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May 14, 1992

35th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

The House met at 1004.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

COMPOSTING

Mr Wilson (Kingston and The Islands) moved resolution 9:

That, in the opinion of this House, the Ministry of the Environment should adopt a policy of composting at the place the organic waste is generated -- homes, schools etc -- as the most effective way of reaching our province's target of diverting 50% of solid waste from landfill sites by the year 2000. The policy should emphasize the need for composting to take place at source wherever possible, for two reasons:

1. It is more cost-effective as there is no need to transport the organic materials and as there would be less need to build central composting facilities throughout the province.

2. It also eliminates the ongoing contamination problem central composting facilities must deal with as non-compostables become mixed with compostables.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Dennis Drainville): Mr Wilson moves private member's resolution 9. Pursuant to standing order 94(c)(i), the honourable member has 10 minutes for his presentation.

Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): Before I begin, I'd like to welcome the young people here to the chamber. It's a pleasure to see them because the subject we're dealing with, waste diversion or how we handle our waste, is one of the most serious legacies we leave our children. I want to welcome too some of the not-so-young people, like my colleague the member for Durham East, who I know will be very interested in what we're doing. It's a subject, as you'll hear from my remarks, we all have to deal with.

Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): Don't blame us, Gary.

Mr Gary Wilson: We're not apportioning blame here, Mr Mills. However, as I mentioned in my resolution, the need to reduce the amount of garbage going to landfills is one of our most pressing concerns. The Ministry of the Environment has set diversion targets of 25% by 1995 and 50% by the year 2000.

The term NIMBY has been coined to highlight the way we've been dealing with waste removal to this point. NIMBY of course means "not in my backyard." It means in somebody else's backyard. The problem is that once we do that, then we as individuals lose sight of the garbage we're creating and what is being done to deal with it. Certainly it is not helping us deal with the kinds of resources we have to save if we're going to have the kind of society we're trying to build.

One of my answers is IMBY. Just drop the "N" and you end up with "in my backyard" or at-source composting. I hope the debate on my resolution will show the need for programs to promote composting as near as possible to where the organic waste is created. I think it's clear the more backyard composting is done the more it will reduce the need for central facilities. In fact, we'll need smaller central facilities, which will reduce the problems they create.

However, let's first be clear on what we're talking about. Composting deals with organic wastes, which are food wastes from households, commercial establishments and institutions, yard wastes such as leaves and grass clippings and wood waste products. The Ministry of the Environment defines composting as the biological decomposition of organic waste materials to produce a stable humus or soil-like product. We have to remember that food is fundamentally soil and that it's one of the most complete recycling processes available to us. Once the food is dealt with, it can be decomposed and put back into the soil in a very productive and safe manner.

Composting isn't new. In fact, it's an ancient practice that many of us are familiar with through gardening. Either we've done it ourselves or members of our family have done it. That's how I was introduced to it, in that my father was a dedicated composter up in northern Ontario, which puts to rest the myth that this can't be done in cold weather. On an individual basis it's a very feasible manner of dealing with all kinds of organic waste. I think the important part there, though, is the example that is set at the home.

In one of my proposals I'll be suggesting that schools also should look to composting at site, at the location of the school wherever possible, because again that generates the interest and, I would say, enthusiasm for composting.

A consultant's study in the Kingston area showed organic materials make up 40% of the waste stream. That finding is similar to the rest of the province. That's a considerable amount when we remember that Ontario's landfill sites receive over 10 million tonnes of solid waste annually. With numbers like these, the inclination is to look at central facilities to deal with processing such large amounts of organic wastes. However, I think it's crucial to remember that composting is essentially a low-tech activity and can be done in the backyard. If we put our emphasis there, we'll reduce the need for the larger facilities.

Some of the problems with the central facilities are simply that a place has to be found to put them and the larger they are, the more difficult it will be simply to find the space. But also there can be problems with things like rodents, because of the meat products, and odour. The importance is to keep the central facilities as small as possible; again that need will be met with more backyard composting.

There are more sophisticated models of this low-tech methodology, and they come very expensive. Not only do they have to be built but they also have to be maintained, and that costs a lot of money. Less sophisticated models are labour-intensive and that means there are training costs associated and you have to make sure you have the staff available to run them.

Canadian winters do slow decomposition, because it does require heat, or it works better in hot circumstances. So that will slow the effectiveness of the central facilities.

When there are contaminants in the organic waste, if you're not careful what goes into the organic waste, things like table scraps and food remains, then you'll end up with compost that can't be used in any but very restricted circumstances. For instance, poor sorting can mean there'll be plastic or glass in the compost that's left and that will cut down its use, first of all lowering the nutritional value of its return to the soil but also as a threat to grazing animals, which can of course cut themselves.

When high energy consumption is considered in the case of the sophisticated facility, the cost of processing waste has been calculated at over $100 a tonne, and that's after it's been collected. You can see it's not a cheap process. By comparison, a study in Durham region estimates the operating cost of the backyard composter to be $23.18. This calculation is based on free distribution and delivery of the composter, administrative costs and the cost of the study itself. I have a quote here from Ken Donnelly, waste reduction manager for the region of Durham:

"The cost of backyard composting is so attractive that municipalities should definitely be looking at giving composters to everyone in their jurisdictions. Costs can be recovered in a short time."

In my own area, the Kingston Environmental Action Project presented a cost-benefit analysis to the Kingston Area Recycling Corp. Based on giving every single household a composting unit, the analysis shows that the program would pay for itself in one year. As you can see, it's a very cost-effective way of approaching this severe problem.

The study also found that the estimated costs of collecting organic waste for landfill or for the central facility was $65, with the added cost for tipping fee, and of course in some areas, like my own, that is a very high amount at $150 a tonne. Then again there is the operation of the plant, which in the more sophisticated models is $100.

But the benefits are not just in waste diversion. By composting, you have an opportunity to add nutrition to homegrown vegetables. For example, the average Canadian family throws away every year as much iron as you'd find in 500 eggs, as much protein as there is in 65 steaks and vitamins equal to the contents of 95 glasses of orange juice. That's just in the potato peelings that family threw out.

Compost provides three main nutrients needed for plant growth: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Unlike commercial fertilizers, they're returned to the soil in a gradual manner that prevents burning and is a much more moderate and beneficial way of providing this nutrition.

I think most people understand how the backyard composter would work. Maybe when we get into larger units like schools and apartment buildings it's not quite so clear, but still that can be done. As I mentioned, in schools it's a very good way of encouraging our children to take this method seriously. For apartments, especially smaller units, several bins can be set up to take the waste and it could be returned to the apartment dwellers themselves for use in potting plants or else distributed in the immediate neighbourhood for gardens and for mulch.

It can be seen that this method would bring neighbourhoods together. Certainly in the apartment buildings where this kind of interaction occurred, it would bring the people from neighbouring houses together with the people in the apartments, but it also, even in neighbourhoods that are composed of houses, brings people together where they are composting as a group. Of course they would share their experiences and maybe their compost.

I think the most important aspect of this is that it puts the onus for waste control on the people who are creating it, and that is us as individuals. No longer can we afford to simply ship this out of sight where there's no indication of what happens to it. It will force us to take responsibility for the waste we create. I think, more positively, it encourages in us the idea of stewardship: that we are responsible for our natural resources and what we do with them.

Certainly the most fundamental resource we have is the food we eat, and the importance of agriculture as a system and how composting fits in with the renewal of agriculture where we're losing billions of tonnes of topsoil. This is a way of returning that topsoil to guarantee that we will have a future.

I am pleased to introduce this debate on this important resolution and I look forward to what my colleagues have to say. I will sum up after that's over.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Carman McClelland (Brampton North): I'm wondering if I could have the concurrence of my colleagues, all-party agreement, to allow the member for Simcoe East to take my place in the rotation, inasmuch as he has a conflicting

schedule problem.

The Acting Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I want to thank my colleague the member for Brampton North for giving me the opportunity to proceed. I have a meeting with the Minister of Natural Resources at 10:30. I expect that'll be very important; I don't want to miss it.

I welcome this opportunity to say a few words in support of this resolution put forward by my colleague the member for Kingston and The Islands. In simple terms, this resolution calls on the Ministry of the Environment to adopt a policy of composting at the place where the organic waste is generated, such as schools and homes. That is the most efficient way of reaching the province's target of diverting 50% of solid waste from landfill sites by the year 2000.

This policy should emphasize the need for composting at source because it is more cost-effective as there is no need to transport organic materials and less need to build central composting facilities throughout the province. As well, it would eliminate the ongoing contamination problem that central composting facilities must deal with when non-compostables are mixed with compostables.

This resolution highlights the fact that the environment and its protection and preservation continues to be one of the most discussed issues of our time. To an individual composting may seen very minimal, but if enough of us compost our leaves and kitchen scraps, it will make a world of difference.

My wife and I have a composter in our home in Orillia. By composting, we feel that we really do have a role to play in the preservation and protection of the environment for our children and our grandchildren.

While I support the principle of this resolution, I'm disappointed that it does not address the issue of excess packaging on the many products we buy each and every day. The provincial government should bring forward some form of responsible packaging act that would prohibit the use of materials that are environmentally irresponsible when alternatives exist. It should also be extended to serve industries such as fast-food outlets and dry-cleaners, where there clearly exists an immediate need for improvement.

This packaging reduction program could include a hotline for consumers to report bad examples of excessive packaging to bring the public and the government's attention to it. The goal of a program like this would be to mobilize consumers, industry and environmental experts to reach a target of 20% reduction in waste packaging by 1993 and 50% by the year 2000.

I believe Canadian municipalities could save as much as $50 million per year in collection and disposal fees with a 20% reduction in packaging waste, and I believe the price of the products we buy could also be reduced as a result of less packaging. This should have been part of this resolution. I'm disappointed in that aspect of it because I remember during the election campaign in 1990 there was a lot of discussion around the extra packaging we have.

Each year the world population increases and the amount of topsoil needed for food production decreases. Because the scale of these problems seems much larger than any of us or our communities, some people must realize they have only one option and that is to raise their hands in despair, but there's a role for each of us to play in correcting the problems. If we play our part right, we will ensure that our actions lead to a good quality of life for future generations.

Everything is related: recycling aluminum cans, reusing plastic bags from the produce

section of the supermarket, substituting household chemical solvents with baking soda and composting our wet garbage. People must be educated that a conserver does not buy overly packaged goods. If you need a bolt or washer and you can only find it in packages or a half-dozen wrapped in plastic, point out to the store manager that you require only one and it does not need to be overly packaged. Point out that the item is made of metal and a plastic wrap will not keep it fresh or preserve its life.

I had the opportunity to buy a flashlight in one of the hardware stores not long ago. This flashlight had a string attached to it to hang it up with. For the life of me I couldn't believe why this was packaged and wrapped in the largest measure of waste I've ever seen. That light could have been hung on the wall with that string just as simply as being packaged and hung up by the package. That, to me, is what we should be aiming at here and I would love to have seen that as part of this resolution: to reduce packaging.

I know what our composter at home is all about and I know how much we've used. I know that packaging would reduce our landfill sites by far more than what composting is going to do.

So as I said earlier, I support the principle of this composting resolution from the member for Kingston and The Islands. It would not require the unnecessary expenditure of taxpayers' money and it would get everyone involved in preserving and protecting our environment. As I said, I hope in the future we will see a resolution in this House and I hope the Minister of the Environment will bring forward a resolution, as a government minister, to reduce packaging in this province, because I believe that is a major issue facing us today.

I want to thank you once again for the opportunity to speak at this time and I will be supporting the member's resolution.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Walkerville): At the outset, I just want to indicate that I'm going to be speaking in support of this resolution as well. I wanted to make a few comments about the submissions that have been made by the member for Simcoe East.

He says he's disappointed there isn't more in this resolution about packaging and reducing waste. I want to remind him about Bill 143. Although that bill had a lot to do with the waste management problem in the greater Toronto area, it did have the regulation-making authority for the minister to reduce packaging and it also requires businesses to conduct waste audits. So I know that's going to address the issues he's raised.

I live in Essex county and, like most parts of Ontario, that's an area that's in the midst of a waste disposal crisis. The main landfill we currently use is located in the riding of my colleague the member for Essex-Kent, Pat Hayes, and it's scheduled to close at the end of this year. In fact, one of the alternatives to take the place of that closed landfill is also in the riding of the member for Essex-Kent. So this is a problem he is very seriously concerned about.

As a result of facing that landfill closing, it's been imperative that we've had to become very serious and pursue an active policy of reducing the amount of waste we produce, and also recycling and reusing. The Essex-Windsor waste management committee has been at the forefront of the pursuit of this goal. They've done things like ban the disposal of cardboard, wooden pallets and also automobile tires in the landfill site. They've also in the last two years sponsored a tremendously successful program of selling backyard composters.

They've sold over 12,000 since they began that program and have a goal of 25,000 to be sold. That would cover approximately 25% of the households in the county. They've been encouraging the use of their composters through educational campaigns, demonstration projects at malls and attending at schools and things like that.

The most important part of this program is the price they're selling the composters at. They have names like the Barclay Soilsaver, the Earth Machine and one product that's produced locally called the Resource Saver. These are devices that would usually be sold retail for about $75 to $100 but, because of the Essex waste management committee's efforts and also through the support of the Ministry of the Environment, which I am very proud of, those devices are able to be sold for under $25. The result has been that over 400 truckloads of residential waste has been diverted from landfill.

I want to add that my wife Nancy and I have two composters in our yard. Last week my wife was telling me that she was cleaning out the composter -- of course, you know I'm not home often enough to help her as often as I would in doing these sorts of chores -- and how impressed she was at the quality of the material that came from the composter and how good it looked when she spread it around in the garden.

So I know that if the Essex-Windsor waste management committee ever decided to start collecting organic wastes and take it to some other facility, it is never likely to get my organic waste as a result of what I've seen as a positive step from composting. I'm sure this is going to be similar for other people who have been converted to composting in their own yard and have been impressed by those results.

That concerns me about the prospect of having centralized composting facilities. This is the approach that, in fact, the Essex waste management committee is taking. They've discussed this on several occasions and it is their position that they really need to set up one central site to see how it works out before they even consider having smaller sites spread out in various areas of the city and the county. That is going to be enormously costly to establish. There are construction costs, collection costs and the trucks and drivers that would have to be provided.

This would be part of a change in waste disposal and collection. It would involve actually having to pick up three streams of waste. There would also be the objections of people who may be located near this proposed facility.

This is one of the reasons I am attracted to the resolution that's been presented by my friend. He specifically mentions schools. Those have large areas of land around them and I know that in my travels through schools in the city there are quite a number of children who are very concerned about the environment. I think this is an area that we could really follow their leadership in. This would be an obvious place for reduction through composting and I want to commend my friend for bringing this resolution to the House and encouraging people to use their backyard composter. I know I am going to continue to do that.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The honourable member for Brampton North.

Mr McClelland: Let me start by beginning where my friend and colleague from Windsor-Walkerville concluded: by paying tribute, if I can, to the young people of this province, this country and, in many respects, the world, who in many ways are driving the environmental initiatives.

My friend the member for Scarborough North has recently been visiting a few schools, particularly through the course of Education Week last week, as I'm sure many of my colleagues were. He noted that in virtually every school he visited, indeed perhaps every classroom in some of the schools, there were initiatives being undertaken by students who were doing such things as composting programs right in their schools, from the worm composting programs, which are very interesting, to the traditional composting programs we use as well, and putting it back into their own yards.

I was at a school last week -- I'll mention it and pay tribute to the young men and women at Williams Parkway Senior Public School in Brampton -- and they took great delight in showing me some of the projects they were doing in Education Week, not only in the science fair they had, but tying that in specifically with their environmental initiatives.

They happen to have an interesting group which calls itself the CAPE Crusaders. I think, Mr Speaker, you will give me the indulgence that normally we would use for private members' statements to pay tribute to the CAPE Crusaders. They came up with that little acronym. It's for Citizens Against Pollution Everywhere -- the CAPE Crusaders from Williams Parkway Senior Public School. They began with their idea simply by doing a composting project in their classrooms. It was delightful to watch them and see the enthusiasm they brought to that task.

I say, as my friend the member for Windsor-Walkerville said, that I think we can learn very much from the young people, who are very sensitive, and rightly so, in terms of the world we are leaving them, and are challenging us to fulfil our responsibility in terms of the legacy and the stewardship of the world God has given us.

To the member for Kingston and The Islands, I congratulate you, sir, for bringing this forth. It is an opportunity for discussion and yet again promoting the concept that each one of us can do our share and do what we can in a local way that will ultimately have an impact in global terms.

It's been often said -- in fact, the member for Peterborough said this last week in a resolution brought in this House by one of our colleagues -- that what we do environmentally not only impacts us here, but has implications for men and women literally around the world. I think that happens for a variety of reasons. I think it becomes a process that feeds itself, if you will. When somebody does it, it challenges a neighbour and a neighbour does it. As you indicated, Mr Wilson, it brings people together.

It's a positive opportunity, and we all know how much we need that in our communities and our neighbourhoods today. What better way of doing it than working on projects? It not only brings people together, but has a positive result that contributes today and for the future both in terms of waste management and the attitudes that are prevalent in our society.

Other people mentioned, and the member for Simcoe East touched on the issue, that you begin to develop a mindset, so that as people begin to take an initiative in one area, it spills over into other areas. Composting is relatively simple. In our paper that's published three times a week in my community of Brampton, I saw an advertisement that was taken out by the Ministry of the Environment. It had a stopwatch and it said, "In 58 seconds, you too can begin composting."

A very effective ad, and it says it doesn't take very much to begin it. It sets out the very basic steps of doing it. You need not have a composter per se. You can do it just in the open field or in your backyard. I think it's those kinds of things. This particular ad went on to say that you can spend from zero to "?" dollars in doing this. So it can be done for literally no money, making a very positive contribution. Or you can have, as our friend the member for Windsor-Walkerville has indicated he has, a couple of composters in your backyard.

I think that's again indicative of the beginning of setting mindsets and attitudes that will drive initiatives in a variety of areas, packaging being but one of them.

I think that as we begin to do that, we begin to look at the things we do, the kinds of services we employ in our lifestyle, the kinds of products we use and the kinds of things we demand. But in our reasoning, I think, we often mix up our desires and our needs. I think we've lost sight from time to time in our society. We say we need things, and I think that as we begin to do things like composting in our homes, it challenges us to be a little bit more sensitive in a variety of areas in our lives in terms of our stewardship for the world we have.

I have said this in committee, my friend the member for Windsor-Walkerville being present: I'm challenged from time to time by a little five-year-old man, a young fellow. My son is five years old and he catches me doing things that I shouldn't be doing. Again, that comes back to what Mr Wilson is saying and the general philosophy that underlines his resolution today, that it's the beginning of changing a mindset and changing an attitude. Old habits die hard.

If I can say this, at the risk of sounding self-serving -- I hope I don't sound that way -- I think I'm relatively sensitive in terms of environmental issues. Yet I get caught by a five-year-old doing things that aren't necessarily the best or the appropriate things to do. I used this example perhaps in committee. Forgive me if I'm repeating it to some of the people who might've heard it.

I recall not too long ago I was rushing out to some event and taking my son. I was quickly making sandwiches for him; I think they were tuna salad sandwiches. I had the can and I went to throw it into the garbage, a sort of instinctive reaction. I was rushing, I wasn't really thinking. My son picked up on it right away in the inimitable fashion of five-year-olds and said: "Daddy, you shouldn't do that. That's supposed to go in the blue box." In a sense, he chastised me, if you will, not in a condescending way but just the way that children do, by example.

I think that one little story is indicative of what you, Mr Wilson, are saying, that if we'd begin to do it we'd begin to alter our mindsets. It's an example for the kids. It becomes a lifestyle that's adopted by them.

One of the great ironies as well is that many of us -- I hope nobody will take offence at the fact that I'm going to include us all in more or less the same generation although there are people here who have come from different backgrounds and different lifestyles whether they be rural or different parts of the world -- most of us in this House are of a particular generation that got caught up in the lifestyle of the 1970s: that was really the throwaway, the convenience society. We got caught up in that. We bought into it, literally and figuratively. We're paying the price for that in many ways right now.

In some senses, by going forward we're going back. When you think back, in terms of my family, to my mom and dad as young people through the era of the Depression, they learned to maximize everything they had. They didn't have the conveniences we had. In some respects they were more, if you will, environmentally sensitive and environmentally advanced perhaps by necessity. Now we have an opportunity to do it by choice and by leadership. I think the member for Kingston and The Islands is bringing that kind of leadership to this place today.

I want to talk very briefly about how we can help people. I mentioned that the Ministry of the Environment was running an ad that I saw in my local paper yesterday indicating that you need not spend any money to have a composter. But some people would desire to have it for a variety of reasons. It might be aesthetic reasons or just for a matter of convenience. And there may be certain properties that don't lend themselves to having just an on-the-ground composting system. We've implemented a program that the member for Windsor-Walkerville alluded to where the Ministry of the Environment subsidizes the purchases of composters, backyard composters for residents in the province of Ontario.

In terms of the logistics of how that happens, I would urge those of us who work here and those of us who have dealings with the Ministry of the Environment to look for a system, as it becomes more accepted at municipal and regional governments, that is more consumer-friendly, people-friendly, if you will. I can only indicate without getting into a whole lot of detail that the Peel regional council had considerable difficulty in terms of implementing that program this year. I don't think it's appropriate, because it's old news. In fact, at the end of the day I think the matter was resolved to most people's satisfaction.

If we're going to do these kinds of things we should look at ways that would make it easier for people to access the product. I'm not putting blame on anybody in particular; I will simply say that the regime that was set up to implement the program created almost as many problems as it solved, to the point where many people kind of threw up their hands and said, "Let's not even bother with it" at the local level, not bother with the program because it's causing too much difficulty.

I would ask the member for Kingston and The Islands, who is obviously showing leadership in his caucus in this regard, together with his other colleagues who are genuinely very, very much concerned, to look at the implementation of the program that would help residents get their backyard composting. I'd be happy to share with him some of the details that cause problems, particularly in Peel.

Simply said, if I could sum it up in this way, I think we should leave it open for consumers to make choices -- and the retailers, if we are in fact going to work through the retail sector. It doesn't have to be in competition. It can be done in harmony with them. It doesn't have to be done at their expense. We can find a system, perhaps a variety of systems that are not seen to be in competition with the local store, whether it be our -- am I allowed to use names of various operators, Mr Speaker? -- friendly Mills Hardware or perhaps Morrow Hardware down the street.

We wouldn't want to be in competition with them. We would allow them the opportunity of maintaining their businesses, yet giving them the benefit of the program and the subsidies that are available. I think they can be brought together and married, if you will, in terms of advancing the objective of the resolution and the intent of the resolution as put forward by the member for Kingston and The Islands.

There are a variety of ways of composting and we kind of touched on them very briefly in terms of the hierarchy. Certainly we want to do it as close as possible so we can each participate. I think therein lies the wisdom of the resolution brought forward today by the member, Mr Wilson, because as we begin to do it, I hope in some sense to reflect upon the sense that as we do those kinds of things, it generates other ideas and generates a sensitivity that spills over into our lifestyle generally. The member for Kingston and The Islands mentioned apartment buildings, how there are opportunities there to do things collectively and cooperatively on that level of community.

Having said all that, I think we have to bear in mind that there are commercial opportunities as well. Not to appear small-minded -- I say this and I hope it will be accepted with the sincerity I say it -- I would like to add a word to your resolution, Mr Wilson, and that would be simply to say, "That, in the opinion of this House, we should adopt a policy of promoting composting at the place the waste is generated."

I'm not trying to play word games here; we'd just get caught up in a semantic argument. What I'm trying to say is that at the end of the day there will be materials that will be left over that need to be dealt with on a larger scale, whether it be from the industrial or commercial sector -- I think of restaurants, institutions, hospitals, nursing homes and so on, and hotels, the hospitality industry generally -- so there would be an opportunity as well for commercial operation, where appropriate, in the area of waste management, composting being a component of waste management.

I just want to share or add that view, that I think that as we do it close to home, which is in terms of the hierarchy the appropriate place for us to begin to do it, and for each one of us to accept responsibility for ourselves and our families and then in our neighbourhoods, that does not exclude the operation of commercial enterprises, where it's appropriate, to deal with the broader community as well. I don't want to imply by any means that the intent of the member for Kingston and The Islands was to exclude that concept; I just want to highlight that as an option I think we have to keep open.

As well, though, we have to realize there are costs involved in setting up programs, but in my view and I think in the view of members here the cost-benefits far outweigh the dollars and cents, not only in the long-term return on dollars-and-cents value in the community but the value of what we have, the world we have to leave for our kids.

Again, I say to the member for Kingston and The Islands, thank you for bringing forward this resolution, for helping us to again revisit a challenge we each have individually. Every one of us -- pages, staff people, men and women who are working in this place as members -- has the opportunity to do something and we can begin by doing a very simple concept of composting at home, as you have indicated this morning. For that, I congratulate you and wish you well.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): I want to begin by stating that I support the principle of the resolution put forward by the member for Kingston and The Islands this morning.

I note the resolution urges the Minister of the Environment to adopt a policy of composting at the place the organic waste is generated in order to best meet the province's target of diverting 50% of solid waste from landfill sites by the year 2000. The member points out in his resolution two primary reasons for this, number one being it's more cost-effective to compost at source and, second, it eliminates contamination problems that occur at central composting facilities when non-compostables become mixed with compostable materials.

I would point out, though, that my preference would be to ask the member for Kingston and The Islands to really work with the Minister of the Environment to perhaps bring in legislation around this issue rather than simply a private member's resolution this morning. While I am supportive of the resolution, I think it would have more teeth if the government were to bring in legislation similar to that of the principle contained in this morning's resolution.

I also think the NDP government should do more to promote the virtues of composting. It is difficult to force citizens of Ontario -- because they are the electorate, they are our bosses -- with a heavy-handed approach to compost, but perhaps the government could do more to promote the virtues of composting so that people will want to compost. They've done, as did the Liberal government before them, a number of things to encourage people to compost, but clearly more can be done in that area.

I want to speak for a couple of moments about the environment and landfill sites. One of the reasons I support the principle of this resolution is that it will perhaps do a little bit to take the pressure off landfill sites. Currently, as every member of this Legislature knows, there's tremendous pressure on our existing landfill sites, and I want to bring to the attention of this House once again the pressures we're experiencing in my riding of Simcoe West at the Wasaga Beach landfill site.

I want to give a little history on that particular site to the members. On November 1, 1990, the Minister of the Environment, Mrs Grier, granted the county of Simcoe an emergency certificate of approval which permitted six north Simcoe municipalities to dump their garbage in Wasaga Beach. This certificate enabled the county to operate the Wasaga Beach landfill site for a period of 18 months.

The minister did this even though she possessed studies -- and I raised this matter in the House on previous occasions -- which indicated that the site might have been environmentally unsound. Even before the minister signed the certificate, there existed a 1990 hydrogeological study which outlined that a trail of contaminated leachate had moved almost one half a kilometre from the Wasaga Beach landfill site. The minister went ahead and granted approval, even though she was aware that the dump was enlarged by 30% on land that was never previously used for landfill.

The minister refused to respond to four letters that I wrote to her and five letters that were written to her by the mayor of Wasaga Beach, Mr Walter Borthwick. In each letter we pleaded with the minister to do the environmentally appropriate thing and halt the additional dumping to the site until an environmental assessment was completed that showed the impact of this added dumping on the site.

The minister stood firm in her silence, I point out, and almost six months after granting the emergency certificate, the Minister of the Environment was quoted in a March 1991 edition of the Collingwood Enterprise-Bulletin newspaper as saying that she was "hoping" that the county of Simcoe would provide hydrogeological studies measuring the impact of additional dumping at the site. She said, "I hope that the county will get going on this as quickly as possible...they have to submit (the reports) by the 30th of April."

It's shameful that after allowing an emergency certificate which permitted a sixfold increase without an environmental assessment, the minister could "hope" that a study was being done six months later.

Just to prove that some NDP ministers don't seem to learn from their mistakes and that the environment is sometimes dealt with more as an expedient issue rather than a priority, the Minister of the Environment has recently approved an extension of the emergency certificate for another 18 months. I note in a letter of two days ago, May 12, to the mayor of Wasaga Beach, the minister writes:

"The service area of the site has been expanded for an additional 18 months ending November 1, 1993, to include the towns of Midland and Penetanguishene, the townships of Tay and Tiny and the villages of Port McNicoll and Victoria Harbour."

Again, we have another expansion without an environmental assessment. They don't compost at that site either. That's one reason I want to relate this experience to today's resolution.

I want to continue, though. In granting the extension the minister once again reneged on a commitment to the environment. It's a commitment she made not only to me in this House but to Wasaga Beach council and the citizens of Wasaga Beach. In a letter of January 1992, the mayor of Wasaga Beach wrote to the Minister of the Environment:

"At the time of your meeting with us (May 1991), you will recall that considerable discussion took place with regards to the circumstances surrounding the county's expanded use of the Wasaga Beach site. Ultimately, I believe, we all agreed that, at that point, there was nothing to be gained by further hand-wringing or soul-searching regarding events that already had taken place. Instead council took comfort in your assurances that the landfill would not be expanded nor would the life of the emergency certificate of approval be extended, without the county of Simcoe proceeding through the normal process and having the Environmental Assessment Board hold a hearing under

part V of the Environmental Protection Act."

The promised hearing was never held, yet an extension of the emergency certificate was granted recently. The town of Wasaga Beach relies on tourism, as all members know. It has become an innocent victim of environmental politics, because the minister has not exercised leadership on the environment, and the result is that North Simcoe has no motivation to resolve its environmental problems as long as Wasaga Beach is there to accept its garbage.

I also want to point out that the minister is again now promising that in the next 18 months there will be an environmental assessment. We aren't very encouraged by yet another promise, given that in the last 18 months no environmental assessment was done.

I want to point out to members that this particular site is very close to North America's largest freshwater beach. It has never had an environmental assessment, because it was established years before that requirement was brought into law. There's certainly very much a concern among the citizens of Wasaga Beach. I wanted to take the opportunity to mention that in the context of today's resolution, because I support the resolution in principle.

It may take some pressure off existing landfill sites like Wasaga Beach, but I ask the member, in addition to the principle brought forward in his resolution today -- I know he means well -- to sit down with his Minister of the Environment and solve problems that exist at Wasaga Beach.

I think it's very important. The NDP candidate in that area said there'd never be an extension without an environmental assessment. He got that right out of the rule book in the Agenda for People that the candidates used during the election. I ask the government to live up to those commitments: not to simply continue the rhetoric on the environment, but to make firm commitments and take the action the people of Ontario want.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): I'm very pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this very thoughtful resolution presented by my colleague the member for Kingston and The Islands. I'll try to be brief so another of my colleagues can contribute.

Like my colleague the member for Windsor-Walkerville, we are a two-composter family. I can see this is going to be a mark of political correctness. We got our composters through the facilities of the Ministry of the Environment and Metropolitan Toronto at a subsidized price. Many members of Metropolitan Toronto are taking advantage of this. It is obviously a very popular program so far, but this resolution is going to help the acceptability and the desire of more people to participate in this.

I'm very pleased to notice emphasis on local approaches. As the member says, if one can keep the compost locally, we can use it to reclaim urban land, even to develop urban food production, which is something I have become very interested in. The more I talk about it the more I find that members of my community in Scarborough East get very excited about it.

One thing I would mention around getting the composter is that at the same time you sign a consent to participate in some study. I think this is something to be complimented and to emphasize that we need information about how it's being used and the long-term effects. I know that the feedback, as it were, goes to well-qualified environmentalists working with the ministry and Metro Toronto. I think it's very important as we develop these initiatives to find out what's the overall impact on it to confirm our expectations that this is going to improve the quality of urban soil.

I'm also very pleased to note the way my colleague the member for Kingston and The Islands emphasizes other settings such as schools. As the member from across the floor said, there's considerable interest in schools. If you go to schools in my riding they ask you, "What are you doing to preserve farm land?" I fully support his comments that it really grabs the attention of school children; they feel part of it. I'm very pleased to see that as part of this resolution.

Before I finish, I must admit to one personal problem which I think needs considerable research and development. Every morning I take out my companion animal, who was himself recycled from the Scarborough animal shelter. There is the problem of his organic waste which, of course, being a public figure, I have to remove and take home, but I have to take it in a non-compostable plastic bag. I would ask for guidance and intensive research on this topic, but I am very pleased to support this resolution.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): I'd like to add a few comments, especially with regard to how this affects my riding of Niagara Falls. But first of all I want to thank my colleagues on all sides of the House for some very thoughtful remarks. Certainly, composting makes so much sense. We all have to agree with it and clearly my colleagues are dedicated to this.

The first thing I thought about composting is to save resources and, as the member for Kingston and The Islands said, not to mix the compostable with the non-compostable materials is the essential step. In the last couple of years I moved to the historic village of Chippawa in the south end of Niagara Falls and was very surprised at the soil there. I was out there last weekend trying to dig into it and it is clay. It's almost like bricks of clay, so everything I can I try to put into this soil to try to make it a little bit better so that I can do something with it.

The city of Niagara Falls, I believe, is way ahead of the rest of the province. At least I always thought that, but I think we're all getting on the bandwagon and going in the right direction. I used to think we were great leaders, probably because we were forward-thinking, but I realize now that it's probably because we had a very difficult crunch with regard to our landfill site. When that happens, all of the communities across this province have to look at alternatives and that's probably what forced us to look in other directions.

Every June we have Environment Day within the city and in the past couple of years we've had a wonderful display of various things and panel debates on environmental issues at Kingsbridge Park. All kinds of things go on on Environment Day and over the past couple of years we have sold composters: 929 were sold to the public in 1990; 780 were sold in 1991; 13 worm composters were sold in 1991, three of these to schools. The city also operated a home composting demonstration site in October 1991.

How does this happen? It's of course in conjunction with the Ministry of the Environment, which supplies two thirds of the cost, and then the people who buy these only have to pay one third of the cost. It's very reasonable. I remember when this first happened two years ago on Environment Day, people were lined up at 8 in the morning to try to buy these composters. So it's a very popular thing.

I also wanted to mention that in Niagara Falls in the last couple of years we have started composting leaves. The actual city of Niagara Falls does this as a demonstration project at our Mountain Road landfill site. We collect the leaves in the fall from across the city and put them at this site. Now it's becoming very good compost and hopefully is going to be used very soon.

The caution I have for this, as the member for Kingston and the Islands mentioned, is that it has to be done closer to the source, because the cost of this type of thing to the city is substantial. If we are trying to do other pickup of compostable material, which the city was going to implement this year and had to stop because of budget constraints -- it did not put the money forward to do pickup of other compostable materials. I think it points to the bare fact that in this kind of economy it just makes real sense that you do it in your own backyard, as the member has said.

I also want to mention that as a science teacher, I taught grade 9 science a couple of years ago and the students are really eager to get involved in all kinds of environmental concerns. They are the ones in our school who decided we had to have the blue boxes to put their pop cans in. They decided they wanted to lead the way, so they urged the city to do this. The city said, "No, we can't do that," but now we've got blue boxes in apartments and schools, and now we're getting the restaurants, with all the excess food in Niagara Falls, to try to compost and recycle. We're also trying to get the Niagara Parks Commission to recycle as well.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Kingston and The Islands has two minutes for concluding remarks.

Mr Gary Wilson: I want to thank the members who have contributed to this debate. It certainly shows that composting is a subject that enjoys a lot of support, and the very thoughtful comments that were made show that there are a number of areas where this important subject still has to grow.

I would like to mention just a couple of the remarks that were made. The member for Brampton North, for instance, highlighted the aspect of how our children are such an important element here. His son was correcting him on some of his habits, and while I don't expect that to extend to the political sphere, at least it's good that it's now at the composting stage and will become habitual for us.

I think the remarks can be said to have been made in a cooperative spirit. Some of the items that were mentioned about what our government is doing highlight the importance of our work in the area of composting. By coming together in this fairly simple procedure, we can move on to more thorny issues and deal with them also in a cooperative way.

Again, we want to highlight through composting that how we deal with our waste is a personal responsibility for all of us. By taking on composting, we are dealing with it at a personal level.

Some of the speakers mentioned that it is very important to get composters out into the community. I think the member for Scarborough East mentioned the follow-up that is so important, to see that people are using them and what their experience is with them. I think from the remarks that were made here, there is a lot of knowledge about composting and a lot of support. We can come together as neighbourhoods to support this activity for each other.

In conclusion, I just want to say that composting is a simple thing but it will lead to a different way of looking at the world. We will take on that stewardship that will extend to all our natural resources.

The Acting Speaker: The time for ballot item number 7 has expired.

ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Mr Brown moved resolution 8:

That in the opinion of this House, the government should establish immediately a select committee on energy and the environment to investigate the following factors and make recommendations:

In view of the increasing evidence of the contribution of combustion of fossil fuels to global warming, among other contributors, substantial understanding of the implications of climatic change on the environment and economy of Ontario and on human activity, and widespread public concern regarding these issues, and in view of the fact that energy policy has a direct bearing on these issues because of its impact on the mix, level and efficiency of use of all types of primary energy resources, to identify the extent to which current provincial energy policy affects carbon dioxide emissions, the potential for controlling, stabilizing or reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and the types of public policy or program initiatives to achieve the objectives of limiting the adverse environmental and economic impacts of carbon dioxide emissions, and to consider:

(

i) all energy sources, including oil, natural gas, coal, electricity and alternative energy sources, with an emphasis on energy produced by the combustion of fossil fuels to provide heat or motive power;

(ii) in the case of electricity and alternative energy sources, both the direct use of fossil fuels and the economic potential for non-combustion energy sources;

(iii) demand management initiatives, including energy efficiency, with respect to their roles as non-carbon dioxide-forming sources of energy, and

(iv) all sectors of energy applications, including the industrial, commercial, residential, institutional and transportation sectors.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Dennis Drainville): Pursuant to standing order 94(c)(i), the member has 10 minutes for his presentation.

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): Despite the wordiness of that particular resolution, it is essentially simple. What I'm attempting to do with this resolution is to revive the select committee on energy that existed in the 34th Parliament, which was looking at exactly the same mandate.

All I have done here is to reiterate the mandate of the former committee. I did that because it is important that we build upon the work that was done by that committee. It is important that we take advantage of the research that was done by the committee, the information that was provided and the expertise the committee had. That explains, at least in part, why it took me so long to read that particular resolution.

I think that when we talk about global warming we should all be disturbed, because we have a tremendous problem. If we ask the people of Ontario what the most important environmental issues in their minds are, they will list a number of things. They will talk about waste disposal, recycling, water quality and air quality, but the polls tell us -- and yes, I read polls -- that global warming is not at the top of the agenda. If we asked the scientific community what it thinks is the most important environmental issue facing the planet today, it will say global warming.

So we have a problem, and that's why I think we as legislators have to do our

part in raising the public consciousness about this very important issue. Somehow we have to be able to lead, but in this business you can never lead by being too far in front. We have to be able to get the public, the people we represent, on the same wavelength as us as parliamentarians, as legislators, in order that we can encourage them to become part of the solution, because the solution may in fact involve some changes to our lifestyle and some changes to the way we do business.

I think perhaps we should take a moment and talk about what global warming is. Global warming is just the warming of the planet. We know that for the last 10,000 years the planet has been warming. It's a natural occurrence -- nothing to get too greatly excited about. It's been happening. Over 10,000 years the planet has warmed about five degrees Celsius. The scientific estimates tell us, however, that we are beginning to warm at a much more rapid rate and that within the next 50 years we will warm -- the estimates vary a bit -- they tell us, between 1.5 degrees Celsius and 4.5 degrees Celsius.

If it is at the upper end of that band, this planet will warm the same in 50 years as it has done in the previous 10,000 years. That to me will cause great and difficult circumstances for everyone inhabiting this planet.

Some of the consequences people think might occur are: Sea levels will rise but the Great Lakes levels will fall. Storms may become more prolonged and intense. Floods and erosion may increase. Summer dry periods may lengthen. Groundwater levels may fall and water quality may suffer. The northern permafrost may melt and turn to bogs. Previously trapped greenhouse gases like methane could be released in large amounts and it would accelerate the warming. Plant and animal species may have to adapt and change habitats.

In fact, we have seen the effects of global warming slowly over time. We have seen agricultural land that was once good agricultural land become what is now desert. The problem is the rapidity of the change.

Having said that, we know there is a relationship between greenhouse gases and how warm the planet is on average. We know that relationship exists. We know that carbon dioxide, methane, nitric oxide and ozone all contribute to the warming of the planet, and we all know that the levels of those gases in the atmosphere are rising dramatically. It's not a question; we know that. We also know where those gases come from primarily. Mr Speaker, as you will know, they come from the burning of all fossil fuels. Some are better than others, but nevertheless all fossil fuels are the main contributor to the global warming effect.

We have done some things in this province to consider that. A ministerial report on global warming with a series of recommendations and challenges was issued, I believe, in 1989 by the then Minister of Energy, the Honourable Lyn McLeod, who is presently our leader. At the same time we had initiated the select committee on energy which was, I think, a very non-partisan sort of committee.

It was a committee that did what I think we as legislators should do; that is, meet, examine the facts, get the experts in, have them tell the committee what should be done, tell the committee what the options really are, so that we as legislators can provide at least agreement on the facts. I'm not sure we'll ever agree on all the solutions, but I think we could agree as legislators on what the problem is, what the gases are, what can be done and at what cost, because of course that's the other part of the equation.

At the same time in Toronto in 1988 we had -- let me get this right -- the Conference on the Changing Environment. It was a worldwide conference held right here in this city. I want to read you the conclusion they came to:

"Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to global nuclear war. The Earth's atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from human activities, inefficient and wasteful fossil fuel use and the effects of rapid population growth in many regions. These changes represent a major threat to international security and are already having harmful consequences over many parts of the globe."

What I'm calling on us to do is to take advantage of what a previous legislative committee has done. We should take advantage of those resources as we try to put Ontario at the forefront of this battle. We have countries like the Netherlands that are leading the world in its policies regarding global warming. They have very ambitious targets and are working very hard to meet them.

I find myself feeling somewhat like a hypocrite as I talk about maybe the greatest global warming issue that we all talk about, and that's the Amazon rain forest. We all stand there and say: "Gee, they shouldn't cut those trees. They shouldn't farm that land. They shouldn't burn those trees. It's going to have a devastating effect on the environment." At the same time, I stand here right now in the middle of one of the largest clear-cuts in the world, which we call the city of Toronto, or I stand out 10 miles from here in another huge clear-cut we call farms, and say to these people, "You can't do it."

What I'm saying is that we have to understand that in Ontario we produce, each one of us, four tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. We are fourth in the world in terms of doing this. We have to gain the moral authority to say to these folks, "Yes, you've got to watch what you're doing," but we've got to be sure we're giving them the right message in that we ourselves are doing it at home, or we will have no effect on world opinion.

As I conclude my remarks, I would say I'm going to listen very intently to what other members have to say on this issue and would urge their support.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The honourable member for Lanark-Renfrew.

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I'd like to congratulate you. It's my first time to rise in the House and have you as the Acting Speaker, and I wish you the very best of luck.

I would like at this time to speak in support of the resolution by the member for Algoma-Manitoulin. I think it's a very important resolution. Actually, what he's asking the government to do is to re-establish the select committee on energy and the environment. This was an excellent method, in our opinion, of dealing with this issue.

As you know, Bill 118 will soon be coming before the House for third reading. During the time it was before the standing committee on resources development we travelled across Ontario to the different locations in northern Ontario and southern Ontario. The complete province, you might say, had an opportunity to debate that bill. We did not find in any location people who were involved in business or who understood the bill or who in any way had an understanding of the relationship of fossil fuels and their net effect on the environment -- none of these people were in favour of Bill 118, basically because it gave the government the power to place a moratorium on nuclear energy.

The sad

part is that during the environmental hearings the government very quickly, through Ontario Hydro, brought forth a new demand-supply plan. Basically, what they did in those five short months in preparing that plan was to take into account the recession that we are going through in Ontario, take into account the conservation programs that they've been initiating, planning to spend $6 billion on conservation.

Six billion dollars is half the price of the Darlington generating station; $6 billion is the amount of money that the opposition party caused as a loss to the people of Ontario by delaying Darlington by two years. That's actually what it cost the people of Ontario to delay that project for two years, and still we go on and try to blame the cost of Darlington on problems related to nuclear, which they are not.

The reason I'm talking about Darlington is that the select committee on energy and Ontario Hydro -- which has an excellent research department; it has its own environmental studies within the corporation, and it is a very conscientious group relative to the environment -- for approximately five years studied what the best way was to supply electricity at a reasonable cost to the people of Ontario and keep the environment in mind.

The result of that study was that the base load should be nuclear, not fossil fuels, which give more CO2 into the air. The only problem with nuclear was how to store the spent bundles of fuel that are presently immersed in a water tank. There is permanent storage now available. All we need is a positive approach to it and a committee set up to decide on a site for that.

Ontario Hydro then took that plan across the province as the plan that would be most friendly to the environment and yet give the people of the province the electricity they would require. Unfortunately the government, without study, when it assumed power placed a moratorium on the whole question.

I see my friend across waving at me; I'm sure he got the same message as we took Bill 118 across the province. Our final position on it was: Please withdraw the bill and refer energy in Ontario to a committee. It was basically agreeable to the committee that we would do that, because I think it's important that we can have certainty of supply and certainty of cost and do it in such a way that we have the least effect on the environment.

To use natural gas because we can say, "Well, we can bring the generation on-line in maybe four years as compared to approximately 12 years to bring on a uranium-fired steam plant" -- and I would like to refer to our nuclear base as that, uranium-fired steam plants. I might mention that the problems at Darlington that I have been advised of and have looked into are mechanical problems; they are not related to heating the water with uranium. There is a problem with the shaft of the large generator that's causing a vibration, but that would be the same regardless of how we heated the water to make the steam.

The other problem is in the tubing itself. The tubing at Darlington is designed in such a way that it's creating what you can refer to as air locks or hammer locks in the system, which under pressure over time could cause a problem in that tubing. They are correcting that now. They have the design changed and ready to go into place, as I understand it. So outside of the previous government delaying it for two years and increasing the cost by $6 billion, I can't see us continually pointing at Darlington as the reason our hydro rates are high and are going to continue to be high.

That 25-year demand-supply plan went across the province to every municipality, and every county government had a chance to give input. It was accepted as being the least harmful to the environment yet making use of any hydraulic site that was feasible and making use of natural gas where required, but establishing the base supply with the energy that is the least harmful to the environment.

I welcome the member's resolution today to re-establish this committee. This is the same idea we had in the hearings on Bill 118: re-establish this committee or call the committee whatever you like, but that it be a select committee to study energy in Ontario and to study the effects of the CO2 and the global warming that's going to take place if we follow this government's plan to provide electricity for the people in Ontario.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Will Ferguson (Kitchener): I am pleased to join in this debate on the resolution from the member for Algoma-Manitoulin. We just heard from the member for Lanark-Renfrew, and it's very clear to me that he continues to wallow in the shallow end of the energy pool, because of course there are some important facts that he left out of his argument. To suggest that the only problem with Darlington or the nuclear industry is what to do with the spent fuel rods ignores a much larger problem.

In northern Ontario, he might be aware, there are currently about 225 hectares of low-to-medium radioactive mine tailings lying on the ground that nobody seems to want to take responsibility for -- not the mine, not the company, not the federal government. It appears that the responsibility and the buck is going to stop here with the province of Ontario.

In any event I do welcome the member's resolution. I want to remind the members that a committee is already in existence of assistant deputy ministers who are studying exactly what the member for Algoma-Manitoulin has asked for in his resolution. While I don't have strong feelings in opposition to the resolution, I do want to tell you that I believe such a committee would be somewhat of a duplication. At this point in time the committee is preparing a report that I understand cabinet will be considering in the near future.

I think we have to recognize that Ontario has the highest spending on conservation as well as demand-supply management activities in the entire country. While we're all concerned about the greenhouse effect I think we also have to recognize that the greenhouse effect relates directly to the amount of energy that is consumed, used and expended here in this country. The Ontario Ministry of Energy has spent over $13 million on energy program activities, real programs that people can readily utilize and readily access.

We're not talking about running a few commercials on television suggesting people turn off their lights if they go out of their homes for the evening. We're not talking about running advertisements. I think one featured a gangly furnace that suggested it consumed far too much oil and people ought to switch off that energy source on to another. We're talking about real programs that are meaningful, that people can access and utilize and that will make a difference to the bottom line for their energy costs, be it for their homes, their places of business, places of work or during their recreational activities.

This government recognized that and, as a result, in 1990 we announced the New Energy Directions and it was issued. This has been a continual follow-up and implementation of that very broad-brushed general direction. This was the first province to adopt an Energy Efficiency Act. Let's give some credit where credit is due: It was brought about by the previous government. I applaud them for that. It has been the model that other provinces across this country have accepted. Other provinces are well on their way. Either they have implemented or they're in the process of implementing new energy efficiency acts.

So we recognize the importance of providing hard-core programs that people can readily access.

In addition, I think for the first time in the life of this province, we also recognize the important role Ontario Hydro has to play in the energy field. Surely to goodness, given the role it plays in the province, it ought not to be ignored. We have given it a significant role by way of Bill 118, the amendments to the Power Corporation Act, that for the first time will give Hydro the authority and power it needs in order to follow the directions as established by this government.

The member for Algoma-Manitoulin suggested that the select committee on energy in fact did table its report and that this would be a natural extension and follow-up to that report. I want to tell you a little bit about that report.

The committee heard that the global climate change is a prime example of an environmental effect that, I think we all recognize, disregards national and provincial boundaries. Greenhouse gases, of course, know no boundaries; acid rain knows no boundaries. Without question, the energy policy of this province is an important component of the efforts to achieve some climate stability, but I think we also have to recognize that of course Ontario can't do it alone. Ontario needs the cooperation and assistance of the other provinces across Canada.

Let's also recognize that at least within the last 18 months Ontario has indeed led the way. I'm proud and I think everybody in this House is proud that Ontario has been the model to follow, but as this country is very energy-intensive by world standards and is among the world's largest emitters of carbon dioxide on a per capita basis, without question we have to take concrete action.

You will know that earlier this year the federal proposals were examined by this government and weren't supported. They weren't supported for some very clear reasons, although targets were established by the year 2000. Quite frankly, I don't know what the magic is in the year 2000 and I'm not exactly sure why the year 2000 has been chosen, but although targets have been established for the year 2000, a pretty important piece of information was left out of that: What was left out is how we're going to achieve the target that was set for the year 2000.

I had the pleasure and the opportunity to attend the energy ministers' conference late last year in the Maritimes. What was interesting was talking with my colleagues at the time across the country. We talked about what standards should be developed and set. Each and every one of them said they were extremely concerned about the reaction of the business community, and from their viewpoint the business community continually said it can't afford to set a standard that would not be achievable, in its view, and could not be afforded.

This province has taken some concrete initiatives, as I said originally, to address the energy question which relates, obviously, to the emission problem we have. I just wanted to run very briefly through some of the major programs we've put in place.

Under the industrial retrofit grants programs, grants are provided to help install energy-efficient equipment in the manufacturing process. A number of firms across this province have accessed that grant, and it does two things: It reduces their fuel costs, which of course reduces the amount of emissions; it also improves their bottom line and makes them all that much more cost-competitive.

Ontario Hydro, under the direction of this government and on its own initiative as well, has developed a number of programs, such as the power saver energy audit program, which will provide electrical audits that help identify energy saving opportunities. They have a number of financial assistance programs that provide outright grants and rebates for the purchase of much more efficient and effective electric motors, refrigeration equipment, lighting and process equipment.

Ontario Hydro has also been involved in a very significant way in load shifting. Under load shifting they reward companies when they shift to use electricity during periods of much lower consumption. The electricity rates of course are priced much more cheaply when electrical demand is lower, during the off-peak hours.

The Ministry of Energy's programs have been welcomed by the general public. They've been looking for something a little more meaningful than a few TV advertisements suggesting what they should or shouldn't do. The commercial buildings energy management program has to date saved more than 49 billion kilowatt-hours of power. The energy-efficient communities program, which communities are now accessing, has been extremely successful in very real terms, being operated by the chambers of commerce in a number of communities.

With regard to government energy management itself, this government is looking at the buildings it operates to upgrade those facilities, this precinct being one of those; I think we all recognize that this has to be one of the most energy-inefficient buildings in the province. In addition, we have put together an energy education package.

What I really am most impressed with is the number of industrial programs to assist the industrial sector. Not only will it become much more cost-competitive but reduce the consumption, not for one year but for ensuing years as well.

Mr Jordan: What about lightbulbs?

Mr Ferguson: My good friend the member for Lanark-Renfrew yells across the floor, "What about lightbulbs?" I want to tell the member for Lanark-Renfrew that this has to have been one of the most popular programs ever. In fact, people are still calling me today, wondering where their lightbulbs are. There was a slight glitch in the distribution of the bulbs, but people appreciated receiving some real benefit in a material way that they could use in their home to lower their energy consumption.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Would the member take his seat. We were doing quite well for quite a long time in the House, but I'm afraid things are breaking down a bit. If the members could please restrain themselves a bit, the honourable member for Kitchener has the floor.

Mr Ferguson: Let me conclude by saying that with the past changes as well as the proposed changes to the building code, with all the initiatives this government has taken to date and will be putting in place in the future, when you stack up all those against what the other provincial jurisdictions are doing across this country, without question we are leading the way. I guess the obvious comeback to that is, "Could you be doing more?" We can always be doing more. We will attempt to do as much as we possibly can, given the financial difficulties that not only this province but every other province faces.

Although I have no difficulty supporting the resolution of the member across the way, I want to suggest that, given the work of the ADMs and the report they are currently working on and will be submitting to cabinet, I really think it would be somewhat counterproductive and very much a duplication of the members' time if in fact we did establish the select committee once again to examine the report that past governments have tended to leave sitting on shelves.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mrs Barbara Sullivan (Halton Centre): I'm very pleased to participate in this debate, and I want to congratulate my colleague the member for Algoma-Manitoulin for bringing before the House what I think is an important issue and presenting it in a way that is non-partisan and that in fact addresses some of the vital issues that affect not only Ontario but the entire world.

I served as Chair of the select committee on energy when the identical mandate of Mr Brown's resolution was put forward. That mandate was drafted to ensure that the committee would have a broad range of activity and examination as it looked at the entire question of global warming.

There were many members of the House who are in government now who also sat on that committee. The current Minister of the Environment, Ruth Grier, was a member of the committee and the current Minister of Energy, Mr Charlton, was a member of that committee, and it seems to me that the issues that were raised and the matters that were discussed should be uppermost in their minds today.

The mandate of the committee evolved from the work of international bodies in this area and from the thought that one should think globally and act globally. As a result of that, the Minister of Energy at the time -- my colleague referred to Mrs McLeod -- acted on the notion that the province should assess its potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and analyse the potential economic impacts of doing so.

She knew at the time, in 1989, that Ontario's contribution to the concentration of greenhouse gases was about 1% of the world total, but she also knew that Ontario's contribution did not lessen the importance of our contribution to either the problem or the solution.

Ontario, as the largest energy user in Canada, must share the responsibility for what is happening in the global atmosphere, and there are side benefits of action as well. Many of the steps that can be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are beneficial in their own right. They include increasing energy efficiency as well as the side benefit of decreasing pollution.

When Mrs McLeod was Energy minister the province adopted targets of a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from 1988 levels by the year 2000. The former Minister of Energy asked why the year 2000 was picked. I would have thought he would know that target followed the framework of the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere. It was not a simple one to meet. With increased energy usage, even stabilizing greenhouse gases would require directed effort and heavy cost, and the target was set to reduce the major greenhouse gas emission, carbon dioxide.

The select committee on energy was to take government targets further and look at the reality of where in the industrial sector the highest greenhouse gases were produced, where the potential for reduction of those gases existed and what that potential was.

The mandate of the committee was commenced at that time in what I think was a creditable way and was envisaged at the time to be the work of more than one session. Unfortunately, an election intervened and work has stopped. I believe that is a sad misstep.

I think in its initial approach the committee was creative, and I hope that if the Legislature passes this resolution, a similarly creative approach would be taken. All of us in the House know what resources are available to us as members, and to those of us on the committee the mandate that was before us was a daunting one indeed. It required considerable specialized research resources, it required access to provincial, national and international expertise and it required an intensive learning period for each one of us.

One of the things I'm proud of and which, in my experience here, marked the committee as being singularly unique was that it required each of the members to approach the issue as a way to understand the debate that was occurring not only in Ontario but around the world; as an area of public policy where making political points wasn't a pre-eminent goal; as a way that each of us could be informed ambassadors and resource people in explaining the issues and the policy choices, and as a way to ensure that the individual committee members had the potential to frame a final report that would influence government action.

We did some things differently. Global warming experts with international prestige live just across the road from me. I think of Ken Hare, a distinguished academic with opinions and a demanding intellectual and practical approach. But the experts live also in Ottawa and work for the federal government. They live in Amsterdam, they live in London, they live in Germany, they live in California.

If our committee were to get a full picture of the current research, the facts, the myths, the options, it was important for us to talk to those people. So instead of opting for a trip, we invited those experts to appear before us. Perhaps because they thought it was so unusual that a legislative committee wanted their views, they came.

The legislative members had the chance to question the experts about the causes, the potential effects, the action alternatives, the ice age and the economic choices. Some of our questions were naïve; some were sophisticated. Some led to changes in our preconceptions and some made us dig in our heels. But what we wanted to do was to participate in the development of a preventive strategy.

The committee engaged the Royal Society of Canada to conduct particular research for us. This was the first time a legislative committee had been involved in this kind of working relationship with an acknowledged body of outside expertise. For the Royal Society, it was a new experience as well, one that I hope it thinks was fruitful.

I get tired frankly around this place of too much opinion formed as a result of reception conversation. I think people who spend the greater part of their lives working seriously on matters of great public importance get tired of listening to legislators who reach conclusions based on too little information and too much opinion. So when it's possible to draw on that expertise, that concentrated learning in our work, I think it ennobles us all and makes a positive contribution to decision-making.

The Royal Society prepared a report for us on the technical potential for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions for major industrial energy users in Ontario. That report was to have been circulated to those users as a preliminary document so they could participate in a public hearing process and put their own research findings on the public agenda.

One of the things we discovered was that there was an enormous amount of private sector research done in this field as well. Steel companies, automobile manufacturers and companies in the energy sector have all done significant research, most of it directed to practical outcomes, technical and technological change. We thought we might reach a meeting of the minds between academic analysis and the technical and economic feasibility as we continued our work.

As a result of the studies, we have seen no action from the government and we see no initiative being taken in this key environmental area. I believe the select committee should be reconstructed to pursue the excellent work the first committee has done. Scientists tell us the effect of a hand clap can be heard at the farthest side of the farthest star. If we begin work and continue work here in Ontario, we will be adding, on the whole, to the world perspective on global warming.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I am pleased to have this opportunity to say a few words on this resolution from the member for Algoma-Manitoulin. This resolution calls on the provincial government to establish a select committee on energy and the environment to identify the extent to which current provincial energy policy affects carbon dioxide emissions, the potential for controlling, stabilizing and reducing the carbon dioxide emissions, and the types of public policy or program initiatives to limit the adverse environmental and economic impacts of these emissions.

The principle of this resolution is certainly admirable. I cannot think of one single member of this Legislature who is not concerned about the increasing evidence of the contribution the combustion of fossil fuels is making to global warming. There's not one of us here who can claim he or she is not aware of the implications of climate change on the environment and the economy of the province or on human activity.

However, I have some serious reservations about this resolution because common sense tells us that economic opportunity, social justice and health care cannot be attained by just tossing money around. Common sense tells me that the taxpayers of Ontario do not want their hard-earned money tossed to make another select committee of this province look at the aspects of this resolution. I believe there are plenty of reports on shelves just waiting to be looked at, and mainly they're collecting dust.

Our social structure is stretched to the limit by our soaring costs for health, education and welfare. It is time, when the NDP budget has brought more of the same for our taxpayers in Ontario, more tax hikes and more deficit increases, which they also gave us last year.

Instead of improving Ontario's ability to attract investment, create jobs and retain those we already have, the Treasurer decided to continue with his government's tax-spend-borrow approach to fiscal management. The reason I'm saying this is that a select committee does cost money when the Treasurer has a deficit of $9.9 billion, which is only an estimate, at a time when the government's spending increases this year by 4.9% to $54.8 billion; at a time when Ontario's net debt will grow to $82 billion by 1995-96; at a time when every man, woman and child in Ontario owes $8,200.

As I said earlier, I support this resolution in principle because I believe there has to be a look at what is taking place with regard to energy. But not only that, I had the opportunity some years ago to sit on a select committee on energy. At that time we looked at the Lakeview generating station and at concerns that many of the people had raised and brought to our attention about the coal being burnt to run that generating station, up to 2,000 tonnes a day.

We were looking at the aspect of putting the scrubbers on that very facility and to this day I've no idea why those scrubbers have not been placed on that energy-generating facility, other than the fact that they cost $50 million. But what are we doing with the pollution we're putting into the air?

I had the opportunity to travel to northern Ontario and look at the Kakabeka Falls with regard to the power that station was generating. There are lots of places across this province, some in my own riding and some in the riding of Muskoka-Georgian Bay, where fuel, hydro and energy can be provided with regard to water power. They have redone the Big Chute. That is a facility -- and anybody who travels on a boat through the Trent-Severn system will have the opportunity to go by that facility -- that they're redoing to make generation more feasible and to increase the generation that's going to come from that facility.

As we look at the energy we can put in place in this province through the use of man-made generating stations, small ones -- I'm sure, Mr Speaker, there are some in your riding of Victoria-Haliburton that at the present time are already being used for that very purpose -- to strike a select committee to look into a lot of the aspects of generating energy for fossil-fuel emissions, I say to you that there are lots of studies sitting on the shelves.

I think the intentions of the member bringing this resolution forward in the riding he represents in northern Ontario -- there's probably every indication that there are facilities there that can be updated and brought up to standard whereby they would produce an awful lot more energy. While I have some reservations with regard to the resolution, in the end I don't find a lot of problem supporting it because I believe his intentions are good. If it's going to create fuel through the use of water power then I'm all for it. I commend the member for Algoma-Manitoulin and I also commend the member for Lanark-Renfrew who spoke before me with his knowledge and background. I appreciate it.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? There are 59 seconds for the honourable member for Peterborough.

Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): I'll do what I can. I want to commend the member for Algoma-Manitoulin for raising this important issue. I support anything which will increase our sense of urgency and result in fast action to keep this planet habitable.

I also want to point out that nuclear power, in spite of anything the member for Lanark-Renfrew has to say, is not a solution for global warming problems. Possible scenarios have been exhaustively studied. Nuclear power stations need vast amounts of fossil fuel input to get built in the first place, and I've heard that this can cancel out as much as 12 years of what they subsequently produce. They are very expensive indeed, we have not solved the problem of waste disposal, and however slight the risk of accident may be, the resulting catastrophe is such that it cannot be contemplated. Nuclear power presupposes political and societal stability, and the mining of uranium is hazardous.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I'm pleased to be able to participate in this debate and I want to congratulate the member for Algoma-Manitoulin on bringing forward his resolution today. It is interesting to note that we have two resolutions before the House this morning which deal with the environment. This is rather unique, because my view at this time is that people have a right to be very discouraged with the degree of emphasis placed on the environment in general in our world, and certainly that world extends to the province of Ontario.

I used to watch with a great deal of interest as the lead story on television or radio newscasts would be an environmental story, an issue of some kind being dealt with, sometimes in depth and sometimes on an emergency basis, or when I used to see headlines in the newspapers dealing with environmental issues and we saw some think pieces on environmental issues that allowed people to make judgements based on extensive information provided to them.

I must say I'm very discouraged today that this in fact is not happening and that the environment has been, by circumstance or otherwise, pushed clearly into the background. I can remember that when I was Minister of the Environment, CBC Radio Noon -- some people call it NDP Radio Noon -- used to call the office from time to time looking for somebody to comment on something. Today it seems to be preoccupied with, "What was your memory of your first prom?" 17 different ways to wash your windows, how to keep your garden in good shape and how to entertain the kids during the holidays.

A lot of the investigative work that used to be done has just disappeared now as we seem to be dealing with a lot of other issues. I say that not in a partisan sense. I say it lamenting the fact -- and you, Mr Speaker, have a great interest, I know, in environmental issues -- that we don't have that emphasis in the news media or in the general public, it seems, on environmental issues. Yet I think if you scratch the surface, you will find that people still have that genuine concern about the environment.

Another program I used to listen to was Metro Morning. Now I listen to the Minister of Health for an hour of free time where lobbed-ball questions are fired at her and no opposition people are allowed on to make any comments. At least I would say that they had a health care issue being discussed on Metro Morning, but we don't have the environmental issues there any more.

The environmentalists who used to be in the Legislature, very often with press conferences and extremely critical of governments that were actually doing an awful lot to address issues on the environment, seem to have disappeared. I think they're experiencing perhaps the same problem as everybody else, that there is not that degree of interest within the news media on the issues, so they can't present it.

I can't believe that some are simply playing out a socialist agenda first and an environmental agenda second. I can't believe it because I know too many people in the environmental groups who were very concerned about the issues and not simply about the political stripe of the party that happened to be in power.

I notice that the Ministry of the Environment is having a difficult time with budgets. There was a tremendous growth in the budgets over a period of about five years, well over 100% growth. Today, as treasury board exercises its initiatives, we're seeing cuts in that. I lament that for the sake of the Minister of the Environment. I know the Minister of the Environment. I know she has a strong commitment to the environment. I'm sure she would like to have more resources available to her. I'm sure she would not want to be elbowed aside by other ministries.

I notice, for instance, that the acid rain office appears to have disappeared in the Ministry of the Environment, and that's of concern to the people in northern and central Ontario particularly. There appears to be nothing happening in clean air at all. A clean air program was announced in July or August, 1990. There appears to be no progress on that at all in Ontario; virtually nothing appears to be happening. I attribute that first to the economy and the emphasis on the economy, and second to the fact that there's a lack of pressure and a lack of interest.

This is where I think this committee can have a positive effect. The committee can focus attention once again on environmental issues. Every minister -- and I can recall this -- really needs, although it sometimes causes sleepless nights, this outside pressure to assist the minister in furthering the environmental agenda within government, because there are many other ministers who have an agenda to present to the cabinet, to the caucus and to the Legislature. I believe the resurrection of the energy and environment committee would have a positive effect of once again placing the environment high on the agenda instead of where it is at the present time.

There is a need for this because when we see project X reappear, for instance -- and I remember all the stories and the newscasts and the questions from this side of the House about project X. Project X has in effect been implemented by the government of Ontario, by an NDP government. It reminds me that only the Republicans could end a war against the communists. It appears that only an NDP government could push through something which would elbow aside in many ways the Environmental Assessment Act and environmental approvals in favour of other ministries which have an agenda to get the economy going again.

I'm very strongly supportive of the reimplementation, of the resurrection of this particular committee. I think there are members of all parties who would like to serve on that committee, who have something positive to contribute, something positive to say. I'm glad to put together within that committee the energy and the environment issues, because there are people who have served in that capacity as Environment minister or Energy minister who would recognize there's a strong relationship between the two.

I want to commend the member for Algoma-Manitoulin for bringing this resolution forward and I commend it to all members of the House for support.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Algoma-Manitoulin has two minutes to conclude.

Mr Brown: I might first say that I appreciate the contribution members have made in debating this resolution. I want to pick up on something the member for Kitchener said. He talked about the duplication, about the fact that we have a committee of deputy ministers looking at this problem.

That is exactly what this resolution is about. I think this is a significant issue. I think this is an issue that the public has to be involved in. I think it's an issue that legislators have to be involved in. I think it's something that cannot be done behind the closed doors of a bureaucracy and have much credibility in the public view. I think one of the things we must do is bring the public, the politicians and the policymakers closer together on this issue so that we can address it in a meaningful way.

The member for Kitchener also pointed out that this is an international effort, and I fully recognize that. There's not much impact we'll make all by ourselves, but we have to be able to argue from a position of moral strength that we are doing something about it and let the international community follow us, I would hope.

I thank the member for Halton Centre, who was Chair of the previous committee, and who was, I think, a driving force behind establishing the initial committee. I think her work is well recognized among the legislators here and I commend her for her comments, which were a little bit more to the point than mine at times, I guess.

I would also note that one of the things about this debate is the difference of opinion between the member for Lanark-Renfrew and the member for Peterborough. I don't think we should be in that debate. I think we should be talking about establishing the facts and then getting on with doing what is reasonable to do, after a committee of this Legislature has heard the experts, has understood the situation and can make rational judgements on the facts that are before it. I hope all members will support this resolution.

The Acting Speaker: The time for ballot item 8 has expired.

COMPOSTING

The Acting Speaker (Mr Dennis Drainville): We will move on to consideration of ballot item 7.

Mr Gary Wilson has moved private member's resolution 9. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

The House divided on Mr Brown's motion, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes -- 33

Arnott, Bradley, Brown, Caplan, Carter, Curling, Dadamo, Duignan, Ferguson, Frankford, Haeck, Harnick, Harrington, Hayes, Jordan, Lessard, MacKinnon, Mancini, Marchese, McClelland, O'Connor, Owens, Perruzza, Poole, Ruprecht, Sullivan, Tilson, Villeneuve, Waters, Wilson, G., Wilson, J., Winninger, Witmer.

Nays -- 4

Bisson, Cooper, Martin, Murdock, S.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Dennis Drainville): All matters relating to private members' public business having been completed, I do now leave the chair. The House will resume at 1:30 pm.

The House recessed at 1213.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

CANADIAN WOMEN'S HOCKEY TEAM

Mr Carman McClelland (Brampton North): On April 26 in Tampere, Finland, Canada's women's hockey team put forth an impressive performance at the women's world hockey championships and subsequently won the gold medal.

I'm sure that all members of this House, the people of Ontario, and indeed all Canadians are extremely proud of each and every member of our national women's hockey team. Their pure-gold accomplishment in Finland marked the second consecutive world title for women's hockey for Canada.

As the member for Brampton North, it's my particular honour to inform this House and the people of the province that two of the players, Ms Heather Ginzel and Ms Sue Scherer, are Brampton residents. They were also members of the 1990 team which won gold in the Ottawa championships.

During the recent championships in Finland, Ms Ginzel and Ms Scherer played an important role. Both players contributed to the inspiring Canadian performance by scoring goals and making assists, and said that team unity was the major reason for the outstanding performance.

I know all members of this assembly join me in expressing gratitude and appreciation to members of the Canadian women's hockey team not only for their award-winning performance, but also for their fine example of Canadian unity and working together.

LABOUR LEGISLATION

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): The North York Chamber of Commerce and the city of North York have recently made public their views on the government's proposed changes to the Ontario Labour Relations Act.

In an open letter to the Premier, the North York Chamber of Commerce stated:

"What Ontario needs is not reform to present legislation, but rather a boost in consumer confidence and provision of labour stability.... The reforms you are proposing will limit the opportunities and choices available to workers since there will be fewer employers to provide jobs after they have assessed the damage resulting from the reforms....

"The business community in North York feels that no other single piece of legislation has ever been as damaging to the economy of this province as your proposed Labour Relations Act. As a result, we urge you to withdraw these amendments immediately."

In addition to the chamber's statement, the economic development department of the city of North York stated:

"The Ontario government's proposed amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act could potentially have far-reaching and damaging impacts on the ability of Ontario and the city of North York to attract new investment and to be highly competitive with other economic areas....

"At a time when Ontario and North York's economy is searching for a positive economic action to stimulate growth, any new changes in legislation that make Ontario less competitive will slow down the economic recovery and the creation of new jobs or investment in the province."

I urge the government to listen to the people of North York and withdraw these proposed amendments immediately.

WINE TOUR

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): We all know Niagara is an exciting place to be. Now more than ever that is true. This past weekend was the wonderful weather and the Blossom Festival parade, an institution in our city. But there is a new and unique event which premiered this past weekend. It's called Intervin, a gala international wine festival. By buying a passport, visitors are entitled to visit international pavilions in places such as Beamsville, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Port Dalhousie and Niagara Falls -- around the whole area -- to elegantly sample the very finest of wines.

Let me tell you about Saturday evening. We started in the historic cellars of Brights Wines with champagne and fondue, followed by a bus ride to Table Rock at the brink of the falls to watch a fantastic display of fireworks over the falls.

Hundreds of award-winning wines from around the world are available to sample during these nine days of May. There are opportunities to talk with internationally renowned winemakers, exhibits throughout the picturesque region at the peak of blossom time, winery tours, bicycling and picnicking. Intervin, or "The Nine Days of May," continues this week from May 9 to May 17. It is an annual opportunity to sample the very best of Niagara. You don't have to go to California for a wine tour. Come and enjoy.

POLICE SERVICES

Mr Hugh P. O'Neil (Quinte): I rise today on behalf of the Liberal Party to honour Police Services Week. Along with my members, I would like to commend the police forces around the province for the great work they do in carrying out their many duties. They keep us safe in our communities and have many other jobs.

We all know the role they play has greatly expanded. They have a lot greater responsibilities, bigger challenges, and we know that changes in lifestyles have made enforcement sometimes even more difficult. They take on other jobs. I think of the police forces in my area working with service clubs, going into different schools that are there, and also this past weekend working in such things as bicycle rodeos. Yet these police forces are working under budgets that have been slashed. I would encourage the government to re-examine its policies to make sure these police forces are properly funded.

Also, as I mentioned, I go back to some of the police forces in my own area, in Belleville and Trenton, and the OPP that service different communities. I am very proud of those forces and the job they do.

Especially in these present days when many criticisms are being levelled against police forces, we must all understand that it is a very difficult job and we must work with them in a common cause.

ORANGEVILLE CABOOSE

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I wish to draw the attention of the House to an event of great importance for many Ontario tourists. This weekend the Orangeville tourism information caboose will be open, ready again to provide travellers with information not only on the Dufferin-Peel area, but for the whole province. The caboose has been in operation for 15 years and every year helps upwards of 10,000 travellers get the most out of all this great province has to offer in the summertime.

My riding of Dufferin-Peel is especially blessed with natural and historical attractions that appeal to many people. The travel counsellors in this area are Danielle Mink and Debbie Whitten, and they are always pleased to help anyone who is looking for something interesting and exciting to do in the beautiful Dufferin-Peel area.

The caboose will be open weekends until July 1 and then daily until September 1. I urge anyone with specific questions or just general curiosity to make use of this valuable resource that we all can enjoy. I hope to see all of you enjoying your Ontario summer in Dufferin-Peel.

CITY OF WINDSOR CLEANUP

Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Walkerville): On May 7, as part of the province's Pitch-In campaign, people of all ages worked together to clean up the city of Windsor. This was the seventh year the city has participated in the pickup, the long-term results of which are being seen with less litter in Windsor's neighbourhoods on a year-round basis.

This effort was an example of an event that included all members of our community. It helped us realize that we all have a responsibility for the amount of waste we produce. It also proves that Windsor citizens take those kinds of responsibilities and commitment to the community quite seriously.

It's important for us to recognize those who helped make this day a success. This group included Merchant Paper, which supplied refuse bags; Windsor Sportsmen, which supplied hot dogs and soft drinks; Burger King, which supplied orange drinks and meals, and the Essex-Windsor Waste Management Committee.

Of course, it's the volunteers who really made the day a success. People like Bill Lacasse from the city's public works department, the old midtown business improvement area, students from the Begley school and physically challenged students from the community living program at Walkerville high school.

I would like to personally thank all those who made the Pitch-In campaign such a success in Windsor. This is really the most appropriate place for me to do that, because for me to thank everyone individually would be next to impossible. It would be impossible because over 25,000 people participated. In fact, this turnout has earned the city of Windsor a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most volunteers in a single-day civic cleanup.

PROTECTION OF IN-CARE RESIDENTS

Mrs Yvonne O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau): There are suspicions of a coverup following investigations into the Grandview school that took place through the Ministry of Correctional Services over 15 years ago.

A key document written in 1976 by a corrections ministry investigator, which indeed triggered the closing of Grandview, was discovered in February 1992, yet it's being kept from the public and the victims. There is evidence of five unexplained deaths of residents of Grandview, deaths that have been alleged to have been caused by guards. Secrecy is a matter that makes this more serious, and it's bound to reinforce suspicion.

Not one charge has been laid, even though this report was uncovered in February. There are many questions arising from this report and its presentation: Why are there no charges being laid? Why did most records vanish? Why was it so very difficult to obtain this report? What individuals were involved in its presentation? To whom is it being distributed? I could go on and on.

Protective functions of the provincial government are being given as one reason for non-disclosure. I ask: Is this government protecting itself or the victims?

ROYAL WEEK

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): Royal Week 1992 celebrates the 40th anniversary of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of Canada. Royal Week is a time during which Canadians celebrate our nation's heritage and life as a community under the crown. The varied programs and events which are being held throughout this week will serve to remind all of us of the many benefits -- political, social and cultural -- that we share in and that constitute our rich heritage as a constitutional monarchy.

As a member of the Commonwealth, Canada is heir to a tradition of cultural tolerance and understanding which has led to the development of close international ties with other countries around the world. This week all Canadians should reflect on the fact that they share a Queen with 49 other nations, all with different cultural and racial backgrounds, and that the Queen of Canada is also the Queen of Jamaica and of Australia.

Royal Week festivities will culminate with the Queen's birthday parade, which will be held on Monday, May 18, Victoria Day. The parade promises to be a truly grand event, with participants representing a wide cross-section of Canadian society, including members of the Canadian armed forces, veterans' associations, Her Majesty's civil forces, first nations bands and multicultural groups.

I am proud to announce that the Ontario Progressive Conservative caucus is sponsoring the Governor General's Horse Guards regimental band, and I should also like to publicly thank you, Mr Speaker, for so graciously consenting to participate in the Queen's birthday parade. I know your presence will be greatly appreciated by all, as it will add significantly to the day's celebrations.

I invite all members of the House to join me in marking this, Her Majesty's ruby jubilee year as our Queen and sovereign. May she reign in health and happiness for many more years to come.

KIN CLUBS

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): On Monday in Tillsonburg, I took

part in a special flag-raising celebrating 125 years of Canadian pride and unity. This event was part of the Proud to Be Canadian tour organized by the Association of Kin Clubs of Canada. The tour is one of the officially recognized projects for Canada's 125th birthday.

Kin Clubs represent the largest all-Canadian national service club. They are active in Oxford county; in fact, the current national Kinette president, Gail Malcolm, is from Ingersoll. Kinsmen and Kinettes across Canada have organized this tour in an effort to promote our awareness of the positive aspects of being Canadian, aspects which we often take for granted.

They especially want to foster a sense of heritage and pride in being Canadian in our children. The project will involve over two and a half million school children in 600 communities across the country in flag-signing and flag-raising ceremonies.

On January 1, two flags from the Peace Tower started from opposite coasts on a six-month trek across the country. They are visiting 250 communities and will meet in Thunder Bay on June 20. In other communities, designated flags are being signed and raised by school children. One flag from each province will be presented to the Prime Minister when the Peace Tower flags are returned to Ottawa on July 1.

In addition to Tillsonburg, I will be participating again on May 21 when the tour visits Victory Memorial School in Ingersoll.

These events represent an important opportunity for the children of Ontario to join with others across the country in a national celebration of the rights, privileges and freedoms that, as Canadians, we all enjoy.

I encourage all members to participate in and show their support for the Proud to Be Canadian tour as it makes its way across the province.

WITHDRAWAL OF BILL 18

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The first of two items: On Wednesday, May 13, the member for Halton Centre, Mrs Sullivan, introduced a bill entitled

An Act to require the Recycling of Lead Acid Batteries. It has been brought to my attention that this bill is in unilingual format only, which is contrary to

section 3,

part II of the French Language Services Act, 1986.

I must advise all honourable members that this matter contravenes

section 37(

d) of our standing orders in that it is in improper form. I must therefore rule this bill out of order and it must be omitted from the order paper.

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The second matter is that during the past six weeks we have been served with great dedication from a group of young people who have brought a great energy to their task, and this is their last working day in our assembly. I would ask all members to pay them tribute for the fine work they have done over the six weeks.

MINISTER'S MARRIAGE

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: Under standing order 21, together with the privileges for all of us assembled here, I took some note that although the privileges here apply to us, I should get some outside help and counsel as to how to deal with this matter of privilege. It deals with standing order 16, about grave disorder in the House. Having consulted my leader, she sent me to two experts, who advised me on how to address this.

Edith Hurst, her mother, who is here from Fort William and with us in the audience, and Jessie Cook, her aunt from Ajax, who is with us also, in the gallery east, advised me that under a grave disorder -- of course, daughter and niece respectively never were in grave disorder -- it would certainly be unbecoming for all of us and a breach of privileges if we were unable to offer to the member for Hamilton Mountain, the Minister of Energy, congratulations on his about-to-come-up big event, his marriage.

I wish him well. I thought that if we were unable to do that it would cause grave disorder among all the members, and that your ruling on this matter might be worthwhile to take into consideration until all of us receive our invitations to the reception. That, too, might cause grave disorder, but if I might, to a fellow colleague, elected in 1977, who has been here longer than I, we just wish to extend him our best wishes. With the advice of Edith Hurst and Jessie Cook, my leader's aunt and mother, we think we have come to a conclusion that will allow us to proceed effectively with the business of the day.

I thank these women for their advice to me and also offer the advice they have given to my leader, which has carried her into such a great position of prestige. They have done a very successful job and they have helped me bring this issue to a successful conclusion as well.

Hon Bob Mackenzie (Minister of Labour): On both the point of order and privilege, I think, Mr Speaker: I also want to congratulate my colleague Brian Charlton, the MPP for Hamilton Mountain, and his bride-to-be, Chris Happel.

This coming Saturday I and many of my friends and others will be in Hamilton to celebrate their wedding. I want to say I've worked closely with both Brian and Chris -- Brian for an awful lot of years and Chris was a graduate of the intern program here at Queen's Park. I'm proud to be able to stand and wish them both best wishes and wish that they'll have a happy future.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): To the point of privilege raised by the member for Bruce: I thought for a minute that he was going to suggest that grave disorder might be created by those very distinguished visitors who are seated in the gallery. While it may not be a point of privilege that's raised, at the same time I think he and the member for Hamilton East have most eloquently expressed the good wishes of all the members of the assembly to the member for Hamilton Mountain.

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Minister of Financial Institutions and acting Minister of Energy): Just very briefly, I'd like to say thank you to those who took the time this afternoon to raise this matter. Although it has caused some nervous tension over the last few weeks, it is one I'm looking very much forward to this Saturday.

The member for Bruce raised the issue of grave disorder, and perhaps that speaks to the question of invitations, which he also raised. A filibuster this weekend may in fact lead to an inconclusive day, but we don't intend to allow that to happen.

Having said that, I very much appreciate the comments and I think my fianceé, Chris Happel, also appreciates the sentiments that were expressed today. I thank everybody very much. We're looking forward to a very long and happy marriage, so thank you all.

Mr Ian G. Scott (St George-St David): Mr Speaker, I have a question of personal privilege under the same order. I have to begin by saying that the news communicated today in respect of the member for Hamilton Mountain is by far the best news we've had from this government in many, many months.

ATTENDANCE OF MINISTERS

Mr Ian G. Scott (St George-St David): I have to be the bearer of bad tidings, particularly as there are visitors in the gallery and people watching television who are anxious to participate indirectly in question period. We were advised today that nine ministers will be absent from question period, two will be arriving late and two will be leaving early. That is, in total, more than half the cabinet of the province of On