role="main" class="main-container container js-quickedit-main-content" id="main-content">

October 4, 2001

37th Parliament, 2nd Session

< Previous sitting day

Next sitting day >

Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2001-Oct-04 (PDF)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L'ONTARIO

Thursday 4 October 2001 Jeudi 4 octobre 2001

PRIVATE MEMBERS'

PUBLIC BUSINESS

HOME CARE

HEALTH PROTECTION

AND PROMOTION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2001 /

LOI DE 2001 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LA PROTECTION ET LA PROMOTION

DE LA SANTÉ

HOME CARE

HEALTH PROTECTION

AND PROMOTION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2001 /

LOI DE 2001 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LA PROTECTION ET LA PROMOTION

DE LA SANTÉ

HOME CARE

HEALTH PROTECTION

AND PROMOTION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2001 /

LOI DE 2001 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LA PROTECTION ET LA PROMOTION

DE LA SANTÉ

THANKSGIVING

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

ANIMAL PROTECTION

EYE CENTRE

RENT REGULATION

CONSTITUENCY OFFICE

AL BUSH

DOCTOR SHORTAGE

ERNIE COOMBS

WATER QUALITY

ORILLIA SOLDIERS'

MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

WORLD TEACHERS' DAY ACT, 2001 /

LOI DE 2001 SUR LA JOURNÉE

MONDIALE DES ENSEIGNANTS

MOTIONS

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

FIREFIGHTERS' MEMORIAL DAY

AND FIRE PREVENTION WEEK

WORLD TEACHERS' DAY

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

ORAL QUESTIONS

LONDON HEALTH SCIENCES CENTRE

IPPERWASH PROVINCIAL PARK

RETAIL SALES TAX

CHILD CARE

EDUCATION ON INTOLERANCE

HOME CARE

HOSPITAL FUNDING

AGRICULTURAL ISSUES

ETHNIC PROFILING

ANTI-CRIME LEGISLATION

CORRECTIONAL TECHNOLOGY

ONTARIO ECONOMY

FORESTRY AND FISHERIES

PROBATIONARY WORKERS

AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

PETITIONS

CENTRES D'ACCÈS

AUX SOINS COMMUNAUTAIRES

OHIP SERVICES

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

HOME CARE

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

HOME CARE

ORDERS OF THE DAY

STUDENT PROTECTION ACT, 2001 /

LOI DE 2001

SUR LA PROTECTION DES ÉLÈVES

Thursday 4 October 2001 Jeudi 4 octobre 2001

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

PRIVATE MEMBERS'

PUBLIC BUSINESS

HOME CARE

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): Orders of the day.

Clerk at the Table (Ms Lisa Freedman): Ballot item number 21, private members' notice of motion number 14, Mrs Pupatello.

Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I'm very concerned about the motion that's before the House this morning. I have

three points of evidence that I believe it's unfair.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. There is no motion before the House this morning.

Mr Galt: The resolution has just been --

The Deputy Speaker: It hasn't been moved.

The member for Windsor West.

Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor West): The following is my resolution.

That this House:

Recognize that the Mike Harris government promised to institute "patient-based budgeting" for health care services back in the 1995 Common Sense Revolution;

Recognize that community care access centres across the province are reporting a funding shortfall of $175 million due to a funding rollback by the Mike Harris

government;

Recognize that due to this lack of funding, community care access centres have cut back on home care services affecting many sick and elderly Ontarians;

Recognize that cutbacks to home care services are forcing patients to stay in hospital longer;

Recognize that cutbacks to home care services are forcing patients to seek more expensive care in hospitals or long-term care facilities;

Move immediately to lift the Mike Harris home care funding rollback in order to allow community care access centres to provide services based on patient

need.

Mr Galt: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: My apologies for rising earlier. I understood that once it was tabled, the motion was before the

House.

There are three points of evidence of concern that I have here that I'd like to point out to you. It's a concern of fairness and following the rules of the

House. It has been laid out very clearly.

I draw your attention first to the current rules of order, page 4,

section 2, the last definition under "substantive motion." It indicates that this includes

resolutions, such as is before the House, and motions, and the last sentence states, "Such motions require notice and must be submitted to the Speaker in writing when moved, before being put to the

House for debate. No motion shall be prefaced by recitals or

preambles."

My observation of this particular resolution or motion is that there are five very distinct

preambles ahead of the motion.

The other point I would like to bring to your attention is a letter that was distributed and possibly read by the Speaker at the time. It is dated April 19,

1999. It was from the Honourable Chris Stockwell, who was the Speaker at that time.

I won't read it all to you, but I'll share it with you if you so like.

In the fourth paragraph it states, "Standing order 48(d)" -- which at that time refers to this

section 2 in the present standing orders with the movement of

different sections -- "makes it very clear that no motion should contain

preambles, but should simply be a concise statement of resolve that the House can easily debate and decide upon. Standing

orders 14 and 45(

d) also make it clear that the Speaker has the discretion to decline to put a motion he considers out of order. I am of the view that many of the resolutions that have been placed

on the Orders and Notices paper in this Parliament have clearly violated the standing orders, and it is my intention to intervene and discontinue what has become an indifferently habitual practice

of this House. I would note that Speakers in many other jurisdictions have faced this problem and have resolved it similarly."

Concerned with this resolution, I too submitted one yesterday -- this is my third point of evidence here -- and the table rejected it when I first took it to

them. I then went back to my desk and worked on it during the afternoon and resubmitted it a minute before 5 yesterday. Basically it's been rewritten in the same style as the present resolution

before the House and I'm told it's out of order.

So I'm pleading to the House for fairness. It has nothing to do with the motion or the content. I understand the concern there, but this is about fairness and

you can't have it both ways. It should be consistent. I have brought different resolutions to the table over the years and each time I'm told about this

preamble. To me, that is what this point of

order I'm bringing forward to you is about. I will respect your decision. I look forward to your response on this point of order.

Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): To that point of order, Mr Speaker: Every thinking person in this House knows what a

preamble is, and to put

it colloquially, it's "Whereas,

whereas,

whereas, therefore

be it resolved." There is no

preamble to this bill. It says, "Be it resolved that." I submit to you that this member's submission to you

has no value whatsoever.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Northumberland has raised some significant issues here. I'd like to take this into consideration. We'll

recess for five minutes.

The House recessed from 1007 To 1015.

The Deputy Speaker: I want to thank the member for Northumberland for bringing this to the Speaker's attention.

I will start by saying that while it's possible that this motion is open to question as to its conformity with standing order 2, it has nevertheless remained on

the Orders and Notices paper for some time without scrutiny, and I believe it would be improper to remove it in its entirety, denying the member for Windsor West her opportunity to bring forward an

item for discussion this morning.

At the same time, the member would know the requirement for notice was waived. The member for Windsor West could have moved absolutely anything this morning that

would have been found to be in order -- it could have been on an entirely different matter -- given the fact that notice was waived.

Considering the fact that the member's true resolution lies in the last paragraph of her motion, I'm going to consider this motion this morning. In the meantime,

I am going to consider the matter raised by the member for Northumberland with respect to motions that are prefaced by recitals and

preambles, and report back to the House.

I would also like to draw the attention of the member for Windsor West to standing order 2, to remind all members of the direction given by Mr Speaker Stockwell

in November 1999 with respect to motions and to tell members it is the intention of the Speaker to enforce those rules in the future.

Mr Kormos: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: In view of what you said, and in view of the fact that you purport to report back to the House, and

in view of the fact that the point of order by the member was made somewhat to the surprise of most people here, that there weren't opportunities for the respective opposition parties to fully

reply, may I submit to you that the opposition parties, and perhaps the government as well, ought to have an opportunity to make further submissions on this specific matter before the Speaker

considers it. That would be fair. In view of the fact that the Speaker's decision may have significant impact on all of us for years to come, I submit that it would only be fair -- I would accept a

time for those submissions to be made -- that we have an opportunity to prepare submissions and put them to you before you make the decision that you indicate you will.

Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-St Clair): I concur in what my colleague has said. The other point I want to bring to your attention -- you referenced

it -- is that we have been operating under the presumption that the table will advise us. In fact, just yesterday the table advised us that a resolution of one of our members was out of order

because of the

preamble question.

In terms of how it's defined, we assume that when something is published repeatedly in Orders and Notices it will be acceptable to the Chair. That's been our

presumption. If that is going to change, we would like the opportunity to have input to how those rules will be defined.

Again, just yesterday one of our members attempted to table a resolution and we were advised by the table that it would be out of order. In this case, it was

tabled, accepted and published. I see the very next resolution by the member himself has a number of

preamble points. I presume that was reviewed with respect to the standing orders that are

applicable in these case.

If the Chair is looking at those issues, we too would like the opportunity to participate, so there's understanding among all parties and all members of the

House about how those rules work.

Mr Galt: Speaker, I want to rise to thank you for your consideration. I don't have any further comment on it. I just brought it to the floor.

I'm pleased it's being looked at, and I'm pleased that you as Speaker will be reporting back maybe a better definition or re-looking at this particular activity. That's really what I was looking

for, that we have some consistent rules that everybody can play by.

The Deputy Speaker: I want to thank all members for their suggestions on this matter. I believe it to be a significant and serious matter.

I will accept written arguments on the

interpretation of the standing order and advise members to submit those to the Speaker in a timely way.

The member for Windsor West has up to 10 minutes to make her presentation.

Mrs Pupatello: I'm very pleased for the opportunity today. I want to talk about home care. I want to talk about home care in every community

across the province, and what's happened to home care and home care programs since 1995.

What used to be in Ontario almost an elder care program, a supplemental program that governments, almost as a social service, used to provide to people in their

homes -- vacuuming services, house cleaning, meal preparation -- has today turned into a virtual hospital, with the lion's share of home care services being provided across the province now in the

form of nursing services. The lion's share of services are now being provided through nursing services specifically, and the lion's share of clients are those who have just been discharged from

hospital. That's a very different home care program today than what we started back in the 1980s.

Because of that significant change, the funding must follow what the demand of the service is. What happened in 1995 after Mike Harris became Premier was that he

cut health services across the board. The first thing that was cut significantly, with a huge impact immediately on our community, were hospitals. Hospitals across Ontario lost operating dollars.

The member from Kitchener knows full well St Mary's hospital was on the chopping block. He attempted to defy his own government up until about the last minute. The members from London certainly

know what's happening today to their hospital operating budgets. We are now watching University hospital gutting some 15 programs. Why? Because of operating costs not being available.

Here we are today in the face of many, many cutbacks across health services and more and more demand being placed on the home care industry. The people who work

in the home care industry know how the face of their services have had to change, even since community care access centres began in 1997. In my own community, it replicated almost every other CCAC

across Ontario. Very willing volunteers who came to the floor as directors had no idea what was going to land in their lap when they had to govern services that became, not some kind of nice little

social package we were helping the elderly with, but in fact significant life-saving services, the lion's share being nursing services, with the lion's share of clients now being hospital

discharges.

A virtual hospital is what they're running: hospitals that go seek the clients in their homes. Duncan Sinclair -- "the master," so called by the government --

headed up the Health Services Restructuring Commission. What he said when he made reports right across Ontario was that this government is mandated to fund those community services before

institutional services were cut. We held him to his word.

Let me tell you what he's saying today. He just said that this week about home care services because the crisis is so apparent, even to him. Duncan Sinclair

says, "There is no question that those people right now who need home care aren't getting it. They face individual crises."

Thank you, Dr Sinclair, for not being around to hold their feet to the fire to make them implement what they knew they had to do. Instead, while we called on the

Health Services Restructuring Commission to have some kind of pull on the government to have to invest, the government has in fact not kept up with the demand.

Let me go on now to what we see is happening right across Ontario. The member from Waterloo-Wellington, Mr Arnott, this week in the House said, "Some patients

are receiving less care. Some aren't receiving the care they need because they are on a waiting list. With the budget for home care frozen across the province, more patients will need hospital or

long-term-care beds, the very expensive and sometimes unavailable options that home care was designed to replace."

I can tell you that when these programs of home care were started in the 1980s, it was not designed to replace those services. But when this government created

CCACs, you designed them to replace them, and you do not have those services in place now that those hospital services no longer exist.

This is what Joe Tascona, MPP for Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford, wrote to the Minister of Health: "I have heard from my constituents about their concerns for sufficient

funding to provide the level of care those persons need outside the hospital setting. I believe the ministry must immediately address the funding level." This from a Conservative backbencher.

This is what Mr Beaubien, the MPP for Lambton, said in a letter to the Minister of Health: "I don't care how we do it. We must make sure our sick and elderly get

the kind of care that they need, and Minister, if we are not prepared to do that, I want you to tell me how I should respond to Ms Irwin and others like her who find themselves in the very

unenviable position of trying to provide care when their loved ones are terminally ill." That's what's happening in Lambton.

This is Michelle, who comes from Stratford. She works in the home care field. This was part of her e-mail: "Many seniors and disabled people lose their light

housekeeping services because of budget cutbacks. Low-income seniors and disabled do not have the money to hire a housekeeper. How will these people get their housework done?"

Just this week I was travelling on Meals on Wheels with the VON in my own community and opened the door to seniors. One senior woman said that this is how she

gets her housework done in her home. There's no way that this woman could stay in her home without that kind of assistance. We wonder where this woman would go if we didn't have those services to

provide.

I ask all of those involved with CCACs, their board of directors who have been forced to implement policies without any assistance or guidelines from the

government of Ontario that created them, no standards -- depending on where you live, if you're in Wawa or Windsor or Ottawa or Oshawa your service level is different. That's wrong.

When the CCACs were created in 1997, we called immediately for standards in this industry. We said you must determine what is in that basket of care that will be

provided in Ontario. The government has neglected to do it.

Those CCACs should have been developed, and before the horse got out of the barn, you should have determined what they were supposed to provide. Instead, this

government, like in most cases of government policy, has allowed the local volunteers to take the hit. In most communities, those volunteers have actually been advocates for the patients in their

community -- not in every CCAC. In some, they've had tremendous growing pains like in my own in Windsor, where those board members had to learn to be advocates for patients.

Now we see across the board, just this year, the deficits mounting because the demands that the hospital sector placed on CCACs, and they can't cope.

Let's look at what those levels are.

In North York, the community care access centre serves 9,500 clients a day. They will be reducing that number by 1,000, and I ask you, where will those 1,000

people go and who will care for them?

In Hamilton, with a waiting list of 650 people: forced to cut from its $53-million budget.

In Manitoulin-Sudbury: forced to cut almost $1 million from its budget.

The York: $12 million.

Some MPPs have dared to suggest it's all mismanagement. The Premier himself stood up in June and said that it's a shoddy ploy by the CCACs just to extract more

money. I say, how dare the government, who placed the burden fully on local community care access centres to provide while the demand skyrocketed for this service. The funding levels barely kept

track.

Even in yesterday's estimates committee with the Minister of Health, where we demanded answers for what these local community care access centres are to do with

their deficits, what do they do with patients they can't serve, the minister glibly announced from his books how much more money they were given year after year without acknowledging that they've

wholly changed the mandate of what this program was and that they are responsible for funding it. In its own documents, in its own business plans, the Ministry of Health was to be providing this

care.

In particular, the members that I've written to -- in particular the communities, not just in Windsor, which faces a $2.8-million shortfall, where my board is

forced to determine who gets service and who doesn't -- I encourage the local MPPs to meet the people who do without the service. Like we heard from Lisa Medwid in Essex, who, under enormous,

tremendous difficult circumstances in dealing with a sick husband, of all things will lose the minimum home care hours that she got -- a story that would make anyone cry.

I ask you MPPs across the way to turn to your own communities and ask, "What is it that you need in your community?" I ask that of those in Leeds-Grenville who

signed the petition, and those in Northumberland. I ask those in London and I ask those in York. I expect that those people today will support my resolution.

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: During the member's presentation, the member for Ottawa West-Nepean referred to

the members on this side of the House as a bunch of frauds. We know that is unparliamentary language and I ask him to withdraw that.

The Deputy Speaker: The Speaker can only rule on what the Speaker actually hears. I did not hear that. If in fact it was said, the member has

any opportunity he wants to take to withdraw.

Further debate.

Ms Shelley Martel (Nickel Belt): I'm pleased to participate in the debate today. I want to say at the outset that I think the government has

made absolutely the wrong decision to cut health care services, because that is what it is. It's not just a freezing of home care; it is a cut. Many of the CCACs received additional funding last

year in order to cover their deficits, and that is not the amount of money they have received this year in order to operate.

I think the government is wrong for four reasons. First of all, the government's decision flies in the face of a report that was done by this same government

about CCACs which clearly says the government should be investing in, not cutting, homecare services. Second, the government does this at a time when it has more than enough money to fund home care

needs but prefers to give $2 billion worth of tax cuts to its corporate friends instead. Third, this decision will cost the health care system more in the long run, and I cannot understand why the

government cannot see that. Finally, the decision is wrong because each of us in our own communities, if we were being honest and forthright, knows full well that this has tremendous negative

impacts upon seniors, the disabled and those who are being discharged from hospital. That will cause long-term health care problems for the province as well.

Let me deal with the local situation first. In our community, the Manitoulin-Sudbury CCAC has a deficit this year of $1.8 million. That was announced very

publicly at a press conference that was held by the chair and the executive director of the CCAC on May 23. During the course of that press conference, the executive director and the chair made it

clear that $1.6 million of that $1.8-million deficit came exclusively from higher prices for services which the CCAC purchases from other local agencies. This is a deficit, more than three quarters

of which the CCAC has no control over because it comes from the purchases of services from other agencies and much of it is related to wage increases in those other agencies. But they were very

clear to say that they had no choice, in the face of this deficit and the government's resolve not to fund the deficit, but to cut services.

Our CCAC has developed a 17-point plan which has dramatic impacts upon the clients it currently serves, and the clients it should be serving and cannot. The

chair of the board at that time made it very clear that they had been told by legal counsel that they had no choice but to cut because they could not personally assume liability because of the

government's Bill 46, that it would be wrong for the board to run a deficit because they would be personally liable, and no volunteer board in this province should have to face that. And indeed

they should not.

So the untenable situation that our CCAC has been placed in is that they now have a plan to cut $1 million worth of services, and that plan includes, among

others, these reductions:

(1) A waiting period of one month for any new clients submitted for homemaking services.

(2) Further major reductions in the amount of homemaking service provided, including to people who need personal care.

(3) Elimination of in-home support service and homemaking to people for whom other programs exist in the community, notwithstanding the limited resources those

other programs may have to provide service.

(4) Elimination of in-home professional services, nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, social work, nutritional counselling and speech therapy for

people who are able, with little risk, to travel to receive services at clinics or in hospitals.

(5) Deep cuts in the amount of medical supplies provided, including the complete elimination of certain supplies.

(6) Reductions in medical equipment rentals.

(7) Development and implementation of new guidelines to assist us in determining how much service and what kinds of service we provide to our clients. In fact,

they were meeting this week with the hospital to talk about discharge and to say very clearly that the CCAC cannot accept patients coming out, that the hospitals will have to hold those people

longer in expensive hospital beds because the CCAC does not have the resources to deal with all the needs of those being discharged at this time.

The chair of the board was very clear in placing the blame where it should be placed: at the feet of this government. The chair of the board talked about three

things during the course of that press conference. First, he made reference to the budget of this particular CCAC, and he said very clearly that in the past three years, while 43 CCACs have

received total increases of $272 million, the portion received by the Manitoulin-Sudbury CCAC during that time was $487,000, less than one fifth of one per cent of all the increases to all of the

CCACs. It is no wonder that this CCAC is facing a budget problem. They have received less than one fifth of one per cent of those increases over the last three years.

The second problem the CCAC has faced, and I raised this in the health estimates this week, is that this CCAC was promised equity funding from this government

beginning last year, in 2000-01, and for the next five years. The minister for seniors, Cam Jackson, made that specific commitment to our CCAC on August 27, 1998, wherein he said, "Starting in

2000-01 and each of the next five years the Manitoulin-Sudbury CCAC will receive additional funding based on our equity formula." Our CCAC has never received that equity funding, not in 2000 and

not this year, and probably won't receive it over the next three years if the government's policy is to limit the funding that goes to CCACs.

The minister in estimates said he didn't think that was true, but I have on many occasions confirmed that with our executive director and with our chair. So

the Ministry of Health has undertaken to check their numbers again. But it is very clear from the local level that they have not received the equity funding they were promised, so that gives them a

double problem in terms of their budget.

Third, the consequences are these tremendous cuts. As I said earlier, the chair of the CCAC laid the blame exactly where it should be laid: at the feet of the

government. He said the following, "Though we deeply regret having to implement these service changes, our deficit reduction plan is necessary due to the government's imminent policy concerning

deficits and inadequate funding for home care. In the face of such policies, our agency has no choice but to implement further service reductions which we know will have a profound impact on our

clients and the communities we serve. Further, these changes will have a significant impact on other health and social service agencies and may actually pit agencies one against another."

We hope it won't do that, but we are fearful that that indeed may well be the case.

The city of Sudbury in response to the concerns in our community has also most recently passed a resolution, dated September 14, 2001, where they call upon

this government to recognize the funding issue for home care in Ontario because of the implications for an aging population, and also call on the government to review its position regarding or

concerning the funding of home care. I congratulate the council from the city of Sudbury for having done that.

Just in terms of one particular client -- we've all had many who have contacted our office, but let me raise this particular concern: a woman by the name of

Madeleine Bouillon, who is 51, who has been confined to a wheelchair since she was injured in a basketball game when she was 18. Madeleine, to her credit, in the last month has organized two

demonstrations in front of the provincial government office in Sudbury to protest the cuts and to try and raise public awareness and to encourage other families and other clients to lobby this

government for change. She used to receive eight hours of home care. She has had that reduced and she is very concerned that she will not be able to continue to care for herself and end up in a

nursing home, where she does not want to be. Madeleine Bouillon is one of thousands of CCAC clients right across this province who are being affected in similarly negative ways.

Two points that I want to go back to: first, that this decision by the government flies in the face of a report that this government itself commissioned to

look at CCACs. In December the ministry received a consultant's study completed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The minister finally decided to release the result of that study in June of this year. I

suspect that part of the reason for the delay was because the consultants themselves, in reviewing the operations of CCACs, made it very clear that more money was required to fund this system, that

there were enormous waits for important home care services, that there was a lack of staff to deal with these services because the funding in this sector is less than in the hospital sector. The

recommendation they made, point number 4, page 145, was that the ministry should continue to move forward with its commitment to invest in CCACs, as indicated in the ministry's 2000-01 business

plan, and ensure consistent funding approaches across the province. The ministry's business plan called for an increase in funding of CCACs across the province -- not a freeze, and certainly not a

cut. So while the minister tries to rely on this report by PricewaterhouseCoopers to try and justify his cuts to home care, the fact of the matter is that the recommendation that was made by the

consultants after an independent review of CCACs was that this government should fund them more to meet the problems with respect to waiting lists, to meet the problems with respect to staff. So

this government has made a decision which is completely contrary to, which flies in the face of, an important recommendation that had been made by the consultants, which was to increase funding to

CCACs.

The government also makes this decision at a time when it is clear the government can afford to respond to the consultants' recommendations; indeed, to the

recommendations in its own business plan, which was to increase funding to the home care sector. The fact of the matter is that we know that in the May 2001 budget this government announced over $2

billion for its corporate friends, and most recently in this Legislature the government has made a decision to accelerate tax cuts to the corporate sector, hoping to stimulate the economy, which of

course that will not do because so many companies are losing jobs, so they're not going to get a benefit from the tax cuts. But the government clearly has the money to make a difference in home

care. The problem is that the government does not consider home care a priority. The priority for this government appears to be giving tax cuts to already wealthy companies in Ontario to make them

even more wealthy. The government makes that choice directly at the expense of seniors, of the disabled and of those being discharged from Ontario hospitals. I want to make that point clear. The

government's priority is for tax cuts to its wealthy corporate friends. It does not consider the disabled, seniors or those being discharged from hospitals who need essential home care services to

be a priority. That is clear in the decision this government has made to not just freeze funding for home care in the province but indeed to cut, and to do so in the face of evidence from an

independent third body that more money, not less, is absolutely essential to ensure that home care can be provided to those who need it in the province.

My final point is this: I cannot understand why the government cannot see that the cuts they are making to home care now will cost the health care system more.

It will cost the health care system more. When Madeleine Bouillon, who is able to live independently now because she has home care, can no longer do that because her home care is cut and she has to

go into a nursing home, that costs the Ontario health care system more. When other clients, like Madeleine Bouillon, cannot get the nursing services they need at home, then they will have to see

their family doctor or they will have to go to the emergency ward for health care, and that costs the health care system more, and not just in the long run; in the very near short run. This

government should be funding home care because it costs less for the health care system in the short and long run and because it allows Ontarians to continue to live in dignity in their own homes,

as I am convinced the majority want to do.

So I say to the government, as I wrap up, you have made a wrong decision. Many of you, like I, are being lobbied by our constituents, and constituents in your

own ridings, who are feeling the impacts. You know that this decision has had a dramatic impact on seniors and the disabled and those being discharged from hospital. I urge you to reverse your

decision and fund home care adequately in the province of Ontario.

Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): It's a pleasure for me to rise and join the debate on the resolution before the House. I will say to the

members opposite that it's a little difficult for us to sit across and listen to their lectures about the way the system is being reformed and where the money in the health care system is going.

We've increased funding from $17.4 billion to over $24 billion this year, and that's in a five-year period. Those are dramatic increases in health care spending. We've gone from 38% of the budget

to now 45% of the budget on health care spending. CCACs, home care in the province of Ontario, have been no exception to that. They've received dramatic increases in funding in the years we've been

in office -- over 78%. My own in Niagara has had a 120% increase. The York CCAC has had nearly a 300% increase in that time period.

We know, we understand and we've been directing the system toward more in-home community care because it's cheaper than having people in hospitals, it's

cheaper than having people in long-term care facilities and it's better for those people. It was in that light that we began to spend a lot more money, year after year, in community care access

centres and home care. However, it is our responsibility as a government -- not the members' opposite, as can be seen every day by the amount of money they continue to ask for in every aspect of

government spending -- it is up to us to make sure that taxpayers' dollars, when we decide to spend them in certain areas, are spent appropriately. It's up to us to ensure accountability.

That's why, after many, many years of increases, we've asked the CCACs to have a year where we hold back their budgets and they look at their own operations.

Do we do that on a whim, on a fancy? No, we don't, because we know there have been some operational problems within the CCACs across the province for many years now. Minister Jackson found that out

when he went to work with many CCACs. All of our individual members have talked to their CCACs and found that out.

We also commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers to do a review of the Ontario CCACs. Members opposite have pointed to this report. Among its 41 recommendations,

there is a focus on a sweeping reform to management, accountability, service delivery, education and training.

We didn't stop there. We noticed there was a problem in the Hamilton CCAC. Clients told us so. Actual case managers working in the CCAC came to their member

and said there were problems. So we went and did an operational review. That review was a lot less friendly, a lot less neutral than was the PricewaterhouseCoopers review. It absolutely condemned

the way the Hamilton CCAC was being handled. In fact, I remember the member from Hamilton, Mr Agostino, demanding at the time that we do something about the Hamilton CCAC. We did an operational

review. Then, after the operational review, he complained that we weren't taking any action. The minister put in someone to take over the CCAC. He had the temerity to stand up in the House and

complain that the minister was deciding to do something about the Hamilton CCAC.

So you see, it is up to this government to not continually just throw money at things. It is up to this government to make sure these systems run accountably.

Why? Because we want all of the money we are spending, a 78% increase over the past five years on CCACs, to go to the clients. Over 16% is spent on case management; a lot more is spent on

administration. We want that money to go directly to the clients. We're concerned, PricewaterhouseCoopers is concerned and the Hamilton operational review is concerned that that money is not

getting down to the clients.

Is the answer to throw money at it? Well, we've been doing that. The member opposite talked about Duncan Sinclair. What did he say in the Kingston

Whig-Standard on October 2? He said that what we don't need is a "greenback poultice," or an infusion of money. Why? Because that "will only create more problems." We happen to agree with Mr

Sinclair's comments that we need to fix the system. We agree with PricewaterhouseCoopers that we need to fix the system. We agree with clients. We agree with people delivering services. We agree

with members of boards who have asked us to act.

You can't just continue to throw money and money and money at problems. Sometimes you've got to step back, find out where the systemic problems are and fix

them. That's what this government intends to do. I applaud some of the members opposite for understanding that the money that's being thrown into the system is not getting to front-line care. That

is this government's primary objective and that's what we intend to do.

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Leader of the Opposition): Without reservation, I offer my wholehearted support for the resolution put forward by my

colleague, my deputy leader, Sandra Pupatello, whom I must commend here and now in the most public way possible for all the work that she's been doing on behalf of community care access centres and

our families who rely on them to such a great extent.

We've had many comments made, but I think it's very important for us to distill this to its essence: what are we talking about here? We're talking about our

fundamental responsibility that we owe together to our parents and grandparents as they get on in years and need some help so they might live as independent a life as possible in their homes.

That's fundamentally what we're talking about here. This is not purely a financial issue. I would argue that there's a moral issue connected with this. It is what we owe our parents and our

grandparents, those people who have struggled through their lives, raised their families, paid their taxes, played by all the rules and did the best they could, and now they look to us to assume

our responsibility to make sure we are helping them as they get on in their years. That's fundamentally what we're talking about here.

The other aspect of all of this to keep in mind is that if people don't understand that we should be helping our parents and our grandparents by adequately

funding and supporting home care in Ontario, we should understand that it's in our self-interest to do that, because if we adequately fund and support home care, we reduce pressures on our

hospitals. If we're not properly funding home care, then an elderly gentleman or woman in their 70s, for example, who is not receiving the care they need could develop complications and could show

up at the emergency ward. That is an expensive proposition. They may need to be admitted to the hospital. That is an expensive proposition.

So from a taxpayer perspective and from a broader societal perspective, the right thing to do is to adequately fund and support home care. Sadly, this

government refuses to do that. They tell us they've been able to find $2.2 billion for additional corporate tax cuts, but they cannot find the additional funding necessary to adequately and

properly support home care.

This government tells us that what inspires them, what motivates them, is they want our province to be competitive. Let me tell you, I want our province to be

competitive too. But when I think of our province being competitive, I don't only mean competitive by way of taxes. I want the best education, I want the best protection for our air and our water

and I want the best health care, including adequate support for home care so that we are properly carrying out the collective responsibility we owe to our parents and grandparents as they get on in

their years. That, fundamentally, is what this resolution is all about and that, fundamentally, is why we in our caucus support this so strongly.

Mr Frank Klees (Oak Ridges): I'm pleased to rise to participate in the debate on this important issue. I thank the member opposite for

bringing it forward, quite frankly. I don't believe that this is a partisan discussion. I also don't believe the Leader of the Opposition or the Liberal Party have a lock on the moral high ground

in terms of our obligation to our elders, to the seniors -- and it's not just seniors who benefit from community care access centres, it's many young people; it's families who have need for respite

support. We do have an obligation to fund the CCACs adequately and to ensure that people who need service have it.

I want to say very clearly that I do not believe that the system is working well. I have a lot of evidence to that effect within my riding, within the York

Region CCAC.

I don't know if it's a matter of funding, but if in fact we're not funding it sufficiently, I want to ensure that we get to the bottom of it. I want to ensure

that we fund it to the level it deserves to be funded at. But I also have evidence -- and this comes to me from clients of CCACs, it comes to me from workers within the system, who are telling me

that they believe much can be done in terms of restructuring the organization, in terms of how service is delivered, that would improve significantly the service that can be delivered.

I have urged the Minister of Health and through this debate implored the minister to get on with the job of doing what has to be done to find out what is wrong

with this system. I want to play a positive role, as I'm sure all members in the House want to do.

I want to share with you correspondence from a senior in my riding, which I think goes to the heart of some of the problems:

"I am a senior citizen who moved to Markham in February of 2000. I thought you might be interested in my experience with CCAC.

"My husband was diagnosed as being terminally ill in April of 2000 and was in palliative care at Markham-Stouffville hospital. When I brought my husband home,

the social worker at the hospital promptly connected us with CCAC and arranged home care for us in this new community....

"Arrangements were made for delivery of a hospital bed and other necessary equipment, as required, and this was accomplished with only minor miscommunication.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the home care service was a bureaucratic nightmare. The nurse who came to set up the service used up the entire hour with paperwork and hardly looked at my husband.

The home care help who came also used up the entire time in filling up paperwork and during the week that I had the home care, no one actually helped my husband shower or gave him any meal....

"During that week, I requested one two-hour visit (rather than the one hour per day allocated) as I had an urgent doctor's appointment and when I returned home

from there I discovered to my horror that two workers had been mistakenly assigned for this home care period" for one hour each, at the same time -- "and that they both left before I returned. I

found the door unlocked, and my husband (who was on morphine) had been left alone, completely helpless, in the apartment. My feeling is that there was a genuine interest in assisting me, but that

the red tape and bungling actually nullified the benefit of this service."

I share this with the House because I believe it's a two-pronged problem. I believe we have a basic structural problem in terms of how this service is being

managed; there may well be a funding problem. Our responsibility, I submit, is to get to the heart of it, do whatever restructuring has to be done. If we have to replace staff, if we have to

replace boards, if we have to replace executive directors, let's do it. Let's eliminate the inefficiency, the duplication, and if we have to increase funding, let's do that as well.

Mr David Caplan (Don Valley East): First of all, I'd like to say thank you to the member from Windsor for bringing this resolution, because

this is not a partisan resolution. This is something that all members of this House should be supporting. I will be supporting it on behalf of the people of Don Valley East. I am very pleased to be

here to be able to participate in this debate.

I want to talk specifically about the way that the current government funding formula affects my constituents in the area called North York. We're serviced by

the North York Community Care Access Centre. North York has a very unique demographic. It's one of the most unique in the province of Ontario, and we are punished by the way that the government

organizes its funding. There are definite inequities in the funding formula that punish areas like North York, especially that have a high number of seniors and frail elderly versus other

clients.

I say to the member for Ottawa West-Nepean that it is incredibly disrespectful to the people in North York that you don't think that they're worthy of support.

In North York, we have the largest number of people over 65 and the largest number of people over the age of 70. We are 20 years ahead of provincial trends anywhere in the province of Ontario -- 20

years ahead. But the funding formula does not compensate for this inequitable situation, and the government is unwilling to provide reflective funding and more money to make up for this unique

demographic situation. Instead, what the Harris government has said is that seniors will have to wait, the frail elderly will have to wait or they can dig deep into their own pockets to provide the

kind of home care and the kind of support that they need to live within our wonderful community of Don Valley East. That's wrong; that's simply wrong.

Mr Thomas Cook is a constituent of mine. He has received home care services since 1978. He had seven-day-a-week home care. Mr Cook, on a trial basis, had his

home care reduced. Then, when it was proven that four hours per week was not adequate to help Mr Cook in his home, unfortunately there's no money, so he cannot get any more than four hours per

week. What a terrible situation for Mr Cook.

Or for Mr Ray Harvie. Mr Harvie had been receiving home care services for over 10 years. He went into the hospital for some tests and had to have an extended

stay; he was there for over two weeks. He got out and when he got back they said, "Two weeks? I'm sorry, you're past the threshold. You have to reapply." Someone who's received those services for

10 years has been cut off.

I'd also like to thank the Gertzos family for their efforts in circulating the petition. I hope that all government members, all members of this Legislature,

especially those from North York, will hear the voices of constituents from Don Valley East today and support this resolution.

Mr Galt: I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words on this particular resolution. It's certainly one that I similarly have concerns

with. But the opposition motion really doesn't state some of the facts that should be out there about home care. Actually, what's been spent there has moved from $681 million from some six, seven

years ago, 1994-95, to approximately $1.17 billion today. That's greater than a 70% increase. I think that's a pretty significant increase.

There's no question our government believes in seamless health care delivery and views home care as a critical component of such a system. It seems like we're

alone with that, our party, our government. It's too bad the opposition didn't see it in a similar sort of way and that the federal government wouldn't see it in a similar way. We wish that the

members' fellow Liberals in the federal government had the same view, rather than rejecting all the pleas for financial assistance that would aid in the transformation of our health care system

from institution-based to home- and community-based.

I think it's a bit ironic. When we move people out of the hospital to home care, the federal government doesn't have to pay anything, because they don't

support one red cent for home care. They just step out of that. We're really saving them their measly 14 cents on the health care dollar as we move them out of the hospital and the OHIP system into

their homes. That's where they should be and it's time that the federal government stepped up to the plate and was part of this. They talk a lot about it, they get good press because they talk

about it, but they haven't provided one single red cent toward helping with home care.

The CCACs, I think it should be recognized, are a young organization, so really it's understandable that some of them have growing pains. Certainly I've met

with the two that represent my riding and I have concerns. I think they're genuine, excellent people, working hard. Our government has reaffirmed its commitment to home care by appointing the

associate minister of health and long-term care to review those elements which have led, for some of those community care access centres, into fiscal and management difficulties.

Although most CCACs are balancing their demands for services within the current funding allocation, some are not. The government -- I don't think there's any

question; I've watched it personally -- will work with these stakeholders in the health care sector to implement necessary cost containment measures to allow them to manage within their budget.

That's certainly happening in my area.

At the same time, we'll ensure that the CCACs meet the service needs of their clients through good case management practices and by ensuring funding is

allocated to client care services rather than excess administration.

The resolution of the member for Windsor West accomplishes none of these important objectives. Rather than offering thoughtful solutions that would help CCACs

solve their problems, we get the usual Liberal rhetoric. I could support a positive resolution on access to community services, but certainly I cannot support the resolution as it's presently

written before this House.

I don't think there's any question that our government recognizes a concern that's being expressed by the CCACs. It's one of the major concerns that come into

my office currently. I thought the member for Oak Ridges put it very well when he asked, is it in fact a funding issue, or is it something else? We need to look into that. I think there's an

equitable funding issue. I certainly hear that from the CCACs in my area. If the member from Windsor West would spend some of her efforts in lobbying -- she's lobbied all the CCACs. If she'd just

put that effort into talking to Allan Rock, maybe it would get a little more worthwhile and a little more helpful to those who need this home care. If she'd write him some letters, if she'd talk to

him -- I'm sure they're on a first-name basis -- just maybe a little bit of funding might trickle from the federal government. Now that they've balanced the budget because of the economic boom that

Ontario created for them, they can then use some of their surplus to help these people who were referred to.

I thought the Leader of the Opposition did very well talking about the fundamentals, about what we owe our parents and grandparents. The federal government

also owes our parents and our grandparents. But of course they're not stepping up to the plate, and all we get from the Liberals and the NDP is the ongoing irresponsible talk about spend, tax and

borrow. We went through 10 years of spend, tax and borrow. That's their legacy.

Mrs Leona Dombrowsky (Hastings-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington): I would like to thank my colleague the member for Windsor West for bringing

this item to the floor of the Legislature. It is a topic that there should be a lot more debate on in the Legislature so that the members of the government can truly understand the crisis there is

in community health in the province of Ontario.

I was appalled earlier this morning at the tactics of the member for Northumberland, who tried to arrest the debate on this very important issue. In my

community, the issues around services provided by CCACs are very important and they're very much in the news. There is a CCAC in my riding that has been forced by this government to make a very

painful decision. As a result of this government's inflexibility in terms of support for the CCAC, they were required to put an ad in the local paper and actually indicated that for a period of six

weeks they will not be accepting new clients. The Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington CCAC have found themselves in this most untenable situation. Administrators in local hospitals clearly

indicate that this announcement will result in delays for surgeries, it will block admissions, and it will lengthen hospital stays.

It was reported in the Kingston Whig-Standard that as of noon Tuesday of this week, in 33 of the hospitals, 452 beds were occupied by patients who would

normally be discharged to the CCACs. Admission to home care is currently restricted to a small minority of patients. Members of the government are mumbling and saying it's nonsense. It's reality.

It's in my riding today. That's part of the problem: the government refuses to accept that this is the crisis that exists in the province.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about my riding.

Mr Ted McMeekin (Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot): I want to thank the member for Windsor West for her leadership on this issue. I also

want to acknowledge the presence of my daughter Whitney and her friend Laura, who are here this morning.

I just want to go on the record as saying that when my dad was sick about a year ago, as members may recall, he got wonderful care from the CCAC professionals

in spite of the disparities between hospital nurses' wages and CCAC wages.

I want to just echo that we're clearly in a crisis. Times are changing. The baby boomers are growing up and they are very much concerned about providing

adequate health care for their parents. The question we need to ask today is, does this government in fact have the inclination, the wisdom and indeed the courage to tackle this issue? As a

relatively new member of this assembly, I'd like to think that they're prepared to work with us to stop the blame game, to stop pointing fingers and to start pointing direction on this critical

issue, an issue that's affecting many of our citizens. The frail elderly and the sick are losing their health care because of this chronic government underfunding.

I happen to have the good fortune to represent part of Halton, one of the areas that's growing very quickly in terms of senior population. In the face of

increased demand, what happened? The budget was frozen. They're now $6 million short. They cut home care hours by 13,000; 4,000 fewer hours for visiting nurses; 4,000 fewer hours for home care.

I want to tell you about Tom, whose wife Sarah has Alzheimer's and is at home. She has lost her night care. Tom has to sleep fully clothed in front of his

apartment door to make sure Sarah doesn't wander.

I want to talk about Margaret, a 79-year-old woman in my riding living alone with a bad heart and severe arthritis. She needs this care, and she's very fearful

that she isn't going to get it and she's going to end up in a nursing home.

I'm going to stop there because I know some of my colleagues want to speak, but at some point very soon I'll speak to the federal-provincial issue as well.

Mr Michael Gravelle (Thunder Bay-Superior North): It's vital that all members of the House support this resolution. I'm very glad to have a

brief opportunity to say a few words myself about the realities in the Thunder Bay district community care access centre.

There has been a 36% increase in caseload since 1997. Last year the government provided funding of $21.1 million; this year it's down to $17 million. This is

unbelievable. Quite simply, we need patient-based funding. We have to have it. The fact is, waiting lists have increased dramatically. Waiting times for services have increased dramatically. For

example, we now have a situation where, when before there were four weeks to wait for homemaking service, it's now six months.

There are many problems that are very specific to northwestern Ontario. They are related to geography, a reality that has never been addressed by this

government; the lack of available staff, again not addressed by the government; also the lack of alternative supportive housing and other services that has resulted in higher demands. Of course we

know about the shorter hospital stays.

The fact is, we desperately need patient-based funding for community care access centres in northwestern Ontario. We need it all across the province. There's

no question that we need to have this.

I would love to have a longer opportunity to give you some of the sad stories. People are desperate. People are being treated very unfairly, and I truly beg

all members of the House to support this resolution by my colleague from Windsor West.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke): I want to rise to support my colleague's resolution because I, like every member of this

Legislature, have heard over the last number of months about the problems and the pressures that are out there in this particular system. I agree with the member from Oak Ridges and others that the

problems are many. There may very well be issues in administration, but make no mistake about, in my view, the core issue. The core issue is that which was raised by my friend from Windsor in her

opening remarks, that in the last very few years, a dramatic change has occurred in the patient load of a CCAC; namely, a vastly increased number of acute patients who previously would have been

looked after in an institutional setting.

I know from speaking to my community care access people that the single biggest problem they've got is that today a very large percentage of the overall budget

is being dedicated to people who have got serious and complex health issues and who have been discharged at a very early point from hospital. That is the single most pressing issue, and we've got

to recognize that.

Like my friend from Thunder Bay, I represent a rural area, and I'm going to cite just one example. I've got a constituent living in the Madawaska area of south

Nipissing. This gentleman is in his 80s. He lives alone, he's legally blind and he's a diabetic. He makes virtually no demand on the public services of this province. All he was getting was four

hours a week, and now he's being reduced to two. He's 50 kilometres from the nearest service centre. He's 80 years of age, legally blind, diabetic, has no car and has to pay 22 or 25 bucks out of

his own pocket to go anywhere. His four hours a week are now two hours a week, and there are no alternate programs for him. He's not living in Ottawa or Pembroke or Markham or Windsor; he's in the

most rural part of midnorthern Ontario. And we're saying to him, "We'll pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in severances to hospitals' CAOs, but we haven't got enough money to look after you at

home."

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Windsor West has two minutes.

Mrs Pupatello: I've appreciated the debate today from all sides of the House. I marvel at individuals who refuse to see the reality of what is

happening at home on the streets in their own ridings. I am committed to bringing the truth to this House, and I expect the same from my colleagues across the floor. While you may like to see

change and improvement, you need to deal with the reality of the services that are required in your community, and you owe it to your community to support this resolution today.

Let me tell you that changing the health system is not like changing a car assembly line. You can't shut the plant down during July to change the assembly line

over. You have to fund it while you change it. Everyone acknowledged that you were changing the system. But you've refused to stabilize the system while you change it, and there are people who are

hurting because of what this government has done.

We've got a big problem right across the board. We have deficits across CCACs today. Can you imagine that Conservative MPPs have the gall to blame

administration for the monsters they created in 1997: Kitchener-Waterloo, a $12.7-million deficit, and Niagara, a $9.4-million deficit, and their local MPPs had the gall to stand up and accuse the

administration of mismanagement, taking the lead from the Premier of Ontario in a very unstatesmanlike manner, blaming other people for things they have created in terms of problems.

What is the demand on our home care system today, and who is responsible to meet that demand? It is the government of Ontario. That is our job here, when we

meet people like those my colleagues have described, who, but for the support of the Ontario government, need help to stay in their homes and be healthy. We owe it to the people of Ontario. We owe

it to them by starting with this resolution and supporting it here and sending a message to the Premier: we're not prepared to leave our sick, our elderly and our frail without the help they

deserve.

HEALTH PROTECTION

AND PROMOTION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2001 /

LOI DE 2001 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LA PROTECTION ET LA PROMOTION

DE LA SANTÉ

Mr Dunlop moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 105,

An Act to amend the Health Protection and Promotion Act to require the taking of blood samples to protect victims of crime, emergency service

workers, good Samaritans and other persons / Projet de loi 105, Loi modifiant la

Loi sur la protection et la promotion de la santé pour exiger le prélèvement d'échantillons

de sang afin de protéger les victimes d'actes criminels, les travailleurs des services d'urgence, les bons samaritains et d'autres personnes.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): You have up to 10 minutes for your presentation.

Mr Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North): This morning I'll be spending 10 minutes and the other time will be shared with the member for Niagara

Falls, the member for London-Fanshawe and the member for Northumberland.

If passed and proclaimed, this bill would allow the local medical officer of health to order the taking of a blood sample from someone who accidentally or

deliberately exposes a front-line emergency service worker, good Samaritan or victim of crime to his or her bodily fluids. The blood would be tested for diseases on the Ministry of Health's

communicable disease list.

The test is to provide medical personnel dealing with the emergency service worker, victims of crime or a good Samaritan with the best possible information to

make a recommendation for treatment. The bill states that the blood sample cannot be used for criminal prosecution and cannot be used for an invasion of privacy.

An autopsy was performed, and it was determined that -- oh, sorry, Mr Speaker, I've got confused here. I'll just throw my notes away.

Earlier this year, back on June 28, I presented a resolution in the House. It talked about the government requiring that medical information be provided to

people who have come in contact with someone with an infectious disease. I talked to a number of people throughout the province. As we looked forward to doing a private member's bill this fall,

because my time had been allocated to that time, I had the opportunity to go out and consult with the public.

We held consultation meetings here at Queen's Park and in Sudbury, Ottawa, Niagara Falls and London. We sent out press releases and talked to people in all

those different communities about this issue. The people who provided the most information were actually the emergency services workers. We talked to a lot of these individuals, who in fact are

here today. I can't exactly remember the names of them all, but certainly we have Mr Bruce Miller, from the Police Association of Ontario; Natalie and Hubert Hiltz, a husband-and-wife team, both

constables from the Peel regional police force; Paul Bailey; and Jim Lee of the Toronto Professional Fire Fighters' Association. Basically we talked to individuals from across our province.

I want to tell you, Mr Speaker, that we heard a number of cases that I don't think the public is very well informed on. People don't understand -- I don't

think the average person understands -- the types of incidents these individuals face on a day-to-day basis. In some cases it's even sabotage. I talked to one individual, a police officer in

Niagara region, and he talked about a bank teller being held up with a needle -- these types of problems. In all cases, the individuals were concerned about contracting an infectious disease.

The intent of this bill is to allow a blood sample to be taken after an individual feels he's come in contact with an infectious disease and to ask the local

medical officer of health for a ruling on that. With that, we expect we can find out immediately, or in a very short time, the type of disease they may have come into contact with.

May I just have a second, Mr Speaker?

The Deputy Speaker: If it is helpful, we can put this time at the end of your remarks rather than at the first.

Mr Dunlop: I think I'm fine now. Thank you very much. It has happened to me once before that my notes got mixed up.

I want to go back to the consultations. I had the opportunity to meet with Constable Natalie Hiltz, who I mentioned is here in the members gallery today. In

1996, Constable Hiltz arrested a known drug user for prostitution. During the arrest, the person being arrested turned around and actually bit Constable Hiltz. The bite pierced the skin and blood

came out of the broken skin. Constable Hiltz went to the emergency room, where she asked if she could find out if the assailant in fact had any medical problems. The doctors told Constable Hiltz

that they didn't know and couldn't tell her without the assailant's consent. The assailant refused to give consent.

With no information, the only option she had was to take what is known as the AIDS cocktail. The cocktail is a combination of drugs that cause numerous

short-term side effects and unknown long-term effects. The side effects include nausea, hair loss, stomach problems and sometimes blindness. Some of the side effects lasted longer than others. As

Constable Hiltz describes, the cocktail basically turns your insides out.

Many emergency services workers have told me they are grateful to have the cocktail available, but would rather not take it if it can be avoided at all. Ms

Hiltz also talked about the serious emotional damage the possible infection did to her in not being able to be with her fiancé, her family, her friends and her colleagues.

I wish I could say that more stories like this are rare and uncommon, but they are not. I wish I could say that the many protocols and procedures that are in

place would be enough to prevent this, but they are not. I wish I could say the brave men and women in our emergency services will not get infected, but I cannot say that. We need to do something

to help these people and I feel this bill is a very important step.

As I said, I started this process with a resolution last year in June. I want to read that resolution over again. It was presented here on the floor:

"Be it resolved that the government of Ontario investigate ways to allow emergency workers, good Samaritans and victims of crime who might have been infected

with a deadly disease to have the right to access a person's medical information to determine whether they are at risk of being infected."

The more I consulted, the more I realized that the information and the medical records could not help those people who needed help the most, so we changed the

bill to look at the idea of blood samples since they can be much more conclusive. I understand the issues and challenges this bill could pose. I understand there are constitutional problems that

may be faced in this bill, especially the charter

section regarding life, liberty and security of persons and the

section on unreasonable search and seizure.

I have asked for some opinions on it from Charter of Rights experts and they have informed me, "Based on a preliminary review of the proposed bill, it

indicates it has been structured to avoid unreasonable or unfettered powers to order the provision of blood samples. Applicants must fall into prescribed categories and there must be a reasonable

belief in the circumstances that the applicant has been exposed to a prescribed communicable disease. There are also legitimate public service interests to be served in assisting victims of crime

or those who are performing certain services in ascertaining whether they have been exposed to a communicable disease. Such information could assist in treatment decisions as well as reduce the

significant emotional stress inevitable in such circumstances."

There are other issues with this bill that I am hoping can be worked out within a committee of some type.

In closing, I'd like to ask everyone to support this bill here today. I think this bill would be an important step in helping to protect those who protect us.

In particular, when I think of what we've just come through in the terrorist attacks in New York City, it has drawn a lot more attention to just how much our emergency workers do for our

communities across our country. We're very proud of the work they do and I think this is an opportunity to help them perform that work a little more easily.

I would really like to have it passed here today at second reading and sent to a committee so we can once again go out and talk to the public, talk to people

who may have some opposition to this bill. I think it will be an opportunity to provide information to our caucuses, to the government. I would like to see this bill become law some time within the

next six or eight months if at all possible.

I look forward to other people debating this bill this morning and listening to their comments. Mr Speaker, I appreciate the fact you've allowed me this time

and I'm sorry about the disturbance with my notes. I had them mixed up a little bit.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan): I appreciate the concern that lies behind the presentation of this bill. It's in light of that concern

and in agreement with the concern that we will be supporting the bill that's before the House this morning. I trust the member for Simcoe North will have the support of not only the members present

in the House but of the government to be able to move this bill forward to committee so that it can have some refinements. The basic principle of the bill and the concern expressed in the bill is

one we want to see pursued.

The concern that's expressed in this bill, the concern that this bill addresses, is one that was so clearly expressed to us in committee hearings on the

privacy bill by the Ontario Police Association. We certainly recognized at that time, in their presentation, that their members are very often vulnerable to the transmission of life-threatening

diseases in the course of doing their duty, whether that's assisting victims or protecting the public. We heard the very compelling testimony from Constable Isobel Anderson about the kind of

anguish an officer goes through. Isobel Anderson told of having been, in the course of searching a suspect, inadvertently stabbed with a needle and the kind of anguish she went through before

determining that in fact she had not contracted a life-threatening disease.

One of the statements that I think expressed the feelings behind the need for this bill most clearly was that of Mr Bruce Miller, who is with us today and who

said, "We are here today to stress the need for emergency workers, victims of crime and good Samaritans to be able to access an individual's health records if there's a risk someone might have been

infected."

I quote from the OPA presentation but I know the firefighters have also made representations on this issue and share the concern, as do other emergency

workers. I want to state very clearly our agreement that our emergency services workers and those who serve in good Samaritan roles have a right to reasonable steps being taken to protect their own

health and safety.

I want to recognize that this is one of the difficult issues we have in determining what is reasonable. As the police association said in their own

presentation, it's a question of finding the right balance between the protection of the health of our emergency workers or good Samaritans and protecting the basic rights to privacy of every

individual. So there is a need to determine what's a reasonable limitation on the right of an individual to privacy in order to give reasonable protection to another.

I want to say to the member for Simcoe North that I very much appreciate the effort he has made to find that balance, to move from the original resolution and

the original debate that took place at committee, which focused on access to medical health records. The member for Simcoe North has moved that debate to what I think strikes a reasonable balance,

not to provide access to health records, which would case some concerns because of the sheer breadth of what was being proposed, but to provide a reasonable measure by which the medical officer of

health can be petitioned to have a mandatory blood test carried out. I think that serves the protective role that's needed at the same time as it answers a lot of concerns about access to health

records. So I want to commend the member for Simcoe North for having made such an attempt to find this reasonable balance.

I appreciate the fact that in this bill it makes it clear there is no broad access to individual health records. I do want to express a concern that people who

have access, then, to the results of the blood test that is done are not, under current legislation, bound by any kind of confidentiality about the sharing of that information with anyone else.

This is obviously a concern in the light of the absence of any privacy legislation in the province of Ontario, so I think it will be necessary, if this bill is to go forward to become law, that in

a separate forum from any broadly based privacy legislation there be some provision ensuring the confidentiality of that information on the part of the recipient of the information. I trust that

this bill will proceed to committee and that this will be one of the provisions that can be included in the bill.

I want to recognize the safeguard that has been built into the bill by the member for Simcoe North, that the blood test not only must be ordered by a medical

officer of health but that the medical officer of health must believe there are reasonable grounds to believe there could have been some transmission of disease.

I want to raise one small further concern, perhaps not such a small further concern, but one which can certainly be addressed through the committee process,

and that's the fact that the medical officers of health of the province were not aware they were going to play such a critical role and haven't been consulted on that role. I appreciate that's

always a limitation with a private member's bill. I trust that that can be addressed at committee. The medical officer of health I've spoken to has a concern that the information from the blood

test would not come back as well to the medical officer of health who ordered the test. I think that's something that needs to be built into the bill.

Just very quickly and finally, I want to express a broader concern, even as we support this bill today, that the government has not brought forward the privacy

legislation that we believe is needed in the province to deal with health issues. While we have immense concerns about the privacy bill that was tabled with this House last spring, we were

concerned that the government would simply withdraw from presenting any kind of privacy legislation. At this point in time, that seems to be the position they've taken. I hope the broader issues of

health privacy will now be addressed.

Mr Frank Mazzilli (London-Fanshawe): I want to start by commending the member for Simcoe North for introducing this legislation. Not only did

he introduce legislation -- in the vast majority of times, what we see with private members' bills is that they do not become law because they're poorly thought out, and often the time is not taken

to consult those stakeholders or to consult with some legal opinions as far the constitutional arguments that may arise. The member from Simcoe North avoided that problem by first coming up with

the resolution and then consulting with the Police Association of Ontario, the Ontario Provincial Police Association, the Ontario Professional Firefighters' Association, paramedics across this

province and, of course, people that had been affected as good Samaritans. I compliment him on that.

That was a long and onerous task. He certainly, as you heard, travelled to London, Niagara Falls, Sudbury, Ottawa and Queen's Park. As a result of that -- let

me just read the explanatory note -- he's come up with the Health Protection and Promotion Amendment Act, 2001.

This bill, if it becomes law, "amends the Health Protection and Promotion Act to allow a medical officer of health to make an order requiring the taking of a

blood sample from a person if the officer is of the opinion, on reasonable grounds, that the applicant for the order has come into contact with a bodily substance of the person as a result of being

a victim of crime, providing emergency health care services or emergency first aid or performing a function prescribed by regulation. The order will require a legally qualified medical practitioner

or another qualified person to take the blood sample and to deliver it to an analyst. It will also require the analyst to analyse the sample and to make reasonable attempts to deliver a copy of the

results of the analysis to the person from whom the sample was taken and to the person who obtained the order."

Certainly, from what we've heard today, already the privacy concerns are starting to come into play. Usually privacy issues have to do with people in an area

of responsibility, where they work in a workplace and they receive information as a result of their employment. To share that information is confidential. Most workplaces have that.

What we're talking about here is not only emergency workers but good Samaritans. I, through many contacts, have run into people who, on their way home, have

been flagged down and performed CPR. These are young mothers, and they have often come into contact with someone with a communicable disease. Here you have a citizen willing to help and who was

happy to help, and all of a sudden that happiness turns to fear. Referring to the privacy issues that we heard the member across talk about, if they have received information that there is a

positive test, can that good Samaritan not share that with his or her partner? Can that good Samaritan not share that with another family member?

I would certainly oppose that. That's the difficulty with privacy beyond the workplace. I would urge that, when it comes to committee, it be thought out

fully.

This is a very reasonable piece of legislation in that the member from Simcoe North has not taken it into criminal parameters. The results of the test are

simply to have the emergency worker or good Samaritan know if they've come into contact with anything, and to allow them to use that information to seek any medical treatment that they require,

while avoiding some of the cases that you've heard of of people having to take treatment that they could have been prevented from taking had they had that information available to them in the first

place. I think that is certainly more than reasonable.

The one thing that I do have some concerns with is that the medical officer of health will have to be trained in taking information similar to a justice of the

peace on granting these orders. I suspect maintaining continuity across the province might have its challenges, as it does with justices of the peace and judges under some similar circumstances. So

I would strongly urge that medical officers of health be issued a package explaining the outline of the legislation, once passed, and how to issue those orders.

This piece of legislation is long overdue. I commend the member for Simcoe North for taking the initiative and I hope it's passed as soon as is reasonable.

Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor West): I'm very pleased to speak today to speak to Bill 105, the Health Protection and Promotion Amendment Act,

and to tell the member from Simcoe North that I too, along with many colleagues in the House, will be supporting the bill, and to let that MPP know that where I come from, that means that you too

will have to support my resolution. That's just how it works here in this House, especially coming from the region of Simcoe as he does, with the tremendous community care access centre issues that

exist in the Simcoe region, as expressed by his colleague, MPP Joe Tascona. I do fully support, and expect his support of my resolution.

This is a very important piece that this member has worked on in terms of privacy issues, in terms of health protection and, in particular, those who work in

EMS, in the emergency medical field, whether we're speaking of our police officers of Ontario, our firefighters, our ambulance workers, all of the people in the field, including good Samaritans,

people who stop on the road to help a car accident victim etc.

I don't think many of us in this House understood the impact of what it meant to have people who help people have protection until we were debating the privacy

legislation, a health bill, and we met the police officer from Ottawa who came to us at committee and told her story about how she was accosted by someone she was arresting. He bit her. She then

could not determine whether she was HIV-positive or not, because she clearly was put in that position of being what would be considered at risk for having contracted it. The system doesn't allow

someone who's working on our behalf to protect us from people who we need protection from -- we couldn't make sure that she was going to know whether she had been infected or not, and it was a very

compelling story about what life is like when you think you might be. It was very compelling to hear how her life was forever changed: marital issues, family issues, work issues.

We sat back and listened to that story and realized the full weight of what we need to do to protect people who are working for us out there, again, whether

they're police officers or firefighters who go into a fire and never know the victim when they arrive to pull them from a burning house. Yet we expect them to be there. They can't refuse this work.

We need to protect them. So the bill is very important.

We know that the member from Simcoe North took the time to speak to people and, since then, made changes. I only wish that the government would often take

consultation in that manner and then actually address it and make changes to the bill.

We had significant issues with the first draft around access to medical records. Not only was it inappropriate in terms of a breach of privacy but it didn't

help the issue. If passed, it would have allowed access to medical records that probably would not have had the information you needed in order to access information about communicable

diseases.

We do still have issues, and they were brought to the attention of the member as he was even drafting this last draft. Hospitals have to be mandated as well to

keep the kind of supplies on hand to respond so that there are cocktails available in a timely fashion if people then are deemed to have contracted the disease. That is not mandated today.

The medical officers or health, or their designate, have to be on call 24 hours a day. It's not a 9-to-5 position, and typically these incidents will be

outside of the 9-to-5 hours of the day. Will they be available to make the determination of, "Yes, we need to take a blood sample"? Those who receive the blood sample information -- whether disease

or no disease exists in the blood sample -- must be deemed a custodian. What we need is a health bill on the table, to be debated and passed, so that being a custodian of such critical medical

information is then protected from the general public, and we have to ensure that that happens.

I agree with the member who's presenting this bill and says that this bill needs to go to committee. I too encourage the House to pass this second reading and

send it to committee so that we can iron out those details, so we can go forward and protect the people whose job it is to protect us.

Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): It's certainly a pleasure for me to be able to respond to this bill of my good friend, Bill 105. Just before I

get too far into the bill, I'd like to compliment the member for Windsor West on her response in support of this bill, particularly after the rather heated discussion we had earlier on her

resolution. I think that's the sign of an excellent parliamentarian who can look objectively at the issue at hand immediately following the other.

Interjection.

Mr Galt: I'm paying compliments, and it's in order. But I also pay a compliment to my good friend who has brought forward this bill. I think

it's excellent the way he worked it through. He first came out with a resolution back in June, tabled that, an excellent four-line resolution, all to the point. I don't think we need to read it;

it's in the order paper. He really packaged it extremely well. He had an issue, he had concern, and he has gone out and worked on it.

Also, my compliments to him for going to all of these different cities. I don't know if it's a first, but it's one of the first to travel the province to hear

the concerns. He travelled to London, Niagara Falls, Sudbury and Ottawa, really all points. I suppose some might say he should have gone to Thunder Bay as well, but I think those four points are

probably a big step over what most other people do. Again, compliments to him for that.

I agree with some of the comments made that it should go to hearings after second reading. Certainly I'll be supporting it on the second reading debate. I'm

like some of the others. There may be, and I think maybe the member himself mentioned, some constitutional problems in this particular bill. It is very difficult for a backbencher to put together a

complex bill, and I think he has done extremely well in putting together this bill. It is several pages. There are some complexities in it, particularly when it touches on areas like our

Constitution and when it touches on areas of freedom of information and rights to privacy.

His concern really is for those who are hired as a group, our police, our firefighters, our paramedics, who, yes, lay down their lives -- that's part of the

job, you might say -- yes, they go out and do some tremendous work for us. He also refers in his bill to the Samaritans who stop by the roadside or wherever there's a disaster or accident or

somebody needing assistance. Those people don't always have gloves at hand. The professionals out there whom I just mentioned are supposed to wear gloves, but there are many instances where that's

not possible. They need more protection on occasion than just their hands. Splashes do occur.

The other point that I think is of particular interest is victims of crime. They didn't volunteer, they're not being paid; they're a victim of crime. I think

he pointed out that currently a rape victim cannot find out if the rapist has hepatitis, HIV or AIDS. Here's a person who innocently was attacked -- I gather innocently was attacked; that's my

interpretation -- and ends up possibly impregnated with some virus like hepatitis or AIDS or whatever. I think in those circumstances it's not asking too much that a sample be taken to at least

identify whether there's an infectious disease they might contract.

There is this balance of rights of individuals. The member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan expressed that quite well. I have some concerns there as well, but

sometimes we have to give up our rights to have freedom for the majority. To have that kind of freedom, we have to have rules, and those rules must be followed. I think of something as simplistic

as the fact that I can't drive up the left-hand side of a road, whether it's a two-lane or a four-lane; that's illegal. That gives the freedom to everyone to be safe on their proper side of the

road. I wouldn't want to go to the left anyway; I prefer staying to the right. But it's that kind of freedom that's created by a rule that says you must be on the right-hand side of the road.

I remember a very intense debate about 25 years ago over seat belt legislation. "They're infringing on my rights" to have to wear a seat belt. Well, maybe a

little bit, but look at what it saves everyone in medical costs, and it also tremendously protects those who wear them. There was a great debate not too long after that about breathalyzers. "Oh,

they're taking away my rights. They're taking my breath. I have to give up evidence against myself." It touched on the Constitution, but for the benefit of all, it was the right thing to do.

That's how I see this piece of legislation. It's for the privilege and for the rights of those who are in those occupations; it's for the good Samaritan and

particularly for the victims of crime who may end up contracting some of these rather deadly diseases, through no fault of their own. I, for one, can support this, particularly when I hear the

member from London-Fanshawe, a previous police officer, enthusiastically supporting it. He has been out in the field and really understands what's going on there.

Thank you very much, to the member from Simcoe North -- I believe that's the right riding -- for bringing this forward. I think it's an excellent piece of

legislation. It also goes along with anything like a Good Samaritan Act that would protect a volunteer who is helping.

Again, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I'll be enthusiastically supporting this bill.

Mr Dave Levac (Brant): I want to rise today in support -- I'll state it right out front -- of Bill 105, the Health Protection and Promotion

Amendment Act.

I want to spend a couple of minutes of my time to explain to the general public out there that clearly this bill was not introduced to allow people to do the

great things that they do already.

I want to compliment the members of the police service, the firefighters, the ambulance attendants, the paramedics and the good Samaritans out there. What

people want to know and understand clearly is that they did these good things before this bill was enacted. They did these good things because that was the right thing to do. So to those people,

the people who share their lives with us, keeping us safe, we extend to you our gratitude and our thanks for the hard work that you do day in and day out and the lives that you save, and the fact

that you put your lives on the line is something we have to continually repeat day after day. It's exceptionally imperative for us to say it today because of September 11. People put their lives on

the line; it was more evident on September 11 than ever before.

The people here in Ontario recognize and know that there is a kindred spirit between all of those workers here in the province of Ontario and those in the

United States. There is a special bond. They understand that they put their lives on the line every day. Their families understand that they put their lives on the line every day. We want to say

over and over and over again, thank you for the job you do, and thank you and God bless you for the things you do for the people of Ontario. So, thank you very much for that before we get started

on this bill.

Importantly about the bill, I do want to point out to the member from Simcoe North that I congratulate him on the process he used to make sure that we weren't

passing legislation that was going to get defeated because of a loophole or because of things that weren't thought all the way through. So my congratulations to the member for his diligence in

making sure that we had legislation that was acceptable and actually supportable. I commend him for doing a good job.

We're not always on the same side of the fence, as he well knows, but in the cases where we are, we say so, and I think he deserves that credit.

There are a few things I want to point out that I think need to be reconciled in committee, which I hope it does get to. WSIB does not recognize the side

effects that are caused from medications, such as what is called an HIV cocktail. So we need to make sure that that's brought up, to understand that we had better start taking a look at other

ministries that are affected by this legislation.

What happens in the event of a medical officer not being available as fast as possible? These things happen 24 hours a day. Have we got in place legislation or

pieces inside this legislation that may say "or deputized persons"?

Hospitals, as mentioned by the member from Windsor, need to be prepared for this legislation insomuch as having these cocktails available. There will be,

whether we admit it or not, funding issues that have to be taken care of to implement this properly.

The member from London-Fanshawe raised a concern about confidentiality. He missed the point. His thinking was too linear. What the comment on confidentiality

was talking about very specifically was making sure that the information gleaned was not made accessible to everyone else. That's all that means. It wasn't that we're not going to let somebody who

has been exposed to a danger tell their spouse, that they weren't allowed to say anything. That's not the point.

Finally, I look forward to talking in the committee about this, and I will leave some time for the member for Kingston and the Islands.

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton West): I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate on this bill. I was thinking earlier, as we

started the discussion, about an

article that was written by a columnist in the Hamilton Spectator many years ago when I was a younger alderman in the city of Hamilton. The columnist was Tammy

Paiken-Nolan and the

article was about the fact that easy decisions in terms of right and wrong don't normally find their way in front of elected representatives as a rule. The easy ones take care

of themselves. Our job, what we're elected to do, is to deal with the tough ones.

The toughest issues that come before us, quite frankly, are not necessarily the economic ones and are not necessarily the headlines of the day. They come down

to the very fundamentals that we're debating here this morning, and that is one set of rights as a human being, as a Canadian, as an Ontarian, versus another set of equally important rights. That's

what we have today. If anyone thinks that the issue of unreasonable search and seizure is not important, then if you're at home watching this, think about the fact that it's only that right that

exists right now in law that prevents agents of your government from knocking down, bursting through, your front door right now and doing as they please in your home. It's because of our

constitutional rights and our rights on unreasonable search and seizure that that won't happen.

If anybody thinks that's not too important in terms of the personal rights, there's a member of the current government cabinet who had to be brought kicking

and screaming to bring in his member's disclosure form, where we all go to the Integrity Commissioner and lay out our financial souls, because he believed it was an unfair intrusion into his right

to privacy. It wasn't even a debate; it was the law. But he felt so strongly about his right to privacy that he really had to be dragged kicking and screaming to fill in those forms and make a

presentation to the Integrity Commissioner.

I raise those because I think it's incredibly important that we not see this as a simple issue of right and wrong. Perhaps, given my personal background as a

former justice minister in Ontario and a former elected labour leader, I can see both sides of this so clearly, in my mind at least. I think about the police officer, correctional officer,

paramedic, firefighter, all those involved in emergency response, and the situations they face day after day. Should they encounter a circumstance as described by friends earlier here in this

place, I think about them going home that night and looking at their kids and saying, "Am I bringing evil into my home? Am I bringing harm to my children?" and at night, when they are with their

partner, "Am I bringing harm to my partner?" as you think about the intimate aspect of one's relationship.

Yet people are innocent in this province until they are proven guilty. It's not unusual for our justice system to make mistakes, and that's why it's often

dangerous for us to get caught up in headlines or in seeing things as too black and white. If you question whether or not that can happen and whether that's important to the average person, think

about Mrs Milgaard, a mother who for years fought for her son's life because she believed he was innocent. Ultimately, it was proven that he was.

I raise that because I want to bring in the issue of capital punishment, only to the extent that one of the things we don't want to do is leave the impression

that all will be well if we pass this law. As humans, we have that desire that we'll do one quick thing, a quick fix, and we'll solve everything and then we can stop worrying about it and go on

with our lives because it's taken care of. Capital punishment is like that, in my opinion, to the extent that there are those who think capital punishment is a deterrent, and yet there's not one

study that I'm aware of which makes that conclusion. If it had that deterrent effect, I would be one of those who would switch and change my balance of thinking and I'd be on side with it, but it

doesn't, and for whole host of other reasons I don't support that.

But in this particular case, we're being asked to consider a law that violates not somebody's home. This is not just bursting down your front door. This is not

just asking one of our cabinet ministers to show the Integrity Commissioner what their personal financial dealings are. This is somebody bursting through your door, grabbing hold of you, holding

you down and taking away your blood. In a free society, I can't think of anything that would suggest that's trivial.

On balance -- and our caucus really wrestled with this one for the very issues I've outlined here -- our caucus has decided that we will support this going to

committee because, again, on balance, one has to make decisions around whose rights survive and who has to give up some rights. We're pleased that the member chose to go the route of the medical

officer of health. I was really worried at first that it was going to stay within the criminal justice system. The problem with that is, again speaking from my background as a former chair of the

regional health and social services committee in Hamilton, I know very clearly that the incubation period, for instance, of HIV is six months. Just because you do a test today and it's negative

does not mean that the person you've tested doesn't have HIV. That false sense of security that I raised around the issue of capital punishment is very much front and centre here, so I'm pleased

that rather than leaving it to a criminal process, it goes to the medical officer of health for the first determination.

Obviously, all of this law, whether it's going to be deemed to be good law or bad law, will be determined around the issue of "reasonable grounds." Based on

that kind of language, we are comfortable moving this bill from our debate today into committee, because what really matters is, what will the law or the regulations say is reasonable grounds? "I

don't like the way someone looks" is not reasonable grounds, and if that sounds a little far-fetched in this time that we're in, think about it.

By the same token, if there is enough evidence that clearly an innocent emergency service worker could be at risk, then we have an obligation as legislators,

as those who decide these kinds of rules in our society, to ensure that the rights of that vulnerable worker are protected. Really, the only way we can determine that is to get into committee and

start looking at the issue of reasonable grounds.

I do want to bring into this -- and I note that the Solicitor General is in the room. I understand he's not going to speak, but I would ask him to nod if my

time has gone by in terms of the policy as I understand it.

Certainly a number of years ago the policy of universal precautions was the policy that we held to. I noticed the Minister of Correctional Services was here

earlier. What that says is, rather than trying to determine who might have a communicable disease and then we take precautions, that all emergency response workers are to treat every circumstance

as if they may be exposed, and therefore they are to take universal precautions.

It does make sense, because we're talking about situations that are obvious here. What about situations that aren't obvious? We do not know, nor should we,

that there aren't members of this Legislature here today who have HIV. There are numerous ways we as individual human beings can come into contact in a way with other human beings that could cause

a transmission of a disease, unbeknownst.

Again, this issue of wanting to ensure that we aren't telling the public, "By passing this, everything will be fine" -- there are still many circumstances,

when we've got deadly diseases like AIDS out there, where we need to be taking precautions, not just as emergency service workers but also as individuals, as parents and as partners of people we

love.

Taking universal precautions makes a whole lot of sense, and it has nothing to do with pointing a finger and saying, "You look like someone who has a disease I

should be worried about." It speaks to the reality of the science of disease. To that end, it would be nice if we put as much passion in this place into talking about the root causes of crime --

why are there increases in some crimes? What are the real reasons for that? -- and also the whole idea of eliminating AIDS and other communicable diseases. Ultimately, that's the only real

solution: wipe it out. Then we don't have to worry about this, your rights versus my rights. Governments have that obligation too.

In concluding, I want to say to all members of the House that on a personal level I've enjoyed the debate. I'm prepared to admit to some trepidation coming in

this morning and looking at the nature of it, remembering some debates we've had around some issues. I'm pleased to be a part of this particular debate, regardless of how we all feel. I have a

hunch, listening this morning, that whether you're a Tory, a New Democrat or a Liberal, on this kind of issue, on one of rights versus rights, we may not really be that far apart.

If that's the case, then sending this to committee, bringing in the experts, bringing in the advocates from all walks of life -- all those who are affected --

makes the most sense, in the opinion of our caucus.

Therefore, we would enjoy participating and would do so diligently in such committee hearings. In order to facilitate those discussions, we're prepared to lend

our vote today to pass this bill and send it off to committee for those very deliberations.

Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the member for Simcoe North's bill. I want to congratulate him for his

initiative. I want to congratulate him for the process through which he's come up with this bill. As some members have talked about already, the bill has taken some different forms over a period of

time. It's now in a form where, if a victim of crime or an emergency services worker with just cause would feel the need to find out if someone they came in contact with, whether through a rescue

or as a victim of crime, if they thought there was a need to find out something about the person's medical history -- quite frankly, whether or not they had a communicable disease. I commend some

of the members opposite for recognizing the dilemma that people from those three associations and other similar workers who are not members of those associations face on a day-to-day basis, and

indeed that some people who are victims of crime face.

Some of the members opposite said that you shouldn't trivialize the taking of blood from somebody, and I would say clearly to those members that I think the

member for Simcoe North is not trivializing this at all. He has a process spelled out using the medical officers of health to determine whether or not it's appropriate to obtain blood from someone.

That medical officer of health would be responsible for determining if circumstances indeed required or made it advisable to get such a blood sample from somebody. So I don't think the member

trivializes it.

The member has said that he'd like the bill, if approved today, to go to a committee for further hearings where perhaps that process could be fleshed out and

some meat added to the bones, although I hope not so much meat that it becomes too difficult and with too much red tape to actually obtain a sample once the bill passes.

Similarly, I think the obligations of the analysts of the blood,

section 9 of the bill, need to have a second look. People need to know the analysts of that

blood sample need to clearly know what their responsibilities and obligations are with regard to that sample and privacy.

I support the bill. I commend the member. I hope all of the members in the Legislature support it. I look forward to working with the member to improve the

bill and see, ultimately, to its passage and implementation.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands): It has already been stated earlier that we on this side of the House will be supporting this

resolution. It's quite obvious that we should do everything we can in order to protect especially those emergency workers we have working for us on a day-to-day basis in fire departments and at

police stations within emergency situations etc, and anything we can do to protect their health, the better it is for all of us.

By the same token, since this member obviously is concerned about health care concerns, I would implore him and the other members of his caucus to support the

resolution of our member Ms Pupatello as well to make sure that the CCACs are properly funded so that the vulnerable in our society who need nursing home care can get the adequate services that

this government currently denies them. So support that resolution as well.

Mr Dunlop: I'd like to thank everyone who made comments here this morning: the member for London-Fanshawe; my colleagues from Windsor West and

Thunder Bay-Atikokan; Dr Galt from Northumberland; the member for Brant, the justice critic; the member for Hamilton West; the member for Niagara Falls; and the member from Kingston. I appreciate

the fact that there seems to be support here this morning for this particular piece of legislation.

Earlier I had an opportunity to make a few comments, and I didn't get an opportunity to actually address the people who were here today who have given us so

much support on this bill. I will just read their names again and ask them probably to stand, if they don't mind: first of all, Bruce Miller from the Police Association of Ontario; Natalie Hiltz

and her husband, who are both constables, from the Peel police services; Paul Bailey, the chair of the Peel Regional Police; Sean O'Connor, chair of the Peel police association; and we have Jimmy

Lee of the Toronto firefighters' association -- they're in the top gallery up there -- Patrick Kerr of the Ontario firefighters' association; and Mark Ferguson from the Ontario Paramedic

Association.

I just want to say what a pleasure it is to work with these gentlemen. As I said earlier, they're the people who put their lives on the line and they represent

the people who put their lives on the line every day of the year for the province of Ontario and for the folks we all represent.

I'll be asking for this particular bill to go the to the justice and social policy committee. I hope that we can get a lot of good, valuable input from the

citizens across our province as we look toward passage of this bill in the future.

The Deputy Speaker: This completes the time for debate on ballot item number 22.

HOME CARE

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): We will now deal with ballot item 21. Mrs Pupatello has moved private member's notice of motion

number 14. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All in favour will say "aye."

All opposed will say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members, following dealing with ballot item number 22.

HEALTH PROTECTION

AND PROMOTION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2001 /

LOI DE 2001 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LA PROTECTION ET LA PROMOTION

DE LA SANTÉ

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): Mr Dunlop has moved second reading of Bill 105. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion

carry?

All in favour will say "aye."

All opposed will say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

We will divide on this also.

Call in the members for a division on ballot item number 21.

The division bells rang from 1216 to 1221.

HOME CARE

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): All those in favour will stand and remain standing until recognized by the Clerk.

Ayes

Agostino, Dominic

Bartolucci, Rick

Bisson, Gilles

Bountrogianni, Marie

Boyer, Claudette

Bradley, James J.

Bryant, Michael

Caplan, David

Christopherson, David

Colle, Mike

Conway, Sean G.

Cordiano, Joseph

Crozier, Bruce

Di Cocco, Caroline

Dombrowsky, Leona

Duncan, Dwight

Gerretsen, John

Gravelle, Michael

Kennedy, Gerard

Kormos, Peter

Kwinter, Monte

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

Levac, David

Marchese, Rosario

Martel, Shelley

McGuinty, Dalton

McLeod, Lyn

McMeekin, Ted

Peters, Steve

Phillips, Gerry

Pupatello, Sandra

Ramsay, David

Ruprecht, Tony

Sergio, Mario

Smitherman, George

Sorbara, Greg

The Deputy Speaker: All those opposed will please stand and remain standing until they are recognized by the Clerk.

Nays

Arnott, Ted

Baird, John R.

Barrett, Toby

Beaubien, Marcel

Chudleigh, Ted

Clement, Tony

Coburn, Brian

DeFaria, Carl

Dunlop, Garfield

Ecker, Janet

Elliott, Brenda

Galt, Doug

Gilchrist, Steve

Gill, Raminder

Guzzo, Garry J.

Hodgson, Chris

Jackson, Cameron

Johns, Helen

Johnson, Bert

Klees, Frank

Marland, Margaret

Maves, Bart

Mazzilli, Frank

Miller, Norm

Molinari, Tina R.

Munro, Julia

Mushinski, Marilyn

Newman, Dan

Runciman, Robert W.

Sampson, Rob

Snobelen, John

Spina, Joseph

Sterling, Norman W.

Stewart, R. Gary

Stockwell, Chris

Tascona, Joseph N.

Tilson, David

Tsubouchi, David H.

Turnbull, David

Wettlaufer, Wayne

Wilson, Jim

Witmer, Elizabeth

Wood, Bob

Young, David

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 36; the nays are 44.

The Deputy Speaker: I declare the motion lost.

HEALTH PROTECTION

AND PROMOTION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2001 /

LOI DE 2001 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LA PROTECTION ET LA PROMOTION

DE LA SANTÉ

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): We will now open the doors for 30 seconds, and then we will have a vote on ballot item number

Mr Dunlop has moved second reading of Bill 105. All those in favour will rise and remain standing until they are recognized by the Clerk.

Ayes

Agostino, Dominic

Arnott, Ted

Baird, John R.

Barrett, Toby

Bartolucci, Rick

Beaubien, Marcel

Bisson, Gilles

Bountrogianni, Marie

Boyer, Claudette

Bradley, James J.

Bryant, Michael

Caplan, David

Christopherson, David

Chudleigh, Ted

Clement, Tony

Coburn, Brian

Colle, Mike

Conway, Sean G.

Cordiano, Joseph

Crozier, Bruce

DeFaria, Carl

Di Cocco, Caroline

Dombrowsky, Leona

Duncan, Dwight

Dunlop, Garfield

Ecker, Janet

Elliott, Brenda

Galt, Doug

Gerretsen, John

Gilchrist, Steve

Gill, Raminder

Gravelle, Michael

Guzzo, Garry J.

Hodgson, Chris

Jackson, Cameron

Johns, Helen

Johnson, Bert

Kennedy, Gerard

Klees, Frank

Kormos, Peter

Kwinter, Monte

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

Levac, David

Marchese, Rosario

Marland, Margaret

Martel, Shelley

Maves, Bart

Mazzilli, Frank

McGuinty, Dalton

McLeod, Lyn

McMeekin, Ted

Miller, Norm

Molinari, Tina R.

Munro, Julia

Mushinski, Marilyn

Newman, Dan

Peters, Steve

Phillips, Gerry

Pupatello, Sandra

Ramsay, David

Runciman, Robert W.

Ruprecht, Tony

Sampson, Rob

Sergio, Mario

Smitherman, George

Sorbara, Greg

Spina, Joseph

Stewart, R. Gary

Stockwell, Chris

Tascona, Joseph N.

Tilson, David

Tsubouchi, David H.

Turnbull, David

Wettlaufer, Wayne

Wilson, Jim

Witmer, Elizabeth

Wood, Bob

Young, David

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 78; the nays are zero.

The Deputy Speaker: I declare the motion passed.

Pursuant to standing order 96, this bill will be referred to committee of the whole House.

Mr Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North): Mr Speaker, could I have the bill referred to the justice and social policy committee?

The Deputy Speaker: Mr Dunlop has requested that the bill be referred to the standing committee on justice and social policy. Agreed?

Agreed.

All matters relating to private members' public business now being complete, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock.

The House recessed from 1228 to 1330.

THANKSGIVING

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): On a point or order, Mr Speaker: As we all know, this is Thanksgiving weekend and I know you and all the members

of the House, along with the public servants who serve this chamber, will be giving thanks for the enormous bounty of gifts we have in the province of Ontario. This weekend I will be giving thanks

for a beautiful gift. She's an 84-year-old senior. Her name is Mary. She's my mother. She's celebrating her birthday today. Happy birthday, mom.

The Speaker (Hon Gary Carr): I thank the member. We join in the sentiments about Thanksgiving to all of the staff who work here and to all the

people in this province, and also to Mrs Bartolucci, who I know watches each day. Happy birthday to you from all of the members here in the chamber.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

ANIMAL PROTECTION

Mr Mike Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence): Buon compleanno, Mrs Bartolucci.

I rise to speak about a deplorable practice in this province, and that is the practice of puppy mill operations. Puppy mills are breeding operations where dogs

and other companion animals are abused and bred in unsanitary, inhumane conditions. The health and welfare of these poor companion animals are disregarded for profit and greed.

This practice was brought to light recently by the abominable discovery of a notorious inhumane breeder operating in Vaughan and Fenelon Falls. This puppy mill

operator has been operating with impunity for over 35 years in this province. Unfortunately, pet mills can be found all over Ontario. The SPCA estimates there are over 400 of them operating as we

speak today.

There is a large gap in provincial legislation, and penalties for inhumane animal breeders are basically non-existent. However, the Ontario government can do

more. Right now, anybody in this province can claim to be a breeder or operate a kennel without any regulation.

I have introduced a bill to ban puppy mills and get tough on these bandits. These poor animals cannot defend themselves or speak for themselves. On behalf of

the animals that are abused and the owners who want to protect them and want good animal treatment, we should pass tough legislation in this province to put these damn bandits out of business.

EYE CENTRE

Mr John O'Toole (Durham): I rise in the House today to speak with respect to the opening of the eye centre at Lakeridge Health Bowmanville.

Last Thursday, September 27, the hospital officially opened its new state-of-the-art surgical suite for cataract surgery. Most of us recall that cataract used to be treated with a

two-and-a-half-hour operation and a hospital stay of up to 10 days. Today, modern surgical techniques require only 15 to 30 minutes under local anaesthetic.

Lakeridge Health estimates that 5,000 intraocular lens procedures will be performed at Bowmanville hospital during the 2001-02 fiscal year.

I'd like to recognize Judy Spring, chair of the Lakeridge Health board of trustees, Brian Lemon, chief executive officer of Lakeridge Health Corp, and Chris

Kooy, chief operating officer for Lakeridge Health Bowmanville. They were the hosts of the official opening of the eye centre. I'd also like to pay tribute to the talented surgeons and their staff

who have made Lakeridge Health Bowmanville a critical regional centre for eye care.

This facility not only serves the people who live in Durham, but also receives referrals from neighbouring communities. At last week's opening, Dr Athey Ro, an

ophthalmologist, discussed what the eye centre means for the physicians, staff and, most importantly, pa