Violence and Harassment in the Workplace

8/8/2019 Violence and Harassment in the Workplace

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No. 175 No 175

ISSN 1180-2987

Legislative Assembly Assemble lgislativeof Ontario de lOntarioFirst Session, 39th Parliament Premire session, 39e lgislature

Official Report Journalof Debates des dbats(Hansard) (Hansard)

Tuesday 20 October 2009 Mardi 20 octobre 2009

Speaker PrsidentHonourable Steve Peters Lhonorable Steve Peters

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8011

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLYOF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLE LGISLATIVEDE LONTARIO

Tuesday 20 October 2009 Mardi 20 octobre 2009

The House met at 0900.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Good morning.Please remain standing for the Lords Prayer, followedby a moment of silence for inner thought and personalreflection.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTHAND SAFETY AMENDMENT ACT(VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT

IN THE WORKPLACE), 2009

LOI DE 2009 MODIFIANT LA LOISUR LA SANT ET LA SCURIT

AU TRAVAIL (VIOLENCE ETHARCLEMENT AU TRAVAIL)

Resuming the debate adjourned on October 5, 2009,on the motion for second reading of Bill 168, An Act toamend the Occupational Health and Safety Act withrespect to violence and harassment in the workplace and

other matters / Projet de loi 168, Loi modifiant la Loi surla sant et la scurit au travail en ce qui concerne laviolence et le harclement au travail et dautresquestions.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Further debate?Ms. Helena Jaczek: It gives me great pleasure to

enter into the debate on Bill 168, an act that will intro-duce amendments to the Occupational Health and SafetyAct to prevent workplace violence and to address work-place harassment. Certainly, I think everyone in thisHouse must agree that everyone should be able to workwithout fear of violence in a safe and healthy workplace.Id like to address this issue from the perspective of both

the employer in the health care setting and also as ahealth care worker myself.I think we need to acknowledge that there is, espe-

cially in the health care sector, the real possibility ofphysical violence occurring. As the commissioner ofhealth services, I was ultimately responsible for both thesafety of the residents and the workers in the region ofYorks long-term-care facilities. In that capacity, I re-member very well looking through the incident reports ofserious occurrences in the long-term-care facility anddrilling down to see exactly what the situation had been.In most cases, the situation was where an elderly

Alzheimers patient suffering from dementia had exhib-ited violent behaviour towards a health care worker andthe health care worker had, in some fashion, retaliated.Of course, this was unacceptable from the point of viewof hurting or physically damaging the patient in this case,but drilling down into those occurrences, it also becamevery clear that many actions could have been taken toprevent the incident from occurring in the first place.

We, as an example, instituted an educational programso that all workers in our long-term-care facilities wouldbe extremely aware of the nature of the disease the

patients they were caring for were suffering from so thatthey understood that in some cases, certainly not all, asmall number of patients with Alzheimers, out of frus-tration from their disease, may act out using behavioursthat could be construed as violent and that the health careworker should take some actions instead of retaliating.But to understand the disease, we instituted angermanagement courses so that workers would also be ableto analyze their own reactions to the perceived risk fromthese particular patients.

We also instituted the measure that immediately uponfeeling that there was a potential for physical violence,the worker obtain the assistance of another worker so thattwo people would be able to deal with the situation. Wewere also very much into mitigation of the physical spacewithin which our Alzheimers patients were living, sothat corridors did not end in blind dead ends, that therewas always a circle that patients could walk in, therebylessening their feelings of frustration.

What we noticed after we did institute these edu-cational and mitigation preventive measures was we sawa rapid decline in the incidents, which obviously bene-fited both residents and the health care worker.

I remember many, many years ago, when I was afourth-year medical student, looking at this particularissue of violence in the workplace from the perspectiveof a health care worker. I was a clinical clerk, a fourth-

year medical student, doing my psychiatry rotation in adowntown teaching hospital, and I was asked to take ahistory from a patient with a diagnosis of paranoidschizophrenia. I had, of course, learned from the text-books exactly what the signs and symptoms of thisdisease were, and certainly, in some cases, there is thepotential for physical violence.

It never occurred to me, as someone dedicated tohelping people, that I might potentially be the subject of aphysical attack, so I went into the interview room, closedthe door, sat at the desk, and within about five minutes,realized that the patient was not seeing me as someone


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8012 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO 20 OCTOBER 2009

there to help him but probably, with the hallucinations hewas experiencing, I looked exactly like the devil in-carnate.

I rapidly left the room and I reported to my supervisorthat I was fearful of physical violence. I was told, Oh,didnt anyone actually mention to you that you shouldalways interview someone with paranoid schizophrenia

with the door open and sit close to the door? When Imanaged to suggest that perhaps there should be twopeople in such a situation, I was looked upon with de-rision. In those days, medicine was an ordeal by fire andputting yourself at risk was considered part of the culture.

Id certainly like to say that weve come a very longway from those days. We have taken steps in this par-ticular legislation to address the issue, first, of harass-ment, with specific programs to be put in place to lessenthe risk of harassment, and then, of course, the provisionnow that someone fearing physical violence in theworkplace has the right to refuse that work. Again, we doaddress many other issues in the billdomestic violence,

as well.I would simply like to conclude in saying that Im sopleased to see that the Registered Nurses Association ofOntario, Doris Grinspun, and also Dr. Ken Arnold, thepresident of the Ontario Medical Association, have com-mended our government on the introduction of this bill.

Just to quote Dr. Arnold, Ontarios doctors commendthe provincial government for its introduction of Bill 168,which aims to better protect workers from violence in theworkplace.

We believe every health care provider has the right toa safe work environment and we hope these legislativeamendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Actwill help to ensure their safety.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Questionsand comments?0910

Mr. John OToole: I look forward to commenting onthis bill myself this morning. Im sure the member who

just spokefrom Oak RidgesMarkham, I guess it isas a medical officer of health for York region, saw someof the unfortunate circumstances.

The domestic violence issue is the one that Im mostconcerned about. In the workplace, this bill is purportingthat a person would have to make a disclosure to theirsuperior in the workplace. I find that quite uncom-fortable; in fact, I am not supportive of the bill for that

reason.Harassment in the workplace is another thing. I thinkovert harassment should be completely forbidden. Aswell, punitive actions could be takendismissal etc. Butwhen you start to get into the personal lives of indiv-iduals, men or womenor, for that matter, a personslifestyle issues become something of a personal, con-fidential and private nature.

At the same time, I had a bill, the Lori Dupont Act,which Ill be speaking about more definitely, but Id likethe member who spoke on this bill to respond to myconcern about bringing forward in the workplacein the

strictest of confidence, I guessfamily relationship prob-lems or emotional relationship problems that could beconsidered as interfering in the workplace and making aperson vulnerable in the workplacefor sexual harass-ment, lets be straight about it and see if the memberwould respond to me in that case.

All of us here certainly want the workplace to be safeand to feel safe, but at the same time, do we want to ex-pose our personal problems?

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Furtherdebate? The member from

Mr. Paul Miller: Debate or questions and comments?The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Sorry.

Questions and comments?Mr. Paul Miller: Id like to commend the member

from Oak RidgesMarkham for her statement. Theresnothing like a hands-on experience from being in themedical field like she wasand could be again. It wasquite interesting to hear what she had to say about herpersonal experience in that situation.

Some of our health workers are constantly exposed todangerous situations, as well as our teachers in theschools, where it can happen. My wife is a teacher, andshe has had the odd incidents in schools over the yearsthat require restraint and how to handle the kidsaswell, in the medical area, adults.

I think that these types of protections in the workplaceare necessary and should have been done a long time ago.We feel that anything that moves in the direction ofprotection of health workers as well as teachers or anyother people that are in theand you know, you havebullying in plants, too. You have people who use theirphysical presence to intimidate other workers and really

terrorize people in the workplace. But this has got to endand we are in support of anything that would move inthat direction to help people.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Furthercomments?

Mr. Jeff Leal: I came in at the tail end, and hearingthe speech made by my colleague from Oak RidgesMarkham, I can assure the people in Oak RidgesMarkham that she will have a very long and verydistinguished career in this House, because she is aremarkable member.

But, interestingly enough, to be a former chief medicalofficer of health, which she was, that position is a very

unique position in that you are dealing with hospitals,with municipalities and with school boards, and it reallygives you a unique insight into harassment that may beoccurring. Something that we all want to do is to eradi-cate that.

Interjection.Mr. Jeff Leal: The member from Durham is inter-

jecting, and to be fair, hes been a leader. Hes had aprivate members bill, and he has seen first-hand, with asituation in his particular riding, why this legislation isneeded and the need to rally all the forces we can to getrid of violence in the workplace.


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20 OCTOBRE 2009 ASSEMBLE LGISLATIVE DE LONTARIO 8013

I heard the member from Hamilton EastStoneyCreek. My wife is also a teacher, and you hear aboutthose experiences that occur in the classroom and withinthe teaching profession. Again, we need to do everythingwe can to eradicate the violence and the potential ofharassment and really glean some insight into individualswho potentially could have these problems, to be in a

proactive position to get to that individual before some-thing very tragic happens. Were all very aware of high-profile cases that have been reported upon in the media,and the kind of devastation that can happen when wedont have legislation in place to be proactive and get tothe root of the problem as quickly as we can.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Questionsand comments?

Mr. Peter Shurman: I listened with interest to mycolleague from Oak RidgesMarkham, and its hard todisagree with any of the sentiments that she expresses,because if you ask me or anybody else, Do you agreethat we should control violence, or sexual or any other

kind of harassment, in the workplace? the answer wouldbe an obvious yes. But I find myself constantly at a lossfor an ability to wrap my head around and agree with abill like this, because I dont know where the dots areconnected in terms of creating a law and having that lawattached to the workplace in a meaningful way, where weactually can exercise the control that were discussing.

The bill says that in the workplace, once this becomeslaw, you have to prepare a policy regarding workplaceviolence. So whats that policy going to be? The policy isgoing to be, in two short words, No violence. But itsnot a predictable thing. Just because you enact a law orbecause you say there wont be violence in a workplacedoesnt guarantee anything, certainly not violence in the

workplace, which is very typically spontaneous. Thatswhat violence in a workplace is. It isnt, Im going to goto work this morning and be violent. It is, to use thevernacular of the day, somebody going postal.

As far as sexual harassment is concerned, that is moreeasily controlled, but again, this bill says, You will pre-pare a policy on workplace harassment. It seems to methat in legislation at the federal and provincial levelstheres much reference to harassment in the workplaceand what you may and may not do and what may andmay not be interpreted as harassment. So that begs thequestion, why do you need this law? Again, I am con-cerned, and I say this to the member from Oak Ridges,

with being put in a position where if I dont vote for this,Im obviously for violence and harassment in the work-place, when such is obviously not the case.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Themember from Oak RidgesMarkham has two minutes torespond.

Ms. Helena Jaczek: Id very much like to thank mycolleagues from Hamilton EastStoney Creek, Peter-borough and Thornhill for their mostly very graciousremarks. Im glad to hear that there is a consensusdeveloping that Bill 168 is putting us very clearly in theright direction to ensure that our workplaces are safer.

I certainly, perhaps in contrast to the member fromThornhill, believe that employers will be fully capable ofputting together policies to prevent harassment andviolence in the workplace. It simply requires, obviously,the understanding of the goal. I dont think there is anemployer out there who wouldnt want to avoid a situ-ation in their workplace, whether it simply be in terms of

protecting their workers, which is what we would expect,but also from the business perspective that no one wouldwant a situation developing in their own organization thatcould lead to that particular institution or business beinglooked upon in a negative light. So I have every faith thatwhere there is goodwill and knowledge of best practices,these will in fact be disseminated. We certainly put someteeth into the bill so that inspectors will be able to comein and examine such policies and ensure that they meetthe goals that clearly we share with all Ontarians.

Just in closing, I would like to remind everyone thatwe do have endorsements from many other individuals,including the teachers associations, the medical pro-

fession and also unions. Thank you so much.The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Furtherdebate?

Mr. John OToole: Its a pleasure to participate insecond reading of Bill 168 this morning. I think mycolleague from Thornhill summed it up quite succinctlywhen he said that the goals and objectives of Bill 168, tostopcreate a non-violent, harassment-free workplace,are goals we all support. Lets be very clear on behalf ofthe opposition party and our leader, Tim Hudak: Weespouse that virtue completely. In fact, if you look at thelabour legislation that exists today, the right to refuseunsafe work exists today in the statutes.0920

There are committees established inI think all work-places have a safety committee that reviews everythingfrom hazardous materials to dangerous working con-ditions. All accidents in the workplace are reported.Repeated accidents in the workplace would certainlyprovoke labour ministry inspectors to come to the work-place. Whether its a WSIBthats the WorkplaceSafety and Insurance Boardclaim or claim history,theres a lot of existing structure around the workplace.

I think what I have the biggest problem with is, when Ithink back to a couple of billsand in Bill 168 theres asection that should trigger a bit of concern. This billactually rescinds and repeals an existing act. It rescinds

and repeals the Domestic Violence Protection Act, whichis a bill that passed in 2000. The Domestic ViolenceProtection Act of 2000 was repealed in this bill. In thatcase here, I dont know why they didnt proclaim thatbill.

When I looked at that myselfand Im talking about aspecific case; it was called the Lori Dupont Act. Afterthree or four events that I was aware of which weredomestic violence that showed up in the workplaceandthis was the case of Lori Dupont, who was a surgicalnurse, I gather, in Hamilton, and her estranged husband.There was an attempt by Ms. Dupont to get a restraining


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order, and she was not able to require that restrainingorder. Anyway, this estranged husband, who was adoctor, came in and killed Ms. Dupont; then he killedhimself, actually. The workplace, of course, happened tobe in a hospital, which was even more tragica placewhere people are trying to be cured.

I started with the Lori Dupont Act, and that bill was in

memory of Lori Dupont to better protect victims of do-mestic violence. It, on its own, had a specific relationshipto this bill, and it was Bill 10, my billbut it actuallyreflected things that happened in my riding. This couldbe considered domestic violence as well: It was JenniferCopithorn, who was a bank clerk. She was on her way toworkin fact, she was on the steps to the workplace, andthe workplace happened to be across the road from myconstituency office in Durham, specifically in Bow-manvilleand her estranged boyfriend murdered her.That really drove it home. Lets put it that way: It put ithome to me. So Im still not happy that this bill dealswith it in a significant way.

But what my bill did is empower the victims to be ableto get a restraining order seven days a week, 24 hours adayto be able to go to a JP and get a restraining order.Now, thats the same thing that Bill 133, the DomesticViolence Protection Act, 2000, that I referred tothatbill itself was not proclaimed for the same reason. It wasto get a restraining order seven days a week, 24 hours aday, so that you could get the protection when and whereyou needed it at any timenot just in the workplace, butany place. And you could get a court to review therestraining order and other guidance around that par-ticular bill. So Im quite concerned that the bill doesntquite do what many that Ive talked to think it should.

I want to go to some of the details here, as my friend

from Thornhillor my colleague, certainly. I considerhim a friend as well, but he is certainly is a colleague.Hes sitting beside me.

Anyway, this is the part of the bill that gets into theway this current government tends to go about every-thing. They circumvent the obvious solutions. Ill justread some of the sections. Madam Speaker, I know youhave done a lot of work in various areas in thisLegislature and youll probably nod your head, Im sure,at some of these comments and observations. It could beup and down or sideways; I just said you could move.

But in the first part it says, Section 32.0.1 of the actrequires an employer to prepare policies with respect to

workplace violence and workplace harassment, and toreview the policies at least annually. Its easy forMinister Fonseca. Sometimes when he speaks, I think heis the fellow from Entertainment Tonight. But anyway,its fine for them to say that. Are they giving them anyresources to do it? How about the small employer? Howbig? How small?

It goes on: Section 32.0.2 of the act requires anemployer to develop a programnot just a plan but aprogramto implement the workplace violence policy.The program must include measures to control risks ofworkplace violence identified in the risk assessment that

is required under section 32.0.3, to summon immediateassistance when workplace violence occurs, and forworkers to report incidents or threats of workplace vio-lence. The program must also set out how the employerwill deal with incidents, complaints and threats of work-place violence.

You cant argue, as my colleague from Thornhill said,

with the intent here. Its the process. These poor em-ployers today are worried about laying people offbecause of the economy. I dont blame all this economyturmoil on Premier McGuinty. This Thursday, well hearthe Minister of Finance saying thatwe could actuallyhave a lottery on this. The Minister of Finance is going todo an economic update, and I put on the table today thatmy forecast is over $20 billion.

Mr. Peter Shurman: Easily.Mr. John OToole: Easily over $20 billion. You

could move your head sideways or up and down, MadamSpeaker. Its going to be humongous. We are spending$2 million an hour more than were taking in as revenue.

Were putting more red tape on the workplace in Bill168. I think there are other ways to achieve this. If theMinister of Labour wants to cut a cheque to have thispersonbecause Im going to go on: Section 32.0.3. ofthe act requires an employer to assess the risk of work-place violence and to report the results of the assessmentto the joint health and safety committee or to a health andsafety representative. Is that a full-time job or a part-time job? Are they going to be on the tools, on thefactory floor, or do they have an office? If there is nocommittee or representative, the results must be reportedto the workerseveryone called together at the lunchhour in the cafeteria, I guess. The risk must be re-assessed as often as is necessary to protect workers from

workplace violence. Theres a lot of red tape in that.My friend from Thornhill said it briefly: The work-

place policy on this should be that violence will not betoleratedimmediate dismissal. Thats fairly simple.When you hire, you assess people, and if theyve hadlets carry this forward. If due diligence and risk assess-mentI think I should have a profile on every employee.If theyve ever been involved as a perpetrator in violence,domestic or otherwise, they shouldnt be hired.

What are we doing about workplace violence inhockey? Its full of it. What is it saying to our children?Where does government stop and where does it start?The fundamental question and the broader philosophy of

this discussion are, where is the place of government inour lives? Have clear, specific rules: Thou shalt not dothe following things, and here are the consequences ifyou do.

Bullying in the schoolyards: I look at the new pageshere. They are a lovely group of young, intelligent peoplewho are here to witness the participation in the debate.There are not a lot of people here this morning, but none-thelessI would say that theres not good evidence ofpeople interested in this topic. But Im just going on here:

Under section 32.0.4 of the act, if an employer isaware, orthis is a key word too; youve got to be


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careful with some of these legal wordsought to beawarewhat is that, ought to be aware? Were theyclosing their eyes?0930

Mr. Peter Shurman: Shoulda, woulda, coulda.Mr. John OToole: Shoulda, woulda, coulda

aware that domestic violence that is likely to expose aworker to physical injury may occur in the workplace,the employer must take every reasonable precaution toprotect the worker. I agree with that.

Okay, lets review that. Lets say youre in a factorywith 500 employees and youre the immediate super-visor. Theres probably one supervisor for every 30people or so. With 500 employeeslets keep itsimpleyou probably have 25 employees per group, persupervisor, so there are roughly 25 supervisors. Youvegot to train them, then you have another person and thenyou have to have a designated person whos going to bethe workplace representative. And you have to be awareof all of their backgrounds. In fact, you should pretty

well do a little profile on them, really. The medical offi-cer of health, the member that spoke earlier from OakRidgesMarkham, would know theres probably evi-dence of a persons character when you are interviewingthem. Did they tell you the truth that theyve never beeninvolved in violence, that theyve never been involved indomestic disputes or other things that wouldnt be helpfulto the workplace? So all those 500 employees would beinterviewed. You would have to have a profile case onthem all. I dont think thats appropriate.

Now, does this mean that anyone who has ever beeninvolved in violence, like an ex-convict, male or female,shouldnt be hired? This gets pretty serious, because ifIm hiring someone whos got a history of violence andthey perpetrate violence in the workplace and they didnttell me, I ought to have known that they would possiblyact out in the workplace, so Im culpable. Im now incourt. Im being sued, when that person who feltthreatened has the responsibility on their part to advisethe supervisor, and the supervisor to the president of thecompany, I guess, because ultimately theyre going to beguilty of something.

So if I know that I have a domestic problem and I tellmy supervisor, what is going to be in the plan? It says inhere that they should be able to have someone show up ifsomething happens. It says, to summon immediateassistance. Now, who would that be? It says in here,

under section 32, that the person should be able to sum-mon immediate assistance. Im feeling threatened, andIm going to call who? I guess were going to have to callthe police. Now, we have police in our schools today.Okay. Hows that working out? Im telling you, theyarent handling the bullying in our schools properly, letalone this bill.

Lets review where we are at this point in the dis-cussion. First of all, we agree that workplace violenceand harassment in the workplace, sexual or otherwise,should not be tolerated. How theyre going about it is,theyve got this can of red ink and theyre drawing up all

these rules for some board to be put on, Thou shaltdoing the following things, and theres not one cent inhere for the employers to transition into this. Yet we haveproven here that theres a requirement. The person whofeels threatened or victimized in a domestic situation,lets say that alone, under the Lori Dupont Act or Bill133, the provincial domestic violence act, can get a

restraining order seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Inthat order it should say, In the workplace, the personshould not allow Mr. or Mrs. X to come into the place,if they work thereits possible they could be workingin the placeand that could be the action taken: areasonable, practical way of implementing from thevictims perspective. But if I came to the workplace, Ivebeen there three months, new job, and Im saying that Ifeel threatened by that big bully over there or whatever itissome of this just doesnt make any sense from thepoint of implementation. In the emotional level ofreasoning, it makes sense, but on the practical level thispiece of work here is a work of fiction. If I go on to lookat 32(5) of the act, it clarifies that the employers dutiesin section 25, the supervisors duties in section 27 and theworkers duties in section 28 apply as appropriate withrespect to workplace violence. Subsection 32(5) alsorequiresheres another rule for the employer; get outthe red tape to make the signto provide a worker withinformation and instruction on the contents of workplaceviolence policy and programs.

All of this is very nice. Ive worked for 30 years,mostly in an industrial kind of environment. Probablyabout 10 of it was in a computer kind of environment.Its kind of industrial; its quite noisy with all the com-puters humming and buzzing and whirring. But therewere probably tensions in those workplaces, whichever,

whether it was the computer room or the personneldepartment or in the workplace on the plant floor itself.People have good days and bad days, and the odd time inmy 30-plus years I saw a couple of fights. I saw differentthings that werent appropriate. Im not sure this bill isgoing to fix it either, actually. What it does is shift anyresponsibility from the Ministry of Labour onto the em-ployer. Thats what this does. And he doesnt give themfive cents to fix this problem; it gives them a bunch ofred tapethey probably have to hire a lawyer to draft upthis risk assessment. Theyll have to hire a statistician todo the statistical risk assessment and theyll have to hirea consultant, hopefully one of the Liberal consultantsbecause theyre all discharged from eHealth now, so a lot

of them would be available. They are very expensive,though. Some of them are $2,800 a day. They may be outof work for a while because of the auditors report.

Bringing this back, theres a lot of red tape in here thatdoesnt achieve the goal that we want to achieve, whichis to ensure the protection, especially from domestic vio-lence in the workplace. We had a bill, Bill 10; this billcould have passed and could have solved this problem.What have they done? Theyve flung it out. In fact, theparent bill, Bill 133, its rescinded. That bill was passedby all the parties in this Legislature in 2000 but it wasnever proclaimed. Why wasnt it proclaimed?


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If you probe into why it wasnt proclaimed and whytheyre getting rid of the Lori Dupont Act, which wouldhave allowed the justice of the peace to issue a restrain-ing order, seven days a week, 24 hours a dayImwondering if the judicial council has meddled with this.Maybe they dont want to give up certain powers andauthorities. I dont know. Im putting this on the table.

Perhaps the ministerI wont comment whether or nothe or she is here, but perhaps well follow up on this. Theparliamentary assistant, I think, iswho is the parlia-mentary assistant on this, anyway? Well, pardon me. Wecant say whether theyre here or not because attendanceis down a bit. We could probably call if there is aquorum. But I wouldnt want to do that with me speak-ing. There would be no one here then.

Anyway, Im going to wrap it up in a very brief time. Ishould be given an hour on this because this bill

Interjections.Mr. John OToole: Heres the real deal. The bill

amends section 43 of the actbut this is important

which deals with the workers right to refuse work invarious circumstances. This exists already. We have themember from Hamilton EastStoney Creek. Hes anexpert in labour rights and does an excellent job in thisLegislature. He, in his two-minute responseIm en-couraging someone to participate in this debatecouldaddress it, because there is a right to refuse work todaythat is considered unsafe. There is a right to refuse basedon this as well. If I felt unsafe because of some big bullyor some big machine that was hanging over my head, Ihave a dutynot just a right; a dutyto report it. Theemployer has duties and responsibilities in this relation-ship as well. In the case of a worker with limited rights ofrefusal to work under situationsit is incumbent on theemployer to make the place, if there isnt a union. So Ithink we have difficulty with this bill, as Ive expressedthis morning.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Furtherdebate? The member from Hamilton EastStoney Creek.

Mr. Paul Miller: Questions and comments.The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Oh, sorry.

Questions and comments?0940

Mr. Paul Miller: I was going to question some of thelogic Mr. OToole was using, but because of the com-pliment, its difficult to.

Basically, we feel that this bill is a start, but it falls farshort of what wed like to see. It seems to be a patternthat it doesnt come up to snuff, so to speak. We dontfeel that it cuts what we require.

The only thing I would argue with the member fromDurham is that safety and health is different than work-place violence. Safety and health applies to unsafe jobpractices. It also gives the worker the right to refusal, ashe mentioned, and the worker can have the ministrycome in to determine whether its safe or not to proceedwith the job. But when youre talking about workplaceviolence, youre talking about a different ball game.

Over the years, working in the environment that Iworked in, I saw a lot of harassment and a lot of violencefrom people and individuals. It ended up being that bothpeople would be sent homethe victim and the bullywould be sent home until they straightened it out, andtheyd both lose wagesbecause they did not have legis-lation in place to cover this type of situation and the

employer really didnt have a section of the bill or any-thing to enforce their position. It can be a very difficultthing unless you spell it out. If the rules are spelled outdirectly and appropriately, then you will know what routeto take as an employer.

As far as the expense to an employer goes, they spendmillions of dollars a year in Ontario on safety and health.I think that could be included in there and I dont think itwould be any additional cost. If it required any litigation,they could go outside and hire a lawyer if the victimwants to charge.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Furthercomments and questions?

Mr. Mike Colle: Just a bit of a rebuttal to my col-league from Durham: If he looks closely at the bill, hellsee that there is a provision in Bill 168 that addressesdomestic violence when it occurs in connection with theworkplace. Also, the proposed bill would require an em-ployer to act as if they are told about a domestic violencesituation or they see physical evidence of such. So thereis that kind of alert process in the bill that would requirean employer to be cognizant of any domestic violencesituation.

The bill would not require an employer to questioneach individual employee about their personal relation-ship on a regular basis and intrude on them. There is nointrusion allowed into a persons personal life.

I know some employer groups are concerned aboutemployer obligations, and thats acknowledged. But thereis a provision in the bill, which the Ministry of Labourand the health and safety associations are working on,that would deal with this concern. In conjunction with theOntario Womens Directorate, the Ministry of Labourhas been working on resources to help employersunderstand this issue.

This bill is not going to end the scourge of domesticviolence, nor does it seek to do that, or the scourge ofviolence in the workplace. But it does bring awareness; itdoes bring in concrete steps. I know one of the areas thatis of great concern to me is the abuse and harassment that

takes place of newcomers who are in the workplace, whowork in factories18 hours a day, some of themwhowork Saturdays and Sundays, who cant speak Englishand have nowhere to go to get any kind of defence.Thats why we need this kind of awareness and we needsomething to be done.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Furthercomments?

Mr. Peter Shurman: I listened with interest to mycolleague and my friend from Durham, who Ive gottento know fairly well over the past couple of years. If any-body stands with a degree of legitimacy in this Legis-


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lature to talk to a bill like this, it would be somebody likemy friend from Durham, because before coming to theLegislature, its worth noting, he spent a considerableamount of time in worthy endeavours around humanresources and does understand the scope of what is andisnt feasible within a workplace.

I think every member from every party who stood up

to either speak or comment on this bill has talked aboutthe fact that its a worthy goal. But bills should not besimply a good start or a worthy goal or somethingdesigned to raise awareness. They constitute, ultimately,law that involves the necessity to implement at somecost, both financial and moral and on every other level inthe workplace, things that are not necessarily doable.

My friend from Durham, as he pointed out, has beeninvolved on an earnest basis in bills that were worthy ofpassagebills that were either passed and not pro-claimed or werent passed at all. The Lori Dupont bill,his own bill, comes to mind. It would have enforced 24/7bans on any kind ofrestraining orders, basically, that

would be enforced 24/7 against people who wouldnecessarily perpetrate violence against someone. Thats aworthy kind of bill to prevent violence, not create a posi-tion within a workplace that seeks to look into 10 or 20or 100 or 200 peoples lives when we all know that youcant see into someone elses house, their kitchen, theirbedroom. You dont know whats going on and younever will, and a bill will not regulate that.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Themember has two minutes to respond.

Mr. John OToole: Id like to thank the membersfrom Hamilton EastStoney Creek, EglintonLawrence,as well as Thornhill. In all cases they made complimentsas well as observations that could be correct. The mem-

ber from Hamilton was correct. Again, I say that he has alot of experience in what he speaks about because of histime in the real world of work. He did, at the end, suggestthat they could hire a lawyer when all else fails, and thereis the right to refuse. This could be easily handled bysimplifying the bill and saying, Theres a duty on theemployee to disclose, but words like ought to haveknown become a vague kind of suggestion, and the em-ployer is liable.

The member from EglintonLawrence referred rough-ly to the same section. Im going to read that. It says insection 32.0.4 that if an employer becomes aware orought to be reasonably aware that domestic violence

that is likely to expose a worker to physical injury mayoccur in the workplace, the employer shall take everyprecaution reasonable in the circumstances. This wholeought to have known shifts the liability. How can theemployer know all of the things without having an ex-tensive amount of unnecessary information about malesor females or members of whatever orientation in theirworkplace? Its completely inappropriate. People arentlikely going to be telling these personal things orpersonal stories. However, the employee who feels theycould be threatened has a duty to report to the employerthe circumstances and the individual that they suspect

could perpetrate violence in the workplace. Thats areasonable solution. Were going to propose those kindsof amendments this morning. But the reality is, this ismore red tape on the employers, and ultimately, thevictims have no better protection than they have today.They could get on with this and pass the Lori Dupont Actand/or fix this bill before we go forward.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Furtherdebate?

Mr. Paul Miller: Id like to start off by saying thatthis bill is a start, but it falls short of a lot of things thatwe would like to see in it. Im hoping that at the com-mittee level, the government will have an open mind tolisten to the people who deal with this. I hope some of thepresentations are from people who deal with this everyday of their lives and are in this environment, and thattheyll take note of the good advice they get from thelabour movement.

Labour has a violence-in-the-workplace campaignwhich sets out general principles for this legislation and

regulation. Workplace violence coverage should coverworkplace violence from all sources: third party, some-one who works at the workplace, a client or person whoreceives service from the organization, and include im-pacts of domestic violence. It should also cover all formsof violence in a comprehensive definition, includingverbal, harassment and bullying, all the way to physicalincidents of violence; define harassment to include asingle event; and cover all workplaces in all provincialsectors.0950

Changes are needed to the Occupational Health andSafety Act, which must include violence regulation. The

proposed definition for workplace violence in Bill 168limits violence to situations where the physical violenceis being committed or attempted against a worker. Thisexcludes situations where a person may be violent withanother person in the workplace who is not a worker, butwhere the workers are expected to intervene to stop theviolencei.e., student-to-student, patient-on-patient, andclient-on-client.

There are a couple of options acceptable to labour toaddress this. In paragraphs (a) and (b) of the definition,where they use the phrase against a worker, change theword worker to person or

Interjections.

Mr. Paul Miller: Madam Speaker, its getting toughto speak here. Theres too much distraction here, sidebarsgoing on.

Delete the phrase against a worker altogether.The current definition also does not cover threats or

conduct that would lead to physical injury.There are two possible ways to address this concern.

Option one: Add a new provision, (c) engaging in acourse of vexatious comment or conduct against a workerin a workplace that provides reasonable grounds to be-lieve it causes or could cause physical injury to theworker. Option two: Combine paragraphs (a) and (b),


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then add a reference to threats which give workersreasonable cause to believe that they are at risk of injury.

One section of Bill 168 will limit domestic violence tophysical force or attempted physical force. It does notinclude stalking or harassment that gives a worker reasonto believe their health or safety is at risk. Revising thedefinition will resolve the concern. Use of the word

likely in this section sets too high a standard. Labourproposes changing it to reason to believe, as found inthe current section of the act dealing with the right torefuse.

Some of the amendments needed to the act: Theyshould have specific recognition in the OccupationalHealth and Safety Act that violence is an occupationalhazard, and amendments to clarify the right-to-refusesection of the act to allow refusals for violence, i.e.,because of a person, and by referencing the workingenvironment. Third, reprisal protection should bestrengthened. We can have the best regulations in theworld, but unless it stops employers from intimidating

workers to not report violent incidents, we will not haveprotected Ontario workers.So what theyre saying is that you have to have the

support of all the parties, not only the legal system. Youhave to have support from the employer and the em-ployees to work to rectify a situation. If one of themdoesnt feel like taking part in it or is reluctant, thatsurely weakens the system.

Joint health and safety committees: Revise section52(2) of the current act dealing with notifying the unionand/or representative if an occupational disease claim hasbeen filed as a result of a workplace harassment. Spellout reporting requirements. If someone is injured becausethe person who injured them or threatened them was not

doing something safe, then there should be an additionalpenalty on the individual who caused the accident by notfollowing the proper procedures or even by sabotagingthe procedures of safe work to possibly injure anotheremployee.

It should include a mention of meaningful consultationand participation with the joint health and safety com-mittees and safety representatives of that organization.Now, this government is constantly bragging aboutWSIB and how they want to improve work and safety,but Ill tell you that about a third of the businesses in thisprovince dont have health and safety committees. Iguess what Im saying is, practise what you preach. This

could also fall under those committees to look at.Health and safety: Employers must conduct hazardassessments in consultation with health and safety com-mittees to identify whether workplace violence is apotential hazard. Could two workers who dont get along,its known by other employees, and who are working in asituation by themselves in a dark corner of the plant orwherever theyre workingcould that one person havethe ability to cause a persons injury and say, Oh, it was

just an accident, because there were only two of themworking in that situation? The employer has to takeresponsibility when he knows there is a morale problem

or theres a problem between two workers. To put themin a situation where they are by themselves and they havea beef with each other I dont think is a wise move.Thats another thing thats overlooked in the bill.

The bill requires employers to conduct a risk assess-ment but only requires that the joint health and safetycommittee representative be advised of the results and be

given a copy. This falls far short of what wed like to see.That representative should take part in any discussionsbetween the company, the employee and the other em-ployee if there are harassment problems, not just given acopy of the results of the discussions. There could besomething that those employees dont realize they areentitled to or they are misrepresented in those meetings,and this person who is trained would be able to help themin a situation which could have negative results for them.

The designated substance regulation, DSR, requiresemployers to carry out assessments in consultation withthe joint health and safety committees and empower the

joint health and safety committees to make recom-mendations with respect to the assessment. The bill pro-vides very little detail on what employers should belooking at in this assessment. A definition of riskassessment is needed and should be specified. It isnt inthis bill.

Labour has a long-time standing opposition againstany assessment that emphasizes a management of riskover controlling hazards to protect workers. Labour isprepared to accept the phrase risk assessment only ifits defined as a hazard assessment and the reference torisk 32.0.3 made plural.

Information must be provided to workers about thepotential for violence and incidents of violence and main-taining respect for the privacy of individuals. Information

and reporting to joint health and safety committees andhealth and safety reps: Plans need to be specific to theworkplace, not just general; strong language for workertraining, PowerPoint presentations and regular monthlysafety meetings.

When I worked in the large plant where I worked,thered be a big push for safety and health for a fewmonths and then it would die off for whatever reasonthey wanted more production or didnt have enoughsalaried personnel to conduct the meetings. We might gothree or four months without a safety meeting at times.And thats a lot of time for things to fall off the railwayand a lot of time for things to go back to bad practiceswhich cause accidents. Regular monthly meetings are a

must.The bill requires employers to provide workers withinformation and instruction, but training is not men-tioned. No training. I mean, how does a person deal withrisk assessment, a hazard or workplace violence if thatperson isnt trained? So these joint health and safetycommittees should have a personat least one personon the committee who has some kind of courses to dealwith workplace violence, and safety and health situationscaused by workplace violence. I dont see that here.

Training is specifically mentioned under the act as arequirement for workers exposed to hazardous substances


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and physical agents. Well, thats already there. We haveour WHMIS, we have those programs in the plants, butwe have no one on a committee to deal with these harass-ment situations. We need that.

Training must be developed, delivered and reviewedregularly in consultation with the joint health and safetycommittees. And here we are, were back to those

monthly meetings which are critical to all employees torefresh their memories on the policies of the company.

No consultation around information and instructionrequired in the bill: This requirement currently existsunder the act for hazardous substances and physicalagentsand there we go again, the same thing again.

Recognition that violence prevention includes meas-ures and procedures, not just a policy, such as workpractices, design and organization of work, procedure forchain of command reporting, and investigation andresponselanguage from sections 8 and 9 of the regu-lation for health care and residential facilities would be auseful amendment.

The bill will require employers to develop a programto deal with workplace violence. This includes preparingmeasures and procedures to control the risks identified inthe assessment, summoning assistance, reporting inci-dents or threats and investigations of incidents andcomplaints of threats. There is no consultation require-ment nor is the employer required to provide a copy tothe joint health and safety committee.

If you are going to have legislation in place, you alsohave to make the joint health and safety committee a bigpart of that because they are not only going to rectify thesituation, theyre going to help in the decision-making,and they should be involved. I dont see a lot of that inhere. If you havent got the people on the floor, the safety

and health reps, who are in there day in and day out,where the management might not be, or it may be ahands-on or hands-off situationthey have to be awareof what is going on in their plant.1000

Therefore employers must develop and annually re-view a comprehensive violence policy and program thatshould include:

a commitment statement;a definition of workplace violence;sources of violence;recognition of workplace violence as an occu-

pational hazard;

hazard assessment as a mandatory step;how and what information is reported to workersand to the joint health and safety committees and healthand safety reps;

responsibilities and roles of employers, supervisors, joint health and safety committees, health and safetyreps, and workers;

mechanisms and processes to report, respond to andinvestigate violence incidents and hazards, andacritical componentto provide follow-up to workers,and consultation and follow-up to joint health and safetycommittees, and meetings;

provisions for how information and reporting goesup the chain of command, so that everyone is aware ofthe situation. Some of these plants employ thousands ofemployees. The guy at the top sometimes doesnt hearabout it till months later. It should be immediate so hehas a handle on whats going on in his company;

recognition that violence prevention includes meas-

ures and procedures as well as policies, such as designand organization of the work;

that joint health and safety committees and healthand safety reps and workers be consulted in the develop-ment and review, and that the joint health and safetycommittee representatives recommendations be givenmeaningful consideration;

support mechanisms for workers;a process for follow-up that includes recom-

mendations from the joint health and safety committeerepresentatives, and reporting to all parties;

reporting to the WSIB;sections 51 and 52 reporting obligations;

section 9(31) entitlements to investigate criticalinjuries and fatalities;record-keeping and tracking and analysis of inci-

dents, accidents, injuries and illnesses.This bill does not even approach this level of detail of

what the policy and program must include. Many pro-visions in this bill have a paragraph which allows formore detail in regulation, but the government has noplans to prepare violence-in-the-workplace regulation.

There is no provision for notifying the joint health andsafety committees of the plants and the union of harass-ment incidents which result in WSIB claims. Labourwants to see either a revision to 52(2) or a new 52(4)added to address this. This will be brought out in com-

mittee, and I hope the government is listening.There is a provision in the bill which enables the gov-

ernment to pass regulations to make specific require-ments for any policy required under the act. This goesbeyond the violence issue.

With some revisions, the new federal regulation couldbe used as a basis for new regulations. For instance, thedefinition would need rewriting. Sections 20.4 and 20.5would be acceptable if they included a provision requir-ing the consideration of the isolation of the place of em-ployment and the need to work alone. Section 20.6,dealing with controls, needs work and will need to in-clude provisions addressing working alone or in iso-

lation. All of paragraph 6 of section 20.9 would need tobe deleted.Labour likes the points covered in sections 20.7, 20.8

and 20.10 dealing with the measures review, proceduresand training.

Labour does not want best practices in lieu of legis-lation, i.e., amendments to the act and a new regulation.Labour does not want participation in a tripartite agree-ment or process.

This bill really falls short of what the workplaceneeds. The members of the official opposition arecorrect: They dont feel that it covers certain areas. I


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dont know if they are willing to go as far as we wouldlike to see it go, but it definitely should.

I dont think that this type of legislationit can begoverned and overseen by the WSIB. They dont have topass it on to the employer. The employer should not besaddled with any additional costs, but the employershould also have the ability to strengthen his health and

safety committees and his union stewards and his front-line foremen so they can deal with this so that it doesntbecome a cumbersome and ongoing problem for theemployer. It should be rectified and done at the time ofthe incident or within a couple of days, straightened outand made quite clear to any employees that if they con-tinue in this manner, it will mean that they will be fired. Ithink that that spells it out quite clearly. If people realizethat its going to cost them their income and their lifeswork, then I think theyre going to think twice aboutsome of the things theyve been doing in the past.

In closing, the bill is a small start. We want to see a lotof changes to it before it goes to third reading. I hope,

once again, that the government doesnt ignore the thirdparty or the official oppositions amendments to bills,because some of them are excellent, and they shoulddefinitely take them into consideration.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Commentsand questions?

Mr. Mike Colle: As you know, we are now in secondreading debate. Hopefully, many of the good points thatthe member from Hamilton EastStoney Creek men-tioned will be discussed in detail in committee, becausethis bill will go to committee, where there will bepresentations made by a lot of the interested parties.These committees will be, Im sure, quite helpful ingetting the final draft of this bill. Thats the critical stage.

I think he has some very good recommendations that Ihope theyll consider seriously.

I know the parliamentary assistant to the Minister ofLabour, the member from Brampton West, is here todayand listening very attentively

Interjection.Mr. Mike Colle:not like the member from Durham,

whos always talking and never listening. The memberfrom Brampton West is listening. Hes the parliamentaryassistant and he is going to take a lot of this intoconsideration, bring it forward to the minister and alsoparticipate in the committee hearings because the com-mittee hearings will hopefully make this a strong bill.

The bill doesnt pretend to answer all the criticalissues that are sometimes found in workplaces, but it triesto put some pretty tough standards in place to preventthis type of systemic violence and harassment that takesplace.

In fact, Ken Coran, the president of the OntarioSecondary School Teachers Federation, says it best. Hesays, The amendments introduced to the act clearlydemonstrate that workplace violence and harassment willnot be tolerated. Employers will now have to identifyharassment and violence as hazards and implement poli-cies and programs that are both preventative and

responsive. That is, I think, wrapping up the bill in anutshell: preventive, making sure things dont happen,hopefully; and then responding if things do happen.


Mr. Toby Barrett: In this debate this morning, Ifound the remarks not only by the member from

Hamilton EastStoney Creek but also remarks by themember from Durham to beI guess I would use theword enlightening. They know of what they speak. Themember from Durham has spent a number of years inpersonnel, human resources, with a very large organi-zation in the auto sector.

Interjection.Mr. Toby Barrett: Whats wrong with General

Motors? I drive a GMC Sierra that was built in Oshawa.Regrettably, theyre now being built in Indiana. Thats aproblem for the steel industry, where the member fromHamilton EastStoney Creek has spent a number ofyears. He knows labour issues very well. Ive been at a

number of meetings with the member from HamiltonEastStoney Creek.The point I want to make: Having two people like this

involved in this legislation is doing the government afavour, in a sense, because these guys have a wealth ofexperience. The member from Hamilton EastStoneyCreek made a number of references to joint health andsafety committees; that would be a joint union-manage-ment committee, in my understanding of the term.

I wish to make reference to work that I did for anumber of years with both the auto industry and with thesteel industry in setting up joint union-managementcommittees with respect to employee assistance pro-gramming. Many of these committees remain in place. I

feel that, rather than a sole focus in this legislation ofhaving the employer required to prepare policy andimplement the policy, lets draw in everybody; lets drawin the union and unionized shops and lets put emphasison joint committees.1010


Mr. John OToole: The member from Hamilton East,I appreciate his taking the time to try to comment and tomake the bill better, and I think everyone here is really ofthe same view that that is the goal. I know the parlia-mentary assistant is here, and I would hope that he would

take a couple of minutes and maybe respond to theremarks being made today.I do see a fair amount of red tape in this bill. I would

like assurances, and hopefully there would be hearings onthe bill. As the member from HaldimandNorfolk hassuggested, a tri-party solution would not be a bad thing,where youd have the union and the employers and theemployees involved directly. I think it would build abetter solution.

But what is the problem here in, specifically, thedomestic violence portion? The problem is this: First ofall, when you say someone ought to know that theres a


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threat of danger of domestic violence in the workplace, itimplies that the employee was to tell the employer thatthere have been domestic problems. Being a marriedperson myself, an MPP and in the public service for 27years roughly, its not uncommon. I dont think that allviolence is physical; I think some of it is other types ofintimidation. My point is this: Some people are uncom-

fortable telling the employer about these personalproblems.

Now, what if they dont tell the employer and therewas evidence, police calls or whatever. Who is respon-sible? What theyre doing here is shifting this responsi-bility of domestic violence to the employer. My bill, theLori Dupont Act, proposed that victims could get arestraining order seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Thatorder could address the workplace or it could addressother places where the perpetrator could be, but thatswhats missing from this bill

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thankyou. Further comments or questions?

The member from Hamilton EastStoney Creek hastwo minutes to respond.Mr. Paul Miller: Id just like to acknowledge the

member from EglintonLawrence. I appreciate the factthat he has been listening intently and that he was, I hope,sincere about listening to some of our suggestions incommittee; that maybe the majority of members on thecommittee, being Liberal members, would consider someof these good suggestions.

I would also like to commend the member from Haldi-mandNorfolk and the member from Durham, becausethese two gentlemen have a lot of experience in thelabour movement, and I respect them both for their

knowledge and their involvement. They do bring adifferent perspective to the table. Not necessarily are ourideologies the same, but its definitely constructive tohave other ideas and to be able to come to a happymedium when youre dealing with these types of bills,because we have to deal with all factions of our societyand have to be reasonable when we bring forth thelegislation thats beneficial to all Ontarians.

So basically, in closing, Id just like to say that thisbill is an important bill, and Im sure that when it gets tocommittee the process will be open and fair and everyonewill take into deep consideration some of the suggestionsthat have been brought forward here today.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Furtherdebate? Seeing none, Mr. Fonseca has moved secondreading of Bill 168. Is it the pleasure of the House thatthe motion carry?

All in favour, say aye.All opposed, say nay.In my opinion, the ayes have it. The bill is carried.Second reading agreed to.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Shall thebill be ordered for third reading?

Hon. Michael Chan: I would ask that the bill bereferred to the Standing Committee on Social Policy.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Soordered.

This House stands recessed until 10:30 of the clock.The House recessed from 1015 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Mr. Eric Hoskins: I would like to ask the members ofthe House to join me in welcoming the family of pageMadeline Lewis. Madeline attends Winona Drive SeniorPublic School in St. Pauls. Here with us today areMadeleines father, Mark Lewis; her grandfather RayBarton; her grandmother Ginny Booth; her secondgrandmother Ann Lewis; and her aunt Clair Zangari.Welcome to the Legislature.

Mr. Kim Craitor: Im extremely pleased to introducetwo special people from Niagara Falls, Doug James andElisabeth Teunis. Both are very active in our communityand have been involved with the Terry Fox run.

I also want to share something from Elisabeth, whoparticularly wanted to express her appreciation to theentire House. In 2006, Elisabeth was diagnosed withmultiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood plasma that canbe treated but not cured. Elisabeth just wants to sayandthis is why she has come here todaythank you to theOntario Legislature for approving Revlimid, a newcancer drug that will extend the life of many myelomapatients and that she herself may need at one time in thefuture. Again, thanks to the House for approving that.

Hon. Donna H. Cansfield: They havent come in yet,but its my pleasure today to introduce Ms. Kinneysclass from Kipling Collegiate. Her grade 10 civics classhas come to observe the decorum of the House.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I trust everyonewill co-operate with the minister and the students.

Mr. Charles Sousa: I would like to welcome to theOntario Legislature a celebrated author, playwright, poet,professor and journalist from Portugal who won inter-national acclaim when he was bestowed in 2008 with thePEN award in Europe. He joins us today at the invitationof community members and local universities to share hisextensive work.

Please welcome Jaime Rocha, also known as RuiFerreira Sousa. He is joined by his brother Jose CarlosSousa, who is a long-time community activist, academicand businessman in Ontario.

As their surnames imply, they are related to thishumble servant from Mississauga South; theyre mycousins. Welcome to Queens Park.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Its my pleasure to intro-duce the members of the delegation from the OntarioLong Term Care Association. Theyre here today for theassociations first-ever Long-Term Care Day at QueensPark in celebration of their inaugural Long-Term CareWeek.

The Ontario Long Term Care Association is cele-brating 50 years as the only association representing thefull spectrum of Ontarios charitable not-for-profit muni-


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cipal and private operators of over two thirds of theprovinces long-term-care homes.

With us in the gallery are: Grace Sweatman, CEO ofChristie Gardens and the president of the OLTCA; DavidCutler, CEO of Leisureworld Caregiving Centres andOLTCAs vice-president, government relations; DonnaKingelin, COO of Revera Living and OLTCAs vice-president, resident care and services; Robert Zober,treasurer of Collingwood Nursing Home and vice-presi-dent at large; and Christina Bisanz, CEO of the OntarioLong Term Care Association. Please welcome them.

Mme France Glinas: It is my pleasure to introduceEoin Callan and Christine Miller, both representativesfrom SEIU; as well as Juan Vasquez. Juan is a hospitalworker here in Toronto.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): On behalf of themember from Etobicoke North and page James Profiti,wed like to welcome his mother, Cathy Profiti, and hisfather, Pat Profiti, to the Legislature today. Welcome toQueens Park.

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): As we have a newgroup of pages, Id like to take this opportunity to intro-duce them. I ask the pages to assemble for introduction,please.

Id like to ask all members to join me in welcomingthis group of legislative pages serving in the first sessionof the 39th Parliament:

Vladislav Bardalez, Don Valley East; RebeccaBartlett, HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock; ElliottBrand, MississaugaErindale; Rebecca Briell, Ajax

Pickering; Timothy Choi, BramaleaGoreMalton; KiraForeman-Tran, Oakville; Matthew Grossi, Vaughan;Shaan Ali Jessa, Richmond Hill; Emma Johnson,Kitchener Centre; Katelyn Johnstone, MississaugaBrampton South; Henry Lenz, YorkSimcoe; MadelineLewis, St. Pauls; Nithya Nithiaraj, ScarboroughRougeRiver; Jeremy Pag, NepeanCarleton; James Profiti,Etobicoke North; Bethany Ricker, HaldimandNorfolk;Rushabh Shah, York West; Hannah Walters-Vida,TorontoDanforth; and Jessica Webster, WhitbyOshawa.

Welcome to Queens Park. Enjoy your visit.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION

Mr. Tim Hudak: A question for the Premier: Whenfederal Liberals wasted $100 million on the sponsorshipscandal, they called the Gomery inquiry. The McGuintyLiberals wasted a billion dollars on the eHealth boon-doggle. Premier, given that, why arent you calling apublic inquiry?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: With every day, the leaderof the official opposition expresses his continuing dis-appointment with the auditors work. I dont share thatopinion. I have every confidence in the auditor. I thoughtthat my friends supported our invitation to the auditor toaccelerate the work he was already doing at eHealth. As Isaid many times before, we fully accept the findings of

the auditors report. We thought he was nothing less thanthorough, as is fully in keeping with his practice, and weadopt every one of the recommendations and we acceptevery single one of his findings as well.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.Mr. Tim Hudak: In fact, we have full confidence in

the auditor because he, quite frankly, had the guts to askthe questions that this Premier was afraid to ask of hisown cabinet ministers.

Just like Sheila Fraser found with the federal Liberals,Ontarios auditor found that two thirds of the dealshanded out by the McGuinty Liberals were sole-sourced,that Management Board meddled with the rules so it

could award untendered contracts, that the McGuintygovernment obstructed the Auditor Generals investi-gation for six months, and that favouritism showed by theMcGuinty government influenced who received millionsof dollars in untendered contracts.

As we know, the Deputy Premier, Minister Smither-man, is linked to at least three of the four findings. Is thePremier refusing to call an inquiry because hes trying toprotect George Smitherman?1040

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, I just think that whatwe owe Ontarians on this side of the House is a heavyresponsibility to draw what lessons we might from theevents that unfolded at eHealth, to accept the auditors

findings and to stay away from political gamesmanship,because theres one particular finding and conclusionreached in the auditors report that my honourablecolleague refuses to accept, notwithstanding how manytimes I bring it to his attention, as Ill do once again rightnow.

What the auditor said on page 11 of his report is, Wewere aware of the allegations that party politics mayhave entered into the awarding of contracts and that thoseawarding the contracts may have obtained a personalbenefit from the firms getting the workbut we saw noevidence of this during our work. I think no evidenceis pretty conclusive.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supple-mentary.Mr. Tim Hudak: I recommend that the Premier read

the Auditor Generals report. The findings of the provin-cial auditor are more damning of Minister Smithermanand the McGuinty government than what Sheila Fraserhad to say about Alfonso Gagliano and the federalLiberals. Prime Minister Chrtien was not mentioned asingle time in the federal auditors report; PremierMcGuintys name appears seven times in the provincialauditors report. The auditor found that Sarah Kramerwas the Premiers hand-picked appointment and that the


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Premier set the wheels in motion that resulted in themassive untendered-contract spending spree at eHealth.

I ask, is the Premier refusing to call an inquiry becausehe is just out to protect himself?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Obviously, Im in myhonourable colleagues hands when it comes to pursuingthis particular debate and public conversation, but I dontreally see it leading anywhere. I think our shared respon-sibility now is to find a way to move forward to ensurethat we put into practice all the recommendations putforward by the auditor, and we undertake to do that.

Beyond that, before we received the auditors reportits important that I draw to my colleagues attentiononce again, as well as to the attention of Ontarians, thatwe have a new rule in place. If you are a consultant andyou want to get a contract with the province of Ontario,you must be part of a competitive bidding process. Wethink that goes a long way to ensuring that the kinds ofpractices that were in place admittedly on our watch andalso on the watch of the previous two governments are no

longer going to be allowed in Ontario.

ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION

Mr. Tim Hudak: Back to the Premier: All this, sadly,seems to be leading to more stonewalling by PremierMcGuinty, who seems more interested in protectinghimself or his Deputy Premier than getting answers fortaxpayers, who saw $1 billion go down the drain in thiseHealth boondoggle. Of that money, $837 millionhappened under Minister Smithermans watch. Thats78% of what the McGuinty government wasted on thisboondoggle under your Deputy Premier, with nothing to

show for it for Ontario families across our province.Why isnt the Premier calling an inquiry into MinisterSmithermans role in this billion-dollar boondoggle?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, I understand wheremy colleague is coming from on this score. For him, itsall about politics and its all about games. I accept thatthats the particular perspective on that, but I think wehave something greater by way of a duty that we owe tothe people of Ontario.

One of the things that we need to keep in mind is whatin fact eHealth has succeeded in accomplishing to thispoint in time. So far, more than four million Ontariansare already participating in the electronic medical recordsprogram. More than one million children have an elec-tronic health record and more than 80,000 Ontarians arein a pilot project for ePrescribing, which will help savelives. Weve laid an important foundation.

There is more work to be done. We accept that, andwe look forward to getting on with that work rather thanengaging continuously in these political games.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.Mr. Tim Hudak: The Premier may see $1 billion

down the drain as some kind of political game; I see it asan extraordinary betrayal of hard-working taxpayers whoput money in and trusted in you to spend it the right way.

Premier, Im sure you know by now that the mansitting to your right, the Deputy Premier of the province,saw $837 million wasted during his tenure at the Ministryof Health. That is, to put it in perspective, over eighttimes more than what Alfonso Gagliano spent on theLiberal-friendly advertising firms in the sponsorshipscandal. Minister Smitherman himself referred to the

agency before eHealth as a cesspool, but MinisterSmitherman ran that program for five of six years, and heis the one who built that cesspool. Premier, will you calla public inquiry and get to the bottom of this growingscandal?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: What I find scandalous isthe leader of the official opposition continually assertingthat activities that took place at eHealth were connectedwith some kind of party politics, and his refusal to acceptthe very specific and explicit finding of the auditor. Iwant to draw to his attention once again his finding: Wewere aware of the allegation, undoubtedly coming fromthe official opposition and others, that party politics

may have entered into the awarding of contracts ... butwe saw no evidence of this during our work. Again, Ithink its pretty clear, I think its pretty explicit, and Ithink we all share responsibility to accept that finding.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supple-mentary.

Mr. Tim Hudak: Premier, as you know, MinisterSmitherman remained involved in eHealth even after youshuffled him to the Ministry of Infrastructure. He haskept his fingers in procurements, the diabetes registry andthe drug information system. Contracts were handed outto Karli Farrow, his former chief of staff and adviser toyou, yourself, Premier. Management Board, upon whichMinister Smitherman sits, handed out an untendered

contract that by itself alone is one third of what thefederal Liberals wasted in the sponsorship scandal.

Premier, there are 837 million reasons to questionMinister Smithermans role in the eHealth scandal. Willyou call a public inquiry today?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: No, I wont. Ive said thatseveral times over and Im not sure I can be any moredirect than that.

As in all of these matters, I not only trust the auditorbut have a great deal of confidence in the people ofOntario, who ultimately will stand in judgment of allthese things. I believe that the people of Ontario haveconfidence in the auditors findings; I believe that they

accept our commitment to putting in place every singleone of his recommendations. I believe that Ontarianswant to find a way together to move forward with thefoundation on which weve built the beginnings of ourstructure for eHealth. I think Ontarians want us to moveforward. Thats what we accept on this side of the House,and thats what we are going to do.

HEALTH CAREMme France Glinas: Ma question est pour le premier

ministre galement. The scandal surrounding eHealth just


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keeps going: $1 billion spent and very little to show forit. Weve witnessed top bureaucrats being paid out ofhospital budgets, exorbitant expense accounts, and un-tendered consulting contracts at Cancer Care Ontario.Yet last week my leader, Andrea Horwath, asked thePremier to call in the Auditor General to do spot checkson the Ministry of Health consultant contracts. Tomor-

row I will bring a motion forward in the public accountscommittee asking the auditor to do just that.

My question to the Premier is simple: Will the Premierassure us that the Liberal members on public accountswill be allowed to support this motion?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: What I will assure thehonourable member and the auditor, of course, is that hehas every right, at the time and in the subject matter ofhis own choosing, to intervene and to conduct an investi-gation, however thoroughly he might wish to pursue that.That includes, of course, the spot checks being recom-mended by my colleague. Obviously, we would supportany effort on the part of the auditor to conduct any such

spot checks wherever he deems it to be appropriate.The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.Mme France Glinas: I take it that means they will

vote in favour of my motion. Im looking forward to thatvote tomorrow.

While $1 billion was wasted, front-line workers havebeen calling for reinforcements to protect hospitalpatients from infections. Today in the gallery is JuanVasquez. Juan is a front-line health care worker in aToronto hospital just down the street from here.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Please make sureit ties into your original question.1050

Mme

France Glinas: Yes.He is worried that the hospitals are failing in the fightagainst infection and that we are not prepared for H1N1.

How can this government find money for multi-million-dollar consulting contracts but leave our hospitalsill-prepared to protect their patients from the spread ofinfectious diseases within their own walls? The tie-in ismoney, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: As I had the opportunity tosay earlier today, and I think in this House yesterday aswell, when it comes to hospital budgets, we have in factincreased those by some 42% during the course of thelast six years. If we compare that to what has happened

with the cost of living, it has gone up by about 11%.Weve made some dramatic new investments in ourhospital budgets.

We look forward to continuing to find ways to workwith the hospital sector and all those good people whoserve the public in the delivery of health care services,whether inside the hospital sector or outside. We willfind ways, working together, notwithstanding our finan-cial challenges, to continue to inspire confidence in ourhealth care system.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supple-mentary?

Mme France Glinas: Money, like a billion dollarsthat goes out the door at eHealth with no improvement inpatient care, is not what we want. Fifty hospitals arefacing deficits. We all know that the first area a hospitallooks at for cuts is housekeeping. The Auditor Generalsspecial report has proven that these cuts put patients atrisk. Juan is here today because he wants a commitment

from the Premier. Will the Premier commit to ensuringour precious health care dollars are spent on improvingpatient care?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: We will do everything inour power to ensure that we get good value for taxpayerdollars when it comes to the money we invest in everypublic program, but especially in health care. I think wehave gone a long way to demonstrating the value thatweve got in return for those significant new investmentsin the health care system, whether youre taking a look atthe number of new hospitals that are being built; whetherits the older hospitals which are undergoing recon-struction and renovation; whether youre looking at thenumber of new doctors and nurses who are out therepractising and serving Ontario families; whether its thenumber of new MRIs and other kinds of technology,treatments and drugs which weve been funding anew. Ithink were demonstrating that we are in fact gettinggood value for the new investments that we continue tomake in health care for all our families.

GOVERNMENT CONSULTANTSMr. Paul Miller: My question is to the Premier.

Theres a new lottery in Ontario. Its called ConsultantMax and it pays out more than $1 million a day butyouve got to be a consultant to play. Ive got right here a

freedom of information on some of the things that havebeen going on which shows that the McGuinty Liberalsspent nearly $400 million on high-priced consultants lastyear alone. That doesnt include consultant spending atagencies, boards and commissions. Given the eHealthconsultant debacle, how does the Premier explain thismillion-dollar give-away whopper?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I dont think its particularlynews that governments and the Ontario government havebeen availing themselves of the special expertise andservices offered by consultants. Governments of allpolitical stripes have been doing that for some time.What I can confirm is that we have reduced the use ofconsultants by 34% since 2003 when it comes to the

amount of money were investing in consultants.What we want to do, in keeping with the advice thatwe received from the auditors most recent report, isenhance the skill set of people working inside the publicservice so that we can continue to rely less and less onoutside expertise and have that expertise more and morein-house because we have confidence in our publicservice to be able to do that for us.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.Mr. Paul Miller: Each and every day across Ontario

were hearing about cuts to vulnerable kids, to unem-ployed workers, to community hospitals, all the while


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this government blows more than a million bucks a dayon consultants. Its simply outrageous. The Ministry ofConsumer Services burned through $100 million onconsultants in 2008. The Ministry of Health spent $89million.

I ask the Premier again: During these difficult eco-nomic times, how can he possibly justify this kind of

spending on consultants?Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Just to restate it, again, we

have made some progress. Theres more work to be done,but I think the progress weve made is significant. Since2003, weve reduced the use of consultants by some34%.

Now, my honourable colleague made reference tocutsits become fashionable these days to talk in thosetermsbut the fact of the matter is, in virtually everysingle program, we have continued to invest, year overyear, more, especially in our most important public ser-vices like health care and education. So I would cautionmy colleague as he talks about cuts to revisit the budget

and to see in fact that we continue to invest more money,especially in those public services that our familiesabsolutely have to be able to count on.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supple-mentary.

Mr. Paul Miller: Clearly, the government has lost itsway. Vulnerable kids, unemployed workers and seniorsare all told to make due with less, while well-connectedconsultants feast at the McGuinty government trough.When is this Premier going to say enough is enough?When is he finally going to end this governmentsmillion-dollar-a-day addiction to consultants and theirbloated fees?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, I think that a 34%

reduction in the use of consultants since 2003 is sig-nificant progress. Again, I accept the auditors recom-mendation, particularly insofar as it related to eHealth,where he said that what you should do is further reducethe use of consultants and see if you can adopt thatexpertise in-house, and thats something we look forwardto doing.

My colleague continues to make reference to the factof cuts when it comes to vulnerable kids or theunemployed, and in fact thats simply not true. We con-tinue to invest new dollars year over year in enhancingthe investments that we make and in the program fundinglevels for those kinds of programs. We look forward to

working with all of our partners now, notwithstanding thefact that we all stare into some pretty challengingfinancial times.

ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATIONMs. Lisa MacLeod: My question is to the Premier of

Ontario. An auditors report into the waste of taxpayerdollars by Liberals said, We are disturbed not only bythe widespread circumvention of the competitive ...process ... but also by the fact that this was permitted tooccur at all.

This Premier says he accepts the Provincial Auditorsreport in its totality, so he should be able to tell us, didthis criticism come from Sheila Frasers report on thesponsorship scandal or did it come from the ProvincialAuditors report on the McGuinty Liberals eHealthscandal?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Im not sure what the point

of this question is, and I have not memorized the reportword for word, but I can say, as Ive said before, that weaccept every finding. We will adopt every single recom-mendation put forward by the auditor. We think it wasthorough. We think his response was perfectly appro-priate in the circumstances, and thats why were goingto move ahead with all of his recommendations.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.Ms. Lisa MacLeod: The Premier remembers one

quote in a 48-page document, but the previous quote isfrom the federal auditors report on the sponsorshipscandal. But the Provincial Auditor said, Sound andreasonable policies were in place to ensure that all sup-

pliers could compete fairly ... but all too often the ruleswere not followed.Which level of government this auditor was criticizing

doesnt really matter, and it hasnt really changed. Howcan one auditors findings lead to the Gomery inquirywhile the others leads to Premier McGuinty hiding whatMinister Smitherman and his McGuinty Liberals havedone to hide and waste one billion in taxpayer dollars?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Its not too hard to figureout what the opposition is doingGomery, the spon-sorship scandal, and lets see wha

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