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February 9, 1989

34th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L144 - Thu 9 Feb 1989 / Jeu 9 fév 1989

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

RETIREE VOLUNTEERS

VEHICLES ON CONSERVATION AUTHORITY LANDS

RETIREE VOLUNTEERS

VEHICLES ON CONSERVATION AUTHORITY LANDS

AFTERNOON SITTING

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

NORTHERN HEALTH SERVICES

POLICE DUTIES

MEMBER FOR CORNWALL

CAMBRIDGE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING COMMITTEE

FIREFIGHTING

CITIZENSHIP

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

TRIPARTITE STABILIZATION PLANS

SMALL BUSINESS

POLICE WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

TORT REFORM

RESPONSES

POLICE WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION

TORT REFORM

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

TRIPARTITE STABILIZATION PLANS

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

TORT REFORM

POLICE WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

TORT REFORM

ORAL QUESTIONS

POLICE TREATMENT OF VISIBLE MINORITIES

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

NATIONAL SALES TAX

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

TUITION FEES FOR REFUGEE CLAIMANTS

ASSISTANCE FOR DIABETICS

FARM PRODUCTS MARKETING

CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES

PROPOSED WATER PIPELINE

BEEF MARKETING

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

ALGOMA CENTRAL RAILWAY

PETITIONS

TRANSIT SERVICES

EXTENDED CARE

TEACHERS’ SUPERANNUATION

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

RETAIL STORE HOURS

ORDERS OF THE DAY

WATER TRANSFER CONTROL ACT (CONTINUED)

WATER TRANSFER CONTROL ACT

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

Ms. Bryden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: It appears that the mover of the motion for ballot item 61 is not here. Should we adjourn until he arrives? Can we adjust the time or will it be taken out of the hour?

Mr. Speaker: It makes it a little difficult. I do not think we should adjourn. I know there are two items and I do not think it really would be fair to put the second item now, because there may be members who wish to participate between 11 and 12 and, therefore, they would not be here.

We could get unanimous consent to have someone else place the motion for the member for Brampton South (Mr. Callahan), if there are any other members who were going to speak on it. Would there be unanimous agreement to have the member for Oxford (Mr. Tatham) move the motion?

Agreed to.

Mr. Bossy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I have information that the member for Brampton South will be here any second.

Mr. Speaker: I think it would be in order to proceed. We have unanimous agreement.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I wonder if the three parties have speakers on the second resolution, because maybe the member for Brampton South will not be here even when his turn does come.

Mr. Speaker: I understand he will be here very shortly, so I think, to keep the business in an orderly fashion, I will recognize the member for Oxford.

RETIREE VOLUNTEERS

Mr. Tatham moved, on behalf of Mr. Callahan, resolution 61:

That, in the opinion of this House, the minister responsible for senior citizens’ affairs should establish an internship program for those retired persons who wish to volunteer their acquired skills and knowledge for use in any area of government where such expertise may be needed and to accomplish such purpose a directory of such retirees and their skills should be set up and maintained through the ministry.

Mr. Speaker: I hope it is agreeable to the member if we allow him to speak for up to 10 minutes and reserve 20 minutes for the member for Brampton South at the end.

Mr. Tatham: It is a pleasure for me this morning to rise and speak in support of private member’s motion 61.

First of all, what did Methuselah do for 904 years? Here is a poem written by Barbara Purcell called Modern Grannies.

I have a little grannie, she is really very old,

but also unconventional in a most unusual mould.

She doesn’t wear her spectacles perched upon her nose,

she wears contact lenses, and varnishes her toes.

Unlike some other grannies, who are home

before it’s dark,

she is dressed up in a track suit jig-jogging

in the park.

And when I wish she’d sometimes stay, and

tuck me up in bed,

she is off to study yoga, and standing on her head.

Some grannies sit in rocking chairs and

crochet shawls, indoors,

but my grannie jumps upon a horse, and

rides across the moors.

She goes on day trips with her gang of

over-sixties club,

they racket round the countryside and end

up in a pub.

And on the homeward journey, like a flock of singing birds,

they harmonize old favourites, with verynaughty words.

I love my little grannie, I think she’s really

great,

if that’s what growing old is like, well I

simply cannot wait.

Checking with the Woodstock Senior Citizens Club, they number approximately 800 and they serve another 200 people, some of whom are shut-ins, have Alzheimer’s disease and are unable to be in regular attendance at the centre. Here are some of the events one can achieve: a ski and chili dance, outdoor breakfasts, shuffleboard, bowling, oil painting, driver refresher courses.

The purpose of the club is to extend to the senior citizens an opportunity to participate in interesting and worthwhile activities that promote physical, social and psychological wellbeing and to show fellowship and encouragement for the betterment of all. The majority of the members range in age from 64 to 74. The oldest regular attendee is 99 years old. She comes out to quilt and play euchre. Recently my wife received a call from Meals on Wheels and the organizer was Mrs. Annie Forbes. Annie Forbes will be 94 years of age next Wednesday.

Life goes on after 65. All the experiences people have gone through over the years have been sorted out and distilled. It seems to me we have a grand opportunity to tune in to all that information and use it for the benefit of our society. Talking to the administrator of Woodingford Lodge, which is our senior citizens’ home in Oxford, he says that the average age of the people admitted in this past year is 84.9. Some people are able to take early retirement before 60 years of age. What a talent bank to have available for our country.

Let me tell you about Tom Williams. We had been invited to his birthday party out at the Sweaburg United Church. We arrived at about two o’clock, but no Tom. Tom arrived 15 minutes later and apologized for being late, but said: “You know, I have had a great birthday present. The fellows came along after church, picked me up and we went flying Harvards in formation. Of course, I was just a passenger.”

Tom was celebrating his 95th birthday. Tom flew for the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War, receiving his wings at 31 years of age. He transferred from the cavalry to the air force and the maximum age for pilots at that time was 28. The transfer officer asked him, “How old are you, corporal?” “I am 28, sir.” “And how many days?”

After the war, Tom was a bush pilot up in the Red Lake district. Any of the residents who lived close to the Sweaburg district back in the 1930s could watch Tom Williams’s beacon as it swept the sky, a marker beacon for any lonely pilot flying in the area.

One Sunday afternoon at the Fraser farm, on the 10th line of East Zorra, Tom was taking passengers up for a short flight and a pasture landing. I watched the proceedings as a young lad. I was quite aware of Captain Tom Williams. When the Second World War began, Tom went to work for Fleet Aircraft in Fort Erie as chief test pilot. He loved flying. After the war, he continued to fly and tested parachutes. Time moved on and at age 84, Tom said he found a new way to trim an orchard: he had a slight mishap when landing at his farm. However, after minor repairs, he kept on flying.

Driving home with him one night after he opened the Woodstock fair in August 1969 -- we called him Oxford’s astronaut -- he said, “You know, Charlie, I was around before man flew, and now he has gone to the moon.”

Ask Bill McVean of CFRB or Carl Millard of Millard Airways if they remember Tom Williams. Tom Williams, like George Burns, grew older but never old. Bruce West of the Globe and Mail said he was one of the youngest men he knew. With his love of flying, of innovating new ideas, he was an inspiration to generations of young flyers.

Tom finally sold his Fleet 21 in 1973 and then gave up solo flying at age 88. At that time, he was Canada’s oldest active pilot. He wrote letters to the editor, he wrote poetry, he took

part in the annual Woodstock air show. He was guest of honour at various activities involving flying throughout Canada.

After his wife died, he lived by himself, and one snowy day when he tried to put chains on his car to get up the hill, he fell and crushed some bones, at almost 90 years of age. He went into the hospital, came out with a walker, then with a cane and then active again. A few months before his 100th birthday, Tom died.

What a volunteer. What an amount of skill, knowledge and common sense. I would put Tom on the directory. Tom’s funeral service took place at Sweaburg United Church, and one of the two ministers officiating was his friend Canon John Davies. Canon Davies had just achieved his 100th birthday.

At one of John Davies’s birthday parties, held in Old St. Paul’s Church, Canon John mentioned that in the audience he saw his old friend Tom Williams and that from time to time he gave Tom advice. Tom’s rejoinder was, “And I never take it.”

In 1897, John Davies, 12 years of age, started to work in a colliery office in England. He was going to go into engineering, but he changed his mind. He came to Canada and went into the ministry, graduating from Wycliffe College in 1913. He was posted to the Yukon, and while in Dawson City met the King of the Klondike, Joe Boyle.

In 1914, Joe Boyle recruited and outfitted a 50-man machine-gun detachment which was reputed to have cost him $200,000. John Davies worked as a padre in the army and at that time held services for Joe Boyle’s men.

John got out of the army in 1919 and proceeded to continue his ministry in the Anglican Church. It is interesting to note that in 1966, he was again asked to go back to the Yukon. He spent six weeks at the Cathedral House and visited practically all the missions.

Dr. Davies’s association with the St. John Ambulance Corps began before the First World War as rector of Old St. Paul’s in Woodstock. He worked with Alcoholics Anonymous; chaplain of Branch 55, Royal Canadian Legion; the historical society; the Elgin Regiment Veterans’ Association; the Oxford Rifles Association; honorary member of the Rotary Club.

Probably one of the most historic events Canon Davies took

part in was the reburial of Colonel Joe Boyle on June 29, 1983. Remember, he met Joe Boyle some 70 years earlier; Colonel Joe Boyle, the most decorated Canadian in the First World War.

At his 100th birthday party, the bishop from London was in attendance. The bishop was 88 years of age. John leaned over to me and said, “Charlie, let the old bishop have a chance to speak.”

On November 11, 1985, Padre Canon John Davies stood as usual at the cenotaph and gave the benediction. He lived one more year and died in 1986, 101 years old; a quiet, unassuming gentleman with a good sense of humour, beloved by all. The roster of retired people would include men like Canon John Davies.

It seems to me that this resolution makes so much sense because so many people are retiring at an earlier age, and the opportunity to bring them in and take part would be of benefit to all of us. I certainly support this resolution.

By the way, what did Methuselah do for 904 years?

Mr. Speaker: I have just been considering the situation. I wonder if the House would be in agreement. Usually the leadoff speaker has 20 minutes. If we allow the member for Brampton South, who has arrived now from the heavy traffic, to have his 10-minute period and then the balance of the 10 minutes at the end, would that be agreeable? Agreed.

Mr. Callahan: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank members of the House. You are quite right, Mr. Speaker, I come from captivity on Highway 410, and I hope that the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton) is listening.

The resolution has been kindly introduced earlier by my colleague. My reason for putting forth this resolution was that we concern ourselves about resources throughout Ontario, throughout Canada, throughout the world. One of the most significant resources we have are those men and women who have left their formal employment as a result of being retired.

You will note in the motion I do not refer to them as senior citizens, I refer to them as retirees. The reason for that is that more and more people today are being retired at a much earlier age than 65, which seems to be the magic time for going into senior citizenship. I suppose the item concerns me even more greatly these days as I fast approach the golden years.

Let’s look at it this way: The people who have had the jobs -- and those jobs need not necessarily be professional jobs; they could be jobs as tool and die makers, mechanics, accountants, what have you -- have all earned, through their formal training plus their experience over the lifetime of their job, a tremendous amount of experience that will be wasted. It will be wasted in a sense that if no one is prepared to take advantage of that, to tap that gold mine, then in fact that information will be lost.

It is particularly significant in most fields, but I would address first the question of people who are skilled tradesmen. We all know that in Ontario and in Canada, and perhaps even in North America and throughout the world, there is a falling off of the specific trades. There are perhaps not enough skilled people.

I suggest to the members of the House part of that problem is the fact that we have become so advanced that we have left some of the more reasonable approaches of the past, where it was traditional for the persons who were more senior than the others to perhaps sit around and instruct the youth of the tribal unit and pass on the information and the knowledge and the expertise that these particular people had acquired. We have lost that.

What we do is that we have formal training for people in order to educate them in either a profession or a skill, we allow them to be employed for a certain artificial period of time and then we lose them. We in fact put them on the shelf and we say, “We don’t need you any longer.”

What I am suggesting through this program is akin to the intern program that we have here in the Legislature, which was adapted from the intern program in Ottawa. What we do is bring young people into the Legislature in order to allow them to help backbenchers, basically, but also to provide them with an understanding of how the Legislature works, how government works, so that they can go back out into the community and perhaps be better citizens and perhaps have a better understanding.

Just as an aside, it is interesting to note that I think only one intern, of all the interns who have been in either the federal or the provincial parliament, ever went into politics. That says a great deal for their common sense. It is obvious that what they saw down here clearly did not lead them to a political career.

This is not something that is new. In Florida they have what they call the Silver Threads Club, and that is a very appropriate name for such an endeavour. In essence, what this program itself does is to tap the vast resources that are available, and of course Florida is probably the haven for many people who are retired or are senior citizens. It is known as the Canadian South and a lot of our people with all this information are probably down there. Surely, if they saw this as an important feature -- it is not a new idea -- it is something we could adopt ourselves.

I suggest to the members that it has also been adopted, in certain respects, within our own government. The Ministry of Community and Social Services operates the senior volunteer(

s) in service program, a program which recruits and trains volunteers in isolated areas to work with seniors in such areas as friendly visiting and escorted transportation. It is already in place, in a sense.

I might add that there is an additional example, the Senior Peer Counselling Project in Hamilton Wentworth. That is a volunteer group. From September 1985 to September 1988, they served over 7,953 seniors and helped senior volunteers participate in the community.

An additional example of it is the Halton Small Business Advisory Group Inc. That is a nonprofit organization composed of a number of retired business people. These people offer seasoned advice to small business entrepreneurs. Members understand business at all levels and have assisted younger entrepreneurs in management, marketing, accounting, merchandising general business operation and retail sales. They have counselled over 200 businesses since their inception in 1984.

I suggest that what I am bringing forward here is not necessarily a new idea, but I would like to see it in such a way that it receives formal backing by the government, formal backing by this Legislature and an opportunity to list the people, should they wish to participate in this type of program, someplace where it would be accessible to the various levels of government; not just the Legislature, not just government here, but perhaps school boards, municipalities and so on.

In my travels through my own riding I visited a retirement home where there are five senior citizens who have voluntarily chosen to attend at one of the local primary schools. I am told there is a tremendous interaction between them and the people who are receiving this benefit of surrogacy, surrogacy by these seniors who perhaps have their grandchildren located in some other area of Ontario. They have the opportunity to come and be a surrogate to these young people. Equally, the young people who perhaps do not have grandparents within the area where they live have the surrogacy the other way.

There is a whole host of areas. I can envisage situations such as in our community colleges where we might bring a senior in, should the senior wish to do it, to address the students on the practical aspects of business. Much of our academia really is done on an intellectual, not a practical basis. I suggest that here is an opportunity to tap a very significant resource.

I suppose one could ask, “Is this situation going to be one where you’re going to go out and interfere with the free time of the people who have retired?” Of course not. We should be looking at the retirees who perhaps have had their little period of time where they wanted to rest and play golf or whatever else they had planned for their retirement and now wish to get back into providing and sharing with the next generation some of the expertise they gathered while they were in the field of business, the professions or the trades.

I suggest that if we offer this opportunity and if I am correct that there is a need for it and that there are retirees out there who would wish to do this, then we will have tapped a very significant resource of this province. At a time of vast expenditures of revenues and the outlay of money on the part of government, we have to look at every possible resource. We should be looking at this resource. It is not new. It is a historical fact that this is the way things were done in the past.

I urge the members of the Legislature to pass this resolution and allow us to issue that challenge to retirees. I suggest the Legislature will be doing a number of things that I have just indicated, but in addition to that it will be recognizing that the human worth of these people is still respected and still needed by our society and that simply because an artificial age was set for retirement, these people need not become forgotten flowers of the field that are going to be allowed to wilt.

I urge members to support this resolution.

Mr. Speaker: Do you wish to reserve the full 10 minutes at the end?

Mr. Callahan: Yes, I do.

Ms. Bryden: The motion does give us an opportunity to discuss ways of enabling the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens’ affairs (Mrs. Wilson) to carry out her mandate to look after the special needs of seniors -- needs for adequate income, affordable housing, geriatric health programs, including better nursing home programs, transportation access and recreational and socialization programs. Unfortunately, the resolution does not deal with any of those needs. This is why I think we should not support this motion.

In effect, what the member is proposing is a new so-called intern program, apparently modelled on the intern program at Ottawa and here for political science and other students in universities or graduates of universities. That is a very valuable program to make those students aware of how politics works and to work with a member. To call on a volunteer person with expertise to come in here and become, in effect, a person attached to a member in order to learn about the political process is an entirely wrong-way idea.

An internship is a training program for future activities. These people would not be available except perhaps a certain number of days a week. They would not necessarily be available on a long-term basis. They are not looking for civil service jobs or political candidacies. It looks to me rather like an attempt to get some more free assistance for Liberal backbenchers to carry out their case work or their contacts with the community and so on.

While I think the present intern program is very valuable, I do not favour a so-called intern program based on volunteers who say they have a few hours a week and might be interested in helping advise on a better labour act for plumbers and that sort of thing. If they do have expertise, the ministry should be seeking them out. Ministers such as the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) and the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) should be seeking out those people in the community.

A lot of communities are operating very good self-help programs for seniors where they do seek out the expertise in their riding. They always keep up to date on what is available and they keep looking for people. The member should be encouraging not only his own backbenchers but all members of this Legislature to develop community-based programs for seniors that will take advantage of the expertise in that community.

If we look at the awards for senior citizens, we find that a lot of the communities are doing that now. They are making awards to people who have been giving that kind of help in implementing the mandate of the minister to make life better for senior citizens.

I remind the member that we do have an Ontario Advisory Council on Senior Citizens that reports once a year and holds numerous meetings and consultations and which is always looking for sources of information on groups and individuals in the community who may be able to develop its programs.

I also remind the member that the minister has a staff of 40 people. About 30 of them are engaged as policy analysts or project leaders. They are presumably already researching the sort of programs that should be available for seniors that I mentioned above. If they are not contacting persons with potential expertise in the community they are not doing their job. They should be the ones who are looking for those people and using them immediately. To keep an index of ones who are available at a certain date of application and are available for X hours is really counterproductive.

Also, where the minister has the power to appoint people to the Ontario Advisory Council on Senior Citizens, to various task forces and to other groups that may have been delegated a question to study, those positions should be advertised instead of just being the appointment of the minister. Then we would have people coming forward and saying, “I am interested in senior citizens’ affairs, I have the following expertise and I would be glad to sit on that council or to sit on a subcommittee of it.”

That is the way to get at that expertise. This is not the way and this could require a considerable bureaucracy to operate it, because you would have to advertise widely that you want people to come forward and volunteer. You would then have to maintain a skills bank of the people who qualify after the ministry has looked at their credentials. Then if there are any changes in the details, they would have to update the list very frequently and it would not be available when it may be needed for a particular subject.

The ministry concerned with that project or study would be the one that would have to really go and look for the expertise. I am not opposed to looking and to using expertise and volunteers outside, but I think it should not be a complete substitute for the present work of the government in having more people involved in policymaking.

I think the member’s motion would have been better received if he had concentrated on persuading his caucus to implement some of the many election promises the Liberals made in 1987 regarding seniors. Let me list a few: adequate homemaking service to enable seniors to stay in their own homes, better home care services to free up hospital beds, community-based delivery of health care to keep people well rather than sending them to hospitals and nursing homes, and better regulation of nursing homes.

In fact, when the government came into the accord with the New Democratic Party, one of the clauses was to provide “Reform of services for the elderly to provide alternatives to institutional care and a reform of the present nursing home licensing and inspection system.” That was in the NDP-Liberal accord. It has not been carried out very well.

We also need more intergenerational services in the schools between seniors with knowledge and experience and the pupils. There are one or two pilot projects on that in the province. We need seniors in day care centres. There is going to be a new day care centre in my riding in the next year and it is going to bring seniors into the day care program to assist with the children and there will be good intergenerational feedback.

We need better assistive devices programs for seniors. Many of them are not getting what they need or, as was pointed out yesterday in the debate on health, the red tape is so much that it is more expensive to apply than to get the assistive device yourself. We need more geriatric centres, because the population of seniors in this province is going to become much greater, by about 86 per cent in the next 25 years.

We do not have most of those things going on, yet we are talking about setting up a program that could cost a considerable amount of money if the volunteers are here on a regular basis, and it could also require a lot of bureaucratic work that the ministry has no resources to carry out.

In fact, we need far more resources to seniors’ programs. I think that is the weakness of this resolution. It is not asking the government to do anything about providing more resources to the implementation of these other election promises, and that is what we really need at this time.

Mrs. Cunningham: I am in a very interesting position in speaking to this motion put forth by the member for Brampton South this morning in that we definitely agree with the principle of the motion. There is no doubt in our mind that what the member is trying to bring to the attention of this House is the fact that we have a wonderful untapped resource out there; that is, volunteers, retired persons who have worked in this province in many fields and who are more than willing to provide their services, which are much needed, on an ongoing basis in many areas.

The previous speaker has spoken about how we could be using them in our hospitals, our seniors’ homes, our schools and many other parts of the workings of the province.

We do have a tremendous concern about the particular ministry that, certainly in the view of the member for Brampton South, would be responsible for this, that is the Office for Senior Citizens’ Affairs. We have concern, because over the last two years this particular ministry has consistently failed to implement promised programs and address the needed co-ordination of services for seniors. We have very real concerns about whether this is the ministry that should be responsible for the coordination of volunteers in this particular area if it is not able to deliver the programs that this province has agreed to pay for.

The strategic planning and policy development activities to put in place a new policy framework for Ontario’s seniors is part of the responsibility of that ministry, as well as the comprehensive planning and overall co-ordination of services for the elderly. The problem is, I do not think it is effectively delivering on this particular responsibility.

We have been told, as we have been talking to seniors this fall and winter, that they are frustrated as to which ministry to go to. They are often told that much of what concerns them is not within the jurisdiction of the ministry itself. They are referred to the Ministry of Community and Social Services, the Ministry of Health and even the Office for Disabled Persons.

Not a lot has happened with regard to the co-ordination between the ministries over the last three years. The Office for Senior Citizens’ Affairs, in our opinion, has failed to live up to most of the responsibilities and promises that were put to us in its report called A New Agenda: Health and Social Service Strategies for Ontario’s Seniors. We do not think it has moved to co-ordinate and rationalize all the services for seniors with a special emphasis on the development of community-based services. We are really having a difficult time with the particular ministry, and we hope that the member will take a look at that.

Given our experience in how volunteer bureaus are operating in our communities -- the funding seems to be mainly from the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) -- we are very concerned about this particular ministry and how it operates now and how we could ask it to take on even another role.

We will not argue with the principle of this resolution. It is an excellent one that would utilize those members of our society who are excited about the prospect of volunteering their wonderful skills and the services that they have provided to our wonderful community of Ontario in the past in a voluntary manner. However, we have two issues, one being a directory that must be maintained and the other issue being the training. We talk about an internship program -- and that is a training program -- for our volunteers.

In discussing this ballot item, we talked to the Central Volunteer Bureau of London and we talked to a particular group that would relate, I think, to the Silver Threads Club that was mentioned previously this morning, a group called Over 55 (London) Inc. We also talked to the Volunteer Bureau of Leeds and Grenville, as well as John Roberts, the chairman of Coalition for Seniors in London, Ontario. We have tried in a very short period of time to get some input as to how the people who are providing the volunteer services now out there in our communities would feel about this particular motion.

They do have some concerns and they have a number of questions. They are certainly not prepared to support another level of bureaucracy, and I am sure that is not what the member intended. What they do feel very strongly about is that this particular service should be community-based. It should be hooked into the existing service providers out there now.

I think most communities do have some kind of a volunteer bureau. What is lacking in those volunteer bureaus is something called core funding. If we want something to happen, and if this resolution is intended to make something happen, then we have to have some kind of support from the government to make it happen, and a real commitment.

If we are going to get ourselves involved in another big bureaucracy with something being run from Toronto or a regional or area office, it will not work. I would like the member for Brampton South to speak to that concern.

We do need a partnership, we need someone to show leadership, and as the groups that are involved now tell us, we need some kind of a commitment to core funding, because someone has to organize this list, someone has to recruit the volunteers and someone has to speak to all of the different programs out there that are looking for support from volunteers. We have named a few already: in our child care programs, in our school programs at the elementary, secondary and university levels, in our hospitals and in our senior citizens’ homes, there are very many places that this wonderful resource could be used and we know we have the resources out there that are willing to volunteer their help.

We do have real problems with the leadership that could be provided by this government, since we do not think it is provided now within the Office for Senior Citizens’ Affairs. We do not think the co-ordination of services for seniors is being promised and we wonder how that ministry could possibly support and make this program that is being offered work.

We have been accused of being negative. In fact, we are going to be supporting this resolution. What we are trying to do right now is to raise our concerns. I think that is a very positive way of dealing with any resolution in this House. We are very interested in having the member present some answers to the questions we have asked.

The last point we would like to speak to is the fact that if one is going to be responsible for lists that are going to be the property of either a government agency or a ministry, I think we have some concerns with confidentiality, and we are facing those concerns out there now as we try to establish lists around people who are willing to provide services in the area of child care. That is something that the member should be aware of.

That is why I think the ownership for this program ought to be with the volunteer agencies that are out there now. All we should be doing is supporting them with some kind of a framework, some kind of a training program, a definition, and perhaps with a small group that could go out -- from within the existing resources, because they should be there now -- and provide this role of training for volunteers, this role that would certainly provide the co-ordination of the volunteer programs and some core funding for the agencies that already exist.

We would like to commend the member for bringing his resolution here today. We support it very much in principle. He has heard of our concerns. We hope that perhaps this could go to some committee where we could get some input as to how this kind of resolution could become a reality.

Mr. Wildman: In looking at this resolution, I must say I am of two minds. I was thinking, actually, because of the circumstances surrounding the beginning of the debate today, that perhaps the member might be able to use the expertise of a traffic controller in an internship program.

I said I was of two minds because obviously there is a tremendous pool of expertise available among retired persons, who could perhaps feel more productive themselves, and certainly help younger people, by participating in such a program. I tend to be sympathetic to the views of the member.

On the other hand, I do have some serious concerns, along with my colleague the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden), regarding funding for a volunteer bureau in this province. We seem to be proposing an expansion of the volunteer program, when as yet we still do not have adequate ongoing funding for the various bureaus in the communities across Ontario now which are attempting -- and, I think, doing an admirable job with the resources they have -- to co-ordinate volunteerism in their own communities. So I am of mixed views on this resolution.

I can think of the large number of retired persons in my community, many of whom are already, of their own volition, carrying out programs to assist in many activities. I know of some seniors in my area who are not volunteering, but working on a contract basis with the Federal Business Development Bank, who are giving their expertise as former small business people who have some knowledge of accounting, record keeping, and the ways to get a business going, and are giving that expertise, without a great deal of remuneration, to assist younger people who are just starting out in business.

Also, a number of seniors are working in the schools, working with teachers and with students to give students perhaps a greater perspective than they might have simply from going to school every day with their own colleagues of their own age and with the young adults as teachers. This is particularly of importance today when we are in the time of the nuclear family, when very many young people hardly know their grandparents because their grandparents live many hundreds of miles away and maybe visit them only once or twice a year.

It is a very different situation from those of us who were lucky enough to grow up in a family where our grandparents lived nearby or even lived with us. Also, there are seniors in my area who are involved in community activities, not just working with young students in volunteer organizations, but are actually involved in developing recreational programs for people of all ages, even working in co-ordinating

section 38 programs where we have people who are working to try to develop work skills. We have perhaps a retiree who has those skills and has been asked by the sponsoring agency to co-ordinate and develop a program that would help younger people learn the kinds of skills they require in order to enter the workforce and be productive, both for themselves and for our society.

There is certainly an opportunity. If there were some co-ordinating effort made, it might make it more effective so that it was not as haphazard as it tends to be today. There might be actually some way of knowing what various skills are available, what people are available, and then make it possible to connect them with those who might be able to benefit from that expertise and those skills.

Again, I am very concerned about the lack of adequate funding for the volunteer bureau we have today. In my area, the volunteer bureau of Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma is attempting to develop a computer program of the various programs available to seniors, to serve seniors throughout the district. I think they are doing a good job in terms of trying to develop programs such as volunteer programs which usually involve other seniors driving people who maybe have difficulty getting out to shop, to see friends or go to medical appointments or whatever, programs like Meals on Wheels and Wheels to Meals, those kinds of programs, but they are having to struggle along without adequate funding.

It seems to me that if we are very serious about trying to assist our seniors to become less isolated and to feel they are needed and wanted in our communities, we have to provide the Office for Senior Citizens’ Affairs or the Ministry of Community and Social Services with the funding that would make it possible for the various volunteer programs available to actually work without moving already to expand programs.

I am not certain how I am going to vote on this -- I am interested in hearing the member’s concluding remarks -- but I will say that this government, like many governments, has tended to be very good on rhetoric. I hope that does not sound too partisan. I do believe this in this case. To be frank, I am not singling out the Liberal government in Ontario. I think this is true of the federal Conservative government and it has been certainly been true of other governments, probably including New Democratic Party government.

Whenever we identify a need, politicians are very good about talking about programs that should be developed to respond to those needs, but when it gets to the realities of a particular party gaining power and having all of the competing demands made upon that government, it seems to me that volunteerism is one of those areas, along with areas to serve seniors in general, which is given low priority and is put low on the list.

You can understand why, I suppose. Obviously, in the situation we have in Ontario today, there is a tremendous demand for moneys for health care, for instance. If the Treasury is being divided up and there is an argument between whether we provide funding for cancer treatment facilities or for surgery facilities in hospitals, they tend to be more immediate, and those demands for assistance for home care, homemaker services or volunteer services that might help seniors, and get seniors involved themselves, tend to be given short shrift.

I think perhaps it is time for us to stand back and ask, “All right, what have we identified as needs in terms of volunteerism and for retirees in Ontario?” What has the government said it wishes to do? Is it properly funding those services now, and if not, maybe that is what we should be doing rather than moving to expand on what we say we would like to do before we put up the money for it.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): The time remaining will permit only the windup by the member for the mover of the motion, Brampton South.

Mr. Callahan: How much time do I have for windup?

The Acting Speaker: There are 10 minutes remaining.

Mr. Callahan: This has been a rather unusual morning, to say the least. I am not sure it has ever been done this way before. I would ask perhaps for the indulgence of the members for unanimous consent that my colleague the member for Etobicoke West (Mrs. LeBourdais) might share my time with me.

The Acting Speaker: Is there unanimous consent?

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, does the debate not have to end at 11 am.?

Mr. Wildman: Yes. He is going to share his time.

Ms. Bryden: There are only two minutes.

The Acting Speaker: The wall clock is not accurate; the digital clock is. The time remaining, I am told by the table, is 10 minutes. Is there unanimous consent to divide the time?

Mr. Wildman: There are 10 minutes left? If Mr. Callahan wants to give up his time, that is all right.

The Acting Speaker: Fine. The member for Brampton South.

Mr. Callahan: I believe that the member for Etobicoke West would go first and I would wind up.

Mrs. LeBourdais: I am delighted this morning to rise in the House to speak in favour of the resolution of the member for Brampton South.

Certainly life for everyone in this province has been immeasurably enriched by the contributions and dedication of the older members of our society. An internship program for retired volunteers is very much in keeping with the philosophy of the Minister Without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens’ affairs that opportunity is ageless. That particular theme was developed so that we could understand that it is a time to explore new challenges. For many, turning 65 is an opportunity in itself, freeing up time to pursue new challenges, volunteering, travelling, attending classes and teaching -- in fact, beginning a whole new career.

In a time when many of our elderly population are beginning new careers it is noteworthy that one third of all volunteers in Ontario are seniors. Medical science and technology are allowing seniors today to live longer lives with greater wellbeing. They are able to do more, contribute more and want to be active, contributing members of our society.

Just think of some of the high-profile seniors who have become role models for us all: former Governor General Roland Michener, our present Governor General, Jeanne Sauvé, former Prime Minister Trudeau and entertainer George Burns, for whom life truly began at 90 when he began a whole new career. Just think of the interest and excitement generated by Toronto’s own Harold Ballard with his ongoing business and personal affairs. He certainly manages to generate more colour and excitement than his hockey team does. Suffice it to say, there is an enormous talent bank already out there.

I would like to mention a couple of people from my own riding of Etobicoke West. Just last week, I interviewed on my television program a married couple, Eleanor and Charles Hynds, who have an organization that they are involved with called Care-Ring Canada, where they provide a variety of services to the community, basically younger seniors helping older seniors. I also had a gentleman of 80 years of age come into my riding with some very solid, well-thought-out, well documented, well articulated solutions to the housing crisis, which I was able to pass on to the Minister of Housing (Ms.

Hošek) for consideration in that particular ministry. Certainly age is no barrier to wisdom and knowledge.

Another area that has not been mentioned this morning that I think is worthy of consideration is the multicultural area. In many countries from other areas of the world, wisdom is passed on perhaps less through books and media such as radio and television, but rather through the seniors in the community. The younger members gather round and learn the wisdom, experiences and practice from the older members of their community.

Without taking too much further time, I just want to note a few other seniors who were recipients in 1988 of the Ontario Senior Achievement Award. I think by just reading a couple, it might give an indication of the degree of expertise at very senior ages. For instance, Mrs. Kate-King-Fox Assinewai, a native Indian currently completing her degree in native studies at Laurentian University -- this lady is 78 -- speaks to native children on the importance of education and maintaining their heritage.

Another, Ernest Berner, 80 years of age, organized the Ontario Seniors’ Games in his area, as well as the annual Senior Citizens Month activities for the local seniors group. Certainly, we could call on many of our seniors if the province were fortunate enough to gain the Olympic games for 1996.

Another lady, Mrs. Mildred Temple, 92 years of age, has been involved in the formation of many nonprofit organizations, including conservation of the Rouge Valley, Unionville Home Society and the construction of Union Villa Home for Senior Citizens in that area. Again, there is a strong suggestion that there are all sorts of talents. I think if we can amass them and use those talents to enrich our society, it is all to the good. For that reason, I very much support the resolution of the member for Brampton South.

Mr. Callahan: First, I want to thank all members of the House for their participation in the debate and some very helpful tips. I indicate to the member for Beaches-Woodbine that I acknowledge there are already in existence vast numbers of volunteer organizations and senior citizens’ clubs. I can assure her that Brampton South, as well as Peel region, has a great number of seniors who have organized in that way.

My concern is that there are seniors who have this expertise in the fields that I have addressed earlier who perhaps are reticent, either through just moving into the area or not being an outgoing person, about seeking out areas where they can use their talents. That is the reason for this type of encouragement and this type of invitation from government.

On the question of bureaucracy, at no time did I ever anticipate that this would create a bureaucratic nightmare. What I am trying to do, and what I think other members in speaking to it are trying to do, is a number of things: first of all, to recognize the talents of these seniors. In addition to that, it is very important to create for them a positive image.

I would say the feeling of being retired or being a senior perhaps and no longer being required in the workforce is a bit of a traumatic experience in itself. Some people could think life is over. We do not want that to happen. We want to use and employ those talents.

In addressing the concern of the member for London North (Mrs. Cunningham), she indicated something with regard to its being locally dealt with. I like that idea. I think that is a good idea. I would hate to think that everything would be just controlled from Toronto. I think we have seen that.

Ms. Bryden: Fund the local organizations.

Mr. Callahan: Yes. I think that would be very important.

I might add as well that I had not addressed the question of multiculturalism, and I suppose that was because of the way I arrived here, out of breath and having just come out of a traffic jam. But I appreciate the comments made by my colleague the member for Etobicoke West, because that is a very significant issue to look at.

The new Canadians who are coming to this country do in fact have this tremendous family involvement, this attitude that the older person is a central figure in their house. That goes a long way towards maintaining the solidarity of the family and also educating the young people. I think we can learn a lot from that particular example.

However, there are people as well who have talents and perhaps would be even more reticent, because of their new arrival to Canada, about seeking out opportunities to attend a school and speak with young children. I think that is very important. I think young people have a great deal of respect for seniors and, for that reason, there is a tremendous opportunity to use the talents of these people, not just the specific commercial talents or professional or task talents but also the very wisdom they have that comes with age.

For us to miss out on that would be a tremendous loss. I think we all agree in that regard and on that concept, but I guess it is the question of how you harness it and how you provide a vehicle through which it can be used.

I might add as well that the federal government did at one time have a plan similar to this in terms of sending retired executives, I think it was, overseas. It paid their expenses and used their expertise and shared it with countries that perhaps did not have that type of talent bank built up.

So I suggest to members that it is not new, but I think that with the ever-increasing numbers of seniors that we have now and have had over the past three decades and will anticipate between now and the year 2000 and beyond, it is essential that we place these talents in what one might call a senior talent bank, so that we can draw on them in the future, we can draw on the expertise and the understanding.

Many retired Canadians who would like to volunteer, as I said, are not sure where to direct their interest or talents, and we have to assist them in that regard. Agencies which require volunteers often need help in finding the right people. A senior talent bank, if you want to call it that rather than an intern program, could provide potential volunteers with opportunities to help programs and agencies find the right people to meet their needs.

In conclusion, I ask members to support this motion. Working out the details perhaps can be done by it being sent to some form of a hearing stage.

VEHICLES ON CONSERVATION AUTHORITY LANDS

Mrs. Fawcett moved resolution 62:

That in the opinion of this House, recognizing that conservation authorities provide the people of Ontario with water management, many other resource management programs and outdoor recreational opportunities, and also recognizing that the use of dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles is not compatible with the aforementioned functions of conservation authorities, the government of Ontario through the Minister of Natural Resources should bring forward legislation to prohibit the use of all such vehicles on conservation authority lands.

Mrs. Fawcett: It is the intent of this resolution that the government, by the banning of dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles from conservation authority lands, shall enforce the conservation authorities’ mandate. Removing these vehicles, which have a negative environmental impact, will, to my way of thinking, create a much safer environment for all users of conservation authority lands. Many people use conservation authority lands as a unique refuge from the bustle and noise of urban sprawl. I do not envision dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles as being compatible with this use.

At present there are 38 conservation authorities in Ontario. The objectives of these authorities are set out in

section 20 of the Conservation Authorities Act:

“20. The objects of an authority are to establish and undertake in the area over which it has jurisdiction a program designed to further the conservation, restoration, development and management of natural resources other than gas, oil, coal and minerals.”

Here I would like to emphasize the words “further the conservation and restoration,” for I feel that by banning dirt bikes and ATVs we will help conservation authorities meet these objectives.

For the purposes of accomplishing its objectives, the authorities are given a wide range of powers, including those in clauses 21(

l) and (

m) of the act which state:

“(

l) to use lands that are owned or controlled by the authority for such purposes, not inconsistent with its objects, as it considers proper;

“(

m) to use lands that are owned or controlled by the authority for park or other recreational purposes, and to erect, or permit to be erected, buildings, booths and facilities for such purposes and to make charges for admissions thereto and the use thereof.”

I would like to point out that the use of authority lands is not to be inconsistent with its objectives, which are to further the conservation, restoration, development and management of its natural resources, and that these objectives should be kept in mind, especially when the authorities are considering recreational uses of their land.

This legislation also authorizes authorities to make regulations with respect to certain matters such as, and I quote from clause 29(1)(e), “regulating and governing vehicular and pedestrian traffic and prohibiting the use of any class of vehicle or classes of vehicles.”

Pursuant to this regulation-making power, over 90 per cent of conservation authorities in Ontario have adopted a generic regulation controlling the public use of conservation areas, including the use of all-terrain vehicles, off-road vehicles and snowmobiles. Most conservation authorities have designated trail routes for use by off-road vehicles, particularly where there are multiple users. There are some authorities who allow off-road vehicles use on tracts of land that are not subject to multiple use. However, although these regulations and controls may be considered a good first step, I definitely feel they do not go far enough.

I feel that perhaps some of the authorities have addressed the question of safety by not allowing the use of off-road vehicles on tracts of land that are subject to multiple use. However, the negative environmental impact which these vehicles have on conservation authority land in general has not been considered.

There are several Canadian reports on the impact of off-road vehicles and also a number of American studies have examined the environmental impact on various types of terrain in the United States. All these studies report serious, potentially long-lasting and, according to some researches, irreparable harm to terrain and habitat types, an opinion which I share. With the support of this resolution I feel we in Ontario must now recognize these facts and take a step forward.

At this time I would like to take some excerpts from some of these studies and comments by leading environmental groups which point out the irreparable damage and environmental impact that off-road vehicles can have.

The Canadian Nature Federation has identified eight environmental problems caused by the use of such vehicles in Canada:

increased road erosion through channelization;

damage to planted and natural tree seedlings caused by driving over the trees;

destruction of marram grass and lichen communities in sand dune systems, making them more prone to blowouts;

compaction of trails through bogs, altering the microtopography and drainage and also crushing plant life;

disruption of activities of hikers, bird-watchers and other recreationals through increased noise from these vehicles;

pollution of streams and bogs by oils, grease and gasoline from these vehicles;

increased poaching through ready access to larger areas of watersheds, woodlands and other areas, making enforcement of game laws even more difficult; and

disturbance of wildlife through harassment or inadvertent use of vehicles during critical seasons.

Areas in Nova Scotia have been affected by off-road vehicle activity where, again, they report that these machines crush the needles of evergreen plants, reducing their ability to photosynthesize.

It was also noted in the same report that their use is banned in all national parks. Officials at Parks Canada point out that the vehicles were cited for causing erosions on lake shores and riverbanks, thereby adding sediment to the water and destroying spawning beds for fish. The machines were also a concern because of noise pollution and possible harassment of wildlife.

As with all these studies, Mr. Speaker, I am sure you can appreciate how we in Ontario are subject to the same ill effects of dirt bikes and off-road vehicles in our conservation areas.

In Alberta, the government has limited motorized access on public lands. The executive director of the Alberta Wilderness Association contends that the ill effects of dirt bikes, three-wheel trikes, four-wheel drives and six-wheel ATVs are numerous.

I will point out some of the executive director’s concerns here. He says: “Noise scares animals out of their migration patterns, while spinning tires tear up grazing areas and mutilate saplings. Vehicles churning through the creek beds disturb spawning grounds for fish and muddy the clear waters. The resulting silt buildup also makes it harder for fish to breathe.”

Yet another Alberta environmentalist comments:

“Off-road vehicles are causing devastating damage to many of southern Alberta’s wilderness areas. Mini-bikes, dune buggies, motorcycles and various four-wheel-drive vehicles are intruding on fragile ecosystems.... Knobby and wide-track tires are leaving their treadmarks in places that until recently were inaccessible to vehicles. In southern Alberta, most of the countryside is sparsely forested and gently rolling, land for which ORVs, unfortunately, are particularly suited. Vegetation is very fragile in the region, and it is the root systems that literally bind the sandy clay soil.

A single pass of an ORV causes irreparable damage to the vegetation (plants are crushed) and also to soil (drainage is altered and erosion accelerated) and the scars remain for years. I have seen this damage done where the tires of these vehicles have left permanent scars on the floor of the Ganaraska forest.”

In dunes along the east coast of New Brunswick, there is also a threat to birds. Here I quote the observations of naturalist David Christie, “With vehicles roaring back and forth, the impact on nesting birds is much more extensive than it once was.”

In the United States, a report by the Council on Environmental Quality summed up the impact of these vehicles:

“ORVs have damaged every kind of ecosystem found in the United States: sand dunes covered with American beach grass on Cape Cod; pine and cypress woodlands in Florida; hardwood forests in Indiana; prairie grasslands in Montana; chaparral and sagebrush hills in Arizona; conifer forest in Washington, and Arctic tundra in Alaska. In some cases, the wounds will heal naturally; in others, they will not at least for millennia.”

It would indeed be difficult to find a type of land mass not affected negatively by these vehicles. The nature of the damage caused by off-road vehicles was also examined in the Council on Environmental Quality’s report:

“First and foremost, off-road vehicles eat land. It is because off-road vehicles attack that relatively thin layer of disintegrated rock and organic material to which all earthly life clings -- soil -- that they can have such a devastating effect on natural resources.

“There seem to be two basic soil responses to ORV use. First, sandy and gravelly soils are susceptible to direct quarrying by ORVs and when stripped of vegetation, they are susceptible to rapid erosion processes. Second, more clay-rich soils are less sensitive to direct mechanical displacement by ORVs. But the rates of erosion of stripped, clay-rich soil is much higher under ORVs’ use than under natural conditions. Furthermore, ORV pounding of clay-rich soil causes strong surface seals to form, thereby reducing the infiltration of water. This in turn leads to greater rain water runoff which causes gullying lower in the drainage.

“Once massive soil erosion begins, it will stop only after ORV riding stops and the native vegetation has had a chance to re-establish itself and stabilize the soil.”

This report also lists some of the other problems associated with ORV use. A major difficulty, as the geological survey points out, is that the terrain which truly challenges the capability of these machines and which is therefore most attractive to many ORV operators is exactly that which is most highly sensitive to erosional degradation. This opening contradiction between machine capability and land sensitivity is a key issue. The more challenging the area is with hills, dales and obstacles, the better the drivers like it and subsequently use these courses again and again. Erosion is most evident in these areas.

These machines also disrupt animal life. They collide with animals, especially smaller animals and reptiles. By destroying vegetation, they are also destroying animal food and shelter. In addition, off-road vehicles afford hunters and fishermen access to remote, untouched areas, thereby dramatically increasing the fish and game kills in those areas. The effects of ORV noise on animals, although imperfectly understood, is thought to be very damaging. The unnatural amounts of noise produced by ORVs place most species under stress. The noise can also aggravate a sick animal’s condition during periods of hunger or disease.

As pointed out by the many studies, reports and acclaimed environmentalists, the use of dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles has a tremendously negative environmental impact. I suggest that the use of such vehicles on conservation authority lands is definitely not consistent with their objectives.

Another point I would like to touch on very briefly is that of safety for all those people we encourage to use conservation authority lands in a recreational manner. One of the problems the Canadian Nature Federation identified in its study was that of the increased probability of accidents caused by the use of motorized vehicles in the same area that other recreational activities are being enjoyed.

The risks associated with the use of all-terrain vehicles have been the subject of study and debate for some time. However, recently the United States Department of Justice, backed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, in an unprecedented action, banned future sales of three-wheel all-terrain vehicles in the United States because of the risks.

In its complaint filed with the district court against the ATV industry, the CPSC said: “The risk of harm presented by ATVs is both imminent and unreasonable. Each time a three-wheel ATV is operated, a rider who is not aware of the unique handling characteristic of the vehicle...faces an unacceptably high risk that, at any moment and with no sign of impending danger, he or she will either be killed or suffer a injury....Defendants have falsely and deceptively promoted ATVs as safe, easy-to-operate vehicles for the entire family ....Defendants have created the illusion that ATVs can easily and safely ‘go anywhere,’ when in fact ATV operation on some types of terrain is extremely hazardous.”

In a recent report the accident prevention committee of the Canadian Paediatric Society recognized two-, three- and four-wheel off-road vehicles as hazardous to the health of Canadian children.

In my visit to a conservation authority that allowed the use of off-road vehicles, I found the use of such vehicles to be most dangerous to the well-being of other users. It would appear that if we are to allow naturalists, bird watchers and those who enjoy a peaceful walk through the woods to use conservation authority lands, these uses are definitely compatible with conservation authority objectives. Then it would also appear that if we are to allow dirt bikes and ATVs the use of conservation authority lands, these uses are definitely not compatible with conservation authorities’ objectives.

In fact, the Ontario Trails Council, when discussing compatibility in its report, determined that motorized and nonmotorized trail uses are not compatible on the same trail at the same time. Indeed, in their final report they stated there is little disagreement among trail groups when various types of trail activity are termed incompatible. Many “compatibility,” or more accurately “incompatibility,” problems stem from the use of a nonpower trail by power recreationalists.

This only accentuates the point I am trying to make. Conservation authority lands are viewed by many as a place in which we can appreciate nature; indeed, according to their objectives of conserving and restoring natural resources, this is true. However, the existence of these ground-grabbing, noise-making, destructive machines is totally incompatible with not only the objectives of the conservation authorities, but indeed with nature itself. It is my feeling that they need their own area where there is not a multiple recreational use and not where we have designated a conservation authority area.

Mr. Wildman: Is the member going to reserve the time left?

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): The member has two minutes reserved.

Mr. Wildman: I must admit I am rather surprised at the introduction of this resolution by the member for Northumberland (Mrs. Fawcett). I understand her concern but this is a government that purports to be in favour of local autonomy. We have seen with Sunday shopping that it is prepared to force local autonomy on the municipalities when they do not want it and here we have a resolution which basically is telling the conservation authorities, which already have the responsibility and the power to do what the member is suggesting, that they should do it.

What does that do for local autonomy? Surely the conservation authorities are appointed in order to establish and preserve conservation lands in particular areas and to determine how best those conservations lands should be preserved in their own areas. The conservation authorities, as the member for Northumberland has indicated, already have this power. It sounds to me as though perhaps the member is having some problems with a particular conservation authority that may or may not be doing what she thinks it should be doing.

Certainly conservation authorities are responsible for determining what kinds of activities are compatible with the objectives of the conservation authorities and can be carried out on conservation lands. If a conservation authority determined that it was desirable to prohibit motorized off-road vehicles on conservation lands, it could do that. Also, they have the possibility of establishing nonpower trails and power trails if they want to allow for power vehicles within their conservation lands.

I think this points to a much larger problem we have. I want to make clear at the beginning that I do not think we can have a blanket policy for all conservation authorities across all Ontario in this regard. I think the conservation authorities in some parts of southern Ontario are dealing with much smaller areas, perhaps very sensitive areas. That is not necessarily the case in northern Ontario where we have conservation authorities that, in some cases, have very large conservation lands.

Perhaps what is compatible with the objectives of a conservation authority in southern Ontario is not necessarily the same as what is compatible with the objectives of a conservation authority in the north.

I think, though, that it points to a major problem, and that is that we need a trails policy in this province. The previous government, during the time when the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope) was the Minister of Natural Resources, discontinued assistance for trails grooming, usually snowmobile trails, that the Ministry of Natural Resources had provided in the past. The minister at that time just unilaterally decided that the Ministry of Natural Resources was no longer going to fund the maintenance of snowmobile trails which, in many cases, are used for off-road vehicles in the summertime.

When the snowmobile clubs at that time said, “How are we going to be able to fund the maintenance of these trails?” the Ministry of Natural Resources said, “You have the right, and we will give you the right, to charge a fee to users of the trail.”

That is all well and good in southern Ontario, and this points out the differences between the north and the south, because in most cases the lands that these trails were established on were either conservation authority lands, or more likely, private lands with the permission of the private landowner.

In northern Ontario, in most cases, these trails are on crown land that is owned by the provincial government and for which the Ministry of Natural Resources is responsible. The fact is that a snowmobile club that establishes a trail system on crown land with the permission of the Ministry of Natural Resources, usually with a land use permit, does not have any legal right to require a user of that trail to pay a fee. Since it is crown land, that land technically is owned by all of us and all of us have the right to use it without charge.

The snowmobile clubs in northern Ontario are faced with a situation where they are responsible for grooming trails, usually through volunteer work and maintaining the trail system, and yet anybody who does not contribute to the maintenance of those trails can use the trails without making any contribution to the work. That is thanks to the previous government.

This government, when it came to power, said that it was going to establish a tourism strategy for northern Ontario, and part of that tourism strategy would be a trails policy. That tourism strategy was supposed to be published in October 1987; then it was postponed until December 1987; then until February 1988; then until May 1988; then until some time in the summer of 1988, and it is now 1989 and we still do not have that tourism strategy. It has somehow been lost in a quagmire of bureaucratic nonsense between the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation.

We need to have an overall strategy developed for tourism in the north, and one of the main aspects of that as far as I am concerned, will be a trails policy.

A lot has been said about the dangerous aspects of off-road vehicles. We have regulations in which, while snowmobiles are allowed to travel along the ditches, along the side of the road or to cross a road in a straight line, this is not allowed for off-road vehicles except for farmers and trappers. A lot of people who are owners of these kinds of vehicles think it is unfair that they are treated one way and snowmobilers are treated another.

I understand that in the United States there has been some serious concern about the stability of three-wheel vehicles and they have banned the manufacture and sale of those vehicles in that jurisdiction. If those studies are correct, then I would support that kind of an effort in Ontario; but I really wonder why four-wheel, off-road vehicles are treated differently than snowmobiles. I wonder why snowmobile trails that are used by these four-wheeled vehicles in the summertime cannot be established with some support from the provincial government.

Again, I reiterate that conservation authorities have the responsibility to decide how to meet their objectives for the maintenance of local conservation lands. I believe that generally, conservation authorities do an admirable job in this province; they fulfil a very important role.

I believe they have the local autonomy to make decisions that are appropriate to their area to ensure that activities within the conservation lands are compatible with their objectives. They can already prohibit certain types of activities on conservation lands. They could establish non-power trails to protect other users, who might be hiking or might be using bicycles, from accidents, because of power users on those trails.

I do not really think it is necessary for us in this House to pass this resolution, much as I sympathize with the concerns of the member for Northumberland.

Mr. Cureatz: I would like to begin by saying, as frustrating as it is, that I will only be using up five or six minutes. I hope, in the course of rotation, members will bide their time so that my critic for the Ministry of Natural Resources will be able to use the other four or five minutes remaining. We hope that the members will be most co-operative in that fashion.

In the few minutes that I have, I want to say that I will be supporting the resolution. I want to congratulate the member for Northumberland, who is my next-door neighbour to the east of my riding of Durham East, in bringing forward this resolution.

I want to say to her and to all the members assembled this morning in the assembly that this, in my mind, is a substantive, worthwhile private member’s resolution that is coming forward this morning; unlike what we saw a couple weeks ago from the member for Ottawa South (Mr. McGuinty), who brought forth a back-slapping, self-serving, self-purposeful resolution for the government. We have got a private member who is coming forward with a resolution that affects her particular area and tries to give some overall direction to Ontario.

Just for the moment, I will recap a little bit of the history, because I give credit to the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) who indicated that maybe the member for Northumberland is having some troubles with a particular conservation authority and that might be the reason for the bringing forth of this resolution.

I say to him, that indeed it might be, because I am having some problems with the same authority in my area. I do not think she is specifically centring on that authority. But I will tell members what she has encountered, I think, is an overall concern and I think she is trying to be nice to her own administration and to the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) with this resolution.

I will be a little more critical of the minister. Here is the situation: At the same time she was first elected, I happened to move close to our own particular Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority jurisdiction, up to the lovely forest of the Ganaraska area, and lo and behold, suddenly we had some groups coming forward to myself saying: “There is a member of parliament moving in. Let’s go to him with various complaints.” Then I found out very quickly that there is a group of people who are using all-terrain vehicles in the forest and another group who are against the use of all-terrain vehicles.

I had no particular authority and I went to the authority itself. At a meeting which the honourable member attended, I laid forward a presentation to the authority -- I say to the parliamentary assistant who very kindly visited our area, and I’m glad he is here in attendance -- and I said to that authority at that time: “You people don’t have the wherewithal to take on the kind of expanded use of this 10,000 acres that you are planning, opening it up into the kinds of usage of all-terrain vehicles.

What you should be doing is going back to the Ministry of Natural Resources, indicating to it that you want some further assistance, want some funding to co-ordinate an overall policy for the authority.”

The authority did not do that; and at that time my colleague the member for Northumberland was very polite and she stood up when she had the opportunity to say something, and said, “Well, I’m just here to listen and I think I will not particularly participate.” I thought, for a new member, what would you expect? I gave her credit for at least attending.

Lo and behold, a year and a half later here she is, and do you know what? I have seen the history now that has formulated in her involvement with this particular aspect. She has finally come along and said: “Do you know what? After evaluation and thoughtful consideration, it seems to me this is the direction that we should take.” I give her credit.

If she was cute, she would take copies of her Hansard and in her next newsletter she would quote: “PC member for Durham East complimenting Northumberland Liberal member on her resolution.” I hope she does. You never know. I might want to run federally in that area, and the free publicity would do me well.

In any event, for the next minute and a half I will tell members what the problem is. The Ministry of Natural Resources, through the Burgar report or the conservation authority review, should be co-ordinating, and I hope it does, an overall policy for conservation authorities.

My colleague the member for Algoma said both diverse aspects. He said first of all that the local authorities should be told what to do and then he talked about problems with particular trails up in northern Ontario, and the province should be involved. He is trying to have it both ways. I say to him that you have to get the province involved. That is where the major aspect of the money is to give to the authorities. That is where the depth of expertise is. We have provincial parks. We have had experience in those kinds of aspects.

We have to remember that conservation authorities were originally developed under that great Premier, Leslie Frost, under the aspect of conserving watershed jurisdictions.

What I think we are seeing now in southern Ontario is an expansion of the population. They want to use this watershed area and the conservation authorities are trying to adjust to the expanded population, but they do not have the depth of experience or money to make the proper adjustment. They seem to be going off on different tangents and diversities, putting together what we call some user groups out our way.

Who is regulating the user groups? If there are injuries, who is responsible for injuries on the conservation authorities? At the moment, it is not good enough for the conservation authorities, in my mind, to be regulating usage of the large acreage of property they have. There has to be an overall co-ordinated policy.

I think the honourable member’s resolution is an attempt, a first try at saying to the authorities, “Listen, you should be disbanding this kind of approach.” Then, hopefully, the government will follow through with the report that is coming forward so that an overall direction will be given to them.

I could continue on at great length; I will not. We hope members will be obliging enough to allow my critic the opportunity of having his comments said.

Mr. McGuigan: Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. Speaker. I just wish to correct the record. I am not the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Natural Resources at the present moment. I was. That is now held by the member for Durham-York (Mr. Ballinger).

In any event, I am pleased to take

part in this debate and support the resolution of the member for Northumberland. This resolution addresses not only a local concern, but also a debate that is going on in Ontario as to the role of conservation authorities. Perhaps I have used the wrong word in saying “role.” Perhaps I should say “direction” because no one on the government side is questioning the role conservation authorities have performed in the past.

The crusade had its past, or its beginnings actually, from a report that was made on the Ganaraska forest back in the 1940s and the act was passed in 1946. Some 42 years later, we find ourselves re-examining the position and I think coming to the conclusion that conservation authorities are now a mature organization. They hold about $1 billion worth of assets in the form of dams and structures and things of that nature.

During those years, to accomplish their task, they gained public acceptance by using educational skills and their ability to provide recreational opportunities for Ontario residents, and also to visitors, and they were used as a selling tool to sell the conservation authorities to the people of Ontario.

No one would offer any criticisms of their efforts, but we have reached a time, I suggest, when their limited budget -- it was flat-lined by the former government for many years -- needs to be directed in the future less towards recreation and more towards maintenance of the $1-billion investment and towards putting in more steel and concrete for the many flooding problems that still exist in Ontario.

In my former position as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Natural Resources, I listened on the minister’s behalf to a number of delegates who had deserving cases, but because of limited funds and their position on the ratings scale, they had to be turned down for the moment.

The bottom line, I believe, is that the conservation authorities are a mature, well-accepted part of Ontario’s political infrastructure. The need today and in the future is to turn their direction towards hard-line conservation and less towards recreation.

Having said that, I find myself supporting the honourable member with a certain number of tugs at my heartstrings, as does the member for Algoma. We recognize conservation authorities are structured as autonomous bodies, which one would hope and believe best know their local situation.

I think the honourable member is herself giving some expression to that same sentiment, because as members will note, the honourable member has prepared a resolution rather than a private member’s bill. The purpose of the resolution is to gauge the level of support from all parties that exists in the Legislature as a guide to local conservation authorities, rather than as a direction from the government. I commend the member not only for the content, but also for the vehicle she has used for her purposes.

Mr. Wildman: An off-road vehicle?

Mr. McGuigan: Actually, the member only mentions dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles.

When I had the office of parliamentary assistant to the minister, I visited the Ganaraska forest on June 6 of last year. I submitted an opinion to the minister shortly afterwards.

In summing up, I said to the minister that while I commended the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority for forming a user advisory group made up of local residents and representatives from trail bike groups, in my opinion the differences between the two competing groups were too wide to effect a working compromise unless the conservation authority put it to the bikers that they must control the noise and develop a self-policing system to follow through and deliver on any commitments they might agree to. The alternative, I agreed, was a ban on the use of bikes on authority land.

The member has spoken about the effects on the physical environment of the forests and I support her evidence and her conclusions.

I want to speak about the incompatible nature of the opposing user groups. They can be divided into two broad categories, passive and active. The passive groups are the residents who live within the conservation authority lands, some in permanent homes such as the honourable member for Durham East (Mr. Cureatz), some who live in seasonal retreats, some who live on farms, many who visit the forest as hikers, naturalists and scientists, and some who go there to escape the stress of modern industrial society as we now know it in Ontario.

There are, I believe, very few, if any conflicts within this user group, nor do they inflict any unwanted effects on dirt bikers. The action group, those who go there as individual riders, as members of biker clubs out for a ride or for organized competition, do impinge on the abilities, and I believe on the rights, of people to enjoy their individual properties or their collective property as stakeholders in the common property of Ontario, held in the name of the Queen for their present and future use.

I have had some personal experience with the conflicts between residents and those who create noise pollution, which is unavoidable with dirt bikes. I would like to explain to those who do not own one of them or are not acquainted with them that they make a tremendous noise, based on the fact that the engines of these vehicles are much more powerful than can actually be sustained in continued use. If you drive one of those vehicles with wide-open power on the highway, in short order you will find the motor will seize up or disintegrate.

An example would be an air-cooled engine, a piston-driven engine, on an airplane. When the pilot takes off, I understand he gives almost full power and unleashes tremendous horsepower for that size of motor. That only lasts for about 30 seconds before the plane is off the ground. If you have watched the pilots or listened to them, very shortly they ease back the power to a cruising speed that the motor can sustain.

It is the same operation with a dirt bike. As the member has mentioned, it is only fun driving these in a situation where you have hills to climb, where you can crank that throttle wide open for just a few seconds. During those few seconds, the motor can put out a power of 200 horses, more power than we have in most cars. In fact, it even exceeds the power that is in some trucks. Of course, to go along with the sense of power, there are very few, if any mufflers on these vehicles so that when they crank the power open you get this intermittent sound which is a –

Mr. Pouliot: It’s a way of life.

Mr. McGuigan: We are talking about the member’s resolution. We are not talking about a particular area in the north.

Anyway, the point I want to make is that it is part and parcel of the use of these vehicles that they make an ear-splitting noise. You might come back and say, “Why not put mufflers on them?” An engineer friend of mine tells me that when you put a muffler that is properly tuned on these vehicles or any vehicle -- not just a production, off-the-shelf muffler, but a properly tuned muffler -- it will actually create more power rather than less power. That is the nature of the thing.

The member also talked about these machines clawing their way through the terrain. Actually, they have the studded tire not for a matter of traction to grip the ground; that studded tire is there to kick dirt out behind it. If one takes a look at the rockets that go off from Cape Canaveral, they are propelled by the gases that come out the fire end of the machine. It is those gases that propel it.

When you are going up a steep bank that can be 45 degrees or more -- these people are naturally attracted to that type of terrain -- they are propelled not by the traction power of that studded tire, but are actually propelled by that stream of dirt. I am talking about hundreds of pounds that comes rushing out the back of the machine.

We have, I believe, a rather incompatible use. If I had time, I would tell the members what I did for a thrill when I was a youngster. I had a horse and I was just a thrill-seeker and did things as reckless as --

Mr. Ballinger: You’re ageing yourself now, Jim.

Mr. McGuigan: They still have horses today.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has now expired, I am sorry to say. The member for Hastings-Peterborough for up to four minutes.

Mr. Pollock: I am pleased to take

part in this debate and put a few things on the record. Let me first say that I have the highest respect for the member for Northumberland, but I have to say that I do not fully support her resolution. I find this resolution is just a little out of place on this particular week.

For instance, it has to be one of the strangest weeks I have put in here at the Legislature when the government of the day brings forth Bill 113, which turns back the Sunday shopping issue to the municipalities, and then a government member comes forth with a resolution taking away from the local conservation authorities their actual authority to govern themselves and wanting to turn it back to a provincial ministry. I find that rather strange and a complete flip-flop in the way we do business here.

I just want to put it on the record too that the Ministry of Natural Resources owns all-terrain vehicles. Conservation authorities own all-terrain vehicles. After all, how can you ban them when these people actually own them? If somebody is breaking the law on conservation authorities, the police are able to come in and charge those people. If, for instance, they are underage drivers or if they are impaired, the police have the right to come in and charge them. In 90 per cent of the cases, I believe that is the case.

I would rather see a resolution put forward here in regard to engine torque versus road contact, meaning that the horsepower of a particular machine should relate to the inches of rubber that are in contact with the road. That, in turn, might eliminate dirt bikes because in my opinion, dirt bikes cause far more problems than all-terrain vehicles or snowmobiles.

The Ministry of Natural Resources has only 300 conservation officers and they are in no way in a position to police all the conservation authorities in regard to this particular –

Mr. Ballinger: They do not have to; they police themselves.

Mr. Pollock: The resolution asks the Ministry of Natural Resources to police conservation authorities. That is what the resolution is about. In fact, the Ministry of Natural Resources actually has all-terrain vehicles it uses to fight forest fires. These are some of the things I want to put on the record.

I might say also that I have a snowmobile. I have driven on conservation authority lands and I have driven in provincial parks. I felt I had done no more damage to the conservation authority or the provincial park than John Doe is doing out there driving on the road.

Mr. Ballinger: Is it licensed?

Mr. Pollock: Yes, it is.

I might also say that I presented a private member’s bill to this Legislature back in December 1987.

Interjection.

Mr. Pollock: I should have some more time because the NDP did not take its time.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has expired, though. I believe the member for Northumberland reserved approximately three minutes.

Mrs. Fawcett: I would first of all like to thank all members for their participation and insight into this deplorable situation. I am happy to see the member for Algoma is now favouring local option. That is very good. I also wish to point out that my resolution really said nothing about snowmobiles. I thank the member for Durham East for the very kind personal remarks and support.

At this time, though, I would like to quote from The Ganaraska Watershed, a report considered by many to be the bible of rehabilitation forest management. The Ganaraska report was the basic document on which the Conservation Authorities Act of 1946 was drafted.

“How can people do such things to their own country -- weaken its base, befoul its beauty, darken its future -- How can they do such things and seem never to realize what they are doing? How can they countenance and join in a continual defacement and destruction of the body of their land?”

That capably sums up the point I am trying to make here today. We must preserve these designated lands of ours for future generations. I feel we can do this by working with conservation authorities to help them further meet their objectives in areas where there is multiple recreational use, not work use. Banning dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles for recreational use in conservation areas, I believe, would do just that.

The carefree recreational ride an off-road vehicle user takes today may well prove to be a most costly experience that our future generations will have to suffer. We in the Legislature today have the power to help preserve some of our natural habitat and I ask that all members join in supporting this resolution.

Mr. Speaker: We have now dealt with ballot item 61 and ballot item 62.

RETIREE VOLUNTEERS

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Callahan has moved resolution 61.

Motion agreed to.

VEHICLES ON CONSERVATION AUTHORITY LANDS

Mr. Speaker: Mrs. Fawcett has moved resolution 62.

All those in favour will please say “aye.”

All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion the ayes have it.

Motion agreed to.

The House recessed at 12:02 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

NORTHERN HEALTH SERVICES

Miss Martel: In the throne speech of April 1987, the government announced its intention to open a regional office of the Ministry of Health somewhere in northern Ontario. In response to the announcement, the health and social services committee of the regional municipality of Sudbury passed the following resolution: first, that the Ministry of Health be requested to locate the regional office in Sudbury and second, that the ministry’s area planning co-ordinator for northern Ontario be located in the same office.

The region approved the resolution and on May 27, 1987, forwarded this to the former Minister of Health. In August 1987, the region was advised that the ministry was reviewing the decision regarding the location of the office.

In September, the region offered the assistance of its senior staff to the ministry to aid in this review. A response to this offer was never received. In November 1988, the region again raised the matter, this time writing directly to the Premier (Mr. Peterson) to remind him of the promise made in the throne speech of 1987. Council again requested that the regional office of the Ministry of Health be located in Sudbury.

Finally, on January 16, 1989, a response was received from the Premier. He stated that careful consideration was being given to the location of this office to ensure the health care needs of northern Ontario would be met. He added that the review continued and no decision on location had yet been made. Two years after the fact, a regional office of the Ministry of Health has still not been established in northern Ontario. Is it any wonder, then, that we have little confidence in this government regarding the promises it makes?

POLICE DUTIES

Mr. McLean: My statement is directed to the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) and concerns the use of police officers to transport prisoners back and forth between jails and courts in Ontario. At the present time, two police officers are required to drive prisoners from such correctional facilities as the Barrie Jail to appear in court in the city of Orillia, the town of Penetanguishene or the town of Midland. In many instances, the court appearance is a relatively short one because the case is put forward to a future date. This could occur a number of times. The police officers must then return the prisoners to the Barrie Jail to await trial.

We are paying police officers too much just to serve as a form of taxicab driver for Ontario prisoners. As far as I am concerned, our police officers are overqualified to end up providing a shuttle service for prisoners.

I urge the Solicitor General to meet with the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) and the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Ramsay) and devise an alternative method for transporting prisoners between our jails and courts. Perhaps they could consider using police officers who are retiring from the force but who want to continue putting in a few hours each day the courts are in session. I think this would prove to be less costly and I believe it would free up police officers who have more important things to do than providing a shuttle service for prisoners.

MEMBER FOR CORNWALL

Ms. Collins: I stand today to recognize an outstanding act of courage by one of our own. On December 23, 1988, just two days before Christmas, at approximately 1:10 in the afternoon, Shirley Ingola was on the second floor of her home when she noticed the floor warming beneath her feet. She came downstairs to find her wood stove glowing red and the ceiling and walls blazing.

Our colleague came rushing to Mrs. Ingola’s aid as she fled from her fiery home. She was in shock and wanted to return to the house. Our colleague, with no thought for his own safety, went into the blazing house, found the family dog and safely returned the pooch to its owner waiting outside.

Tom Hughes, president of the Ontario Humane Society, was visiting the area at the time of the fire and he read about this selfless act when it appeared the next day on the front page of the local paper. Mr. Hughes returned to Toronto, whereupon he brought the actions of our colleague to the attention of the executive committee of the society. He recommended that an award be given, and a motion was passed unanimously.

The award plaque to be presented this Sunday will read: “An award of bravery is presented to John Cleary for saving the life of an animal without consideration of personal safety or wellbeing.”

I commend the honourable member for Cornwall (Mr. Cleary) for this act of personal bravery and I ask all members in the House to join me in congratulating him.

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: John, maybe you can save the Tories now.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

CAMBRIDGE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING COMMITTEE

Mr. Farnan: Today, I wish to pay tribute to the Cambridge Industrial Training Committee. This is a committee of volunteers with representatives from business; from labour, employers and employees, and from education.

Together they evaluate the growth of our community and look for areas in which training will benefit employers and employees.

After identifying areas of opportunity, the committee endeavours to make programs available through Ontario’s Ministry of Skills Development and the Department of Employment and Immigration. These programs benefit employees by providing easier access to training and to employers by providing funds to help them put training plans in place.

By providing opportunities to refine skills and to learn new skills, by assisting older laid-off workers and women to gain marketable skills and by encouraging young people to consider a career in the skilled trades, the Cambridge Industrial Training Committee is playing a key role in securing the economic and industrial future of Cambridge in the area of Canada’s technology triangle.

The Cambridge Industrial Training Committee recognizes that our greatest resource and our greatest asset is a well-trained and skilled workforce. New tools, methods and technologies are available to all. However, we can compete only when we can demonstrate that we have a workforce with the right training.

On behalf of all the citizens of Cambridge, I applaud and commend the volunteers of the Cambridge Industrial Training Committee. Their contribution is essential to our future and deserves generous support from the provincial Ministry of Skills Development.

FIREFIGHTING

Mr. Pollock: During the estimates of the Ministry of Natural Resources, the minister was questioned regarding the reduction of fire-crew size from six members down to three and whether there would be an overall reduction in the total number of firefighters. While the answer from the minister and his officials at that time was that we “might be increasing our number of firefighters,” today our worst fears appear to be true.

From information that I have received, it appears that the minister is intending to reduce fire-crew personnel by 46 per cent in the Algonquin region and that the reduction may in fact be continued across many of the ministry’s districts and perhaps across the entire province.

True to the form of this government, the minister is also intending to pass some of the responsibility of fighting forest fires on to the municipalities by using members of the local fire department for auxiliary crews. I am sure that the minister realizes that fire departments in rural areas are mostly entirely volunteer fire departments. To expect these dedicated individuals, who so freely give of their time, to take on this task which belongs rightfully to the minister is absurd.

Why does the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) not live up to the commitment he gave during estimates, stop passing the buck on to municipalities and stop threatening the forest resources of our province?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

CITIZENSHIP

Mr. Matrundola: In view of the fact that a great number of immigrants of advanced age who have resided in Canada for many years wish to participate more fully in our society, including participating in elections; and

In view of the fact that these seniors are unable to do so because they are not Canadian citizens and many of them have great difficulty in acquiring the required level of language skills because they are unable to attend classes or may feel intimidated to be tested; and

In view of the fact that the federal government, in its 1987 discussion paper entitled Proud to be Canadian suggested amendments to the Citizenship Act which would promote citizenship among senior newcomers by lowering or removing barriers for those over 60 years of age,

“Any landed immigrant who resides in Canada for at least 10 years and is of at least 60 years of age may become a Canadian citizen upon

summary application, by paying the required fee and attending the swearing-in ceremony. This would waive the language and studying requirements. Also, since at 60 years of age, they qualify as senior citizens they would pay only 50 per cent of the applicable fees.

“Anyone wishing to become a Canadian citizen in less than 10 years, or who is less than 60 years old, shall follow the present routine.”

This will facilitate the obtaining of Canadian citizenship for senior citizens who wish to participate more fully in our democratic process and hence make a contribution to Canada.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Cambridge for 40 seconds.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr. Farnan: I would like to read a quote from a letter I received from a Cambridge resident.

“Dear Mike,

“Never mind that three days before the last provincial election David Peterson said in Cambridge, ‘I have a specific plan to lower insurance rates.’ He had no plan. There never was a plan. What Peterson said about auto insurance was just another promise. I wonder how many people were suckered in and voted for the Liberals thinking they were going to pay less for their auto insurance.

“I have been around for a while now and I’ve got an idea how this system works. First, they scare us by suggesting a possible 40 per cent premium increase. Then they expect us to be dancing in the street when they tell us that the increase is only 15 to 20 per cent. Maybe now they will realize that you don’t trust a Liberal.

“Happy driving,

“Ross Adshade, Cambridge.”

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

TRIPARTITE STABILIZATION PLANS

Hon. Mr. Riddell: It gives me great pleasure to announce that this morning, Ontario was the first province to sign new amendments to the national tripartite stabilization plans for hogs, sheep and beef cattle.

As members know, tripartite stabilization programs are funded equally by the federal government, participating provincial governments and producers. The plans provide payments to producers in times of low market prices.

The amendments I signed today represent a truly co-operative effort. The federal government, national and provincial producer associations and representatives from all provincial governments worked together for over two years to improve the plans. The amendments will go a long way to create the level playing field that red-meat producers across Canada have asked for and which we have now achieved. There will be a firm upper limit on the benefits which both levels of government can offer to red-meat producers.

I anticipate that all the provinces will be signing some or all of the agreements over the next few days. In November 1985, Ontario was the first province to sign the original agreements and initiate tripartite stabilization plans for red meats in Canada. These original agreements were the first steps in bringing greater discipline into the Canadian marketplace for red meats.

Over the years, this government has consulted fully with representatives of the red-meat producer groups and has kept them fully informed of developments as they have occurred. I am very pleased that these amended agreements have the full support of the national and provincial red-meat commodity organizations.

Under the present plans, estimated payouts for Ontario producers enrolled in the program in the fourth quarter of 1988 are: $30 million for hogs, $8 million for slaughter and feeder cattle and $39,000 for lambs.

The effectiveness of existing plans reaffirms my belief in the partnership of governments and producer groups and their ability to develop national safety-net programs.

SMALL BUSINESS

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: On behalf of my ministry I am pleased to announce that the 1988 report on the small business sector in the province is now available. This report, entitled The State of Small Business, provides insight into emerging trends and the most recent statistics on growth and job creation.

It was produced for the committee of parliamentary assistants for small business, which is chaired by the member for Mississauga West (Mr. Mahoney). It demonstrates the high growth potential of small business, identifies issues which limit future expansion and points the way to remedial action.

Small business is the single most important employer in Ontario and in Canada. Today, nearly a third of new businesses are headed by women and an increasing number of young people are looking at business ownership as a career. Small business flourishes in areas that require a high level of specialization and customer service and a quick response to market changes.

The report also contains sections on the integration of technology in production, government procurement, exporting, government and nongovernment sources of debt and equity financing and entrepreneurial education in Ontario’s schools. In addition, this year’s report features a small business owners’ guide which gives entrepreneurs practical information on business ownership, sales to government, financing and exporting.

This comprehensive report shows the crucial role small business plays in the economic life of the province. It also points to the issues which currently pose a challenge to future growth.

POLICE WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION

Hon. Mrs. Smith: Recently I indicated to the House that my officials had been instructed by me to conduct a survey of police forces in Ontario to determine whether the ammunition used by the police officers was in conformity with police regulations.

My officials conducted a survey of all 121 police forces in Ontario. I wish to inform the House that all police forces confirmed that the ammunition used by their police officers conforms with police regulations on the use of ammunition. All police forces confirmed that ammunition issued to police officers for normal purposes was factory-loaded solid bullet of lead alloy of semiwad cutter configuration, as prescribed by the regulations.

As members are aware, regulations also permit the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police or the chief of police of a municipal police force to authorize for a special purpose the use of ammunition other than the type prescribed by the regulation.

The survey also confirmed that, in the case of 11 police forces, hollow-point ammunition was authorized for special purposes such as target practice and by tactical units.

I would further like to inform the House that I have forwarded the information to the Firearms Equipment Advisory Committee which is looking at the suitability of ammunition now being issued to police officers, and to the committee looking at the use of force by tactical units which is chaired by Douglas Drinkwalter, chairman of the Ontario Police Commission.

I have asked both of these committees to consider this information before making their recommendations to me.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Hon. Mr. Elston: The efficient and economic delivery of automobile insurance to the citizens of Ontario is an important social and economic priority of this government. The government is committed to moderating the cost of insurance premiums, increasing efficiencies within the insurance industry, and providing for fairer treatment for all drivers in the province.

I have been strengthened in my commitment to these goals by the many comments I have received from the public and by the many concerns I heard expressed in the recent rate hearings of the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board. There is no doubt in my mind that the public is seeking substantial improvement in the delivery of automobile insurance.

The Ministry of Financial Institutions has been busy examining a range of new alternatives designed to achieve the objectives of this government. It is clear from the work of the ministry that the cost of automobile insurance is directly related to the occurrence of accidents and the amount of compensation paid out for bodily injury and economic loss. The number of claims is increasing dramatically, and the per claim cost is rising at twice the rate of inflation. The volume of traffic in Ontario continues to mount as a result of our economic and population growth. The consequence is more accidents and injury claims, and more costly settlements.

I wish to inform the House today that I am requesting the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board to hold public hearings on certain issues relating to two specific alternative systems of automobile insurance.

The first alternative is a threshold no-fault system of car insurance. Under this system, victims of accidents would receive the benefits of income replacement and medical rehabilitation, with death benefits to dependants in the case of fatalities, without the need for litigation. In addition, in cases of serious injury, often called the threshold, victims would be able to sue for compensation for pain and suffering. As claims for pain and suffering now constitute 45 per cent of all bodily injury claims, elimination of litigation in cases not involving serious injury should reduce insurance costs overall, even with no-fault compensation to injured parties.

I might note that a number of American states have implemented variations of the threshold no-fault insurance system, including New York and Michigan.

The second alternative is a choice system, giving drivers an option between forms of no-fault and fault insurance. Under this system, drivers could choose a less costly no-fault policy offering compensation for economic loss, but without the right to receive compensation for pain and suffering. Alternatively, a driver could choose a fault-based policy having existing no-fault benefits and the right to further recovery through litigation for both economic loss and pain and suffering, provided the policyholder is not at fault.

Each of these alternatives, the system based on threshold no-fault and the system based on choice between no-fault and fault, holds out considerable promise of obtaining a better balance between premium costs and benefits to injured claimants.

The automobile insurance board will be asked to report the result of its inquiries to me by this summer. I wish to emphasize that the board is not being invited to make a choice or even a recommendation between the two systems. The government will have the responsibility of determining whether or not to go ahead with either of these two alternatives.

The questions that the government will be asking of the board will involve the following: a detailed analysis of the potential savings to consumers under the two alternative systems; consideration of practical concerns arising from administration of either system, and anticipated levels of recovery of benefits by victims of automobile accidents under either system.

In addition, my colleagues and I will be announcing shortly measures designed to strengthen consumer protection, increase driver education and improve highway safety.

TORT REFORM

Hon. Mr. Scott: I am pleased to advise the House today about a number of initiatives I intend to take with respect to tort reform in Ontario.

The government has received very thoughtful and thorough comments on the subject of tort reform from both the Ontario Law Reform Commission in its report on compensation and from Mr. Justice Osborne in his report on motor vehicle accident compensation in Ontario. Both reports expressed confidence in the existing system for the compensation of those who have suffered personal injuries.

However, the tort system can be fine-tuned and therefore made better, fairer and more efficient in its treatment of those who have suffered injuries. I therefore propose to undertake reform in five specific areas: (1) the entitlement of prejudgement interest on damage awards; (2) the use of structured settlements; (3) the efficiency of the litigation process; (4) the use of advance payments by insurers, and (5) with respect to the further development of alternative dispute resolution for no-fault accident benefits.

I would like to take a moment to briefly describe the thrust of these intended reforms and comment on the reason these reforms are being undertaken.

With respect to prejudgement interest, a plaintiff who has advanced a claim for financial loss and pain and suffering is entitled to what is known as prejudgement interest on the amount awarded to compensate him or her for the loss of the use of that money pending judgement. The amendments I propose to bring forward will expand the availability of prejudgement interest in the sense that interest would run from the date the injury was suffered rather than the date the plaintiff gave notice.

This change was recommended both by the Osborne commission and the Ontario Law Reform Commission. The rate of interest would be the bank rate, which, at least in the ease of pain and suffering awards, would approximate more closely the real rate of return. The changes will inject prejudgement interest calculations with more fairness, neutrality and predictability.

Mr. B. Rae: Look up, Ian. The camera’s got a shine on your forehead. He hasn’t got his glasses on.

Hon. Mr. Scott: I could read in here what I really thought of the Leader of the Opposition and no one would ever notice.

With respect to structured settlements, the court must in some cases increase the amount of a damage award to enable a plaintiff with sufficient funds to pay income tax. A device known as a structured settlement can avoid this situation. However, in the current system, a structured settlement is only available where both the plaintiff and defendant consent. The amendments I propose to bring forward would give the court the discretion to impose a structured settlement on the parties in appropriate circumstances.

The third area of reform concerns improvements to the litigation process. I have asked the rules committee of the Supreme and district courts to consider a number of proposed amendments to the rules of civil procedure that would facilitate the courts’ ability to process claims concerning bodily injury. In addition, changes to the Evidence Act and the Courts of Justice Act will be undertaken to facilitate the use of medical expert evidence at trial and to permit the trial judge to offer guidance to juries in assessing the amount of damage awards.

Fourth, the Insurance Act currently provides insurers with the ability to make advance payments to plaintiffs in certain circumstances before a court determination of liability. Advance payments facilitate settlement and reduce the need to pay prejudgement interest on a plaintiff’s claim. I propose to bring forward amendments that would encourage an insurer to make such advance payments in proper cases.

Finally, alternative dispute resolution is in many jurisdictions a growing and integral component of the system for resolving disputes between insureds and their own insurer over accident benefit claims that should be provided quickly on a no-fault basis. I am establishing a committee of experts to inquire into the potential role and function of alternative dispute resolution in this field. The goal of the committee is to provide me with a model proposal for the arbitration and/or mediation of disputes between insureds and insurers.

The reforms I have announced today follow upon the recommendations of Mr. Justice Osborne and the Ontario Law Reform Commission. Both studies have contributed greatly to our ability to further improve the tort system for the people of the province.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any other ministerial statements?

Hon. Mr. Scott: Now, Bob, it will soon be your turn to speak. He practises all the way through statements. Yak, yak, yak.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I understood there were no more statements. Responses. The Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. B. Rae: First of all, I want to respond to the statement that was made by the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) –

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Look up, Bob, look up.

Mr. B. Rae: I am looking very directly at the Treasurer as I speak.

Hon. Mr. Scott: Who’s on your committee, Bob?

Mr. B. Rae: I don’t have a committee.

Hon. Mr. Scott: Speak up. Use the teleprompter. Keep your forehead down. Yak, yak, yak. Speak up, Bob.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: I remind all members -- order. The Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. B. Rae: I can understand why the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) is so sensitive this week. If he wants to take it out on me, that is okay. I do not mind. He cannot beat up on anyone else these days. He cannot take it out on private clients any more, so he has to take it out on the rest of the province. I do not mind.

RESPONSES

POLICE WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION

Mr. B. Rae: If I might comment on the statement made by the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) with respect to the use of hollow-point bullets, there is a certain implausibility to the whole process which the Solicitor General has gone through. If she does a survey in which she asks the chief of police in each municipality to tell her whether to the best of his knowledge there has been a breach of the regulations, it is sort of like saying, “Has anybody here broken the law?” and the answer comes back, “No, ma’am, nobody here has broken the law.”

The whole process has an element of implausibility to it, which I am sure the Solicitor General understands, in terms of the com