill only lays blame. It only fixes liability. In fact, it only allows our police chiefs and fire chiefs to be able to respond to the media and say, "That is who is to blame." In no way does it address the requirements in Ontario to be proactive to reduce the incidence of spills. I think this resolution should be considered seriously by the government because of its proactive approach.

The member talked about the Emergency Plans Act. It is a rare moment in this House when we have members of the governing party crediting the former government for any piece of legislation. I thank him for his kind support for the previous Attorneys General.

Still, that bill should go further. What we are hearing is that the police chiefs, particularly my police chief and fire chief to whom I talked yesterday, indicate they want dangerous goods routes designated in their communities so that they can co-ordinate and plan response times and not have to deal with the point the member raised about the gap of having to react after having found out all the facts involved in a specific case.

I cannot help but highlight one point. It has to do with the whole issue of substance control and this new government. I find it rather odd that this government has expressed open willingness to let municipalities decide on whether beer and wine should be sold in local corner stores, and yet there appears to be a reluctance to let municipalities decide on dangerous goods routes. That form of contradiction on substance control is a matter of public record and I hope it will be corrected soon.

It is clear that there are definitely preferred routes for the movement of dangerous goods throughout Ontario municipalities. Each municipality has unique characteristics, as has been stated by the members of this House speaking to the resolution. In particular, I want to mention my colleague the member for Mississauga East (Mr. Gregory) who eloquently advised us of the unique circumstances of a rather hazardous spill that occurred in his riding.

I ask that all members of this House approve this resolution for a safer Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: This completes the debate. However, the standing orders state very clearly that the vote must be taken at 12 of the clock.

Mr. Gillies: It has to be that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Pierce: Ad lib it for a while.

Mr. Speaker: Really? Perhaps I can have the agreement of all members.

Agreed to.

ONTARIO ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACT

Mr. Speaker: Mrs. Grier has moved second reading of Bill 9.

Motion agreed to.

Mrs. Grier: May I ask that the bill be referred to the standing committee on resources development for hearings and discussions.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Does the member not want it to go to the environment committee?

Mrs. Grier: That is a select committee. I want it to go to a standing committee.

Mr. Speaker: Is there agreement? Generally it goes to committee of the whole House, but if there is unanimous agreement it is perfectly in order.

Agreed to.

DANGEROUS GOODS

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Jackson has moved resolution 1.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Jackson: May I ask that the resolution be referred to the standing committee on resources development.

Mr. Speaker: The member can ask anything he wants. To my knowledge that has not been done in the past. It is not the usual procedure. If it is a bill, it is fine. There is no objection to asking but there is nothing in the rules that says it has to go.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: We are not in favour of that occurring.

The House recessed at 12 noon.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Mr. McLean: I have a statement for the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston). As he knows, both the Oak Ridge steering committee and the mental health centre's advisory board committee have brought to his attention the critical shortage of clinical, research and support staff required for providing adequate treatment services to patients at the Penetanguishene facility. In total, approximately 90 additional staff members are required to meet the day-to-day needs at Oak Ridge.

I am seriously concerned over the recent reports from the mental health division that additional funding for the province's psychiatric hospitals will not be forthcoming. The hiring of additional staff cannot occur if funding is held at current levels. The funding restrictions have placed the senior administration at Oak Ridge in the untenable position of being expected to make improvements at a time when the minister has tightened his purse-strings. A great deal of enthusiasm has been generated within Oak Ridge over the positive steps that have been taken to improve treatment services for the patients, and I hope this momentum continues to the hiring of additional staff.

Will the minister instruct his officials to review the steering committee report and immediately improve additional funding for Oak Ridge? On April 7, I sent the minister a letter requesting a clarification of a statement he made with regard to closing Oak Ridge, and as yet I have not received a reply. Will a new facility be built on the same property?

MINING ACCIDENT

Mr. Martel: Today I received a call from the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) suggesting that my colleagues and I meet with him to discuss the matters that were raised in the Legislature yesterday. My colleague and I refused because we did not want to be precluded from raising matters we might learn about. We passed that information on to the Minister of Labour and got a later call indicating that everything we would discuss would be on the table, at which point I suggested the minister should make a full and complete statement in this Legislature.

I smell a rat in this situation. The night that the Premier (Mr. Peterson), the Minister of Labour and my colleagues from the Sudbury area met at the Levack mine, the first thing the company told us was that there was a man working in a place where he should not have been working. My antenna went up right away, because that was dwelt on in a great deal of the discussion.

I turned to the Minister of Labour and said: "I want you to find out what the practice is. Do not tell me about the policy of the company. I want to know what is the practice of having workers working above where other workers are in a shaft."

I was never more shocked than to learn yesterday that criminal charges had been laid, which would preclude an inquest. Members have to understand that in all situations involving mining fatalities an inquest is compulsory, and that precludes it.

PROVINCIAL PARK

Mr. Mancini: Yesterday a question was asked of my colleague the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) concerning Holiday Beach Provincial Park in the riding of Essex South. I just want to let the House know that a number of years ago, under the Conservative government, the park was put into private hands against the wishes of the local member. Since that time, the park went into complete disrepair and it was probably in the worst condition of any provincial park in Ontario.

After the Liberals assumed the government, I approached the minister with the same proposition I had made to the Conservative government, to turn the park over to a public body such as the Essex Region Conservation Authority, and the minister did. We made a public announcement in the riding, we worked along with the local municipalities, and now the park has been improved substantially and its usage has gone up.

While there was a technical error made in not notifying the Ministry of the Environment 30 days prior to the change, the park in fact has been upgraded. It is in the hands of a public institution, and this government has done something I asked it to do when the previous government would not even acknowledge my request.

Mr. Warner: Only Liberals can lose an entire park.

Mr. McClellan: They lost a whole park.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Cochrane South.

Mr. Pope: Yesterday the minister did not even know where it was.

CITY OF TIMMINS

Mr. Pope: This is the 75th anniversary of the city of Timmins. There has been delivered to each member's mailbox, or there will be within the next day, a calendar of events issued by the municipality, Mayor Vic Power and the chairman of the 75th anniversary, Bill Boychuk. This calendar of events indicates the kinds and wide diversity of events that will be taking place over the summer months.

I urge all members to attend the city of Timmins during the 75th anniversary, and while they are in the great riding of Cochrane South, it is the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Abitibi-Price and therefore of the beginnings of the community of Iroquois Falls. Summerfest `87 is on from July 22 to July 27.

It is also the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Matheson in the great riding of Cochrane South, and the Matheson Agricultural Society is planning a number of events to honour that anniversary.

If members come to the great riding of Cochrane South, to which they are all invited, partially at my expense and partially at their own expense, there is a wide variety of events and features to be offered to them and their families.

DIALYSIS UNIT

Mr. Warner: It seems that the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston) has decided he is going to elevate delay and indecision to an art form. It has now been four years since Scarborough General Hospital, in consultation with the other public hospitals in Scarborough, determined there was a need for a renal dialysis unit to serve our community, and yet there is no decision, no action on behalf of the government.

Every time I raise it, the answer I get from the Minister of Health is, "Well, we are making progress." A centipede with fallen arches moves more quickly than this government. We are tired of waiting.

But more than that, the minister will know, as other members sadly know, that a young Scarborough man died last year simply because he was on a waiting list for a renal dialysis program. That tragic event could be repeated unless this government shows some leadership -- which is uncharacteristic of the government, of course -- and releases the money needed so that we in Scarborough can benefit from a renal dialysis program.

FARM LABOUR

Mr. McLean: I would like to bring to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) the great problem that many farmers are having across this province with regard to farm help. I know the pools he has established are supposed to be helping the farmers across the province to get help, and I know of many farmers in my area, including my son as one, who cannot hire farm help.

I wonder what the minister is doing to promote the agricultural offices, the Kemptville College of Agricultural Technology and the different schools to try to encourage young people to be involved in the agricultural industry and to try to help these farmers who are badly in need of farm help.

I do not know whether the labour pools across the province are doing their job fully, but I would appreciate it if the minister would look into it and try to establish a system whereby the people in this province, the farmers who are being successful, can get help.

PROPERTY SPECULATION

Mr. Reville: I would like to address this statement to the parsimonious member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon), who, in his crossing of the divide between this side and that side of the House, forgot that a speculation tax used to appeal to him a lot but now does not seem to.

I think particularly of Yorkville-by-the-Water, which in other terms is Harbourfront, where people are making down payments for stuff that does not even exist and may not exist. In fact, units in one project started at $90,000 and are now being sold for $180,000. If that is not speculation, I do not know what is.

I think this government should move on it and bring back some of the ideas it thought were so lovely while in opposition to protect home buyers so they can get a place to live in this province.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

PROVINCIAL-MUNICIPAL SOCIAL SERVICES REVIEW COMMITTEE

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: As the recent speech from the throne indicated, "We recognize that individuals, neighbourhoods and communities best know their own needs, and we will involve them in planning and choosing the services they require."

Today I wish to announce an initiative which is designed to improve social services right at the grass-roots level. We want to improve and clarify the joint roles and responsibilities for social services shared by the province and Ontario's municipalities.

To that end, I have appointed the Provincial-Municipal Social Services Review Committee. The committee will examine current provincial and municipal roles and funding responsibilities for social services and make recommendations for a more rational, co-ordinated and comprehensive approach.

We will be facing a number of difficult issues and attempting to answer some thorny questions, which will include: What are the strengths and weaknesses, on a program-by-program basis, of the existing service delivery and cost-sharing relationships? How should the respective responsibilities of the province and municipalities for the delivery of social services be reconciled? Should municipalities be given more or less responsibility for the delivery of social services?

There are three partners in this review: the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association and my ministry.

The committee will be jointly chaired by Ron Book, representative of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and chairman of the social services committee for the regional municipality of Niagara, and by Colin Evans, executive director of strategic planning and intergovernmental relations for my ministry.

Also representing the Association of Municipalities of Ontario are Nancy Smith, a city of Ottawa alderman and chairman of the social services committee of the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton; Roger Taylor, mayor of the town of Elliot Lake, and Dick Picherak, commissioner of community services for Metropolitan Toronto.

The committee has three representatives from the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association: Phil Johnston, commissioner of social services for the regional municipality of Waterloo; John MacKinnon, administrator of social services for Huron county, and Alan Wells, commissioner of social services for the regional municipality of York.

Finally, three senior officials of my ministry, two of them assistant deputy ministers, have agreed to serve on this committee.

The recommendations of this 11-member committee will shape the basis for provincial-municipal relations in social-service delivery and cost sharing for the next decade.

The committee's report will be ready within 18 months. At that time, we will act decisively on the recommendations it contains. This government is committed to continuing to work in partnership with the province's municipalities to ensure our system of social services is the best it can possibly be.

RESPONSES

PROVINCIAL-MUNICIPAL SOCIAL SERVICES REVIEW COMMITTEE

Mr. Andrewes: I am pleased to be able to respond to the statement of the Minister of Community and Social Services, in which he, of course, announced yet another government review, another committee to put forward suggestions for his ministry.

I want to congratulate the minister particularly on his choice of Ron Book, regional councillor for the town of Grimsby at the Niagara regional council level, as joint chairman. Ron Book has for a long time taken a very strong interest in the social services field, has distinguished himself in that field and has brought to the Niagara region a perspective on social services that lends itself to his role in this committee. He is also known to have great foresight and to champion certain political causes and was seen at a particular nomination meeting last week supporting a candidate of his choice.

The minister has alluded in his statement to the challenges that face this committee and the challenges of the inequities in the social services field. Those inequities that exist between communities across the province are indeed severe. The committee's role is to identify some of these inequities. I hope it will reach some conclusions that will allow it to make recommendations to the minister that will attempt to balance the haves with the have-nots across this province. That is the role of the provincial government. Certainly, the municipalities in the past have sought great direction from the government in trying to balance that situation.

As it identifies the shortfalls in the system, I do not want this committee to forget some real concerns that exist in my own region and right across the province -- concerns such as children's mental health, speech therapy and the continued deinstitutionalization of developmentally handicapped people in our communities. These are challenges that are challenges today, and I am sure and confident the committee will be addressing them.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: It often amazes me the time we spend on statements by ministers when other gaps are left yawning. I would have thought the statement for today would have been from the Minister of Labour around the matter that was raised yesterday about the laying of charges. I cannot believe that has not come forward.

Instead, what we have is the production of a new committee to study and not to report for at least 18 months, according to what the minister is telling us, with a very confused mandate.

What is the present role of the Social Assistance Review Committee? Is it not to look at some of these issues as well within its parameters? The answer is yes.

Is this committee supposed to wait to do anything until it sees what Judge Thomson says, and are his recommendations to wait until this committee has had a chance to review them in the future?

There are some very good people involved in this, I will admit -- some wonderful people from the various municipalities -- who will come and sit down and discuss things. Phil Johnston will be pleased to be on this again after he finishes with the Social Assistance Review Committee this fall some time, or perhaps the minister expects him to do both things at once in the interim.

When the minister is talking about actually co-ordinating social services delivery and how the funding of that should take place and about how the delivery mechanisms should be headed, is it not kind of strange that he would come through with something that has no connection with the Ministry of Health? How is it that he is going to start talking about the delivery of social services to the elderly in municipalities around Ontario and how that should be done when he does not have anybody from the Ministry of Health or the health sector on this thing? It is absurd.

When the minister is dealing with youth, how can he possibly talk about social services delivery to youth in Ontario without involving the Minister of Education (Mr. Conway) or people from boards of education around Ontario? They are not involved. That is also preposterous.

I suggest that the minister also needs to be involved in the correctional side of things and young offenders questions, if he is going to be dealing with a review of social assistance in Ontario. All he has created is an excuse for inaction by himself for another 18 months, to use it, as he is using Judge Thomson's committee, as an excuse not to do anything for the disadvantaged in our society.

This is not a necessary formalized committee. This will be a good working group to work with an interministerial committee here at the Legislature, but, in my view, it is muddle-headed. It is another excuse for delay by a government that knows not what it should do towards the poor and disadvantaged in this province.

ORAL QUESTIONS

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr. Harris: I have a question to the Minister of Financial Institutions. It was two weeks ago today that he called his news conference to announce his intention to cap auto insurance rates. At that news conference, from sheets I have here, it was specified that the mandate of the rate review board was "to set ranges for all types of motor vehicle insurance." Yesterday in this House, the minister said the rate review board will determine all insurance rates, including fire, home owner and theft. Can the minister tell us today which of his two statements was correct?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: Yesterday, I was responding to a hypothetical question placed by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman) as to what would happen if rates went up in other lines of insurance, based on the cap or the rate review board we had for auto insurance. I was saying that when it examines automobile rates, the rate review board will take into consideration all factors that may influence those automobile insurance rates.

Mr. Harris: Given the continuing confusion surrounding this issue, I suggest the minister may want to check the Hansard and some of the comments he made outside the Legislature. I do not think that is what he said at all. In fact, it appears as though he is perhaps calling the plays here from the line of scrimmage on this issue. I might add that as he is calling these audibles and the automatic plays, one would wonder whether they are even in the playbook of the Premier (Mr. Peterson) to start with.

None the less, the minister will acknowledge the amount of confusion he has created with two different statements. Until yesterday, the discussion was only on auto insurance premiums. If he wants to check the Toronto Star of this morning, he is quoted as saying, "Our rate review board is meaningless, if it just sets a rate for autos." That is his opinion.

Mr. Speaker: And the supplementary question is?

Mr. Harris: Can we ask the minister why he has not been straightforward from the beginning on his true intentions for the auto insurance industry?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: The intention of this government is to provide rate review for automobile insurance. Having said that, we want to make sure that there is not any cross-subsidization, that the industry does not decide that if it cannot do it in auto insurance, it is going to raise rates in all the other sectors of personal line insurance. We are going to make sure that the rate review board and the insurance advocate monitor those rates to make sure they are not being adversely affected by what the companies are doing with auto insurance.

Mr. Harris: Now that we have established that the minister does not appear to be any less confusing on this issue today than he was yesterday or in the past two weeks, perhaps I could go back to his original news conference and subsequent statements in the House where the minister has said that public auto insurance has not been ruled out.

Given his expansion yesterday of the mandate of the rate review board, perhaps he would clarify this statement for us and confirm that, in fact, the government of Ontario has not ruled out public auto insurance and is considering a complete takeover of the entire insurance industry.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: This government has said all along and I as a minister have said that I do not prefer government auto insurance. Having said that, I have Justice Coulter Osborne looking at the whole area of no-fault insurance. He is looking at who should be delivering it, whether it should be the private sector or the government sector. If it can be shown that is the only route this government can go, we would have no choice but to examine it. That is what I was saying then and I am saying it now.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am certain there is a member who would like to ask a question.

HOSPITAL FUNDING

Mr. Rowe: I have a question of the Minister of Health. As the minister will know, I have raised the question of the government funding for a new hospital in Barrie on many occasions in this House. Instead of responding to these legitimate inquiries, the minister accused me of failing to understand the priority-setting procedures of the ministry. While the minister may enjoy this game, he simply is putting the lives of many seriously ill patients at risk. Why does the minister continue to play politics with the residents of my riding instead of getting on with the job of health care?

Hon. Mr. Elston: We are not making any type of game out of funding our health care system. Our system is being planned. The programs that should have been done many years ago now have to be put in the framework of our fiscal abilities. We plan to provide the services that are available for all of us to look at.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you how outraged I am at this gentleman standing up and accusing us of playing politics with a health care facility. That does not occur; it will not occur. He should know better.

Mr. Rowe: I have in my hand two letters to me from the minister, one he intended me to receive and one he clearly did not intend me to see. In the latter, the passage that is scratched out by the minister's own pen reads as follows: "I expect to make a public announcement regarding this matter in the very near future."

Clearly, the minister is in a position to announce funding for the new hospital today. Why is the minister withholding critically needed health care services from the people in my riding for his crass political gain?

Hon. Mr. Elston: There is no such thing occurring. The honourable gentleman wishes us to make statements and announcements at all turns. He will know, as everybody else in this world will know, that all our decisions must be made on the basis of fiscal planning along with everything else. We have several priorities that we are examining even now.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Elston: I would love to make announcements every day of the week. I must do the planning that is required, and it has to be done in a reasonable process. We will do that when we are able to come up with conclusions which provide us with the ability to find the funds that are available to make the facilities workable for all the people there in Barrie and area.

Mr. Andrewes: I want to remind the minister that it was one year ago that we asked the Premier (Mr. Peterson) about the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, after the death of a woman in the corridor of that hospital. I also want to remind him about other projects we have spoken about in Orangeville; in Dufferin and Peel; in North Bay, where he put a two-year delay on announcements for that facility, and in Timmins where he has delayed the announcement for two years.

Now we have an errant letter, dated one month ago, in which he clearly indicated his intent to hold off making these announcements until it was politically propitious for him to do that. Are people in need of health care in this province to wait until the Premier calls a provincial election before they get health care services?

Hon. Mr. Elston: Throughout the process of almost two years of our mandate, we have been making the announcements as the planning has been completed. That gentleman will know that there were a number of projects on which his group of people -- he was a cabinet minister -- made announcements for which they had absolutely no planning put in place at all. He did not have the allocations and yet those people opposite went ahead and made a plethora of announcements for which there was no planning or allocations in place.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will ask all members to control their feelings, thoughts and comments. I ask them to be reasonable.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Martel: I have a question of the Minister of Labour. Alan Douglas Brown died on September 6, 1985. He was a Ministry of Transportation and Communications employee working over a culvert when he fell into a flooded creek. He was not provided with a lifejacket.

I raised this matter with the minister on May 7, 1986, and charges were laid against three ministry officials in June 1986. The trial was held on April 25, 1987, in Peterborough, where the case was thrown out, due to the fact that the statute of limitations was exceeded. Under the Public Authorities Protection Act, subsection 11(1), the limitation for prosecution is six months.

Can the minister tell me why it took him six months-plus even to lay a charge and the statute of limitations was exceeded, yet he fairly panted yesterday laying charges three weeks after a fatality in Sudbury? What the hell gives?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I am well aware of the results of the trial in Peterborough in the charges that arose out of the Alan Douglas Brown fatality. I can inform the honourable member and the House that the ministry plans an appeal to the decision of the judge in the case.

Mr. Martel: That is helpful. The question was why they were so anxious to lay charges yesterday, three weeks after, yet they spent seven or eight months, after being prompted in this Legislature, on another fatality.

I have another supplementary on laying charges. I raised the matter of Allied Heat Treat in this House in November 1985. In March 1987, 16 months later, I got a report that told me the following: "There was inadequate ventilation. There was no protection over the salt bath which caused the roof to corrode. There was inadequate protective equipment provided to the workers. The noise levels were exceeded. No data sheets were provided. No health and safety committee was in place. There were hazards of lead and potassium cyanide." Tell me why this company did not have charges laid against it.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: My friend the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) will be aware that a complete and thorough investigation was carried out regarding all the concerns that were raised. Indeed, he has alluded to the letter I wrote to him on March 30 this year.

I want to say to him and to the House that a complete and thorough investigation cannot always be completed and compliance achieved overnight. We wanted to assure ourselves that this was done. I want to emphasize to the honourable gentleman that all orders issued to the company were complied with by April 1986. The orders, I am advised, were issued to promote good engineering practice, not because of any high levels of a substance, as air quality tests did not indicate levels above the acceptable standards under our regulations.

Any consideration of a prosecution and charges in this matter would have been carried out by the appropriate ministry officials, and I am just a little shocked that my friends over there seem to suggest that perhaps there ought to be continuing ministerial, political interference in that process.

Mr. Martel: I think the minister has responsibility for this act. That is what he is supposed to be there for. Did nobody tell him that yet? Somebody should. He has only been there two years.

Let me ask him another question about his legal branch. Last year, as a result of 13 inquests, charges were laid in eight cases. The judge threw out charges on eight cases. His ministry withdrew charges against supervision in eight cases. In the five cases in which the ministry proceeded, th