It's now time for question period and I recognize the leader of Her Majesty's Oil Opposition. Thanks very much speaker. My first question this morning is to the Premier. Speaker families are watching in horror as COVID-19 outbreaks rip through another for-profit long-term care facility extended cares West End Villa in Ottawa. Since first declaring an outbreak two weeks ago the virus has infected 46 residents and six residents have died. This is a facility with a history of police investigations and class action lawsuits. The Premier repeatedly talks about lessons that have been learned and that long-term care homes are protected and that for-profit operators would be held to account. Despite all that talk and being warned months ago that this was coming why are families once again watching another deadly outbreak in long-term care. Minister of long-term care to reply. Thank you speaker and thank you for the question. I want to make sure that all of us understand that the long-term care homes in Ontario are often a reflection of the community surrounding them. In fact there was an article in the Canadian Medical Association journal with Dr. Nathan Stahl indicating that it is not that the outbreaks are consistent with the public health unit rate of infection of COVID around those areas and it is not reflective of the ownership of the home. Some of our homes have struggled. There is no doubt about that and COVID is an invisible invader and that's why we have the testing and process testing processes we have. It's why once it's into the home we have to find it and we have to destroy it and that's why we have the infection prevention and control teams coming in. It's why we have a coordinated effort with Ontario Health, Public Health Ontario, the Ottawa Public Health Units and I'm in daily contact with Ottawa Public Health to make sure everything that is it's not it's not fine. So in any case I would suggest that we we look at understanding the area and the communities and this is why everyone needs to thank you. The supplementary question. Well speaker all I can say to that is thank goodness that the rates of death are not the same in the community as they have been in long-term care. That was a horrifying response. The Premier talks about taking action speaker. He talks about all the time two months ago two months ago after hundreds of residents had died in long-term care the government's own report on long-term care staffing made very specific recommendations to address the challenges in long-term care including funding the and I quote urgently address funding rather to I quote urgently address urgently address the staffing crisis in long-term care two months ago why has the government failed now then to provide the additional funding that has long been needed to increase the actual staffing and prevent the further outbreaks and deaths in homes like extended care West End Villa when will it actually happen when will his talk turn into action last members to take their seats minister of long-term care to reply thank you speaker and once again thank you for the question in fact we have been acting as soon as we became a ministry of long-term care in the summer of 2019 the staffing crisis was very evident and we began working on that at that time and all throughout this we are preparing and managing a staffing shortage with every measure possible this is a combined effort with the ministry of health and the ministry of long-term care understanding that more needs to be done informed by our expert panel that did a study on staffing in long-term care to provide us with a map for a long-term care staffing strategy a comprehensive strategy and that's exactly what we've been working on we have been absolutely working round the clock dedicated to this looking at every hour for staffing and working with multiple ministries to address this issue it is ongoing and we will continue to work on this thank you and the final supplement speaker this government's lack of urgency on fixing long-term care has now led to another six deaths in the last couple of days that is unacceptable speaker it should be unacceptable for everyone sitting on the government bench but the government's own report also recommended increased standards in long-term care calling on the government to mandate and i quote four hours of direct care per resident as quickly as possible now that was a couple of months ago that was a couple of months ago speaker where are the four hours of long-term of hands-on care but instead of of establishing that minimum or taking any steps whatsoever to address staffing shortages the government has done nothing and is allowing the horrific cycle of outbreaks infections and deaths to continue in our long-term care system how many more outbreaks need to happen in long-term care before this premier meets the staffing and care standards recommended by their own advisors by their own reports ministered long-term care thank you speaker and thank you the member opposite for the question i am going to push back it is absolute reality that we are actively aggressively working on the staffing strategy and the sense of urgency is absolute not only for the ministry of long-term care but for this entire government and all the good people who are working tirelessly whether it's in the public service the front lines of our long-term care homes or the hard-working MPPs and and the people on your side as well who are working hard to do this all of us all of us must come together and collaborate and make sure that we do everything possible and that is exactly what we're doing and we will continue to work and take every measure and i want to make sure that everyone understands that these homes are our focus uh many of the homes that are outbreak have one staff member self isolating at home there are two homes in the Ottawa area and we are pouring all our resources into those homes to shore them up and make sure that we put the priority of safety and well-being of residents and staff that's again the leader of the opposition thank you speaker my next question is to the premier you know report after report from the front lines confirmed this government did nothing to prevent COVID outbreaks that robbed Ontarians of their loved ones in long-term care and to those families it looks like the premier is doing all that he can do to actually protect a broken system his government refused to hold a transparent public judicial inquiry into long-term care instead trotting out their commission back in july two months later families learned that the commission has only met in secret and will not commit to ever holding public hearings the premier promised in july in his own words quote a transparent independent review of our long-term care system does the premier believe a commission that has so far only met in secret is actually transparent mr long-term care thank you speaker and and thank you for the question i take exception to the term secret as a as a dedicated family doctor for many years who's come to this chamber to advance long-term care and make sure our most vulnerable people get the care that they need i take great exception to that comment and i can tell you that the commissioners are imminent eminent people they are highly skilled highly qualified credible people highly respected and to say that meetings are being taken in secret is is an absolute travesty our the commissioners have the power to conduct hearings and deputations and issue summons to any person to give evidence and produce documents as they conduct their investigation they will uphold transparency and they will get to the bottom of what happened they will provide guidance to our government as to what can be done differently they will hear from residents from families and from staff members they will provide the transparency that is needed and i take great exception thank you thank you the supplementary question well that's great speaker then i expect the transcripts of every interview that has taken so far to be posted on the website yesterday the minister stated on the record and i quote certainly there will be hearings there is a public report only to be contradicted literally within hours by the commission itself families and frontline health workers who have been promised concrete action and a transparent investigation are now dismissing this as a cover-up and as meaningless as the premier's promise of an iron ring around long-term care which we all know never occurred how can this premier claim a transparent process when key interviews have been conducted in secret already families have been left in the dark there is no commitment to holding public hearings and the minister of long-term care can't keep her story straight by the looks of things and thank you for the question the commission has the ability to conduct hearings summons individuals or groups to gather information it is an independent commission and that needs to stay that way we recognize the important part of getting up and getting going and that's what they've done during the last month establish a secretary at establish a group of people to support them so that they can do their good work this is about transparency we need to be informed as to what we can do differently we need that objectivity and that is what we will we will be providing that avenue through the independent commission as a minister i am not in contact with the commissioners because it must be independent and transparent and response it's absolutely critical and i i respect the commissioners that have been appointed they are highly respected in their fields they are going to provide the trust that is needed thank you thank you the final supplementary speaker i wrote to the commission about a week ago to ask about these issues specifically and i got no response no response until this morning after news broke that the commission was conducting key interviews behind closed doors in secret the premier's handpicked commission won't commit to public hearings hasn't reached out to a single family yet won't commit to providing any accountability or transparency will the premier finally do the right thing today and call the fully transparent independent judicial inquiry that should be already in place and at work members please take those seats mr long-term care thank you speaker and thank you once again we know from the just justice scolese the public inquiry uh that she chaired and and recommended uh many recommendations after that it takes a long time for an independent for a public inquiry to be done an independent commission will provide us with the necessary efficient timelines that we need to address any possible additional measures that we can take we cannot wait years we cannot wait years and there are even some groups saying that we already know what happened with wardrooms with the capacity in our long-term care homes the lack of redevelopment over decades of the previous government 15 years with which no essential significant development redevelopment occurred response the neglect of our long-term care system by the previous government occasionally and sometimes frequently propped up by the by the opposition makes a difference to our vulnerable people thank you very much thank you mr speaker this question is for the premier speaker listening to claims made by the premier and the minister of education this week parents and educators could be forgiven for thinking they'd stumbled into some kind of alternate reality why else would the government repeatedly say they have reduced class sizes when what's happening on the ground is so clearly the opposite why would the government take credit for the enormously hard work that boards have done to reduce class sizes in a few very few areas of high need and claim that they've done that across the province in fact what they've done is create utter chaos across this province mr speaker the premier owes parents and educators across this province an apology he is leaving our buses and classrooms in chaos at a time when our children need more support and not more confusion will the premier listen to the chorus of voices including sick kids and bring in class size caps of 15 the minister of education well thank you very much mr speaker and thank you to the member opposite for the question speaker our plan that we've unveiled has been fully endorsed by the chief medical officer of health of this province is evidence informed and it is fully funded it's comprehensive and it leads the nation in in each and every realm speaker in the areas of classroom sizes it is under the premier's leadership that we have dedicated 200 million dollars to enable school boards to yes hire more teachers upwards of 2000 funded by government and funded by reserves an additional up to 5000 teachers could be hired through the unlocking of 496 million dollars the point speaker is in each and every school board in this province urban and rural in every board school boards are taking leadership to reduce those classroom sizes in toronto in the higher risk communities and i've always been specific in those communities we're seeing absolute caps of 15 up to grade three absolute caps of 20 or grade 40 we'll continue to work with our boards to keep these classroom sizes safe and do everything we can to ensure the safety of our province speaker supplementary question mr speaker i mean the minister of education's response is utter fiction the minister needs to go back and do the math on what this funding is covering because it ain't covering that speaker if you talk to any educator custodian principal parent you're going to see classes are not being reduced to ensure physical distancing because this government has not put up the funding to do it this week i heard from more parents i've heard from thousands one parent shocked to find out that their child's class was collapsed into a super-sized 28 person class i've heard about 29 35 30 a grade eight with a class of 35 parents are trying to buy outdoor tents with their own money to help schools keep distanced some classrooms are being left empty it's absurd a bus driver told me yesterday she's been driving a full bus of 60 children to five questions in two different boards since last week had only got her seating recommendations yesterday morning again to the premier will the government commit today to keeping our kids safe by capping class sizes at 15 mr education with that thank you speaker mr speaker in the toronto district school board to date the director of education has informed us that they're on track of hiring over 366 nets new teachers to respond to this unprecedented challenge in that in that in toronto for example where the member opposite represents there's been an additional an additional 102 public health nurses more than doubling the capacity to respond mr speaker what we're seeing on the ground notwithstanding some of the pessimism of the members opposite is a real sense of unity of spirit in our province of educators and principals and administrators and public health units coming together to confront this challenge in the great tradition of our province speaker what we need now more than ever is a collective resolve to do our part and to work together in the public interest that's what our government will continue to do speaker next question the member for milton thank you thank you mr speaker mr speaker my question is to the premier premier not that long ago during the darkest days of covet 19 pandemic every country in the world was left scrambling for critical medical supplies and personal protective equipment there was a worldwide shortage canada was left at the mercy of other countries for the PPE we desperately needed a report by the province's auditor general completed in december 2017 found that more than 80 percent of the stockpile equipment had expired under the previous liberal government's leadership speaker can the premier informed the legislature about what our government has done to ensure that enterians are never left in the same vulnerable position ever again i want i want to thank the our great member from from milton you know i i'll never forget mr speaker the the day that the president decided to cut canned off their number one trading partner number one customer and we called out for help and the great great companies of this province stood up they ramped up they switched over their lines some of the largest company some of the smallest some people in their basement were we're making masks but i'm proud to say since everyone has stood up we have dozens and dozens of companies making feel face shields we have dozens of companies making face masks and hand sanitizer and surgical gowns companies switching over again canada goose what a great company switched over to surgical gowns so i'm proud to say in a short period of time in less than three months we are self-sufficient we will never have to rely on a foreign leader a foreign country ever again for our ppe not only response thank you very much supplementary question thank you thank you mr speaker my question is back to the premier premier thank you for your strong leadership during some of the most difficult times that we're facing i remember in the early days of the pandemic stories about ontario receiving contaminated products and having to fight with other countries for lifesaving medical supplies this demonstrated to everyone why ontario needed to re-secure our supply chain and manufacturing strength once again speaker can the premier please share with the legislature about the partnership announced yesterday between our government and littermark to secure additional medical equipment for my constituents in milton and all ontarians as we continue our fight against COVID-19 thank you very much for our great number i'm going to back up for a second i'm going to talk about our first announcement with 3m in brockville now we have a supply of over 25 million and 95 masks with a great partnership with 3m and the federal government in the province we had a phenomenal meeting at littermark going back months when everyone in the world was scrambling for ventilators mr speaker we were able to partner up with oh two with another great company and littermark littermark is one of the largest and one of the best auto part manufacturers in the entire world employing 9 000 people up in the great city of of guelph we went over there and i'm again i'm proud to say with the cooperation the collaboration of our government in the private sector they're producing 10 000 ventilators will never have to rely on any other country for ventilators again we will have a stockpile of ventilators not just for us but for our great neighbors our provinces across this great country so thank you next question the member for london west uh thank you speaker my question is to the premier speaker london's two coveted assessment centers are completely overwhelmed they are seeing the longest lineups in months with people waiting four hours or more for a test or forced to leave without one one of the centers is within walking distance of three elementary schools creating safety and traffic nightmares for children getting to and from school the western university mobile testing unit is turning students away because it can't meet the demand christine and sue zimmer told me their 87 year old mother who needs a test in order to get her cancer surgery was forced to risk exposure to coveted by waiting in line for hours with people who were symptomatic speaker with the second wave upon us what is this government doing to reduce the risk and make more coveted tests available to londoners premier i want to thank the member for for the question you know mr. speaker i stood up there day after day after day begging people to get tested and people were coming we're leading the country in testing we we have 50 38 percent of the population 52 percent of the test we have well over 3 million 200 thousand order mr. speaker what we're doing it's all hands on deck we've reached out for help again because we aren't shy to ask for help from the great people the 14 half million people and the thousands of businesses and again the thousands of businesses are stepping up some of the top retailers in the entire country that i've called personally are stepping up and they're going to be doing the testing and we look forward to making sure that everyone has an opportunity to get tested i drove by woman's college mr. speaker i'm first to acknowledge there was lineups but there was good news in that lineup the good news is i saw a lot of young people in that lineup because we know the majority of the cases are under 40 years of age and also under 19 years of age so i'm so proud to see everyone getting there and getting tested and we're going to have a very efficient system and the supplementary question speaker an effective and appropriate testing strategy requires more assessment centers longer hours more options for testing ron quintillon and his sisters need tests every two weeks to visit their father in long-term care they worry that lineups for testing mean they won't be able to see their father and are planning to take vacation days in order to wait for the tests brenda desuza told me that her elderly parents are scheduled to move into a retirement home but may have to delay their move because of long waits for a covid test speaker with students back to school with the situation in london is going to get much worse very quickly will the premier commit to providing the resources that london urgently needs to expand our testing capacity and help limit the second wave minister of health much speaker well the good news is that more people are going for tests that's what we ask people to do people that have symptoms and people that believe it may have been in contact with someone with covid-19 order we are very pleased that they're coming forward but they also deserve to have time stop the clock order please restart the clock minister of health to reply thank you speaker but people also deserve to have timely access to tests and we recognize that with people going back to work with people returning to school people needing to have tests to visit family members in long-term care homes or retirement that we need to have greater access for people we have expanded our testing capacity and our lab capacity considerably in a very short order to the point that we are now leading and testing across the country with over three million tests having been conducted but we are looking to expand again we're looking to get to 50 000 tests per day and we have a fall preparedness plan that is calling for that to happen we are actively looking at this moment at ways that we can access to people not just in london but across the province because we know there are long wait lines in other places but we're very grateful first of all to our hospital partners thank you very much the next question the member for cambridge thank you mr speaker it's good to be free my question is for the premier in march the government implemented emergency orders shutting down anterios economy including places of worship initially we were told this would last for two weeks in order not to overwhelm our healthcare system six months later we expect many businesses will close permanently as a result i've heard from many people across our province concerned with the lack of clarity provided with regards to transparent benchmarks and objective criteria being used by the province and local officials in their imposition of emergency powers this week the premier stated that a second shutdown is being considered on specific regions of the province as a result of a week that saw an increase in the number of positive covid cases being reported for the sake of transparency and clarity has or will the government create a general framework that they can share with the people of ontario with objective criteria like the rate of increased cases and the duration the increase needs to persist before a second shutdown is considered or imposed on the province or on specific regions or will such a decision be made on a gut question recognizes mr general thank you very much speaker you know we're going to continue what we have done in since the beginning and that is listen to experts get that information from the command table from medical experts who understand what covid 19 is as those emerging issues come forward as we see that we're learning more about what covid does what the pandemic can do within our community frankly killing people we need to make sure that we listen to those experts and act quickly which is why ontario was the first jurisdiction in all of canada to declare the declaration of emergency because we knew premier ford understood the need to act quickly to protect our communities thank you thank you speaker bill 195 gave this premier the unilateral ability for the next year and possibly two without debate amongst ontario MPPs to impose a second province wide or regional shutdown at any time their premier could hold on to these powers right up until the next ontario election therefore it is important that the government provide consistency and clarity to the people of ontario just this week the premier stated that despite the source of the most recent increases in positive covid cases being social gatherings and not activities related to workplaces he was considering a second shutdown for affected regions yesterday the premier said new measures are on their way earlier this month the premier stated that local officials are free to impose more restrictive limits on gatherings as they deem necessary my question for the premier is is the government considering imposing a second broad shutdown of specific affected regions even where the increases are due to social gatherings or will the government's new measures be more targeted and ensure that any tightening or furthering of restrictions will be done based on a framework with objective criteria again the solicitor general thank you speaker i would have thought the member opposite understood the legislation that in fact it has a one-year time frame unprecedented i cannot think of another piece of legislation that we have tabled in this province that has a timeline of one year if it is deemed necessary to extend that it would be voted on and debated in this chamber as it should be but you know i want to come back to we need to listen to the experts we need to understand how this is impacting our communities our businesses our friends and family and we need to make sure that we do everything possible to keep people safe and sound it is at its core what government must do and i'm proud of how we've been able to do that so far it it's an emerging issue we're learning more as the medical experts continue to share that information and we need to react and respond when they share it thank you next question the member for Etobicoke Lakeshore thank you mr speaker and nice to see you this morning speaker my first question is actually for the minister of education i want to say thank you for all his generous time speaking directly twice to my constituents parents teachers and students mr speaker i know that parents students and teachers in Etobicoke Lakeshore are tracking the daily covid numbers in our province we all are but i also know that we have confidence in our government and our government has created a robust return to school plan backed by 1.3 billion dollars in investments to support a safe reopening a big part of that plan includes a comprehensive outbreak management protocol document speaker can the minister of education please tell the legislature why it is in such an important tool in our fight against covid 19 minister of education well thank you speaker i want to thank the member from Etobicoke Lakeshore for her solid leadership for her community as well as for all students in this province who want to go to school and be able to do so safely and speaker when it comes to our plan to keep school safe we have two aims the first is to prevent the spread and the second is to act decisively when cases arise obviously our focus part of that 1.3 billion dollar allocation investment a one time investment to make sure schools are safe is really premised on minimizing the risk to all children and maximizing their learning experience part of the guidance we provided makes very clear expectations there's that they're constantly implementing these prevention measures they're maintaining accurate records of staff of students and the visitors that they're working with local public health authorities and they're taking appropriate action when staff or students or visitors become ill during the day including isolation the use of pp and obviously for students going back to their homes speaker we launched a website in this province Ontario.ca forward slash reopening schools to provide data to parents on the covid cases we believe in transparency we'll do everything we can in this province to make sure our students are safe thank you and the supplementary question thank you and speaker I'd like to thank the minister for his answer and I want to say how happy I am especially as a parent of a daughter who is in grade 11 to hear our commitments of our government for such a strong plan to keep our children safe as they return back to school I take comfort in the fact that our government has taken a scientific approach to reopening our province to ensure Ontarians remain protected however speaker we all have seen cases and how they have risen across this province over the last couple of days I do feel reassured knowing that we do have a world-class public health care system advising our government and I thank them for their efforts can the minister of health please tell this house how the government plans to continue to protect Ontarians health and well-being as the fall approaches and numbers continue to rise health thank you for your question and for your advocacy on behalf of your constituents due to the hard work of the people of Ontario our province consider continues to be a leader among many jurisdictions in the fight against covid-19 however there is no doubt that the latest trends in numbers have raised some concern especially as we move into the fall months we know that the people of Ontario don't want to see widespread lockdowns or shutdowns again that is why we are taking the pause of four weeks before considering any further loosening of public health measures or opening any further businesses organizations or facilities additionally we will be releasing our comprehensive fall preparedness plan very shortly and this plan will continue to build upon the measures currently in place and introduce new and innovative actions that our province can take to continue to fight covid-19 but the people of Ontario speaker can rest assured that our government will do everything we can to protect their health and well-being thank you very much next question remember to cure it now me go ahead speaker it's good to be back to represent a great people of cure it my question is with the premier mr. speaker first nations have been very clear it is disrespectful to bury legislation that affects our rights and our lands in our new best bills like bill 197 it is very disappointing why first nations have prioritized keeping communities safe during this pandemic Ontario felt it was appropriate time to pass an omnibus bill violating constitutionally protected Aboriginal and treaty rights mr. speaker why does this government conduct itself in a manner that disrespects and dishonors treaty relationships thank you mr. speaker and thank you for the question from the member opposite it is very important that we have our relationships with those in the treaty rights and although i'm not i'm not particularly aware maybe i'll get it in the supplementary about the specific issue that that he's raising i can tell you the the indigenous justice division within within the ministry of the attorney general and of course the minister of indigenous affairs we work closely with our partners whether you know be grand chief archibald we're talking regularly with them about a whole variety of issues we value the relationship we value the input it's it's critical that we move forward in that in that partnership and in the spirit of partnership so i'm happy to chat talk with with the member opposite anytime either in the house or outside of the house about how we can we can foster that relationship and how we can make it even better mr. speaker it's again critical to our government that we work with our partners and i look forward to the supplementary the supplementary question be good name dropping leadership first nation leadership is not partnership speaker the treaty partner this government must learn to respect the treaty relationships before it is damaged beyond repair i bring this up today because economic recovery from the effects of cobit 19 will not happen at the expense of our treaty rights in our lands mr. speaker this is not open season on our lands for our lands the forest in the land is more to us as first nations than the than the source of money speaker most of our communities in my writing are still in lockdown they could not participate fully in any consultation exercises or activities if there if there was any while this pandemic was happening well the government act honorably to ensure that all first nations can participate in your economic recovery activities thank you attorney general thank you mr. speaker and i agree wholeheartedly that just using names and flowery language doesn't actually make a partnership it's what happens on the ground it's the activities that we're doing and just yesterday the minister of northern affairs talked about the mining sector about the things that we're opening up the partnerships that we have with first nations it's proof in fact it's action we're not here to talk about things we're here to do things and we're doing that we're doing that in the justice sector the ways we're reaching out we're partnering with with nann and treaty three and the others mr. speaker i use names because i want to reinforce that there are individuals that we are working with very closely and there are dozens of names that i'm not using because that really isn't the point the point is that we're taking action it's injustice it's an economic affairs it's in social issues it's in every way that we touch with first nations and the challenges they have and i can tell you through through the justice system mr. speaker the activities that we're partnering with to solve long-standing issues are i'm very excited about this government is taking action and the proof is thank you very much member for or they are i thank you very much mr. speaker my question is for the premier for months the premier and his minister of health have been talking about the importance of testing as part of their coven 19 strategy but public health leaders city counselors our mayor members on this side of the aisle have all been pointing to the glaring lack of capacity in our nation's capital capacity is so bad mr. speaker that lines are forming hours before the testing centers open up imagine imagine waiting four to six hours in line with your kids outside without washrooms mr. speaker now imagine doing that in november and december in ottawa yesterday residents in ottawa were turned away from critical coven 19 tests when is the government going to release the billions of dollars in federal safe restart money to ensure that there are equitable and accessible testing capacity in our nation's capital minister of health well thank the member very much for the question and there it is a problem in several locations in ottawa i know in toronto and other locations in across the province where people are having to wait for inordinate lengths of time to have a test we want them to be tested anybody with symptoms anybody who believes they've been in contact with someone with coven 19 needs to have a test but it needs to be done as i said before in a timely manner so we have expanded our testing capacity considerably since march when we were doing five thousand tests per day we've expanded that capacity so that we can now do 25 or 30 thousand tests a day we're going to increase that capacity to 50 thousand tests per day because we want people to be tested and we are actively looking for ways to expand that whether it's by expanding the hours or times that the 148 assessment centers are open or by opening new places for people to be tested we're very confident of this issue and we are dealing with it as we speak the supplementary question supplemental results for the premier mr speaker residents of ottawa's suburban and rural communities have to drive so far to access coven 19 tests that is often uh closer to drive to a neighboring town putting pressure on health systems in places like rockland and campville and arm prior residents of or in orleans have been calling for a local testing center since the spring and i've heard the same calls from residents in canada and bar haven as well mr speaker yesterday on moody drive hundreds of residents were waiting hours on the side of a gravel shoulder road in the peon for hours on a shoulder gravel road next to a very busy road waiting for their coven 19 order why do the residents of ottawa's rural and suburban communities and wait so long to get a critical coven 19 test well thank you again but we have expanded the capacity significantly in a very short order and we are going to significantly expand it again because we know that with people going back to school with people returning to work with people wanting to visit family members in long-term care homes or retirement homes we have boosted the capacity significantly in the last short while and we're boosting it again we are making plans to expand both the testing capacity and the lab facilities because of course you need to have people be tested in in good time but also to receive their results very quickly as well so we want to make sure that people can receive the results within 24 hours so we have plans to do that our fall preparedness plan is dealing with that we are looking for those locations now both in terms of expanding testing facility but also our lab facilities so that anyone in ontario in the ottawa area or wherever else it may be can receive those tests because we want people to be tested we know that we're facing a wave two response while it's flu season so we need to be prepared for that and we will be the next question that member for northumberland peter burrow thank you mr speaker thank you good to see you mr speaker my question is for the minister of finance a minister we recognize that individuals and businesses across ontario have been significantly impacted by covid-19 despite the challenges ahead i've really been inspired to see the collective commitment to working across ontario to overcome these collective challenges locally in my writing of northumberland peter burrow south minister i recently spoke to our local chambers as an example i reached out to brenda whitehead she's doing a phenomenal job with the port hope chamber of commerce she spoke to me about important programs digital main street broadband the recovery activation program and the important work that those programs are doing to support local businesses in fact ronda at primitive design is working actively in those programs as we speak could the minister please share with the house the actions our government continues to take to support individuals and businesses during these difficult times mr finance so thank thank you to the member from northumberland peter burrow thank you as well to yourself and many of the other members of this legislature who have welcomed me to your writing a chance to speak to your businesses to your community you do an excellent job of representing their interests mr speaker our government is proud of the actions it's taken in collaboration with the 14 and a half million ontarians to support people to support businesses to support health care mr speaker since the announcement of our first action plan our 17 billion dollar covid action plan that number has now increased to 30 billion dollars mr speaker 30 billion dollars of direct support and the member mentioned just one of those programs which in partnership with my colleague the minister of small business the digital main street program to talk about that program 57 million dollars in partnership with the federal government to support the digitization of main street businesses to support them as they evolve their businesses and move through this very difficult time mr speaker with the members help with the help of all the members of this legislature will continue to support our businesses with programs like digital mainstream thank you minister it's heartening to know the important work that you're doing that our government's doing to support our businesses during these difficult times and we're continued we will continue to commit to working with businesses as we go forward i'm proud to be part of this government that's doing that in fact mr speaker i'm also a member of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs mr speaker they often say when the going gets tough the tough get going and i'm proud to say that this committee met with over 500 witnesses 800 hours of testimony mr speaker not one person was turned away including the many local constituents of mine that spoke to this committee so minister could you please inform the house what other actions the government are taking to listen to the concerns of ontarians as we move forward on a path to economic recovery mr finance mr speaker again thank you to the member mr speaker as soon as this crisis hit the legislature and in fact this government responded and one of the ways we responded was by making sure we were listening one of the ways that we did that was through the creation of the ontario jobs and recovery cabinet committee mr speaker the members of that committee set up 56 ministerial advisory councils they've had over 600 meetings with groups to talk about specific sectors about specific issues mr mr speaker i would i would want to thank not just the member from northumberland peterman south but all the members of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs we spent a mr speaker the over 500 witnesses who took their time to respond to the opportunity to share with us what it was that is going on in their communities so that we can respond we can continue to respond through the programs we put forward through the budget that we'll bring forward by november 15th making sure that we are listening to the challenges ontarians are facing the job creators are creating the job creators are facing to support ontario through this pandemic the next question the member for ottawa center thank you speaker last night i spoke to robert smiley an ottawa resident whose son roan and partner kimberley must be tested for covet 19 every two weeks given their health conditions and caregiving responsibilities robert was worried about long lineups for testing today so i asked him to tell roan to give me a call i spoke to him this morning roan is standing right now in an eight-hour lineup at moody drive testing facility in the west end the lineup is more than a kilometer long that was not a typo speaker roan and kimberley are currently in an eight-hour lineup the first person for that lineup roan tells me arrived at 4 30 this morning roan and kimberley arrived at 7 a.m. and they might get tested by 3 p.m. this afternoon i'm being told that people are parking kilometers away and walking to the line that they're languishing outside some with children folks are turning away at the site of this massive lineup which means they aren't getting tested it's unacceptable speaker to the premier what is his plan to reduce these lineups and open up testing right now thank you thank you very much for the question we have set up 148 assessment centers across the province in quite short order and are very grateful to our hospitals for doing that in midst of all of the other work that they have to do dealing with covid patients and helping out in long-term care homes but we recognize that the lineups in certain areas as you can tell from the questions that we've heard this morning are getting to be very long in certain areas so we're looking for other community partners to help us with this to be able to take some of those lineups and divide them so that people don't have to travel far and don't have to wait hours in lineups that is what the people of Ontario deserve and expect because we don't want people to be turned away from having a test because of the length of the lineup we are actively working on finding those partners right now and hope to have them in operation within the next few days and the supplementary question thank you speaker that is cold comfort to Rowan and Kimberly five days ago this government heard from the financial accountability officer for this promise who said they are sitting on a six point seven billion dollar surplus of money this government was supposed to spend for the people of Ontario for covid response Ottawa is one of three communities that have seen a worrying rise in covid cases being positive experts have told this government the experts this government does not want to listen to that it's back to school plan is flawed and they are exposing us right now as I speak these words to the likelihood of a second wave we needed months before to massively ramp up our capacity to test in different centres of Ottawa but this government is rather passing the buck talking about community partners and who's suffering Rowan Kimberly and thousands of people and families in this province speaker when are we going to get more than words and platitudes from this government when are we going to get them to release the money the people of Ontario deserve thank you speaker I say through you to the member that we are ramping up considerably our activity on testing we have done that since the beginning we were doing five thousand tests a day when we first started we're regularly doing over 25,000 tests per day we're moving towards 50,000 tests per day but we recognize that we need to have the centres available for people to be tested it's wonderful that people have received that message to go and get tested but there is work that still needs to be done the 148 centres many of them are under strain right now we're looking to relieve that strain we are actively working on that we are speaking with other partners now in the community so that people will be able to go travel a shorter distance to find something in their own communities where a place where they can be safely tested and to make sure that we have the lab facilities again we're only able to do about 5,000 tests only a few short months ago we're able to keep up with that right now and to make sure that we could do 25 or 30 thousand today so we are increasing as the demand is increasing there are lineups right now but we are going to relieve them very shortly thank you next question the member for Ottawa West Nippian thank you very much Mr. Speaker my question today is for my friend the Minister of Economic Development Job Creation and Trade across Ontario businesses continue to show the true meaning of the Ontario spirit by providing PPE and supplies to protect people frontline workers and communities in the fight against COVID-19 through our Ontario Together Fund we have made strategic investments in companies across Ontario including in eastern Ontario to secure PPE and to strengthen our world-class manufacturing sector Mr. Speaker would the Minister please update the House on the government's latest efforts in ensuring we have the PPE we need to combat COVID-19 and to get our economy moving again Minister of Economic Development Job Creation and Trade thank you to the member from Ottawa West Nippian for the question and for your continued advocacy Ontario's world-class manufacturing sector continues to step up and respond with Ontario made solutions in the fight against COVID-19 you heard the Premier a few minutes ago we announced an historic 23 million dollar investment matched by the Feds in a 3M N95 plant in our friend Steve Clark's Minister Clark's hometown great work Steve great work Steve 3M's Brockville plant will see over 100 million masks made each year to meet domestic demand while creating jobs reinforcing PPE supply chain and reducing our independence on overseas suppliers yesterday in Guelph we announced a 2.5 million dollar Ontario Together Fund investment in Linnemar Corporation to help retool their assembly line to make components for over 10,000 e 700 ventilators speaker we repeating close attention to the clock supplementary question thank you very much Minister for that response Mr. Speaker and for that update on the production of life-saving ventilators and N95 masks we continue to rely on our world-class manufacturing sector to retool operations and innovate to produce life-saving PPE our manufacturers continue to step up to that challenge and now it's our turn to do our part as well can the minister please outline to the House how the government is working to help the provinces manufacturing base and economy recover from COVID-19 over the long term Minister economic development over the last three months Ontario's economy has recovered 672,000 jobs 98,000 of which were in the manufacturing sector but speaker there's still much more work to be done so we're pleased to support the Canadian manufacturers and exporters Ontario made program to raise awareness and support for goods that are made right here in Ontario this will give consumers the information they need to support Ontario businesses and to support the Ontario made brand the next time they visit their local grocery store or hardware store speaker manufacturers are lining up to show their Ontario made spirit and we encourage everyone to visit supportontariomade.ca to learn more you heard the speaker we're unleashing our innovators we will never have to rely on another country again next question a member for York South West thank you mr speaker my question is to the is for the premier Toronto Public Health has identified over 80 schools that are high risk for the spread of COVID based on the neighborhoods they live in 2016 census factors like lower income multi-generational homes and racial backgrounds are taken into account these high-risk schools have lower class sizes as a result how is it the data modeling to determine which schools are high risk is so old and faulty that schools in nearby neighborhoods with higher COVID numbers are not on the list and don't have those lower classes government house leader thank you very much mr speaking to thank the honourable member across the aisle for that question as the minister of education is highlighted and supported of course by the minister of health our priority remains across governor and I assume on both sides of the house mr speaker the safety security of the students this fall I too I have two kids who are who are up back at school and in one of those areas in particular where my daughter is at high school it has become a bit of a concern but what has been put in place by the school board supported by the minister of education by this government has given us all a sense of security but that does not mean that at any time we will let down our guard as has been said often by this by this minister and by the premier it is our main concern the safety and security of the students to make sure that they have the highest quality of education that parents can be assured that their kids are safe when they go to school once supplementary question in my writing of york southwestern the 2016 census data and postal code modelling left for schools of the less that should be considered high risk based on actual covered numbers those neighborhoods have while on this side of the house we believe all classes should be smaller it is simply wrong and in fact reckless that families with children living in the same neighborhoods and sharing the same amenities like daycare are treated differently why are all class sizes not smaller and why are why are we not accurately tackling the higher risk neighborhoods that are the realities in york southwestern and in this province minister of education well thank you speaker and thank you to member opposite for the question just to affirm in toronto they the school board has redeployed 400 elementary teachers they have hired 366 net new teachers for the very purpose of spacing and reducing classroom sizes in those communities as noted by the member of higher risk where public health working with the school board the ministry of health and education have identified higher areas of community risk and transmission those schools have caps imposed now remember speaker for high schools right across the city of toronto likewise in durham and york and peel these school caps in high schools is at 15 in the blended model in elementary in those higher risk communities specifically the cap is a 15 between kindergarten and grade three it is 20 for grade four eight and that i think speaker underscores our commitments in the context of mitigating risk we've also hired speaker over 102 public health bonds doubling capacity within our schools it is a proof positive speaker that will continue to invest and do everything possible to keep our school safe this question the member for nagar west thank you very much speaker my question is to the minister of heritage sport tourism and culture industries i want to thank the minister for visiting nagar earlier this week and hearing from key leaders in the tourism hospitality sectors in nagar we know that covid 19 has had an enormous impact on sport in this province entity to cross canada next year nagar in ontario are scheduled to host the canada 2021 games i know the minister has allocated substantial investments in athletes and facilities for these games and wants them to be a great success as do we all however given the importance of protecting the health and safety of athletes organizers volunteers and spectators alike would the minister speak to her commitment to flexibility and support for the canada games in nagar given the covid 19 evolving situation mr perinich sport tourism culture industry thank you very much speaker and i'd like to say thank you to the member from nagar for his thoughtful question as well as for his diligence in supporting the heritage sport tourism and culture industries during this covid period as he will tell you i visited nagar three times over the pandemic over the course of the summer first to make a significant announcement with with respect to nagar parks commission second to make significant announcements with respect to metro links on behalf of my colleague the minister of transportation and and third recently to to meet with the tourism stakeholders who work hard hit and i would be remiss if i didn't say thanks just to the tourism industry association of Ontario for their lobby today and i hope everyone takes the opportunity to meet with them but let's get back to the canada 2021 games speaker due to covid 19 it is anticipated that these are uncertain times and we want to make sure that the safety of our athletes their coaches their parents their fans are first and utmost our priority and therefore i will be supporting the canada games council if they do decide to postpone those games and we will commit as an Ontario government to pursue those games in 2022 if that's required thank you very much speaker and thank you to the minister for her response and her commitment to understanding the flexibility and support for the nagar games it's incredibly important and her advocacy is noticed by many in nagar as well as her many valued visits being an athlete during covid 19 is no easy job ontario is home to some of the greatest athletes in the world that have performed at the highest levels of competition so could the minister please tell us what the ministry is going to do to ensure these proud hardworking athletes receive the support they need in order to compete at the highest levels on the home and international stages mr parody um as you know we did support the nagar games with a 29 million dollar investment we will continue to support those efforts as well early days in the pandemic we brought forward a ministerial advisory panel on amateur and high performance athletes and we were the first in the country actually to allow our athletes to precondition at the canadian sport institute of ontario we actually used to have a in honor of penny alexiac the operation get penny back into the pool and therefore we are committed to making sure that our high performance athletes compete in tokyo in 2021 and that's why last week we made an additional 21 million dollar investment into our high performance athletes and i can confirm that gold medalists like penny alexiac like rosy mclennan and like andre de gas have been supported through this ministry and through this funding so we can see them not only uh go from the pool to the podium but again to unify canadians at a time we're going to need that unification as we come out of covet 19 sport is a unifier and this government supports our athletes the time for question period this morning has expired this house stands in recess until 3 p.m


Cellulose-based triboelectric materials have been gaining popularity due to their high efficiency, biodegradability, and customizability. These materials can be used as a source of energy when they are subjected to mechanical stress or friction. Dielectric modulation is a technique that can be used to improve the performance of these materials by increasing their surface charge density. This review provides an overview of the fabrication of dielectric-modulated cellulosic triboelectric materials, their effects on the charge density, and their application in wearable electronics and impedance matching. This article was authored by Guoli Du, Jin Long Wang, Yin Hua Lu, and others.


And to guess, thank you very much, I come to the honour to be able to contribute here today. And I'm glad to be here with this topic, not just here, but this society, but also even more generally in London, because at a time that I'd never set foot in England or in London, it was the need to see the Irish bells in the British Museum and the Wallace Collection that first brought me here in the context of an M.A. thesis that I embarked on in 1979 in Dublin. And as for the society, but just a while later, I was enrolled for a year at University College in James Brown Campbell, the kind of year you had ever an introduction to John Hopkins, whom some of you will remember, and on the strength of that, I've spent many productive hours in the library upstairs.  I haven't pursued their ultimate origin, although their proximate origin is certainly of interest to us. So, to sum up, then, the sum essentials, these are ecclesiastical handbells, maybe between the 5th and 4th or 6th century and the 12th, and we know that they're ecclesiastical because they're represented occasionally on high crosses because several have been enshrined as relics of the saints, because several have been handed down and continuous by continuous transmission with attributions to the saints, and because there's a wealth of documentary evidence for the context of their production and use. And there are two principal classes, which are those on the screen, what I call classes 1 and 2, class 1 on the left, sheet iron, class 2 on the right of the cast, copper, alloy or bronze for convenience. But we can also isolate four other classes, three, four, five and six, all of them copper, alloy, smaller bells that survive in smaller numbers and are of the 8th, 11th and early 12th century date. Now, these last, the last four classes are Irish only, but classes 1 and 2 are a phenomenon of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, and they're the ones I'll dwell on this evening. Now, I've suggested that these bells span the period between the 5th or 6th century and the 12th, but we can refine this chronology. So class 1 iron bells come first, they continue to be made until it seems around the 10th century and the ending of their production may have coincided with the first instances of enshrinement. And class 2 copper, alloy bells which were never enshrined were certainly made in the 9th century, probably began to be produced in the 8th century and continued to be made until the 12th. Thus, in terms of their production then, the two classes are only partly coincident in time and thus we'll see their life was only partly coincident in space. And class 2 alone is represented on the continent in the form of just four bells that were afforded to Brittany from either Cornwall or Wales. Now, all of these bells, classes 1 and 2, are quadrangular. They have two faces on two sides and they're made to... Class 1, the iron bells were made to a standard design that is consistent throughout the geographical range all the way from the south of Ireland to the north of Scotland. And the key aspects in making the iron bell is that it's always made like this from a single sheet of double trapeze form. It's always symmetrically jointed and by that I mean that the surfaces in one joint are in the same relative position in the other joint. Also, what's downward is the use of about three rivets, typically in each side with disc-like heads and the presence of a handle and suspension loop, made in one piece, the suspension loop for the internal clapper. Likewise, standard is the presence of a copper alloy coated inside and out and evidence for the brazing process, the brazing covering of these bells with copper alloy is now forthcoming from a seventh century context at Plong Fad in County West Meath where numerous pieces of what are called brazing shrouds, vitrified clay envelopes have been found as I say in the seventh century context and some of the bigger and better pieces here are articulated virtually on the screen. And what's on the right is a reverse engineered model of the interior surface created by Gary Devlin of the Discovery Programme and allows you to see an image on the right of the vaged bell and on the right hand side of that image you see the vertical joint on the rivet heads. Class II bells were made by Lost Wax Casting and built the application of the copper alloy to Class I bells and the casting to Class II bells have been replicated very informatively within the last 10 or 15 years. It's arguable, I think, that Class I bells are the most accomplished examples of sheet iron working made in Ireland or Britain in the early Middle Ages bearing in mind that these iron bells the larger ones can be up to 30 centimetres tall sometimes slightly more than that excluding the handles. So that calls for sheets up to 70 centimetres long 35 centimetres wide consistently 4 to 6 millimetres thick and of consistent composition beaten out from a single charge of red hot iron and single operation. And the Class II bells include the largest single castings attempted during the same period specifically these three bronze bells with engraved ornament in 9th century style which, as I mentioned, these three are something in the region of 30 centimetres tall without the handles. Now, as I've said, these bells were easy to ask for and so they fall within a corpus of early medieval metalwork that pre-eminently in Ireland includes things like grozers and book shrines and tomb shaped shrines some of which have been transmitted continuously on broken lines since the 10th century. And on the other hand we can point to a corpus of broadly speaking secular metalwork that includes literally hundreds of broaches for example some of which must have been heirlooms in their day and indeed Geoffrey Keating in the 17th century specifically says that elaborate broaches were transmitted through the lines of Irish kings and no doubt this is factual but all such transmission ended in the Middle Ages and 100% of the corpus of our secular metalwork has been recovered from the ground or from underwater and this is certainly true of Ireland and Scotland and I suspect it applies to these islands overall so the easy ask for them differs essentially from the secular and within the former category the bells have a further distinction apart from the technical distinction of their manufacture but the distinction that they outnumber everything else so we have taken two classes one and two together with 97 of these stands from Ireland 19 from Scotland, six from Wales and two from England both of the English examples being cast on iron bells as well of course as a wealth of evidence for the former existence of several other bells and what's exceptional as well is the nature of the transmission of these things in the many cases in which continuous transmission applies the keepers of bells in Ireland were laterally the descendants of what we call heirloom families the mechanisation of an Irish word that is, these were typically lay holders of the easy ask for the sites and lands who were deprived of tenure at the reformation or the 17th century but who held on to the portable insignia, portable accessories to the coats of medieval saints in Scotland and Wales by contrast of course the acceptance of the reformation by the majority ensured continuity of worship on the ancient sites and continuity of ownership of coat accessories now obviously these were destroyed wholesale when deemed idolatrous or subversive of the new regime but bells in the main escaped this fate they weren't visited with that same appropriate amount so they escaped destruction it's true that in 1536 at Repton and Darmisher the reformation commissioners documented and maybe they destroyed the bell of the mercy in St. Gothlach which the faithful were putting on their heads to cure headaches and in 16th century Lincolnshire sacking bells were both used as animal bells and adapted as mortars but it seems at least in Scotland and Wales that bells being formally innocuous things were retained in churches for the purpose of signalling and funeral accompaniment and I suspect it was funeral accompaniment in particular that was the key factor in ensuring their preservation by tacit consensus and that's a funerary application that finds very late expression here in some tombstones from headstones from Adam and Mum and showing class 2 what I take to be class 2 bronze bells and on otherwise stock mental moory symbols these must have been bells that were famed locally but were certainly of early medieval date it's striking however that several Scottish bells and perhaps one of those in Wales retained their attributions to medieval saints and thus has it come about that early medieval hand bells were typically possession of Catholics that are from Asian Ireland and in three cases are still in Catholic parishes the vast majority of what's being in museums whereas in Wales and Scotland that the property respectively of the representative body of the church in Wales part of the Anglican community and of Presbyterian Catholic sessions now this can't be said of any other category of medieval, early medieval ecclesiastical metal work in these islands that there's this parallel transmission in the three different confessions in other words hand bells have been singled out and if unspoken consensus has been uniquely significant, uniquely hallowed by association and uniquely deserving to be handed down this is exceptional I think in European it's not global terms and if we have very conservatively three generations for every one of the 15th centuries between say the 6th century of the present day that's to recognise the custodial role of 45 generations and the transmission of our oldest iron bells and perhaps 60 generations that's to mark now the subject is long attracted to tension and leaving aside the medieval tradition we find reference to bells as what we would call archaeological objects as early as the 18th century among the first is a record by Richard Pocock of course a fellow of this society who acquired in 1758 a bell found in County Kerry he described it as a hand bell about 15 inches long made of iron riveted together and a copper handle but almost all destroyed with rust and he suggested that it served to ring amongst several duties and this sets a pattern then in that commentators were frequently collectors notably from Ireland Thomas Cook whose collection went to the British Museum, John Bell Scotch by birth his collection on the back to the Antwerp of Scotland and George Petry his collection went to the Royal Irish Academy these and other collectors sometimes of course competed with each other and John Bell as the distinction the very first, the earliest published illustration of an Irish bell in 1815 and George Petry was appointed to the topographical department of the organ survey in 1935 and the field workers of the survey then encountered several bells on their keepers as they traveled around Ireland and the question then arises specifically from Ireland where so many of these bells are preserved why objects for so long jealously guarded were finally relinquished in a short space in such large numbers this is in the 19th century the answer I think must lie largely the cultural dislocation to which Ireland was subject in the 19th century something attributable to starvation disease, emigration, urbanization the accelerative loss of the Irish language and the suppression by a centralising Catholic church of popular devotional observances and the great famine of 1845-52 was of course the great watershed inevitably we can document several instances of people needing to sell the bell that they've kept in order to pay their passage to America that specifically reported the top one bell by William Wild and we can multiply those instances where either starvation or destitution are specifically named as the reason for the selling of the bell out of the keepers hands and furthermore the famine must have undermined also the practice of bell ringing in funerals and further weakened keepers to resolve and in the words again of William Wild writing this time in 1852 he said all domestic usages of life have been outraged an exon just said that even the ceremony of religion has been neglected and the various rites of servitude have been neglected or forgotten the dead body has rotted where a bell has been thrown without prayer or mourning into the adjoining ditch so here then a key factor whereby so many Irish bells left the hands of hereditary keepers entered the cabinets of collectors and then came ultimately into the hands of the professional museum curators now these commentators that I've named were in manner speaking taking up where others had left off and in the 17th century we find the Irish hygiographer writing in Belgium John Colgan writing in Belgium in respectful terms of bells that crop up repeatedly in the lives of the saints that he was collating and the hygiographical tradition goes back at least to the tripartite life of Patrick in the 9th century in which the saint we encountered the saint dispersing devils on Propatricus mountain Cantinaio by throwing his bell and in which we find another bell is advanced as a relic of Saint Patrick but we can go yet further back finding in the 7th century out of non's life of Columba but the bell is not a miracle of our engagement it's straightforwardly an accessory to monastic regulation his references are incidental but in another 7th century text one of the alphabet of piety we find that tardiness at the bell is specified as a breach of monastic discipline so these and several other indicators show that Polcock was right in thinking that in initial terms at least the handbell served to ring the monks to their several duties but this is not something that the Irish invented and we can trace the same usage back at least to the early 6th century in North Africa and Southern Italy on the evidence of a letter written by Farandus of Carthage 2 he recommends what he calls the holy custom of ringing a bell to call for prayers he uses the word campana this is a variation on the regime prescribed in the 4th century rule attributed to the Egyptian Pachomius the famous monastic founder who prescribes the use of a trumpet to call monks from their cells Tuba and Jerusalem's Latin translation and the life of the monastic founder Benedict written around 600 by Gregory the Great mentions a bell this time Tintinabulum tied to a rope by a monk in order to signal the delivery of bread to the same Benedict while he's living in a cave one wonders is this anticipatory of the use of the referee bell which was to become standardised in monastic communities and Benedict himself almost had certainly had bellings in mind when he referred to his own monastic rule to sigma or regulatory sign the standard medieval Latin term and that a stone thrown by a devil breaks Benedict's bell in Gregory's life might also be anticipatory in literary terms of the breaking of Patrick's bell when he throws it at genomic birds on clothed Patrick as recanted in the Drabartite life and as represented in this Italian take on the incident in the 17th century but the bells of early continental monasticism were unprecedented evidence for the most part round section and they were made of copper alloy and although there are a few continental iron bells but I'll come back to there's no evidence that the continental church used iron bells of our class 1 the iron bells of our class 1 are indistinguishable in all their essentials from the iron bells of the Roman provinces including Britain what's on the screen is we can put about 6 or 8 bells found on a board of tools in eastern France of late 4th and early 5th century date they're made exactly as the insular bells are and we can identify several of these from Romano-British sites one of 2nd century date from Carlisle one of 3rd century date from Vindalanda which I think I have an image of and another 4th century date from Made in Castle and another from the Romano-British cemetery on the east side of Chichester and a paper in the most recent Britannia documents a few more Romano-British iron bells these are smaller than the smallest of the insular theses but their adaptation to church use involved nothing more than their enlargement because the morphology of the things is established and my best guess is this adaptation was carried out in Britain specifically in Wales and I point out in that context that the establishment of Irish Christianity was largely through Romano-British influence of which of course Patrick was a prime agent in traditional terms personification Irish monasticism certainly stood in a filial relationship to that of Britain and figures like David and Gildas are remembered as exemplary so it's reasonably to be concluded that the sheet iron bells were necessary to British Christianity specifically British monasticism and the Irish followed British example and the remarkable standardization of insular iron bells throughout their distribution they in consequence be due in part to their very real association with the earliest dates of the church and indeed of what may be a recollection of the ultimate British origin we find in later saints lives the lives of Milaga and made up to Irish saints that they received bells while they were with David in Wales and he endowed them with the bells which they then brought back to Ireland now the continental iron bells are worth a second glance since I mentioned that there are none of insular type now it's not strictly true because there is just one example which is on the screen that from Ramzach and Bavaria but it's not a insular make it's I suspect it's a bell made in Bavaria under insular influence it's attributed to a nominally Irish saint and it seems that it cannot be an export from these islands but it is a continental product the heads of the rivets are the wrong shape for example and there are too many and one or two other technical differences German scholarship concurs and sees this as a one-off product one-off certainly in terms of the surviving evidence otherwise what we have is a disparate group of just three quadrangular iron bells of ecclesiastical origin none of which matches another the three are from Neuhaus in northern France from Nassau in Belgium and from St Gallen in Switzerland I won't dwell on them but just to give you a flavour so the Neuhaus bell is quadrangular alright but it's riveted not in this size it's riveted on the faces and of course we have here multiple riveting which we never have in the insular iron bells and in St Gallen yes really riveted on the sides alright but again we have multiple riveting which we wouldn't have in the insular series and as you can see from the plan section of the bell is almost open and as our bells are quadrangular now fourth bell from Cologne in Germany it is related to these but it's an octagonal in the plan what's the clearest in the view from below on the right hand side this is a master piece of blacksmithing made from three separate sheets scarcely to be called a hand bell it's maybe 38-40cm high and rather heavy and it's evidently the counter part of a cast copper alloy bell bearing in mind that the faceted elevation you see there in this bell it's the counter part of this cast copper alloy bell designed for suspension in the Pacific of San Zeno in Verona this last there's infinite evidence this dates to the 11th century and I think the same date can apply to the bell in Cologne so for lack of evidence then the adaptation of the provincial Roman iron bell to the ecclesiastical use can't be attributed to continental churches but it can reasonably be attributed to British monastic community since Britain alone has bells of both categories I think this was an insular answer to the need for bells and the continental bells took other forms and what they look like is suggested by this unique surviving example with 10th century inscription from Cordoba and by fragments from 9th and 10th century context from Hedibi in North Germany the largest of the bells at Hedibi about 11cm in diameter of the mouth and Hans Drescher has suggested that it might have approximated in shape and in size to those depicted on the Bayer Tapestry now all of these are admittedly late and I will argue that small bells of hemispherical and half ovoid form made of cast copper alloy were a continental standard from the time of Ferrandus and Benedict in the 6th century and they were adapted from provincial Roman bells of the same shape and the same material and there are plenty of them now given that I'm standing here I'd better say something of the English bells that I mentioned there are only two of these one an absolute outlier like the others from Margin and Hereford here just to the north of Hereford the more plate bell might have been of a guess the possession of Irish or Welsh heritage in transit and the Margin bell found within a few miles of the border mark by the why can be associated with the Welsh distribution but given my argument for British priority in making of Class 1 bells it would be fair to say what I mean by the Welsh distributions but it's similar on the map that's number 77 I think in Breckinshire the neighbouring one in the south east of Wales the neighbouring is similar on the map as for Margin and Hereford so where are these Welsh bells I'd answer with the distribution of lost Welsh bells of which there are 19 examples that were certainly or probably quadrangular and many of which can at least be identified by material eight were certainly or probably of copper, alloy and two of them found together on Anglesey in the 19th century were certainly of iron but that leaves another nine that might have been of iron and that might make up the disparity in the extent distribution of Welsh bells and the lost distribution incidentally is of interest for its coastal concentration on the presence of just one bell I'll write two on the Anglo-Saxon iron bells as appropriate here first of all there are relatively few in number from Anglo-Saxon context and as a rule they're even smaller than the smallest of the class one ecclesiastical bells and those, for example, from burials at Lechlate and Kingston down were probably, I think, of non-Christian talismanic significance these from burials and equally small bells from Asby, Winterbath and Cumbria and ten towards a round and very rounded at the mouth and this is also true of three larger bells that are more relevant to us from Tarasulthorpe, Flixborough and Repton, again, that might be argued by some to the ecclesiastical bells although I don't believe they were Tarasulthorpe belongs to a suite of great goods and that's taken to be the burial of a smith that Flixborough found with important tools and the Repton bell found in an almost workshop context in what had been a mortuary chapel but a space that was then cut down to serve as a viking age burial chamber and what's more Tarasulthorpe and Flixborough are reinforced at the lift by clenched moldings which our class one bells never are and that from Flixborough uniquely in this discussion is asymmetrically jointed so the Flixborough bell falls out with the class one definition for that reason and what's more, Flixborough and Repton both are closed but joined by a single rhythm close to the lip whereas two or three rivets are standard in our class one bells of similar size so and to be added into this into weighing all this up is the fact that no class one bell as a sort of exception of Martin has ever been found in an ecclesiastical context in England and during grafting from early medieval sites that go back to early medieval origin which is a standard kind of fine circumstance for Ireland and Scotland and when we do find a bell attributed to a saint being specifically described we find that it's made of copper alloy and that it's round section and I'm referring to the bell ascribed to Cuthbert who was preserved in Durban as the subject of an 1800 word allegorical description by Reginald of Durban from 18th to 12th century and as for the other lost English bells Guthflex was probably a bronze and round section but the rest were presumably quadrangular can I go back to that presumably quadrangular and made of either iron or copper alloy one which you can see in the vicinity of Glastonbury is a bell preserved at Beccary just beside the astro roots of and preserved as a relic of the Irish saint Bridget described by William of Moms from the early 12th century and the other three in Cornwall by being located there are extraneous to the Anglo-Saxon world and I take them to be continuous with the Welsh and the Breton distribution so I conclude then the last one bell was emblematic of British Atheism organization and didn't find favour in early Christian England and Beed describes the British defeat by a pagan Anglo-Saxon king at the Battle of Chester around 1615 he describes it as the fulfillment of a prophecy made by Guston that if the British refused to preach to the English the way of life they would eventually suffer at their hands the penalty of death and Beed tells us that the British were supported by the monastic community of banger on Dean Flintshire and that the monks who had kept it three days fast had gathered to pray at the battle now since Sam singing and fasting by way of sanction are routinely coupled with bell ringing in Irish sources it would be a fair guess I think but the monks of banger on Dean rang iron handbells at the Battle of Chester their associations might be a little more negative if the smaller but similar belles that were secreted in Anglo-Saxon graves had had a pagan talismanic significance and as for what the Anglo-Saxon church used instead it must be continental style half of white and hemispherical bronze belles like that one Beed who says that bell ringing it would be was miraculously heard at Hackness which is about 12 miles inland of there he also has other things to say that are relevant in this context in his commentary on the tabernacle Beed remarks on the resident and vocal qualities of bronze in his day-templo he says exactly the same thing and then goes on for other oracle purposes to mention the practicalities of casting of casting the vessels of the lord's house and he uses the generic term vasa for these vessels but he obviously is very familiar with the process of casting and breaking open the mold to free the piece within and although it's a generic vasa as it happens is used by Walliford Strabo in the century later with specific reference to bells so class 1 then a phenomenon at the Institute of Celtic Speaking Church and I'll just look on now to say something about distributions what we have in Ireland as you can see on the screen is a pronounced midland concentration the north is not quite as thin as it is in this image as much as there are four unprovenance bells and John bells on Ganon County to Rome four unprovenance iron bells must come from somewhere in the north so we have then a reasonable north and showing on a very marked midland concentration and a marked absence in Munster the southern province like by south Lenster being largely blank and when we map the lost bells we find that this pattern is merely intensified and looking at the class 2 bronze bells we find that we have a northern concentration and that County to Rome not that the counties matter but County to Rome in the middle of Ulster four bronze bells and any other Irish county and bronze bells are largely absent outside the north putting these two together difficult to know what to make of them what I would suggest is that if we look at what the Irish, the character of the Irish midlands in the relevant period we can maybe look at or identify a difference in context we have a chronological distinction so class 1 then are concentrated in the midland counties which is the late Francis John Byrne the flowering garden of monasteries and he also remarked on the number of churches found in the midland counties of Ireland by its saints of west Munster origin and others of northern origin are also said to have been found in the midland churches including from which we have the bracing evidence bracing iron bells so then in other words we have evidence that this is an area of monastic specialisation and the bells could be if you like an index of this Gallon in County Offaly is Gallon of the Britons to give it its full name the northern churches from which most of the bronze bells come some of them we know in the later middle ages of parish churches none of them are great monastic centuries however you might define that term for the earlier period I would posit that they are perhaps to be associated with equipping or re-equipping churches that were incipient parish churches and this was carried out as an Arma initiative because this is very much the hinter in the Arma we are seeing in the right hand image Arma is just south of Loch Naye there at the top right of the map of Ireland so in other words this is to allow that they had a liturgical function of the laity and that Arma was equipping from its own workshops some of these churches and the output of specific workshops is represented so we can envisage distribution from them the population group from which many of the office holders in Arma were drawn it was also from this population that a certain Commascus something added was drawn in Arma who died in year 999 he had his death recorded in the annals his name is written on this bell this very much brings Bronzebell making straight into the Arma context and as I say this man is of the population who were major players in Arma politics the production of these bells is unlikely to have risen independently in Wales so I think that the distribution in Wales, Scotland, Brittany is ultimately ultimately traced to 8th century Arma for Scotland we have a smaller number but you can see that the Iron Bells on the left hand side are more widely distributed all the way from the borders to the Orkneys the Bronzebells were restricted between the 4th Clyde line and the Great Lent almost as one that creeps over the Great Lent to Loch Shield what they were I think that the Iron Bells can be explained for Scotland in the same way as they are for Ireland but there are some accessories to monastic to them keeping them in regulation and we have three notably in Perth, Sheer and Glen Lyon one of them Fortingale stole them just over a year and a half ago but from a most interesting area that is rich with associations with Iona Personnel and Fortingale itself from which the bell was taken is wrapped around by a rectilinear enclosure our 7th century date corresponds nicely to the enclosure on Iona so it's as though we have here particularly in Perth, sheer in this area evidence for the monastic houses that Athenan says but it doesn't name when he says they were founded from Iona among the pits and as for Wales we have a cluster in the north the cluster in the north is all of the Bronzebells, Class II Bells and I think for reasons of looking at each of them individually I think all of them were made in Ireland just one example from the theme peninsula I can't find one out of it now in Cardiff we have animal head terminals on the handle here which correspond very closely to the kind of animal head terminal we have on certain Irish bells but I should have initially that are of late 11th and early 12th century date but we can't say that because these five happened to be made in Ireland we can't say that there was no native Welsh Bronzebell making industry we have in the book of Flanda the miracle of Vildoglu saying that he made a bell from the trans-mutant butter and as Mark Brithnach pointed out suggests either lost wax casting or molten raw material at the very least and because we have two of these bells in the theme peninsula a suspected connection with the pilgrimage traffic to Vardsley and then a word on enshrinement very quickly we have two different kinds we have attachment directly to the body of the bell as here and this is one plate on this bell in Blue's Museum but of course there was a second now lost and we have this is of 10th century date and it's our earliest certain example of enshrinement in this form where metal mounts are attached directly to the body of the bell we have other fragments about this same period but we can't be certain precisely what kind of shrine they relate to because the shrine can consist of plates directly riveted to the bell or a container made to house the bell so we can then define the two types as applied or autonomous so there are two completely distinct forms of enshrinement so on the screen at the moment that's an applied shrine another applied shrine is the other British Museum example from the Countess de Bréry made in the late 11th or early 12th century and the other kind is the autonomous and this is our earliest certain example made to house St Patrick's bell around the year 1100 this time dated securely by inscription to about that year and as you say we have other fragments but whether to assign it's not certain whether they belong to applied or autonomous shrines so it may well be that this autonomous shrine is the earliest one in absolute terms and it's the one from which all other autonomous shrines derive and because it's an ARMA product it's all the more likely that innovation and initiative should be centered there and as we have another couple of images of that but then the shrine and the bell therefore is still available for use if need arises that's how it functions the hole in the base plate hasn't been made by the clapper and then another detail of this ARMA project around the year 1100 just to point out that the stone on the right, the red stone on the right in its gold cloth setting one of the best preserved on the face of this shrine allows us an insight into the nature of the workshop and perhaps the treasury of ARMA around the year 1100 because this stone and all its counter parts and a little closer made an ARMA stud at the top of this shrine are from some elaborate piece of autonomy and mental work of the 11th century something like this cross at Osingbrook they're certainly not a virus fake and so they have been applied as part of the primary making they're part of the shrine's impact to its bell so as I said there is potentially a relative terminology that the applied shrines come first and the autonomous shrines come second why iron bells only and why not bronze it might be that enshrinement was straightforwardly the creative adaptation to cult purposes of bells that were super annuated they couldn't be used for anything else it might be that bronze bells by the capacity to endure uncrowded seemed unlikely relics in the period of their production and even in the centuries thereafter but I think what was perhaps the key factor was a real collective sense a real recollection the iron bells were indeed the older type and were accessories to the lives of the great monastic founders even if as I believe they were originally communally owned rather than personally now a seeming exception must be mentioned finally as it's quite famous and it's in the Wallace Collection here in London this is the bell from Fawn in a show in a canted Dundee ball looking at first sight like a class 2 bronze bell that's been enshrined though in my view that's not what it is I can show you this a radiograph one of several produced for the Wallace Collection by the Tower Armouries kindly made available to me by Jeremy Warren it shows you an unblemished top to the bell and it's interrupted only by an integral upright projection something designed from by the original maker to anchor the decorated crest like handle the handle then afterwards itself encased in the later Middle Ages so the bell in other words is contemporary entirely with the handle and the other mounts that are in exactly the same late 11th century style and we find I haven't got an image but we find that there's a major casting flaw as well on the inside of this bell from Fawn and that the mounts on the surface actually serve secondly cosmetically to conceal that imperfection and we find that we have others nothing as elaborate as that from Fawn but this one from Kilmah-Dewitt is I would say the same thing in simpler terms it's a bell that's made to look as though it has a pique mounts and little collets it has collets to take some kind of decorative inlay but it's all obviously made of a piece what might be given rise to them was of course the prestige of the Trimes Bell Trimes but also I suppose the need to furnish all terms and tunes with a view to the promotion of pilgrimage there would have been many factors but those are perhaps some of the main ones so I hope I've sketched then adequately the exceptional nature of these bells as artifacts and as the focus of investment both material and otherwise throughout the Spanish and Middle Ages and beyond the subject as I've hinted it ramifies in all kinds of directions that I haven't covered this evening bells made by tradition at least by famous and very saintly people bells used in church consecration in healing and as receptacles in baptism bells swore upon them to carry it into battle as talismans questions of iconography and archaeological context including burial as grave furniture and open air preservation the terminology that applies in Latin and the vernaculars and the proper names in these several languages that were attached to bells and that reflect both popular perception and popular reception there are particular interests of mine so let me just mention that I've documented 84 of them there are 84 such proper names that barnon which means gapped one or gapped bell is the commonest name appears nine times of that 84 and my guess again is that barnon the barnon attributed to Saint Patrick was the archetype for all the others that in other words the name acquired prestige without association with his name but to re-emphasize the long continuities that apply let me leave you with two images this is an image from a 15th century mural in the parish church of Stilal in Brittany showing St. Mary a deck he's administering a cure by placing the bell on someone's head and here at Julien not too many miles away we have this same practice continuing at the present today I think perhaps that's enough thank you very much indeed


Climate change is a spiritually urgent matter to me, because when our youngest daughter was very small, our nighttime routine was always to tell stories and then to say our prayers together. And her prayers always started with the same bidding. Please Lord, let there be enough water. When I was her age, the thought of going with that water never occurred to me. The thought of praying for water never was a concern. But now, now it is. Through the prayers of my daughter, I can hear the whispers of the generations to come, our children's children's children pleading with us now. We have not tended the earth with care. We have taken the rivers and the streams, the ponds and the lakes and the glaciers, the fields and the forests for granted. We have taken too much with little regard for the generations to come. We have not been mindful, and now the earth's temperatures are rising. And we know now even quicker at home. It is time for us to say Amen to the prayers of our children. On this Earth Day, I grieve that we have so often lost sight of our call to tend God's creation. And I commit to finding new ways for us to respond through word and inaction in all that we do in ministry and mission to love the earth. We are in a time of crisis, and yet a crisis always brings us hope and possibility. If there was ever a body that thrived on hope and possibility, it is the church. And so I call you in prayer and inaction for the love of creation. For the love of all creation.