February 24, 2006 Highlights

1. Bill 206, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) Pension Legislation

The dominating issue at Queen’s Park this week was undoubtedly Bill 206, the OMERS pension legislation, and the threat by CUPE Ontario President, Sid Ryan to call a province-wide strike if the bill wasn’t amended. CUPE was pressing for employees to have equal power with employer representatives in the new governance model and against police and firefighters being able to negotiate enriched sub-plans to support early retirement.  Municipalities were also opposing the sub-plans because of the costs they, as employers, will have to bear in increased contributions. 

Mr. Ryan took the province to the brink of an illegal strike, put pulled back at the eleventh hour, saying he had won a commitment from the government to review Bill 206 in six years in terms of the impact of the new model on CUPE members.  The agreement was reached in the face of a provincial government that refused to back down from its plan to proceed to a quick final reading of the bill.  Bill 206 received Third Reading and Royal Assent on February 23.  Both the Tories and NDP voted against the bill.  While there is equal employer/employee representation on the OMERS board, the bill, as passed, requires a 50% plus one majority of the board to approve changes to the plan. 

2. Tories Promote Reviving Private School Tax Credit

During the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party policy conference held this past weekend in Niagara Falls, leader John Tory indicated the party’s next election platform will include a commitment to revive private school tax credits.  The party is still considering whether the tax credits would be made available for all private schools or only those that are faith-based.  Mr. Tory takes the position that it is unfair to fund Catholic schools but not to provide financial support to other religious schools.

On February 22, ETFO issued a news release stating the Federation’s opposition to the tax credit proposal.

3. Liberal Child Care Commitments

On February 21, NDP MPP Andrea Horwath pointed to the 2003 Liberal election platform that promised $300 million in additional funding for child care.  She reported that the Liberal members of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs voted against a motion to invest $150 million in child care.  She asked Children and Youth Services Minister Mary Anne Chambers why her government couldn’t “even keep half a promise.”

The Minister refused to comment on the issue of investing additional provincial dollars in child care and instead pointed to the government’s focus on preserving Ontario’s bilateral child care funding agreement achieved with the previous federal Liberal government:

“We know where we stand. We also know that we are the government that worked really hard to strike a five-year, $1.9-billion agreement with the government of Canada. We did this because parents told us that this is what they need when they have to struggle with balancing the demands of work and home.”

The Ontario government is pinning its hopes for its child agreement with Ottawa on the fact that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has agreed to give Quebec its child care funding with no strings attached.  Unless Ontario finds significant new provincial funds for child care, the province’s Best Start program is dependent on Ontario’s success in saving the federal child care funding deal.

4. Government Announces Overhaul of Human Rights Commission

On February 20, Attorney General Michael Bryant announced the government’s plans to overhaul the current process for addressing human rights complaints.  Legislation will be introduced this spring to give the Ontario Human Rights Commission more of an educational and research role and to streamline the complaints process by allowing individuals to take complaints directly to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.  The latter reform is designed to address the systemic problem of backlogs in the complaints process.  The commission will retain the right to bring forward complaints, but will no longer be the first stop in the complaints process.

The reformed Human Rights Commission will include an anti-racism secretariat within the commission.

5. Byelections

Premier McGuinty has yet to announce the date for the three byelections necessitated by the recent resignations of former MPPs Alvin Curling (Scarborough-Rouge River), Jim Flaherty (Whitby-Ajax), and Marilyn Churley (Toronto-Danforth), but nominations and unofficial campaigns are already underway.  In Toronto-Danforth, broadcaster Ben Chin has been acclaimed for the Liberals; former Toronto councillor and executive director of Greenpeace Peter Tabuns won the NDP nomination; and Georgina Blanas, a brewery industry employee is touted to be the PC candidate.

6. Premier Proposes Four-Year Municipal Terms

On February 21, at the Rural Ontario Municipalities Association conference, Premier Dalton McGuinty announced his government would introduce legislative amendments to provide for four-year municipal terms, in line with the new provincial term of office.  In announcing the policy, Mr. McGuinty stated: “A four-year term is the ideal period of time for a council to forge an agenda, implement it and then seek the people's judgement.”  He also indicated the policy change was in response to requests from municipal governments.