ORDERS OF THE DAY
EDUCATION STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT
(LEARNING TO AGE 18), 2006 /
LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT DES LOIS
EN CE QUI CONCERNE L'ÉDUCATION
(APPRENTISSAGE JUSQU'À L'ÂGE
DE 18 ANS)
Resuming the debate adjourned on June 13, 2006, on the motion for second reading of Bill 52, An Act to amend the Education Act respecting pupil learning to the age of 18 and equivalent learning and to make complementary amendments to the Highway Traffic Act / Projet de loi 52, Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation concernant l'apprentissage des élèves jusqu'à l'âge de 18 ans et l'apprentissage équivalent et apportant des modifications complémentaires au Code de la route.
Bill 52 is a bill that I feel in its general sense has good intentions, but it's an administrative thing. Some of the education experts and professionals I've spoken to in my riding believe that there may be some implementation problems, and I will attribute those names. But for the viewer today, Bill 52 was introduced by then-Minister of Education Gerard Kennedy on December 13, 2005. We're getting close to the end of this session, and I think it indicates that the House leaders as well as the McGuinty government just aren't sure what to do with this bill.
That leads me to bring forward a few ideas or concerns that need to be addressed. For the viewer, it's An Act to amend the Education Act respecting pupil learning to the age of 18 and equivalent learning and to make complementary amendments to the Highway Traffic Act. That's quite a unique combination -- the Highway Traffic Act as part of an amendment to accommodate education reform -- but that says a lot about this bill and its approach, trying to force children to stay in school. That means first admitting that the current traditional school system doesn't meet the needs -- some would use the word "failed" -- of some students in the public education system. That's a very strong and important admission.
I had the privilege recently to speak to the new incoming, now installed, president of Durham College, part of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, a great leader. In fact, she was very involved in the Rae report on post-secondary reform. She's now the new president of Durham College. In speaking to her, they're quite willing and ready to play a role in providing this badly needed service of a formal education process for staying in school to 18. The problem, as I understand it, is that the money flows with the student, and if it's an elementary or secondary student we're talking about, the money flows through the school board. As such, the money would have to be transferred, as allocated -- the per pupil grant and other grants that go with that student -- to the college or university. The grants for the secondary student are lower than the grants to a post-secondary student, that is, a student in the college or university system, the provincial grant that's following them. So they need to iron out some of those transitions to make the appropriate learning spaces.
I look at some of the successes in our colleges and other places -- alternative learning -- for students who may not be enthusiastic about the traditional secondary school learning environment and who need the stimulus of alternative choices.
It comes to mind that if I look at the skills training centre, part of Durham College at Whitby, the program I have witnessed to be very successful there is what is referred to as the Ontario youth apprenticeship program, OYAP. I was there at the first graduating class, and then-Minister of Education John Snobelen, who is himself an interesting fellow. In that graduation of the Ontario youth apprenticeship program were high school students who were actually getting credits attending a college-type environment. I think that's a good illustration of what can happen if you allow imagination and innovation to prevail, providing these opportunities for students.
But it fails to address some of the issues as well, and these need to be put on the record. I think of the bureaucracy that under a Liberal government could be created for the attendance monitors and the bureaucrats that might be highly paid people monitoring this keeping of the kids in schools. I wonder how the Toronto board of education would deal with this. It would probably hire another superintendent at $130,000 or $150,000 a year to look after several people who would be doing this program, taking more money out of the students' pockets, so to speak.
It is going to burden employers who may find that they have inadvertently broken the rules by giving a part-time job to a young person. How sad; bureaucracy run amok. The learning-to-age-18 law doesn't recognize that there are many exceptional reasons why young people are not in school even though they are under 18.
For example, they may need to be at the family farm or the family business at certain times. I think these are personal decisions. We have to remember that, to be fair, 18-year-olds are able to make other decisions sometimes, their families are working with them on careers and career choices -- time-outs, if you will -- if things aren't going that well at home or in other situations. They may be facing illness; they may have an injury from an accident or other emotional situations that could be affecting their ability to attend school. We can't micromanage people's lives.
As I said initially, I would not find fault with the intent, being the parent of five children, all of whom are certainly over 18; I dare not say how old because it will disclose how old I am, which might date me.
They may have completed their first steps of home-schooling, independent study, using mentorship activities to write a correspondence type of program. At the same time, they may need to have access to a car and, not being in school, a licence to drive to get to some of these other alternatives, certainly in my riding of Durham and in other parts of Ontario.
It seems to me that this was written by some kind of bureaucrat of a nanny state who lives in an urban area. Those who write this stuff must all live in Toronto. They have no idea what's happening in northern and rural Ontario, and that disappoints me. They think that one size fits all. As I said, it's well intended, but the administrivia part of it leaves me somewhat wondering. The bill does not recognize the fact that travelling by car is necessary in rural and northern communities, and, as I have said, the one-size-fits-all mentality is rampant throughout the bill. There will be an attendance and enforcement bureaucracy, as I have said, and we're not sure of the cost of that.
I would like to pay tribute to the hard work of the boards in my riding, especially at this time as they're doing their final report cards as well as winding up the school year. At the top of that list, of course, would be my wife, Peggy. My wife, Peggy, and I were at her retirement dinner, in fact, this past Friday. The Ontario English Catholic separate school trustees' association, or the separate school --
I'd also like to pay tribute to the work done by the trustees in my area: Nancy Coffin and Cathy Abraham, trustees with the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board; and George Ashe and Granville Anderson, trustees with the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board. As some may recall, George Ashe himself was a former cabinet minister who served in this very Legislature, representing the riding of Durham West from 1977 to 1987. I'd also like to thank Joe Corey and Frederick Jones of the city of Oshawa and Kathy LeFort from the townships of Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge, who serve on the Catholic district school board of Durham; Steve Martin, who's the trustee from the Scugog district school board; and, as I said, many of the teachers that are retiring this year and moving on to careers in volunteerism, for instance, and other alternatives.
At the end of the day, this Bill 52 is about students. To some extent, it fails to recognize that and tries to force this one-size-fits-all on some students. I'd be happy to look at some of the innovative approaches of independent learning, career learning, skills learning. That's the future. There's more to be done on this bill, and that's why I feel that Bill 52, in its currently drafted format, fails to make the grade.
This government is going to have to force this bill through, as far as I'm concerned, because it just doesn't give the boards and the post-secondary facilities the resources they need -- and the private sector could provide some of the skills training. That private sector could be the unions, which have training facilities that are able to provide skilled trades, whether it's electricians, plumbers, pipefitters or workers in the energy sector, which is one of the shortage sectors. So maybe there's not enough direction in this bill.
Certainly the punitive action of suspending licences for children not in attendance at school sets the wrong tone completely, so for that reason, if nothing else, I'll have some difficulty trying to support this bill when I think of the great work done in my riding of Durham by the people I've mentioned here today, especially my wife, Peggy, who is retiring as of next Friday, I believe. Anyway, with that --
Ontario's employers know that tomorrow's employees have to keep pace with the field that they are in, be it in construction or in academia. Whether they work with their minds or with their hands, in tomorrow's world, learning is everything. The best time to learn how to learn, the best time to absorb the good habits that make up lifelong learning, is when you're young. That's why this bill says you've got to keep learning until you are 18.
But learning doesn't mean sitting in high school. Learning doesn't necessarily mean sitting in a classroom. Learning is synonymous with such things as private sector initiatives, such as apprenticeships, such as training courses, things that could be provided in a number of non-traditional settings. Bill 52 recognizes that one size doesn't fit all. That's why it gives students so much choice in the manner in which they continue to learn.
One last point that the member brought up had to do with whether or not the suspension of drivers' licences for students who wouldn't learn was effective. It already works in Massachusetts, which is one of the best of the jurisdictions for learning in North America. It already works in California and, for heaven's sake, it also works in Tennessee and West Virginia. This is a bill that takes some of the best practices accumulated in education across North America and brings them home to Ontario. It's a good idea.
You can't force a person to learn. Keeping them in school is one thing, but one has to look at the effect on the other students. There are many students, the vast majority, who are there with an urgency to learn, to fulfill their curiosity in life. If there are those, however, who are there on the basis of force, in effect, because if they don't show up they can't drive an automobile and are subject to fines, what type of effect will they have on the learning environment in a classroom? I think it will be disastrous.
On that basis, I am always concerned with the unintended consequences of legislation that superficially seems to accomplish its goals. Its aims are laudable. As I said, I have no complaint. I would like our children to go, not to 18, to any age to fulfill their total potential. But I am concerned about the ill effect on the learning atmosphere in classrooms.
Anyway, I want to comment on the speech from the member of Durham to say I fundamentally disagree with what he said. However, having said that, I want to outline a few of the reasons I disagree. It is very, very important that we learn to 18. In fact it's very, very important that we believe in lifelong learning. Lifelong learning maximizes opportunity and does everything possible to ensure that we always get the best out of our society.
I want to talk about learning to 18 for a second because I want to use a couple of examples. Learning to 18 doesn't mean that it has to be traditional learning. Learning to 18 can mean that we have varying circumstances when and how students can learn.
I want to highlight the example I saw just recently. It is a partnership between Confederation College, Weyerhaeuser and the union. What they're doing is skills development. It isn't clearly skills development to age 18 and beyond, but what it does is maximize potential, and this is what this bill does. We all know in this House -- every one of us agrees that each individual is an island unto himself or herself and that from that individual we can maximize the potential of the province of Ontario and the country of Canada.
In conclusion, I want to ask the member to convey my regards to his wife, Peggy, on her retirement. Peggy has been a long-time teacher. She was a very effective teacher, no doubt. We wish her a very happy and healthy retirement.
In fact, we started out by saying that on this file, learning to 18 -- we do live in a knowledge-based economy. As such, there's an important signal to be sent to young people that knowledge is going to be an important requirement -- skills specifically -- in an economy that's digital, wired and information-based, and exponentially growing so that you're going to have to keep track. Literacy and numeracy have been a focus of many governments ever since the Royal Commission on Learning. I suppose that was the fundamental of making sure that people have certain standards, and educators -- even the curriculum rewrites and reviews, which should be an ongoing thing because of changing information, changing knowledge.
What tools can be used both in the classroom and in a testing mode? How do we prepare people for the new worlds of work, and relationships and expectations in the world of work?
This bill sends a correct signal, but it doesn't provide the appropriate framework. As I said, it starts with that punitive thing. If you're not conforming, you're going to lose your licence. Well, that doesn't address the needs of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke or Brockville or Bowmanville or Clarington. To me, I think that's what's missing.
I would only say that it also needs to make sure that home-based schooling, alternative parent choice models are fully integrated into the Minister of Education's plans for the future. One size does not fit all. This bill certainly doesn't go in the right direction.
It's my pleasure to speak to Bill 52 today. My objections are exactly the same objections that were raised by my colleague from Durham and other members of our caucus. We object to the notion that in the province of Ontario in 2006, the McGuinty government seems to feel that it is not only their privilege but their duty to somehow engage in social engineering to the nth degree. So they brought in this law that they're going to keep you in school, by law, until you're 18 years of age or else you're going to pay the price, such as not being able to get a driver's licence or losing the driver's licence you already have. And if an employer offers you employment, they're in trouble too.
Again, being very repetitive -- maybe I could get a cup of water there, please; thank you very much -- we all agree, without any hesitation, without any reservation, that you're going to be far better off if you stay in school longer, as opposed to leaving school earlier. There's no question of that. You're going to be a lot better off if you drive safely. You're going to be a lot better off if you don't drink excessively. You're going to be better off if you don't smoke. You're going to be better off if you exercise and stay in good physical shape, because a strong body means a strong mind. But if you don't exercise, we will not take away your driver's licence. Even though, if you become unhealthy due to lack of activity, you could be a drain on our health system, we're not taking away your driver's licence if you make that choice because -- do you know what? -- this is Ontario, and you have a choice.
I guess the big concern is: What does this government really expect to achieve by that? They talk about massive changes and massive improvements. The record in the province of New Brunswick would indicate otherwise. They brought in mandatory staying until age 18 some five years ago or so, and they've seen no improvement with regard to the dropout rate in New Brunswick because it's not enforced. In 20-some states, or a large number of states that have laws to that effect, they have seen an increase in the length of time that people stay in school of about six weeks -- not two years; six weeks.
Given the fact that this government has brought in all kinds of laws such as pit bull legislation and all kinds of ideas like that but they haven't put any money on the table to ensure that they're enforced, I think we can expect that the same thing would apply to this law. However, in those rare cases that they do enforce it, it will be discriminatory at best, because it will not be level and it will not be even. So someone will pay the price. Someone will lose a driver's licence and it'll be hailed as some kind of a great example of McGuinty's social engineering and how we've got teeth in our law. But for the most part, it won't happen.
Why it should not happen is because we do have choices. There are some people, particularly in rural areas like where I live -- those choices they make: They don't intend to go to university; they don't intend to head to the city to get a high-paying job. They like that rural way of life. They're going to stay there, and they want the simple, uncomplicated life that their parents led, that they may choose to lead as well. I'm not suggesting that they're going to be as economically advantaged as they might otherwise be, but that is their choice. If they're content to live a frugal life and they feel that they can provide that with the employment that they can get prior to the age of 18, then it is their decision to make that choice. I wouldn't agree with it, I wouldn't be making that choice, and I can assure you that my children won't be making that choice. However, my children won't be making that choice because I dictate to them; my children won't be making that choice, because they've come to the conclusion that an education, for them, is important. They know that their lives will be better the longer they stay in school and keep learning prior to making that final decision as to what kind of career choice they're going to make.
Again, it comes down to the fact that that will be their choice, and they will make that choice. We've already had many discussions with them about what some of their choices might be, and they've clearly indicated they will not be dropping out of school prior to graduation.
I'm just reading an editorial about this law in the Globe and Mail. It basically says that the Premier is engaging in his usual antics of social engineering, which he loves to do. He kind of has this idea that he can basically do the thinking for people in the province of Ontario. He's done a great job of it: He thought he could shut down coal plants in 2007. As a matter of fact, he promised to, unequivocally. He said he would do it by 2007, and then he was clearly shown that he was wrong on that. He won't admit he was wrong on that; he's got a whole new spin. The political spinmeisters have been working overtime trying to salvage the energy minister, who is treading water; the environment minister, who is sinking like a stone; and the Premier himself, who has decided he's simply going to put his head in the sand and hide behind barricades. But their day of reckoning will come as well; no question of that.
A driver's licence is something you earn by showing that you are qualified. You have done the necessary training, passed the necessary tests and indicated to those who are qualified to make the determination that you are fit to drive on the highways of Ontario. The way you should lose that driver's licence is if you have shown, by the practices you have chosen to engage in while driving or as a driver, that you no longer have the right or no longer should have the privilege of driving in the province of Ontario because you no longer qualify under the required terms in order to have a driver's licence. That should be the sole determinant of whether or not you are licensed to drive in the province of Ontario, not whether you're in school.
The McGuinty government talks about some fluffy, very non-detailed things about what they're going to provide or what options you might have, but they're just "mays" and "maybes." There's nothing definitive there at all. If people are going to be faced with huge fines, employers with huge fines, parents with fines, children with losing their driver's licence, which they worked so hard to get, and earned by being safe on the roads and practising safe driving methods -- that they should lose that because they don't fit the McGuinty mould of the new Aryan race in Ontario with regard to the social engineering they would like to fit everybody into is, I think, absolutely unfair and wrong.
If you look at the bulk of those who drop out of school, they are people who come from households that face profound social or economic problems. These kids don't need to be punished to keep them in school. What they need from the beginning is support for their social lives, for their family lives, so that they have the family resources, the personal resources to stay, to be interested, to have a clear sense of the course of their lives. This bill will not address that.
Recently, I've had to talk to people in my riding who run parent-child centres. They are starving for funds. Parents come to those centres desperate for the kinds of supports that they can give their children, that those centres can give their families, and those centres cannot provide enough support to people. Quite literally, people are running down the street to get to centres before they get filled up. This bill will not correct the fundamental problems we face.
For the member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke to talk about this bill and make a comparison to the Aryan race is a low blow. To think of the worst part of the connotation of that word from a country, Germany, from 1933 to 1945 is one of the lowest comments that I've heard in my two and a half, almost three, years of being in this place. It's absolutely wrong to make that comparison with this particular bill. It's out of character, out of touch and totally unnecessary in this chamber.
When you look at the components of Bill 52 -- the opportunity to develop a program to keep those kids in a structured setting to acquire those skills to be able to compete -- I think that is very important. My wife is a teacher and she knows that there are some students who don't really prosper within the fixed academic environment and they're looking to an alternative -- skills training, an opportunity to learn outside that structured environment -- and that's what Bill 52 is all about. I'm very pleased to be able to support it. It's a good step forward, and I think those kids will benefit from the opportunity with an alternative learning program.
One part of the bill that I failed to address -- another issue as to why the government shouldn't have this provision in the bill in the first place -- clearly indicates what confidence they lack in the programs they institute in our schools. If you really, truly have confidence that what you're offering students in our schools today is positive, interesting and exciting, then you're not going to have the issue of people dropping out of school.
But this government's only action, instead of ensuring that the environment, the curriculum and everything associated with a student's education in Ontario today has the essential components of interest, excitement and enticement, was to make the choice: "Do you know what? That's too challenging for us. We're not going to worry about that kind of stuff. We're going to make it the law that you stay here in school until you're 18 years of age or we're taking away your driver's licence. You don't learn" -- believe me, there are places to learn other than school -- "if you're not here in school; you don't drive." That's the rule of the McGuinty Liberals in Ontario. It's clearly wrong. It's clearly punitive. It is social engineering. Whether the member for Peterborough likes my particular reference or not, it is still social engineering and they should be ashamed of it.
I want to mention one of the contributions we've made to this process as an opposition party, which is our insistence that the bill go out for public hearings this summer. We also requested that it go into smaller communities in the province, and that has been agreed to by all three House leaders. The communities have not yet been selected. All parties will have an opportunity to participate in that selection, but it will be in smaller communities. I'm not sure how we define that. I guess that's a discussion that will take place at the subcommittee level, but we feel it's critically important because that's where so many concerns surrounding this legislation are coming from.
I've been sitting down over the past few weeks with representatives of home schooling groups in my riding who have, I think, very significant concerns about the failure to reference home schoolers in this legislation. I know that a lot of people are, shall we say, educrats, who look down on home schooling and don't think it's an appropriate education for many young people. I can only say that the young people I've observed who have gone through home schooling, including my brother's children, have done extremely well. My brother's daughter is entering college this fall. Their son is in second year of university and hopes to go to into engineering at Waterloo when he graduates from the university or college he's attending in the United States right now.
I think they have very valid concerns that they're getting quality education in many of these situations, and there's no recognition of that in this legislation. They have valid concerns about the whole issue of compliance. The board of education is being granted compliance, and we know that boards of education are competing for students now, especially in the public system but also in the separate system. Private schools as well are competing for those students. We see occupancy levels in schools dropping; there's pressure on to close schools. I think there's a valid concern about the objectivity of boards of education having this responsibility to ensure compliance. Also, by failing to recognize compliance, they have the power ultimately, I guess, to deny the driver's licence to that individual.
Again, I think this is all reflective of the lack of consultation and consideration of small-town rural Ontario by the McGuinty Liberal government, and we've seen it time and time again. I've raised it in this House, others have as well, the failure of their members who represent small-town rural Ontario to speak up on behalf of their constituents. I predict that's going to come back to bite them a year from now when we go to the polls.
They are doing the "Yes, ma'am," "No, ma'am," routine here, under the direction of the spinmeisters in the Premier's office who wouldn't know rural Ontario from a cabbage. They've lived in Toronto all of their lives. We see this cabinet dominated by members from the city of Toronto -- almost half of the cabinet representing one urban area in the province of Ontario. These are voices who, instead of doing the role they were elected to do, representing the folks who vote for them, who put the money in the bank for their paycheques, are getting direction from the folks sitting under the Speaker's gallery to "Stand up now when we tell you. Sit down now when we tell you, " with scripts to read, with the lob ball questions that we see in here.
I know many of the people over there are very, very good people. They're very, very competent people, qualified people who've had significant experience before they came. Here they have to get up, forced by the Premier's office to get up and give these prepared speeches or ask these prepared questions which have been produced by the minister's office --
Rural Ontario: If you're representing rural Ontario, you have to be concerned about these restrictions. Someone who is missing school may have very valid reasons that they want to have a part-time job and are not getting to as much school as they may have. This is part and parcel of the history of rural Ontario. What you're going to do is take away the driver's licence from that individual in the family, and that may be critically important in terms of maintaining the economic well-being of that family. There may be health challenges within that family in rural Ontario, and they are no longer going to have a licensed driver, perhaps. That's one possibility, a spectre that has to be raised as a real possibility. There's no consideration for that sort of thing.
The other element of this is fining an employer who hires someone who has dropped out of school or is missing school at a level that has upset someone in the board of education. That employer, believe it or not, could be fined $1,000 by this government. This is the sort of heavy-handed approach we expect from this Liberal government. We've seen their foot soldiers going out and pouring bleach on egg salad sandwiches, threatening to close down farmers' markets, threatening to close down church dinners. This is the mindset of Liberal McGuinty Ontario. They do not have any understanding and respect for the traditions, the history, the culture of rural small-town Ontario. That's the reality.
I'm actually not going to speak directly on the bill. I'm going to take this opportunity, in these two minutes, to thank the legislative interns. Today is their last day. I was very fortunate to have one of them, Jon Feairs, in my employ for the last session or portion of this session. What a tremendous benefit that was to me, and I'm going to say, what a great program. I can only speak directly about Jon, but I want to name them all here: Jon Feairs, Jacqueline Locke, Meghan Warby, Brian Wettlaufer, Dan O'Brien, Ana Curic, Nicole Goodman and Marc Peverini. All eight of them -- absolutely fantastic. I had a chance to meet them all. I had a chance to talk to them all on different occasions. What a tremendous program, and what a great group of young people we had here this past session.
As I said, today is their last day. They're going to London. They're going to be taking in some sessions at the House of Commons in England, and I think that's going to be a tremendous experience for them.
As a first-timer when it comes to having derived the privilege and the benefits of having one of these interns work in our offices, I just want to give my unequivocal endorsement of this program for the Legislature here in Ontario, and continue to support it and thank each and every one of the sponsors -- there are too many to name here -- who ensure that this program continues to operate here. I tell you, it's a fantastic program. Every one of the people in this Legislature who have not sought an intern in the past, I encourage them to do so when the next group comes to the Legislature. You will not be disappointed. They're a tremendous group of people -- a tremendous program.
Further questions and comments? Seeing none, the member from Leeds-Grenville.
They've also had a very different attitude with respect to young offenders. We're seeing police now who are instructed with a pre-charge diversion. We had a situation, I was told, where a police officer chased a 15-year-old who had stolen a car. They caught him 35 minutes later, and his penalty for that was a warning letter.
Fifty per cent of the young offender beds in this province are now empty, and youth crime is not being reported. That seems to always get the member from Ottawa Centre perturbed. The facts are something quite different from what he tries to put on the record on a regular basis.
I put my views in place earlier with respect to this legislation. I think it's wrong-headed. I think it impacts negatively on rural and small-town Ontario, but that is becoming a trademark feature of this Liberal McGuinty government. They're simply not paying attention. They are in many respects ignoring rural and small-town Ontario. The backbenchers who represent that part of the province are simply not doing their job, not standing up and fighting for the people who put them in this place in the first instance. I think that's being recognized throughout the province and will be acknowledged come October 2007.
Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I definitely heard some noes.
All those in favour will please say "aye."
All those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion, the ayes have it.
There being more than five members, call in the members. There will be a 30-minute bell.
I believe I see the deputy whip approaching. I have here from the deputy whip:
June 21, 2006, to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly:
"Pursuant to standing order 28(h), I request that the vote on the motion by Minister Pupatello for the second reading of Bill 52, An Act to amend the Education Act respecting pupil learning to the age of 18 and equivalent learning and to make complementary amendments to the Highway Traffic Act, be deferred until deferred votes, Thursday, June 22, 2006."
It is signed by Dave Levac, MPP, chief government whip.
That vote will be deferred until tomorrow.
INCOME TAX AMENDMENT ACT
(ONTARIO HOME ELECTRICITY
RELIEF), 2006 /
LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT LA LOI DE
L'IMPÔT SUR LE REVENU (AIDE AU
TITRE DES FACTURES D'ÉLECTRICITÉ
RÉSIDENTIELLE DE L'ONTARIO)
Resuming the debate adjourned on June 20, 2006, on the motion for third reading of Bill 117, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act to provide for an Ontario home electricity payment / Projet de loi 117, Loi modifiant la Loi de l'impôt sur le revenu pour prévoir un paiement au titre des factures d'électricité résidentielle de l'Ontario.
As we all know, the McGuinty government has increased hydro rates for residential consumers by close to 55%. This is after Dalton McGuinty promised to freeze hydro rates. For many people, this has created real financial hardship, and not only that, but when you add up the increase in the hydro rate, plus the increase in transmission rates, plus the increase in distribution rates, plus the debt retirement charge -- the debt retirement charge is the cost of paying for those nuclear plants that, even though they were built 30 years ago, haven't been paid for yet -- and then you add on the GST and the PST, what most people have discovered is that their hydro bill has actually doubled from what it was a few years ago.
So for many people who may have had a hydro bill of $80 a month, they're now seeing a hydro bill of $160 a month. On an annual basis, $80 a month times 12 months is $960 a year coming out of people's pockets. At the same time that people have seen their hydro bill go through the roof, their incomes have not increased. Somebody who's trying to make do on social assistance has not had a $960 increase in their ODSP cheque. Similarly, somebody who's working for minimum wage has not seen a $960 increase in their paycheque on an annual basis either.
Keep in mind, it's not just hydro rates that have accelerated through the roof under the McGuinty government. If you live in a city like Toronto and you're trying to use the transit system, transit fares have gone up. Heating: The cost of heating oil or natural gas has gone through the roof, and so have a lot of other fees.
So somebody who's trying to live on a modest income or a low income or fixed-income seniors who are trying to live on a pension have seen their hydro bills escalate through the roof, and many people simply can't afford to pay. We know this by the unprecedented number of people who are having their hydroelectricity disconnected. Just today, we had a number of people here from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation. First Nation communities are seeing a raft of disconnections of people from their hydroelectricity because they simply cannot afford to pay these drastic increases in their hydro bill.
The McGuinty government, because they recognize they're in trouble on this front, has proposed -- get this -- a $60 rebate: not $60 a month, but $60 for the whole year. You'd only get that $60 if your income is less than $14,000 a year. In other words, if you're living below the poverty line -- and $14,000 a year for an individual person is certainly below the poverty line -- the McGuinty government says that you'll get a $60 rebate for the whole year.
What I want people at home to know is that New Democrats, when this went to committee, proposed that this rebate be doubled to $120; the least we thought we could do would be to double it to $120. So we proposed doubling it from $60 a year to $120 a year. What I want people at home to know is that the members of the McGuinty Liberal government voted against that. A McGuinty government that has increased residential hydro rates by 55%, a McGuinty government that has doubled people's hydro bills, a McGuinty government that is probably hitting low- and modest-income people and seniors living on fixed incomes for an extra $1,000 a year on their hydro bill, voted against a hydro rebate of only $120 a year. I want people to know that so that the next time they hear Premier McGuinty giving one of his speeches filled with platitudes about how much he cares about low-income people and how much he feels the pain of people who are struggling on modest incomes, they know that members of the McGuinty government voted against a hydro rebate of just $120 a year for low- and modest- and fixed-income people. For that, I say, shame; shame on members of the McGuinty government -- the same members of the McGuinty government who've given the chief executive officer of Hydro One a half-million-dollar pay increase this year alone.
I just want people to know that. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill.
Anyone who gets a hydro bill will see on that bill a line for debt charges -- I've been talking to people; it's $10 or $12 a month. "Debt charges" is a very neutral and friendly euphemism. What this is is a dead reactor tax. This is a charge for nuclear reactors that wore out at 25 years, not at 40 years as was promised. In fact, people are paying, in that dead reactor tax, an amount far beyond the amount they're getting back in this rebate, and they're going to continue to get soaked for the dead reactor tax for many, many years to come, because we're talking about $19 billion to $20 billion. Having seen that, this government is embarking on yet another nuclear adventure that is guaranteed to destabilize electricity prices in this province.
The other thing is that this could have been accomplished a lot better through tax relief for people and individuals, not the politicization of an energy rebate. It also could have been a credit on their hydro bills. But no, the McGuinty Liberals are going to make sure they get as much political mileage out of this as possible. They want to make sure they send those low-income people a cheque; small as it may be, they want to send them a cheque. But the irony of it is that if your income as a family of six is $34,000, the cheque is going to be $10. It's going to cost the civil service and the taxpayers of this province a lot more to write that cheque than the cheque is going to be worth. This is politicking.
We agree that the people need a rebate. They need help from this government, which has foisted on them the highest and greatest tax increases in the history of this province. Yes, they need help, but this is politicking. This is not the way it should be done. Tax relief for the people is what should have been done.
I think my Conservative colleague has hit it: This is the McGuinty government mailing out a cheque in the 12 months before an election. This is what they used to call, in the good old days, a little bit of vote buying, or an attempt at vote buying. But let me tell you, those same lower-income folkss who might get that $10 cheque from the McGuinty government are not going to forget that it's the McGuinty government who whacked them with a most regressive and unfair health tax, a health tax that increases the provincial income tax. A single mom who's got an income of, say, $26,000 a year, the McGuinty government increased her provincial income taxes by 25%. Imagine, somebody who is struggling on a very low income, the McGuinty government has increased their income taxes by 25%. Now the McGuinty government thinks that if they send this person a $5 cheque in the mail in the 12-month run-up to the election, they can be bought. It's not going to happen.
However, since it is called an electricity rebate bill, I do want to talk about the policies of this government that are impoverishing these low-income families, that are making their situation far more difficult than it should be, because this government is pursuing a reckless, high-cost strategy for electricity that causes hardship for these families and I think will cause profound hardship to the economy of this province.
If you look at the strategy before us, the reality is that the heart of the strategy is nuclear power. Those people who are going to get this cheque, as I said in my comments, are probably already paying more than the value of the cheque in what is euphemistically called a debt service charge or debt retirement charge. More accurately, it's a dead nuclear reactor charge. I've talked to a number of people. Their charge comes to about $10 to $12 a month. Let's assume that people who have incomes of less than $14,000 a year are using so little electricity that their charge is actually five bucks a month. So, in one year, the maximum rebate from this program will have been eaten up by this dead reactor tax.
What this whole rephrasing of the nuclear debt allows nuclear salesmen to do is come in and say, "Well, our power is cheap, the cost is stable. You make that large capital investment upfront and then, over time, you've got very well-priced power." But the reality is that this province is stuck with a charge of somewhere in the $18-billion to $20-billion range for nuclear power plants that died before their time. When these plants were brought forward, their predicted lifespan was 40 years. All of the calculations around the charge for electricity, around the amount of money to be set aside for waste, were based on that 40-year life span, but the reality is they only lasted 25 years. So the $20-billion charge that everyone in this Legislature and everyone in this province, every little business, every manufacturer is carrying -- they're paying for the profound nuclear mistakes made in this province. And we are about to launch ourselves again into another nuclear adventure. We're going to throw the dice and hope that this time the dice will come up the right way, that we won't get burned. Frankly, I don't see how you can, in conscience, do that.
It's no surprise to me that the Minister of the Environment exempted this project, what the Premier calls a plan, from the Environmental Assessment Act. How would it stand up to scrutiny? How would it stand up to witnesses appearing before a panel charged to find the best course of action for this province? We know it wouldn't stand up. It would be torn apart. The numbers would be presented, the analysis would be put forward, and any fair-minded panel looking at the evidence would have to conclude that a nuclear adventure for Ontario, round two, could only result in very high cost for very poor service.
Instead of a full provincial environmental assessment to allow public scrutiny, what we get instead is a $60 rebate. I don't think that's a very good deal. I don't think that's a good deal for the people of Ontario. It's certainly not a good deal for the people with low incomes who are paying money now for electrical heating in their homes, who are paying for electric-fired hot water. What they're getting is the shaft, and this rebate is not going to help them the way they need to be helped.
When we think about nuclear power, we think about these concrete costs that are already embodied in the charge we get on our bills, and we think about this dead nuclear reactor tax that's tacked on to the bills, but there are other costs, liabilities that this province has assumed, that will or may show up on people's tax bills at a later date.
Risk and liability: In Canada, there is an act that caps liability for nuclear accidents, and they're capped at $75 million. So if you have a nuclear reactor that blows out -- let's say there's no explosion, but a major accident that causes release of radioactivity -- the cap of liability for the operator is $75 million while the reactor itself is probably going to be in the $500 million to $1 billion range, likely higher. The insurance is far smaller than the value of the asset itself.
Look at the United States. They have to cap the liability for reactor accidents as well, but their cap is set at $13 billion. That's beginning to approach the scale, the scope of costs if you had a major nuclear accident in North America. The liability here, the cap, is $75 million. So who gets to pick up the tab? If you're watching this show now and you live in Ontario or you have a business in Ontario, if you run a school in Ontario, you will know that the taxpayer will pick up the tab.
We're essentially providing free insurance to the nuclear industry. We're not charging them, but we're on the hook. If things go wrong, it's going to come back on us. People will say, "We, the people, own the nuclear power plants. It makes sense that we self-finance." I'm not aware of a fund out there that's building up to deal with such an accident, but I do know that private companies that go into the nuclear field want to be covered by that cap. When Bruce nuclear was privatized, when British nuclear came in, when private financiers came in, one of the things they did was to go to Ottawa to make sure that the legislation that covered the liability cap extended to all of those who had a hand in that plan, so that if you were a major bank in this country, you didn't have to worry that you were going to blow your brains out and go bankrupt should there be a major nuclear accident. Many people have said to me, "We don't have accidents with Candu reactors. We can't. They're wonderful." I would say to you that people who loan billions of dollars don't assume that these plants are error-proof, they don't assume that they're accident-proof; they very prudently think about their shareholders, they very prudently think about the financial stability of their companies and, believe me, they act to make sure they are covered. They act to make sure that they have that umbrella of liability coverage over top of them so that we the taxpayers are stuck, so that if anything goes wrong, we pick up the tab.
I asked the Premier a month ago or so if he could guarantee that there would be no nuclear accidents. For anyone who's been in this House and listened to question period, they'll know the routine quite well: We were reminded of the virtues of Candu reactors; we were told that was scaremongering; we were told that we were safe, that only Soviet reactors have problems -- not mentioning Three Mile Island. So we should assume that we are carrying a large liability, and should that liability ever come due, should the dice ever roll the wrong way, the people in this province who got their $60, their $40 or their $10 or $20 will, like all the rest of us, be stuck with a very substantial cost. I'll take the American number: $13 billion. Well, we're already covering $19 billion to $20 billion on our electricity bills. That is very large.
We're also covering the cost of waste. We put aside about $400 million a year, and I understand there's about $7 billion being carried on OPG's books to pay for the cost of waste disposal. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization estimates the cost of disposing of nuclear waste in Canada at about $24 billion. The overwhelming bulk of that is here in Ontario. So we've got another $13 billion that we have to set aside over the next few decades to deal with the cost of that waste, and we still have that other $20 billion to pay off. Setting aside liability, we have big burdens that we're carrying that provide real problems for our economy and real problems for our electricity costs, and yet this government has decided that, notwithstanding all of the errors, all of the problems, all the pigeons that have come home to roost from the last generation of nuclear reactors, we're going to go full tilt once again and hit that nuclear button and get going.
Last night I had an opportunity to be on a television call-in show, Goldhawk Live. It was very interesting to me, because one of the guests was from the Coalition for a Nuclear Free Peel. He was talking about the fact that there's actually a proposal to burn low-level nuclear waste in Peel at an incinerator. I find it extraordinary to think that anyone would seriously propose to do that, but it was fascinating to me to find out that it has already happened at the Bruce nuclear power plant. There's an incinerator, and when they have low-level nuclear waste, they shovel it in and burn it. The effluent comes out the stack. You get radioactive waste, diluted to a wonderfully low level, I'm sure, just spread over the countryside.
How can one assume that there's any responsible approach to protection from nuclear contamination in this province if that sort of thing is allowed to go on? What sort of approach is that? Is that even vaguely sane? I would say that an approach that is evident in this kind of policy, in this kind of step, shows that this government has completely abandoned any responsible approach to electricity and has decided to take a risky and expensive approach to providing power to this province in the future.
I'll take another example, Mr. Speaker, one you're quite familiar with: the Portlands Energy Centre proposed for the waterfront in east-end Toronto. Well, $700 million for 500 megawatts of capacity -- most of us don't deal day-to-day with the cost of megawatts of power. It's a fair-sized facility. Seven hundred million dollars is a lot of bucks. The reality is that Toronto Hydro has been able to put in place a program that is reducing the demand for electricity in Toronto by 250 megawatts at $40 million. I would say that $40 million to reduce the demand in this city by 250 megawatts is far more cost-effective than anything that this province has put forward; anything.
I'll say this: What they're doing with that $40 million, they're getting the best, probably the cheapest. If you go beyond that, if you go to 500 megawatts, it's going to cost you another $150 million, maybe $200 million. But still we're talking half the cost of what it would take to build a 500-megawatt plant on the waterfront. The benefits would be that you'd reduce power demand in Toronto, thus cutting the electricity bills of businesses and individuals. You'd increase the amount of employment in this city. You would be increasing the market for renewable energy. In fact, that's the sensible way to go. But this government has not decided to go that way. It has decided to go the high-cost route. You see that in the larger plan. The plan that we have before us is predicated on nuclear power.
If we look at the example of other jurisdictions, in California over the last 30 years they've invested in energy efficiency to the point where they've constructed what they call conservation power plants -- 12,000 megawatts of power reduction. That's half of the power we use here in Ontario. We in Ontario could make investments along those lines. In fact, the Pembina Institute, within the last year or so, brought forward a study showing that we could reduce power demand in Ontario by about 40% from the projected levels that we'll need to produce over the next decade and a half. A 40% reduction in power demand: When you talk about that kind of reduction, you're talking about substantial reductions in people's everyday cost of electricity, far beyond anything that this rebate will ever give. You're talking about the ability to actually provide ourselves with renewable power, with green power, and avoid the operation of coal plants and avoid the construction of nuclear power plants.
That is the strategy we need. That is the approach that we need, one that focuses first on efficiency and conservation, because we're extraordinarily wasteful. In the early 1990s, a colleague of mine was working for a utility and consulting for large office buildings in downtown Toronto. Some of those office buildings use as much power as the city of Collingwood. They use huge volumes of power. Some of them have to be air-conditioned in the middle of winter because they have so much heat coming off equipment and off people in the buildings. They were running their air conditioners in January and February. This colleague of mine, who is a consultant, said, "You know, you'd do better just to suck the cold air in from the outside in January and February." Startled, the building operators realized, "Yeah, that makes all kinds of sense," started doing that and cut their electricity costs.
Those sorts of fairly obvious electricity reduction measures are out there for us to take advantage of.
I was at Toronto Hydro recently with the former Minister of Energy, Donna Cansfield. At Toronto Hydro, there was a demonstration, real time in front of us, of how Toronto Hydro was able to start up standby generators in office buildings and hospitals around Toronto to offset demand for peak power. We're not talking about science fiction. We're not talking about stuff that's far away in time and space. We're talking about practical measures that can be taken today to cut the cost of electricity.
This bill before us is a practical measure to send out a cheque with "Ontario" stamped on it before the next election. Fair enough. Why don't we just call it that? It's the Ontario Feel Good About This Government Bill, 2006. But if we're going to talk about electricity, the cost of electricity and the affordability of electricity, we need to talk about the failure of this government to come forward with a strategy that's focused first on cost containment, environmental protection and making sure that here in Ontario we're developing the homegrown industry we need to be able to compete with others who will be producing renewable energy, who will be developing efficiency in the years to come.
Seeing none, and in the absence of the member who moved the motion, on June 20, Mr. Sorbara moved third reading of Bill 117. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.
All those in favour will please say "aye."
All those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion, the ayes have it.
Resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.
This House stands recessed until 6:45 this evening.