comments. It is now time for Question Period, the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Premier. It was very clear yesterday from the non-answers we heard from the government that neither of them, neither the Health Minister or the Premier had any idea what was happening at Orange Air. We in the PC caucus didn't learn about Orange's plan to lease a helicopter from Augusta, Westland, through a Freedom of Information Request. We didn't learn about it from a whistleblower. We learned about it just through a search through a public website on the internet. So can the Premier explain how neither she or the Health Minister, the very people responsible for oversight of Orange, had no idea that Orange was planning to do business with the very same company being investigated by the OPP? Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I know that the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care will want to speak to the details and the leader of the opposition received a letter before the end of Question Period yesterday outlining what was happening, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, as I said yesterday, Orange is well into a new chapter. The governance has been changed, Mr. Speaker. Orange has been working with both of the communities who are supportive of the measure to lease an AW-139 aircraft to replace the SK-676 helicopters at its Musni Base. But Mr. Speaker, what's really important is that despite what the member opposite is inferring, this RFI is still open, Mr. Speaker. It continues to be open from companies, receiving from companies until March 29th. So in fact, there have been no decisions made, Mr. Speaker, despite what the leader of the opposition implies. Well, I saw a single source. That'll do. And I will deal with anyone that decides that that's funny. Supplementary. Mr. Speaker, back to the Premier. At the end of Question Period yesterday, the Health Minister gave me a copy of a letter dated February 10th of this year from Orange, about Orange from his assistant deputy minister, advising the minister that had planned to lease a helicopter from Augusta, Westland. So it's pretty obvious, Mr. Speaker, that the letter was only brought to the minister's attention after I asked the question here in the legislature about Orange's shady business deal. Mr. Speaker, isn't the Premier concerned that neither she or the Health Minister knew anything about Orange's sole source deal with Augusta, Westland? Where is the oversight that this government promised? Or is this business as usual under the government of Kathleen Wynne? Well, with these wild accusations, Mr. Speaker, I think we're finally beginning to see the true colors of the leader of the opposition. And the smear campaign that he's trying to introduce here, here is the truth. And what a difference a day makes, Mr. Speaker. As the Premier mentioned, this is, there are two Sikorsky helicopters in Moussini that are reaching end of service. A decision was made after consultation by Orange to replace those Sikorskis with the least AW, Augusta, Westland helicopter, so that we would have a single fleet across the province. Because there were challenges to getting pilots who were also trained on the Sikorskis, Mr. Speaker, and having a single fleet makes absolute sense. So an RFI, a request for information, was introduced in February. And despite what the member is inferring, the RFI continues to be open until the end of the month. In fact, I understand that several companies have expressed interest on the lease. And should there be an indication that a company or companies all continue in the same way? Thank you. Final supplementary. Mr. Speaker, back to the Premier. When a serious public policy question is asked, the government chooses to attack. And I will refer the Auditor General completed his 2012 report into Orange Air and said the scandal was a textbook example of what happens when a ministry fails to properly oversee a government agency. The Public Accounts Committee report said the ministry missed a number of red flags, just should have been alerted to bad things were happening at Orange. Mr. Speaker, getting a letter from Orange, announcing that their soul sourcing a contract from the very same company under a criminal investigation by the OPP should have raised one gigantic liberal red flag. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier explain, after seeing this letter, why they didn't cancel the shady contract? Thank you, Minister. Well, first of all, there is no contract, Mr. Speaker. And as I was mentioning, should a company or companies express interest between now and the end of the month, it will move forward to a request for proposals. And in the event of a request for proposals, an RFP, a fairness commissioner, will oversee the process to ensure fairness and transparency. And I think I would hope this would make it abundantly clear to the opposition just how important and how proper this process is. And I know the member is concerned about the relationship with Augusta Westland. And Augusta Westland is cooperating fully with the OPP on the investigation. But, however, Orange currently has a relationship with Augusta because for maintenance of the helicopters for replacement of parts, they need to get them from the parent company. So what the leader of the opposition is suggesting, either entirely buying a new fleet, if he doesn't want this orange to have a relationship with Augusta Westland for maintenance of the current health sector, or he's talking about danger to the pilots that they have to fly these if we're unable to service them properly. Yeah. Thank you. Good question. The leader of the opposition. Mr. Speaker, the CEO of Orange kept up his end of bargain. He sent a letter to the health minister and told him the orange was getting back into bed with Augusta Westland. He waved that big red flag. Question to the premier. The failure here is with the minister and the premier. And my question is for the premier. Yesterday, when I asked the premier about the orange's shady deal with Augusta Westland, she responded, I do not know the nature of this particular decision. Mr. Speaker, can the premier explain why she knew nothing about such a controversial deal? Can the premier tell us why she isn't doing her job to protect patients and taxpayers in the province of Ontario? Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I find this unbelievable. I would suggest that the leader of the party just understand that there's no way he's going to win this argument when you look at the facts behind this, the wild allegations that he made yesterday that he continues to make today. And he's dismerging the reputation of Orange, Mr. Speaker, including great individuals like Ian Delaney, like Charles Harnick, the former attorney general of this province and a member of the Progressive Conservative Party. I can't believe that he continues. But to suggest that as the member opposite seems to be suggesting that we cut off all business ties with Augusta Westland, that would require the purchasing of an entirely new fleet. Or alternatively, it would require putting our first responders and our patients, 18,000 patients a year, Mr. Speaker, putting them at risk by not properly servicing these aircraft. We don't have a contract before the lease of Augusta Westland. We have an RFI that may lead to an RFP and a number of companies have expressed interest, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, back to the premier. What the government did. That's it. I'm going to go to the individual. I asked you to try to keep it calm. You're not. I'm going to deal with the individuals, even if you chirp something quick. Finish, please. Mr. Speaker, we've obviously touched the nerve. The government got caught and they got caught with the exposure of an advanced award contract notice. That is what we found and that is what we're trying to expose. I do not understand why the government is doing business with a company under criminal investigation here in the province of Ontario, but it gets worse, Mr. Speaker. This same company, Augusta Westland, the same company that whined and dined disgraced orange seal Chris Mazza in October of 2014, got charged by the Indian government for shady deals. And actually, just more recently, Sweden, their interruption authorities launched an inquiry into the sole source purchase of Augusta Westland helicopters. There is criminal investigations into this company across the world and this government is doing business. Why are you doing business with it? Thank you. Thank you. I'm trying to get in and I'll deal with it, but you're not helping me. The Minister of Energy will withdraw. Mr. Speaker, Minister of Health. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I understand that the member opposite is expressing concerns about a company that is fully cooperating with an OPP investigation and investigation that centres on the previous administration a number of years ago at Orange. However, as I mentioned, and what the member opposite seems to be implying, I'm not prepared to abandon an entire fleet. We have to maintain a relationship with the parent company, with Augusta Westland, for spare parts for things like the gearbox of a helicopter that what the member is suggesting is cutting off all ties with Augusta Westland, which is completely inappropriate and impractical, because either we stop servicing these aircraft, putting patients and pilots at risk, or we would have to spend millions and millions of dollars and purchase an entirely new fleet. That's completely inappropriate. But what is happening is Organs cooperating with the OPP. The Ministry is cooperating with the OPP. Augusta Westland is cooperating with the OPP. And now we'll continue. Thank you. Supplementary. Mr. Speaker, back to the Premier. And I'm hoping, rather than spin, we can get a serious answer to a serious question. This is a company that's being investigated worldwide in Sweden, in Cyprus, in India for trying to influence government for shady deals. For some reason, the Liberal government here in Ontario chooses to want to do business with them again. Despite the fact, Audre General said, we don't need additional helicopters. If you do not want to answer on the question of protecting taxpayer dollars, how about we talk about patients, about the health concerns associated with these helicopters? The report from the Audre General said there's not enough room to perform CPR. There's not enough room to lift patients' heads, forcing paramedics to insert a breathing tube. A July 2013 coroner's report said operational issues with these helicopters contributed the death of eight patients. So my question for the Premier, and please don't pass the buck, Mr. Speaker, it's not right for patients. It's not right for taxpayers. Why are they doing business with a company that's being criminally investigated? Thank you. Please. Mr. Speaker, thank you. Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And again, I'll repeat that we have two aging Sikorsky helicopters in Musini. They're nearing the end of their serviceable period. They need to be replaced. They're going to be replaced with what's most appropriate, another Augusta Westland, which will turn our fleet from having two different types of helicopters into a single fleet. It's much better for pilots. They support this. We don't have to be concerned about having pilots specifically trained for the Sikorsky and the challenges of getting pilots on staff at Musini for that reason. It's better for reliability as well. We have an RFI, which is open until the end of the month. There are a number of companies, including a guest of Westland's parent company that has expressed interest in holding that lease. If there is a company or a number of companies that move forward with that RFI, will move to an RFP, will have a fairness commissioner who will oversee that entire process. Mr. Speaker, it will be consistent with the broader public sector procurement directive. This is as open and transparent as it gets. The member opposite wants to actually dismantle the fleet, buy an entire new fleet and put patients and pilots at risk. Thank you. No question. The member from Bradley Gormaldi. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Premier. Mr. Speaker, did the Premier or her staff sign off on the budget before it was sent to the translators? Mr. Speaker, I want to answer the question, but I just want to acknowledge what I think people are seeing on their on their social media that Rob Ford has died. And I just want to express the sadness of this legislature in that and we'll address have a moment of silence at the end. I believe we're going to ask for a moment of silence at the end. Okay. So, Mr. Speaker, in terms of the budget, I just want to I just want to make sure that the that the member opposite understands that we listen to people from around the province constantly. I travel the province. I I hear from people year round on the issues and the concerns that I hear and that we hear are reflected in the decisions that we make and are reflected in our budget on the specifics in terms of the timing. There were a number of groups, for example, who appeared before the committee, Mr. Speaker, and their ideas are reflected in the budget. So, I will come back to those in the in the supplementary, but there was there was a lot of a lot of information that flowed into the speaker well after the translation had already been had begun. Thank you. Supplementary. Just before I ask my question, Mr. Speaker, I also want to acknowledge on behalf of new Democrats that the sadness and the loss of the death of Mr. Mr. Ford, it's a tragic loss. So, I just want to acknowledge that as well. Mr. Speaker, the budget was written and sent for translation on January 27th. That was before pre-budget consultations heard from the following. The Ontario Health Coalition, the Canadian Federation of Students, the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Registered Nurses, Nurses Practitioners, and ONA. Opsu, the Toronto District Labor Council, the Ontario Hospital Association, the Kraft Brewers and Winemakers, the Chiefs of Ontario and Fix Our Schools. Can the Premier explain why she went ahead with the budget before hearing from these Ontarians? Wow. Mr. Speaker, it's completely false and untrue what the member has just said. We had all done all the consultations, all that was achieved, we did over 20 of them. Translations of portions of the budget are done continuously. The one that mattered most, Mr. Speaker, is what happened on Saturday, February 20th. The day that I sat in my office here in Toronto reviewing the budget, making amendments to it still, and that translation was what mattered. That was the final product. That was what went to print and was produced here in the house on 25th of February. Thank you. Final supplementary. Mr. Speaker, the Premier loves to talk about consultations and conversations, but that means listening as well as talking. But while people were presenting, the Liberal government had already written the budget, finalized it, and sent it for translation. Will the Premier apologize to Ontarians for treating their consultation as a PR exercise? Mr. Speaker, the work that Skafea does, the work that all of us in this house do to consult with our constituents, to enable us to populate the budget, the document with priorities and responsibilities of the people of the province, that's critical. I sat on Skafea for many years. I recognize all too well why we should do it and need to do it. It's why I appeared before Skafea on the final submissions of consultations. And I had the opportunity to express what the government wanted to do to express and hear from both the NDP, the Liberals and the PCs on their reflections of those consultations. And the very people that the member opposite just cited are included in this budget, are cited in this budget. In fact, I can relate some of the very issues. Three million for the bio-industrial innovation of Canada. That's on page 10 in Hamilton. One million to the issue of pregnancy and infant loss on page 115. That happened, Mr. Speaker, after those consultations. 17 million to the Toronto Atmospheric Fund on page 30. Thank you. The next question is again to the Premier. The Premier says she is a partner in the federal government. Does that mean the federal budget will ensure that Ontario will receive enough funding, infrastructure funding so that the Premier can finally stop the sale of hydro one? I have no idea what is in the federal budget. We will all have to wait until this afternoon. I am hopeful, Mr. Speaker, I am hopeful now that we actually have a federal government that understands that investing in infrastructure, Mr. Speaker, that working with provinces is important, that having a price on carbon is important, Mr. Speaker, that we have a federal government that is willing to work in partnership with the provincial governments across the country. I'm hopeful, Mr. Speaker, that we will see those things reflected in the budget. I'm very optimistic about that, but I don't know the specifics of the budget. We'll have to wait until this afternoon. Thank you. Supplementary. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In the fall of 2014, Liberal MPP supported a motion calling for national, universal, and affordable child care. Unfortunately, there was nothing in this Ontario budget for child care. Liberal MPPs made a promise here in the legislature to partner with the federal government so mothers and fathers can get the child care they that they can afford, and families would stop seeing cuts to child care across this province. Given that there was nothing in the Ontario budget for child care, hasn't previously received any assurances from the federal government that they will pick up where the provincial budget failed and actually support affordable child care in Ontario. Again, I don't have information about what is in the federal budget. I know that we have a federal government now that, unlike the previous federal government, actually shares a value system with our government, that understands that it's important to work with provincial governments, that it's important to invest in people and their talent and their skills, invest in infrastructure, and is willing to have those discussions that the previous government wasn't willing to have. But Mr. Speaker, I have no information about the specifics that are in the budget this afternoon. What I do know, Mr. Speaker, is that we have been working to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in child care. We have worked with the child care sector, Mr. Speaker. We're modernizing the child care sector so that we can assure safety and security for children who are in child care places in child care across the province. We'll continue to do that, Mr. Speaker, but we'll have to wait for the federal budget this afternoon. Thank you. Final supplementary. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. For years of liberalism insisted that all the problems came from Ottawa. Now they talk about the strength of their federal partnership.  Good Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, Mr. Speaker, we have made investments in this province and the member opposite talks about the infrastructure investments. Well, he doesn't talk about the infrastructure investments. He talks about Hydro-1, but he doesn't support infrastructure investments. His party would somehow, out of a whole cloth, magical thinking they would create the opportunity to build infrastructure. There is absolutely no evidence that they have any idea how they would do that, Mr. Speaker. We actually have a plan that we're implementing. That plan is part of our budget, Mr. Speaker, and I, you know, I hope, given what the member opposite has said, that maybe he's looking at our budget once again and is considering supporting parts of our budget. Thank you. No partially, nothing from Charvin St. Desserts. Thank you, Speaker. Speaker, allow me just a quick moment on behalf of the Ontario PCs. We would again like to express our sincere condolences to the Ford family on the passing of Rob Ford early this morning. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. 21 dogs were seized from a dog fighting ring in my riding and they've been locked up in cages for over five months while their alleged abusers remain free on bail. I requested the OSPCA to allow me to see the dogs just to see how well they're doing, but to date they have not returned my call. The Animal Sanctuary Dog Tales Rescue was offered to take them in immediately as an interim measure at no cost to the province, but they need the Minister's help. They require his approval. I understand the Minister has a rescue dog just like me and will be visiting dog tales. Speaker, the province can either pay to have these dogs killed or take action and save them at no cost. Only the Minister has the power to save these dogs. So Speaker, to the Minister, thank you, is the Minister willing to provide special designation? Thank you. Minister, when I stand, you sit. Thank you. Thank you very much again, Speaker. I want to thank the member opposite for asking this question and I very much appreciate his sincere passion on this issue. I think all of us in this house I have an affinity towards protecting the most vulnerable the pets in our communities who in many respect are a voiceless speaker. But Speaker, as I've stated before in the house what the member is asking is about a court process which is underway involving the OSPCA. We do understand that this is a very challenging issue and many individuals and then organizations are concerned. But as the member knows there is currently an application to the court by the OSPCA for permission to euthanize 21 of the 31 pit bull dogs seized from an alleged dog fighting operation citing risks to public safety. Thank you. However, Speaker, the remaining dogs are being rehabilitated for relocation outside the province is up to the courts to decide Speaker as to the next steps. Thank you. Supplementary. Back to the minister. Speaker, this government just doesn't get it. In his responses to questions on this issue the minister claims he can't do anything. This is unacceptable. Minister, you do have the authority. The Dog Owners Liability Act permits these dogs to be given to a designated body. This could be done without a formal regulation. In other words, your ministry's approval is all that's required. If you if either one of us were told that our dogs were sick and they had to be put down I'm sure that we would seek a second opinion. We'd fight to save their lives. These dogs cannot speak for themselves. So I will be their voice. The next court hearing is April 18th and I'm asking you minister don't leave these dogs in cages for another month. So Speaker to the minister we move quickly to grant a special designation to Dog Tales Rescue to give these suffering dogs a second chance at life. Thank you. You see me please. Thank you. Minister. Well Speaker again contrary to the members assertion and public reports the government of Ontario does not currently have legislative or regulatory authority direct the OSPCA to take or not take any action or to exempt a private facility from the requirements of the Dog Owners Liability Act for the purposes of transferring ownership of the dogs to such a facility. The OSPCA Speaker is an independent charitable organization that provides a number of services such as animal shelters veterinary and spray spay neuter clinics and public education about animal welfare. Additionally Speaker the OSPCA Act authorizes SPCA inspectors and agents to enforce any law pertaining to the welfare of animals. Police may also enforce these laws. There's a reason Speaker that his decision has been made by the experts who have the capacity and the legislation to make those determination it's not up to this legislation or the government to intervene. Thank you. Your question. The member from Parkdale High Park. Thank you Mr Speaker. My question is to the Premier. Yesterday we learned that the President of the Union Pearson Express Kathy Haley is being fired. Her crime she did what the Premier ordered her to do. We need a history lesson here. Six years ago the Premier who was then the Minister of Transportation ordered Metrolinx to take over the UP Express after the private partner dropped out of the project because they knew it wouldn't make any money. Even so the Premier ordered Metrolinx to implement the same flawed business model. Kathy Haley was hired a year after the Premier made this decision. Why is the Premier not taking any responsibility to make this decision? Minister of Transportation. Thanks very much Speaker. I appreciate the member's question. I'm not going to comment on personnel matters specifically to Metrolinx or any other personnel matters. I know that these converse the questions similar to this one came up yesterday Speaker regarding the Union Pearson Express. What I said yesterday stands I've had the opportunity to speak with a board chair Rob Pritchard. I've had the opportunity to work with the board chair board members and senior staff. At Metrolinx now for close to two years. What we are focused on on this side of the house working closely with Metrolinx is to make sure that we can deliver on the transit progress that the people of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area expect. That's the mandate that they give this Premier. That's the mandate that this Premier has given me. I look forward to continuing to work with Metrolinx to make sure that we deliver on our commitments. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you. Supplementary. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Again back to the Premier. The original private partner knew that the UP Express could not make money as the exclusive Batik Express service for the executive class travelers demanded by this Liberal Government. When the private partner dropped out in 2010 the Premier who was then the Minister of Transportation could have fixed this problem. She could have changed the UP Express into a true public transit service with affordable fairs, more stations and more public access. She could have electrified from the start. No Mr. Speaker. This is what the public has always demanded and wanted. Instead she forced Metrolinx to build what her government wanted. Why must Kathy Haley take the blame for the Premier and this Liberal Government's bad decision? Thanks very much Premier. One thing it's important to note just a couple of days ago or a few days ago we announced in time for the March break that we were making the fairs for the Union Pearson Express more affordable for people who are visiting this region for people who live in this region and preliminary numbers and analysis show that since we have made that change to the fairs that ridership has dramatically increased people. Which I think is good news. In the first half of our question the member from Parkdale High Park referenced a history lesson. I think it's most important for people watching people here in this chamber and watching at home speaker to remember that over the last couple of years at least as this Premier and our government have put forward plans to build the province up through budgets and other initiatives the NDP in this chamber have consistently have consistently voted against and resisted every opportunity to support the trans and investments that they claim they so desperately want speaker it's on New question member from Glenn Gary Puskett Russell Merci Monsieur le Président Thank you Mr Speaker my question is for the Minister for Francophone Affairs I gave him a chance but the member from Essex will come to order carry on please okay again my question is for the Minister for Francophone Affairs on March 20th Ontario's Francophones as well as those in the country as a whole celebrated the International Day of Francophony in Ontario there are more than 600,000 Francophones that is 5% of the population it is the largest Francophone population outside of Quebec today Franco-Ontarians can live in French thanks to French access in education to French health services offered in French as well as as well as multidisciplinary services offered by cultural organizations can the minister explain what the government is doing to support the Francophone community I would like to thank the member for Glenn Gary Puskett Russell for his question I know that he supports the Francophony and represents a lot of Francophones I would like to take this opportunity to wish all Francophones and Francophones a good week of the Francophony in this very special week we can be very happy of the efforts that were done by the government to improve French services since 2003 this government has done a lot through several initiatives in order to improve French language services such as for example the creation of the commissioner for French language services we have we can think about the five percent Francophone immigration that we've had the day for Franco- Ontarians we can also think about the several schools that have been created for French languages in Ontario as well as post-secondary education in French in Ontario thank you Mr Speaker supplementary thank you I'd like to thank the minister for her answer Mr Speaker university is a key element in our province indeed 10 percent of Francophones in this province are from minority groups we have created different programs to attract qualified workers who wants to who want to come here and settle in Ontario and like for the minister to tell us more about the different programs that support the Francophone community the minister thank you again to the member for Glenn Gary Prescott Russell and the member is indeed right Ontario is the first jurisdiction working with the Ontario program for immigration candidate it's a first and we can count on our pilot project on French services in the Court of Justice in Ottawa which brings a better access to the judicial process in French we can also think about French education from kindergarten to second grade we have French language programs in six universities across the province and we also support different Francophone organizations in the province they are essential for different fields for example health and culture I'm very proud of the progress that has been made here in Ontario and it contributes to the flourishing of our Francophone community thank you very much speaker my question is for the minister of health and long-term care I'd like to read a quote from the minister we aim to make it easier for patients to find a doctor and from his mandate letter ensure that every Ontario has a primary care provider Mr. Speaker this Liberal government has been in power for 13 years and yet my writing has two high physician needs communities Owensound and Scythe Bruce Peninsula the reality that the residents of my communities remain in high physician need and that my constituents have not had access to family doctors is simply inexcusable minister why is your government denying this primary health service to families in my writing good question thank you minister of health and long-term care well thank you Mr. Speaker and I appreciate the question it is a very important issue that we continue to increase the availability of physicians and other health care providers or nurse practitioners for example that form part of our primary health care teams that we make sure that we're increasing access to them currently 94 percent of Ontarians have such access does demonstrate not only how far we've come that's significant improvements since a decade ago Mr. Speaker but and in fact it's one of the highest in the country but Mr. Speaker there is more work to be done and that's part of the reason why I released in December a discussion paper which calls for further reforms to our primary care systems specifically for that reason so we can go that extra mile that extra distance for those additional 6 percent who do want a health care provider but are unable to find them and designation of high needs area is areas as a perfect as the member opposite answer to the fact that much of his writing is designated high nights I'm happy to talk in the supplementary about the benefits of that as well thank you supplementary thank you Mr. Speaker back to the minister of health and long-term care minister your government has been in charge for 13 years yet 300 communities under service this is deplorable and an indefensible record we're talking about the very important work of putting doctors in area of high needs what's worse the minister has recently cut off south bruce peninsula from the high needs program nine local families access to doctors order the minister has cut off a community need one with a significant burden of poverty a high proportion of vulnerable frail seniors and at-risk first nation population and a community identified well that's not helpful at all when you're the one that's complaining that I'm not standing well we've got you on tape and I don't consider that a challenge to the chair finish your question first nation population and a community identified but your own ministry is under service this isn't the time to make excuses and talk platitudes access to a family physician is not a stretch goal this is not an extra mile given the evidence the families in south bruce peninsula expect your liberal government to reinstate their high needs designation minister will you do that today thank you minister help long-term care well thank you Mr. Speaker and the high needs designation is an extremely important designation that for example it gives access to physicians in a family health team model in fact two of his colleagues the member from Bellford Callaby the member for for Halliburton Coortha and the member for Chatham Kent Essex will agree with me that just recently in the past days both of their significant portions in the case of Chatham Kent Essex his entire riding has now been designated high needs same with the member from from Halliburton Coortha what I would ask the member opposite is as the as his two colleagues have done is work with me if he's got concerns about designation if he's got order and access to doctors but it's rich coming from this party who fired 9,000 nurses who closed 28 hospitals who's so disrespected physicians that they were fleeing the province Mr. Speaker and so we can't get lessons from the history that they provide us what we're doing is we're continuing to provide that access I hope the member opposite would work with me to provide access to his riding thank you no question the member from Oslo thank you Mr. Speaker and my question is to the minister of community safety and correctional services Speaker two weeks ago I called on the minister to intervene in the OSPCA's application to put down 21 dogs rescued from a dog fighting ring in Tilbury and to spare their lives two weeks later and the courts have denied the application of the dog rescue to rehabilitate these animals and their lives remain in the minister's hands Speaker these dogs should be going to a rescue organization and the only barrier is the OSPCA court application and the breed specific legislation that bans them will the minister commit to saving these dogs and end the breed specific ban in Ontario thank you minister of community and correctional services well speaker I mean this question is already asked identical question and my answer really does not change contrary to public reports the government does not currently have legislative or regulatory authority direct the OSPCA to take or not to take any action or to exempt a private facility from the requirements of the dog owners liability act for the purposes of transferring ownership of the dogs to such a facility I speaker the OSPCA as we know is an independent charitable organization that provides a number of services a lot of those a lot of those services come as a result of the OSPCA act that has been passed by this legislation speaker and and part of that legislative requirement is for the SPCA inspectors and agents to enforce any law pertaining to the welfare of animals and of course speaker police could also enforce those laws thank you supplementary thank you Mr. Speaker and just to be clear this wasn't a repeat of the same question we are asking for an end to the breed specific ban there's nothing he can do but he is the minister responsible for the administration of the OSPCA act that governs the group seeking to euthanize these dogs so he does have a say the breed specific ban is a provincial ban and this government is choosing to continue on with this discriminatory legislation so speaker I will ask again just to be clear will the minister end the breed specific ban and allow animal welfare agencies the chance to rehabilitate these 21 dogs instead of condemning them to dog thank you minister speaker thank you again to the member for the for the question and again I just want to make sure that that particular piece of legislation has been put in place by this legislature to ensure public safety and security and speaker we have heard of many instances where particular breed of breed of dogs have resulted in serious injuries to to to children in particular and that speaker something that of course we all take very seriously in this particular instance speaker as we know that there are currently an application to the core by the OSPCF for permission to euthanize 21 of the 31 pit bull dogs sees from an alleged dog fighting operation citing risk to public safety and that is a key speaker one of the reasons why OSPCF is seeking this application because they feel that 21 of the dogs that size a serious risk to public safety and the other dogs the members of Parkdale High Park have been rehabilitated but in this particular instance determination may has been made thank you there from Northumberland Quinty West speaker speaker my question my question the minister community safety and correctional service and it's not about SPCA let's be clear minister minister yesterday you hosted minister so far a new strategy for safe Ontario in my community at Colburn that's not helpful either minister of Aboriginal Affairs finish please minister yesterday you hosted consultation for your new strategy for a safer Ontario in my community at Colburn there we heard passionate ideas from a number of our local community members about how to modernize policing across our province for the 21st century many of my community members provide a feedback on how policing can be modernized in the 21st century to better serve Ontarians but Mr Speaker Ontarians across the province and those with us in this legislation here today need to have a further understanding of what this consultation and strategy for a safer Ontario is all about question speaker through you to the minister please explain the purpose of these consultations thank you minister community safety and correctional service thank you very much speaker I want to first thank the member from Northumberland Quinty West for his hospitality yesterday when I was in his community of Colburn we had a we had a very fruitful day in terms of visiting the rebound child and youth center and the incredible work they do in helping at risk use in Northumberland County it was encouraging speaker to see the work they're doing in addition speaker we had the opportunity to meet with the chiefs of police from Coburg board and the OPP Detachment Commander and members of the police services board about the excellent work they're doing in Northumberland counting keeping the community safe and then we speaker ended the day with with the consultation on strategy for safer Ontario at the Coburg community center speaker there was some incredible turnout in fact the room was smaller than we we had answered we had to bring more chairs and tables and it was great to see the active participation of the community and how can we build a safer Ontario and in my supplementary I'll speak to some of those findings thank you supplementary well thank you minister I'm pleased to hear that you are consulting so broadly on this new strategy with a clear focus on evidence-based outcomes after all as many of us here today already know while our police officer work hard every day to keep our community safe the current model of community safety is no longer sustainable we need a made in Ontario approach to community safety the focus on addressing the problem in our communities not just from an enforcement perspective but rather through a more coordinated effort with multiple different types of services that way communities will be able to respond to crime social issues and more lasting cost-effect in fashion Mr. Speaker through you can the minister please explain how the strategy for safer Ontario will improve community for safety outcomes across the province absolutely thank you very much Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker this is a very exciting time and in the history of policing in Ontario as we are looking at ways to modernize and build a 21st century policing in the province of Ontario in fact Mr. Speaker this is an opportunity for our province to be a leader in Canada and in North America and Mr. Speaker the consultations exactly are about that we want to hear from communities as to how do we ensure that we move away from a reactive enforcement-based model of policing to one that is more proactive and community-focused how can we ensure that local communities are able to develop community safety and well-being plans how can we better utilize community safety hubs to ensure that our communities are safe what kind of roles and functions that policing a 21st century police officer plays and how can we ensure Speaker that we're providing the right response at the right time by the right personnel these are the kind of questions we're asking members of the public Speaker we ask them to join our consultations or go online at Ontario.ca slash safer communities for our public consultation document Thank you New question the member from Oxford Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker my question is to the Minister of the Environment as you know there's a proposal for a landfill in my riding I know the Minister has received thousands and thousands of letters postcards and emails from my constituents who are concerned about the impact on their drinking water the Mayor of Ingersoll has been very vocal about the fact that our community does not want to take another municipalities garbage both by going to these municipalities and in speaking to the government at Roma to make it clear we are not a willing host at Roma the Minister of Municipal Affairs and the Minister of Agriculture stated that a municipality would not be forced to take the garbage if they are not a willing host can the Minister confirm that this government will not force our community to take another municipalities garbage Thank you Thank you The Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Thank you very much Mr. Speaker we I just want to be very clear about where we are in the process right now because there's a legal process to ensure we protect the rights of communities but we also have a fair process for siding landfills and I think we all appreciate that it's not a matter of taking other people's garbage we have a system in Ontario where we share those burdens of disposal what has been approved is a terms of reference that the proponents in this case have to follow and as we go through this process Mr. Speaker Order All aspects are looked at detailed studies are done on risks to water supplies opportunities A member from Renfrew Nipissing Pembroke come to order Finish please Thank you very much So it's an evidence based public transparent process and Mr. Speaker I wrote into the amendment for the terms of reference that we have to consider cumulative effects Answer There was some confusion there because that actually includes human health effects I just want to be very clear on the record A member from Leeds Crenville We don't have a health category Thank you But that's included in cumulative Thank you Supplementary Well thank you very much Mr. Minister as you know the people in my community are worried not just about where the garbage could come from but the risk to our drinking water of a landfill located on fractured bedrock near the Thames River and one of Engershal's main municipal water supplies They're concerned that this government doesn't get it Today is World Water Day and to mark this occasion the people in my writing are looking for a commitment from the minister of the environment Can the minister gave us his insurance that the landfill will not be approved if it is put on our if it puts our drinking water at risk Thank you Minister Mr. Speaker the short answer is yes and that's what the terms of reference policy is and now well I have great respect from the member from Oxford he's been a friend and I think we've worked well together on these issues and I know he and I share a concern I would even go further Mr. Speaker I would say that Oxford County is one of the leading counties if not the leading county in Ontario on environmental sustainability zero waste and low carbon This is a remarkable community with a remarkable environmental group So we are very concerned because there are not that many communities each of us as MPPs would find would not put in our election literature that we're running for re-election by putting a waste facility in our communities it is one of the more difficult decisions So we want to make sure that the standards are some of the highest I commit to work with your community with your mayor and with yourself to ensure that if the decision in the air is to cite a dump there that it meets every single standard and I think we put in place with cumulative effects the highest standard possible Thank you Do you have a question? A member from Windsor West Thank you Speaker My question is to the Minister of Education Speaker Children and families across the province continue to inundate my office expressing concerns that provincial and demonstration schools may be forced to close Students who have had positive life changing experiences are coming forward sharing their stories Parents have seen their children grow thrive and succeed Experts in the sector have spoken publicly about the value of these schools Even pediatricians are coming forward These schools help our most vulnerable kids Some children particularly those who thrive in ASL or QSL environments will be left with no other local alternatives My question is clear Will the Minister of Education ensure that no provincial or demonstration school is closed as a result of consultation? Yes or no? Thank you Minister Yes and of course as we've said many times no decisions have been made the consultation is continuing and we really do need to think about how do we best serve our children with special needs We know that that the children who are in the demonstration schools are served very well by the demonstration schools Nobody is arguing that that they have very good programs But what we are looking at is the availability of those programs the accessibility of those programs and we are reviewing the demonstration schools and I want to assure people that that review will happen as quickly as possible but we do want to hear from everyone involved and no decisions have been made at this point Answer Thank you Supplementary Thank you Speaker These are critical programs for students that go into the provincial and the demonstration schools as the minister herself has acknowledged so perhaps she should lift the caps on enrollment and reopen enrollment rather than keeping it closed Right Speaker I have a question Even though the minister herself continually rises in this house and speaks with certainty about the positive impacts of these schools it is clear that the government will not commit to keeping these specialized schools open On this side of the house we believe that all children deserve equal access to education that allows them to thrive If families want to benefit from these schools they should have every right to do so This government should be should not be balancing the books on the backs of vulnerable children and families I'll ask again Will the minister tell concerned families today that no provincial or demonstration school will be closed as a result of consultation Thank you minister Yes and I think the the member opposite in her question actually hit on the issue here is that we believe in equal access for all students with special need So we are committed to reviewing special education programs and making sure that in fact we are meeting the needs of special education students not as she said locally and these aren't local schools they're schools where people fly in from literally fly in from around the province We need to look at what is the availability of programs in all boards throughout the province in all regions throughout the province What's the availability of programming for children with very severe learning disabilities That's what we're having Thank you It's an equal act Thank you New question The member from York South Western Thank you Mr Speaker My question is to the minister of training colleges and universities Ontario's apprenticeship system is a key part of building the highly skilled workforce our province needs to compete in today's global economy Many constituents in my writing of York South West often ask me about the different ways our government is supporting people entering the skilled trades in Ontario I understand that the minister recently was at George Brown College to announce additional funding in two apprenticeship programs that will help the next generation of skilled trades people access to training equipment and facilities they need to get high quality jobs Some of my constituents are particularly interested to know how this funding will help those who face barriers to start an apprenticeship access promising careers in the skilled trades Speaker could the minister please inform the members of the House how this funding will help people access apprenticeship programs in the province of Ontario Thank you Minister of training College of Universities Thank you Mr Speaker and I want to thank the member from York South Western for that very timely question Mr Speaker I just recently visited George Brown College to announce that our government is investing 36 million dollars in two apprenticeship programs out part of Ontario's renewed new job strategy You are investing Mr Speaker 23 million dollars over two years in the Apprenticeship Enhancement Fund and the 30 million dollars in Ontario's pre-apprenticeship program One example is a central Ontario building trades hammer heads program Mr Speaker put an excellent program Mr Speaker which provides life changing training opportunities to youth Mr Speaker our government will continue building Ontario up by ensuring our people have the skills to get good jobs Mr Speaker I want to take this moment to thank all instructors in our 68 training centres run by our colleges and the union and employee based training centres I want to thank the instructors junior persons and the mentors for the good work they do Supplementary Thank you Mr Speaker and thank you to the minister for that answer it is reassuring to know that our government is committed to helping people access apprenticeship programs in the province of Ontario and the hammer heads program is a tremendous program they operate in my writing and they've helped many young people many of my constituents who are new to Canada often tell me that they face challenges in finding good jobs Mr Speaker because they lack the training and the experience to work in the skilled trains in our province I understand that one of the minister's priorities is to support newcomers to Canada and to apprenticeship programs Speaker could the minister please inform the members of this house on the progress that he and his ministry are making in helping new Canadians through Ontario's Priests Apprenticeship Question Thank you Mr Speaker and the Mr Speaker the hardworking member from York South West it is absolutely right Mr Speaker Mr Speaker almost one in five new jobs in Ontario over this decade is expected to be in trades related occupations and I am pleased to say that Ontario's Priests Apprenticeship training program is funding projects that will support newcomers to Canada and to Ontario to access apprenticeship programs I am proud to say that Mr Speaker this year we are investing nearly three million dollars towards a 13th Priests Apprenticeship program that will help new Canadians into this trade Mr Speaker our government will continue investing in our people by supporting a high quality skill trades and apprenticeship system in our province of Ontario Thank you Mr Speaker Thank you Mr Speaker Any questions? Thank you Mr Speaker Thank you Mr Speaker My question is to the Minister of Energy Speaker last week a wind project was awarded to Inver Energy in Dutton Dunwich even though this municipality is not a willing host in fact 84% of the residents of Dutton Dunwich voted against this wind project Speaker another municipality am I writing Malahide was a willing host but was not awarded a contract Speaker this government has stated that municipalities will have a say on wind projects however in this latest round of contracts this does not seem to be the case Speaker will the minister explain to the municipalities in my writing why they are ignoring their voices Thank you Thank you Mr. Inver Mr Speaker we have a process for large renewable procurement Mr Speaker that was consulted very broadly across the province of Ontario including with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario AMO with individual municipalities we produced a handbook for municipalities and distributed to every municipality in the province Mr Speaker setting out what the process was was very clear that no municipality would have a veto but that did require the proponents Mr Speaker to have a very very broad engagement with the municipalities provided incentives for them to have agreements with municipalities Mr Speaker of 16 contracts awarded Mr Speaker 13 of them had willing host communities Back to the minister Speaker even your own words back in test back in using a testimony from the minister and committee in November of 2013 he said municipalities wouldn't be given a veto of projects but it would be very rare indeed for any to be improved without municipal backing it would be almost impossible for somebody to win one of those bidding processes without engagement with the municipality Speaker either the ministry minister doesn't know what's going on in his ministry or he just wasn't telling the truth in committee Speaker will the minute I withdraw Speaker Speaker will the minister keep his word and stop the contract from coming to Dutton Dunn-Witch Mr Speaker there was very significant engagement in this particular five Mr Speaker we have a quote here from Laurie Spence Bannerman CAO of Dutton Dunn-Witch Laurie say who recognized Mr Speaker the efforts of the company to set up a monthly meeting with the working group the wind energy company has to show that they're doing things to engage the community and so they were hosting regular monthly meetings a working group is one of those things that shows that you're engaging the local community Mr Speaker that quote is from Laurie Spence Bannerman CAO of Dutton Dunn-Witch Mr Speaker thank you Leader of the opposition on a point of order of order Mr Speaker Toronto Councillor and former Mayor Rob Ford passed away this morning following a hard fought battle against cancer this house sends its condolences to his wife his children and loved ones as a sign that the entire province mourns the loss of Rob Ford I believe you'll find we have unanimous consent to observe a moment of silence Leader of the opposition is seeking unanimous consent to create to do a moment of silence for the passing of Rob Ford do we agree? I would ask all members to please rise and observe a moment of silence kind gesture we have a deferred vote on the motion that this house approves in general the budgetary policy of the government calling the members this will be a five minute bill Members please take their seats All members please take your seats I wonder if there's a competition to see who's the last to sit I can't figure it out On February 25th 2016 Mr. Sousa moves second seconded by Ms. Wynne that this house approves in general the budgetary policy the government all those in favor please rise one at a time be recognized by the court Mr. Schurali Mr. Schurelli Mr. Mayer Ms. Wynne Ms. Matthews Mr. Matthews Mr. Hoskins Mr. Hoskins Ms. Sandals Ms. McCharles Ms. McCharles Mr. Coal Mr. Coal Mr. Tkar Mr. Tkar Mr. Barardinetti Mr. Barardinetti Mr. Dallani Mr. Dallani Mr. Dallani Mr. Dallani Mr. Dallani Mr. Orzetti, Mr. Gravel, Mr. McMeacon, Mr. Murray, Mr. Chan, Mr. Moriti, Mr. Couto, Mr. Leo, Mr. Flynn, Mr. Zimmer, Mr. Zimmer, Madame Lalonde, Mr. Quadrie, Mr. Albanese, Mr. Dixon, Mr. Dixon, Mr. Mangat, Mr. Crack, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Sergio, Mr. Moro, Mr. Del Duca, Ms. Dahmerla, Ms. Dahmerla, Ms. Wong, Ms. Wong, Mr. Fraser, Mr. Andersen, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Baker, Mr. Baker, Mr. Baller, Mr. Baller, Mr. Don, Mr. Don, Ms. Hogarth, Ms. Hogarth, Ms. Koala, Ms. Mollie, Ms. Mollie, Ms. Martin, Ms. McGarry, Ms. McMahon, Mr. Miltjen, Mr. Miltjen, Ms. Nidoo Harris, Mr. Potts, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Rinaldi, Ms. Rinaldi. All those opposed, please rise one at a time and be recognized by the court. Ms. McCall, Ms. McCall, Mr. Wilson, Ms. Jones, Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown, Mr. Clark, Mr. Yacobosky, Mr. Hillier, Mr. Miller, Parry Sound, Ms. Cote, Mr. Scott, Mr. Barrich, Mr. Urech, Mr. Huda, Mr. Huda, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Walker, Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith, Mr. Harris, Mr. Harrod, Mr. Nichols, Ms. Marteau, Mr. Pettipies, Mr. Pettipies, Mr. Cole, Mr. Singh, Mr. Vantop, Mr. Vantop, Ms. DeNovo, Ms. DeNovo, Mr. Tabith, Mr. Miller, Hamilton, Mr. Stone and Creep, Ms. Sattler, Ms. Taylor, Ms. Taylor, Mr. Natashak, Ms. Armstrong, Ms. Armstrong, Ms. Forrester, Ms. Forrester, Ms. Campbell, Ms. Campbell, Mr. Montag, Ms. Montag, Mr. Hatfield, Ms. Gretzky, Mr. Gates, Ms. Frantz, Ms. Frantz. The nays are 39. The ayes being 53 and the nays being 39. I declare the motion carried. There are no further deferred votes this House stands recess until 3 p.m. this afternoon.


Welcome to George H. Smith's Excursions into Libertarian Thought, a production of Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute, narrated by Daniel Highland, Rudolph Rocker and The Will to Power, Part II. In The System of Liberty, Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism, I explained that, beginning in the 17th century and for 250 years thereafter, the most common objection to the theory of natural rights was that it is unable to justify a sovereign state in any form. When Edmund Burke called natural rights a digest of anarchy, and when Jeremy Bentham similarly condemned natural rights as anarchical fallacies, they were repeating a criticism with a long and distinguished provenance. A refreshing feature of nationalism and culture is Rudolph Rocker's appreciation for the crucial role that the theory of natural rights has played in the defense of individual freedom against the power of the state. Rocker also understood that the anarchistic implications of natural rights theory were the primary reason why defenders of state power attacked that theory so vigorously. The uninterrupted attempts to keep the state's power within certain limits have always led logically to the conclusion that the solution of this question is not sought in the limitation of political power, but in its overthrow. This exhausts the last and highest doctrine of natural rights. This also explains why natural rights have always been a thorn in the flesh of representatives of the unlimited power idea. Nationalism and culture contains an excellent historical overview of natural rights theory. The origins of which Rocker contends can be found in the ideas defended by some ancient Sophists, cynics, Epicurians, and Stoics. I shall not hear review Rocker's account of natural rights theory or his broader historical account of libertarian ideas generally. Suffice it to say that Rocker's explanations are usually on point and well worth reading. In this essay I wish to explain Rocker's explanation of why classical liberal and libertarian ideas eventually lost the battle with statism. He attributes this tragic outcome to the popularity of two interrelated doctrines that began to take off in the late 18th century, namely theories of nationalism and democracy. According to Rocker, nationalism became a powerful force in Europe after the French Revolution, and this notion was closely affiliated with Rousseau's idea of a general will that is manifested in and enforced by the state. Having gained the right to participate in political decision making, people began to think of themselves as equal parts of a unified whole, the nation state, which gave meaning and direction to their lives. This perspective severed democracy from its roots in liberal individualism, whereas liberalism had viewed political organizations as a means of securing the rights and freedom of individuals. Many defenders of democracy now upheld the duty of individuals to subordinate their interests to the greater good of the nation. Thus did democracy endorse the collective concept of the state and embrace political rulers as representatives of the common will. Rocker was by no means the first person to comment on the tension between democracy and freedom. Edmund Burke made the same observation in 1790, as did Alexis de Tocqueville a few decades later. But Burke was a conservative wig, and Tocqueville, though somewhat more of a liberal than Burke, was far removed from the anarchistic perspective of Rudolf Rocker. What distinguishes Rocker's analysis is his sympathetic treatment of natural rights and social contract theory, such as we find in John Locke and his followers, an approach that Burke vehemently repudiated. Rocker argues that modern nationalism and its democratic appeal to the will of the people were a serious departure from the principles and goals of liberal individualism. The fact is that the political development of the last 150 years was not along the lines that liberalism had hoped for. The idea of reducing the functions of the state to a minimum has not been realized. The state's field of activity was not laid fallow. On the contrary, it was mightily extended and multiplied, and the so-called liberal parties, which gradually got deeper and deeper into the current of democracy, have contributed abundantly to this end. In reality, the state has not become liberalized, but only democratized. Its influence on the personal life of man has not been reduced. On the contrary, it has steadily grown. Liberalism began as a protest against the absolute sovereignty of monarchical governments, so it is understandable why liberalism in its early stages sometimes contrasted the sovereignty of the people or nation with the sovereignty of hereditary monarchs. But this appeal, which was originally intended to weaken the power of governments, was later transformed into a rationale for the expansion of power. The will of the people, as expressed in popular elections, became the ultimate political good, a near-resistible power that trampled underfoot the rights of individuals. Liberalism judges the value of political organizations in terms of how well they facilitate the individual's quest for happiness, as determined by the individual himself or herself. Free associations are the spontaneous byproduct of this quest. Political institutions are valued as means to an end, and should be repudiated when they no longer facilitate freedom. The less this natural course of things is affected by forceful interference and mechanical regulation from the outside, the freer and more frictionless will be all social procedure, and the more fully can man enjoy the happiness of his personal freedom and independence. Although classical liberals believed that some government is desirable, they viewed it as a necessary evil and sought to restrict its power to the smallest possible field of activity. The state, they argued, had a right to exist only so long as its functionaries concerned themselves with the protection of rights. Hence, the primary focus of liberalism was on the security and freedom of the individual. The starting point of modern democratic theory was not the individual, but a collective concept, such as the people or society. Individuals in democratic theory were reduced to mere abstractions, interchangeable units that were dubbed free so long as they could participate in the collective decision-making of their political community. This premise, which was wholly incompatible with the individualistic foundation of liberalism, resulted in a fictitious concept of freedom that could only lead to results disastrous to the independence of human personality. In its extreme form, nationalism gave birth to fascism in Italy and to national socialism in Germany. Mussolini, Rocker points out, started out as a classical liberal. Just a few years before his rise to power, Mussolini condemned the state, this mollock of frightful countenance that receives everything, knows everything, and ruins everything. Unlike an earlier time when the state was endurable because it functioned solely as soldier and policeman in an effort to protect the rights of individuals, the state has since become that frightful machine which swallows living men and spews them out again as dead ciphers. Mussolini warned that we are approaching a complete destruction of human personality. Only later did Mussolini, with the prospect of absolute power in view, experience something akin to a religious revelation that changed his mind about the state. In 1931, the official philosopher of fascism, Giovanni Gentile, rejected the liberal doctrine according to which the state is based on natural rights and mutual agreement in favor of Hegel's doctrine that the state is the highest form of the objective intellect and is therefore necessary for the full realization of ethical self-consciousness. But Hegel did not go far enough according to Gentile, for he conceded a certain autonomy to the intellectual realms of art, religion, and philosophy. Gentile insisted that even these endeavors should serve the state and thus we see the modern theory of totalitarianism that denies to the individual any sphere of personal autonomy. This, Rokker observes, is the last word of a trend of political thought, nationalism, which in its abstract extreme loses sight of everything human and has concern for the individual only insofar as he serves as a sacrifice to be thrown into the glowing arms of the insatiable molluck. Modern nationalism demands the complete absorption of man in the higher ends of power. The fascists of the 1930s attacked liberal individualism for its social atomism, a claim that continues to be made by modern critics of libertarianism, socialists and conservatives alike. This argument maintains that political and economic individualism dissolves society into separate, egoistic atoms that lack all sense of community and have no lasting ties to others beyond those that facilitate economic exchanges and other self-interested transactions. Nationalism, in this view, fosters social solidarity. It instills in people a sense of belonging and mutual purpose, a sense that there exists a good greater than the mundane lives of selfish individuals. Rokker repudiates the charge of social atomism, root and branch. He argues that the voluntary associations of individuals, not the coercive power of the state, comprise authentic social relationships. Political power has destroyed the fine cellular tissue of social relationships. True, a government can compel people to fulfill certain duties, but it cannot induce them to do so with love and from inner desire. Coercion separates men rather than bringing them closer together. It destroys the sympathy and mutual understanding that are essential to social cooperation. Social ties have permanence and completely fulfill their purpose only when they are based on goodwill and spring from the needs of men. The state, by replacing cooperation with coercion, is the true cause of social atomism. It is the state which on principle undermines man's social feeling by assuming the part of adjuster in all affairs and trying to reduce them to the same formula, which is for its supporters the measure of all things. The more easily the state disposes of the personal needs of the citizens, the deeper and more ruthless it dips into their individual lives and disregards their private rights. The more successfully stifles in them the feeling of social union. The easier it is for it to dissolve society into its separate parts and incorporate them as lifeless accessories into the gears of the political machine. Having witnessed the rise of fascism in his native Germany, Rocker perceptively noted the fundamental similarity of fascism and communism. Today we deal only with secondary differences. Fascism and communism are not to be evaluated as the opposition of two different conceptions of the nature of society. They are merely two different forms of the same effort and operate to the same end. As for why most western intellectuals did not condemn the statist core of both communism and fascism, Rocker believed this was because western democracies had abandoned individual rights and freedoms and were defending their own versions of statism instead, blissfully ignorant of the fact that the specific form of statism made relatively little difference. Bourgeois democracy has grown senile and has lost all sympathy for the rights it once used to defend. It is this blunting of its morals, this lack of ethical ideals that cripples its wings and forces it to borrow the methods of the enemy that is threatening to devour it. Centralization of government has broken its spirit and crippled its initiative. That is the reason why many think today that they must choose between fascism and communism. Governmental centralization has assumed a scope which must fill even the least suspicious with secret dread of the future.


he simple way of putting it going from sequence to an ensemble of confirmations specifically to address issues like that where you're reliant on if you're reliant on a separate sampling step essentially that samplers unable to sample the correct confirmations or really understand chemical modifications. Then that will be sort of insufficient in of itself. Thank you. All right, we have a question from Brenda. I think this will start with Rafael. Mary might have something to say about it but I'm thinking if I understood correctly your training structures were mostly crystallography crystal structures. And so there are, you know, sometimes very non physiological conditions in those crystal structures and I'm wondering if any of your AI methods take into into account, you know, you know, if you if you want to know the structure in the cell is can you take that into account. Yeah, the short answer is yes at this point, you know, I would say that is definitely a major sort of area of active research is the first thing I'll say but you know, being able to model the you know the structure across the cell or contact in the presence of proteins right overall protein RNA complexes and other sort of conditions more generally is really a key need and one that you can build into these algorithms and that we already are. Great, great. Thank you. Excellent question. The question is really similar to the question that Brenda just asked, and that has to do with how do you think about the conformational heterogeneity of RNAs, because like Brenda mentioned a lot of times in a crystal structure we get one structure but I'm thinking of a recent example in the rival switch world right rival switches should be relatively well structured RNAs and you would think these would be great training structures but you know there's a cobalamine in the rival switch that was crystallized. And then, last month, some AFM data came out of NIH that showed that there's actually 10 different confirmations of this rival switch. How do you, when you're training data sets how do you think about the RNA is inherently dynamic. I mean by the way I think what you're doing is great and absolutely important but just in terms of figuring out what the real right answer is how are you going about validating that. Mary do you want to take this one first. Thank you. And so, you know, I think here the key for the structure of course we know there's a lot of confirmation. And from the perspective of I guess the therapeutic would be which one is the most disease relevant. From the basic biology points of view, and you know how do you get to the confirmation and even from 2d, you know, we're using the shape map chemical probing, you see a lot of heterogeneity right even in different cell type in cell. And I think the main question there is the single molecule structure resolution. And, you know, even, you know, advances with nano poor for example this is something that is, you know, we heard yesterday how it's been used for RNA, but also thinking of using nano poor for single resolution of RNA structure at that 2d resolution. But in terms of the 3d, I think the resolution is really important. So, for us, it's more once we have a molecule that we're confident is binding, then we take the 3d approach to confirm structure to get further. But I guess, you know, the more method we can develop to really think about single molecule and resolve those different confirmation. I think that there's work there to be done to move on Nick, do you have a question. I can email them. Yeah, we got to have one quick more question by Nick. Okay, so it's building off of the questions that we've just asked but it just I had it occurred to me that these in the training day that you don't know what you're missing right it's just unknown. However, your models are likely failing because of and I'm not I'm not I'm not saying that they are, if they fail. They're failing because of lack of sufficient training coverage, right. But what that provides potentially and I want to get your like input on this. So if your models failing in a particular area with a particular part of the sequence and you can document that. Does that give us some insights into where we might be looking in collecting new data. In other words, can we use the failures of your AI models to predict where we might need to be looking and doing more research and collecting more data. To answer that shortly. Yes, what's very interesting is these machine learning models can output not only a prediction but also confidence in the prediction in the first place, which is actually quite interesting in of itself. And so there's a sort of framework essentially, and this is a little bit of what we're building here at atomic known as active learning in some ways which is really, you're letting the model sort of uncertainty on certain places guide where you're running the next that you know the experiments are almost like designed to maximally reinforce the AI's predictions but also helps guide you towards where there might be some very interesting novel biology because it's not predictable and was not previously known. So long and winded answer, but you know really. Yes, at the end of the day you can get those you can get those confidence measures and really hone in on those low confidence regions and that's a very interesting approach overall. Let's thank Mary and Raphael again. Okay, our last subsection here focuses on cryo em professor via was not able to be with us today so we have Jeffrey Keeft, whose vice department chair, director of the structural biology and biophysics core facility and a director of the army society at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in May you'll become the executive director of the New York structural biology center. Jeff's research focuses on understanding how RNA structure RNA conformational changes and complex intermolecular interactions combined to enable diverse RNA function. Okay. Great, can everyone hear me. Great. All right, hopefully you can see the slides all right well thank you it's a I guess an honor to be the last speaker, maybe a dubious honor but no seriously it's really great to be invited to be a part of this workshop I've learned a lot it's been really interesting. And as you just heard I'm currently at the University of Colorado, and in May I'm going to be moving to New York City. So, I'll just frame the my presentation by by giving you one slide about what my lab has been interested in and for the last couple decades we're really interested in the role that RNA plays in viral disease. 75% of the viruses that are known to cause human disease have RNA genomes, those that do not have RNA genomes of course are still using RNA within the viral life cycle. Viral RNA is really are littered with interesting sequences or interesting structural elements that control all these different events that have to occur for successful viral infection and so we're really interested in studying these not only to understand how the viruses infect the cell and how they cause disease, but also the structures that RNA is capable of forming and and really how RNA structure produces very specific biological functions so we play with viral RNAs but really I'm interested in RNA structure and how that drives function in general. Now traditionally over the years my lab has used x-ray crystallography as our primary tool of structural determination and we combine that with biochemistry, biology and biophysics. But we really, you know, we've gotten to the point now where we can often fairly reliably solve the structures of RNA, folded RNAs using x-ray crystallography but of course it is a fairly limited technique and that some RNAs are just not crystalizable. Or they're not amenable to the technique and so most more recently my lab has turned to cryoEM. Trying to see if we could use cryoEM as a robust and reliable way to obtain structural information on viral RNAs, especially at a size in which you normally don't think of cryoEM as being a robust or reliable technique. So a little bit about that today, but I do want to of course this is this is a workshop on post-transcriptional modifications. So I'm going to start actually with you know posing up a very maybe simple question, you know, could we use cryoEM, single particle cryoEM to directly visualize post-transcriptional modifications in RNA. And I'll start with a case study which is I guess kind of builds on one of the talks earlier this morning, which is looking at a ribosome. So a non-viral RNA project in my lab through collaboration with the Ryslan lab, we've become interested in the molecular biology of Giardia and as part of that we decided to solve the structure of the Giardia ADS ribosome using cryoEM. A few years ago we put up a preprint where we had a preliminary four angstrom structure and you're welcome to look at that on BioArchive. Not too long after the Yonath lab published a 2.75 angstrom structure, so much better than our four angstrom structure, and now we have a structure right around 2.5 angstroms that we are preparing for publication. And I want to use this as a case study just to show you, well, what we learned from really these three complementary structures of essentially the same target. So, as you can see here, you know, the resolution is really quite good, this heat map of the resolution, you know, we're hovering right around 2.5 angstroms global resolution. But of course in the core of the ribosome if you kind of slice through it here and you look in the core of the 60s, you can see there's parts where we're approaching 1.5 to 2 angstrom resolution. So really a nice high quality structure that we could look at. Now, interestingly, when the Yonath lab published their 2.75 angstrom structure, they proposed sites where they observed post transcriptional modifications and this is interesting because Giardia is a relatively understudied organism. Unlike E. coli or many other organisms for which the ribosome has been studded structurally for a long time and there's a lot of information about it. We don't know, have an issue where there are post transcriptional modifications within the Giardia RNAs or Giardia ribosomal RNAs. But the Yonath lab proposed that they could see these modifications and they provided a table saying this is where we think we see post transcriptional modifications. Now, because we had a higher resolution structure we could go back and we could look at and say does our map show the same thing. And in some cases it did. And in some cases it didn't. So the point to five or so angstrom better resolution that we got allowed us to see that in. In fact, some of these features in the map that looked like methylation sites were in fact, bound water molecules. So we could now distinguish the water molecule from what would be a methyl in other places. It looked good. Our density or our maps I'm sorry, can contain features that were consistent with the modification that they proposed. And other places it was ambiguous and other places we were pretty confident looking at our maps. We didn't see anything there that looked like a modification. So this is I guess, both a cautionary tale and up and a cause for optimism the optimistic side is that yes we could clearly see in our map. Some of the same features they saw for some of these distinctive modifications, especially when the nucleotides that we're looking at, we're in the core of the ribosome where you're talking about 1.5 to 2 angstrom resolution maps. But in other places it was clear that they had been misled. And so that's perhaps a bit of a cautionary tale that, you know 2.75 angstrom sounds good. But in many cases it may not be good enough to see the modifications or confidently assigned. So I think there's hope cause for optimism, or also some cause for for care. I don't show this to to bash the the Yonath lab in any way but just to say this kind of maybe impinges on the question of structure, or I'm sorry standards, and, and best practices, what resolution is good enough. When do we see something in a map that we can confidently say that's a modification. How good does the resolution have to be, how good does the map have to be, and how do we integrate orthogonal techniques. So as a mapping technique of novel modifications cry we am is probably not yet robust in terms of the standards and the practices that are already in place. So let's turn to away from ribosomes because you know we know ribosomes have modifications we're pretty good at studying them know we can get ribosome structures to high resolution. What about other RNAs RNAs that are maybe not complex with proteins RNA similar to the ones that we're talking about that might be embedded in messenger RNAs or might be non coding RNAs that are produced by the cell. In this case, I'll talk about the tetrahymine a thermophilic group one intron. So this is a self cleaving self splicing ribosome, which was discovered decades ago and is heavily studied structurally biochemically, and biophysically. And so we've been able to obtain a 2.44 angstrom map of this RNA. This is in vitro transcribed RNA so it's does not come from the cell. It's not going to have any post transcriptional modifications, but you can see again there are parts of overall the resolution is 2.4 or so with in the the folded core of the ribosome there are regions that are hovering right around two angstroms so very good resolution. And you can see in the maps we're starting to approach the sort of resolution or detail that one might hope would yield visualization of post transcriptional modifications. Probably we're right about at the edge. And again, it's going to be mostly in the core not in these peripheral regions, where the maps are going to be that good so I think this is an important point to bring up is that, you know, different parts of cryom maps are going to have different quality, different resolution. And so one might be able to visualize or assign post transcriptional modifications in some parts of the map. And so one might be able to visualize or assign post transcriptional modifications around the peripheral or the exterior of the molecule or maybe they're being recognized by proteins are involved in interactions, we're going to be much harder to see because those are the most mobile parts where in general we get the lower resolution. But, again, the Tetraheim and a group on intron is somewhat specialized case, it's a very stably folded and well behaved RNA for structural studies. It's something that's maybe a little bit more typical of an RNA that one might want to study. So this test case I'll show you is a tRNA mimicking viral RNA element. It's about 55 kilodaltons so smallish for traditional cryo we am but certainly within the realm of what people are doing now. And I won't go into the virology here but this is the secondary structure. It's found on the three prime end of certain viral genomes and it's involved in various aspects of the viral infection cycle. So we were able to solve this RNA only molecule using cryo we am and this has been published, but the best resolution we could get was somewhere between four to 4.6 angstroms. And that's good enough to see a bumps corresponding to the the phosphates of the backbone. It's good when use good enough when using various density modified and sharpening techniques to start to build models. We were able to build a complete structural model of this 55 kilodalton RNA. But if you look at the maps over here you can see there isn't nearly the amount of detail that one would need to place or to observe post transcriptional modifications. And again, I'll point out this was in vitro transcribed RNA so we don't expect to see any modifications. And there is evidence in the literature that this viral RNA does receive some modifications as perhaps part of its tRNA mimicking behavior. And if that were true we would have been unable to validate that in the in the maps, even if we had had RNA that was actually, you know, authentic from an authentic viral infection. And I'll just say I think this is probably the resolution that that we're really pushing what's what's possible for most RNAs and the other thing I'll also say is that part of the reason that we were limited here was because of what's already been mentioned, dynamic conformational changes within the RNA, and that probably limited our resolution to a great degree. And the last thing I'll say is a technique that we're that we're developing my lab to try and see okay, can we, can we solve RNA structures by cryo and routinely part of the problem is that RNA structures tend to be often the domain that you're interested in studying in a folded domain is fairly small 3020 kilodaltons in size that's still really difficult to get reasonable maps by cryo we am so our idea is to append smaller RNA domains that we're interested in studying on to the group on intron, which I showed you was very amenable to cryo we am. We build these are we in vitro transcribe these chimeric molecules, put them through the process, and hope to be able to recover maps very quickly so the idea is we take the group on intron, we circularly permutate it, we append RNAs of interest and you hope to get a map like this, where you're an RNA of interest is now displayed on this larger RNA scaffold. Long story short, this works. So here's an example of the group on intron with this exonuclease resistant RNA from Zika appended to it, and you can very clearly see in the maps, there's the RNA that we appended. You can also see that the resolution is not spectacular. In fact, we were able to get this to about five angstrom resolution, which was good enough to build an initial model, which fairly recapitulates the crystal structure. So I failed to say that we use this as a test case, because we already knew the structure of this RNA from our crystallography studies. And so we were, we were pleased to see that we could essentially recover a very similar structure using cryo we am to what we had seen by crystallography. So we've applied this now to a few other RNAs, and we can pretty routinely get now maps at about 4.5 to five angstrom resolution, even with RNAs that are smaller than 20 kilo dolphins. So this is not high resolution. It's not truly high throughput. But I'll point out that, you know, we went from essentially making the RNA to having initial maps for these RNAs in less than a week. So one can then one can see the global architecture, perhaps get initial models of RNAs at mid resolution fairly rapidly. Okay, so I'll just finish there because I know we're at the very end of this workshop and I'm sure people are tired. But cryo we am has has clearly can you can see post transcriptional modifications that's not surprising, but it's going to be somewhat slow. It's not going to be routine for every RNA. It's probably limited to RNAs that are in fact well folded the more dynamic the more RNA the more difficult it's going to be. And so far, you know, we've really only done it on in vitro transcribed unmodified RNAs with the exception of, you know, ribosomal RNAs and applied certainly to T RNAs. You know, we need to we need to decide if we're going to really use cryo we have to map or to observe putative modifications. What's the gold standard for resolution, how good does it have to be before it ends up in a database. What modifications look like in a cryo map I was really pleased to see the needs to talk about automated methods for perhaps interpreting cryo we and maps I think that's really important. And then you know what techniques to be trust what orthogonal techniques are going to be required to really make sure that something we see in a cryo we and map is authentic is that mass spec is it recognition by an antibody is it some recognition of those I think orthogonal techniques will always be needed when you're using structural biology methods. And so in the future, you know, maybe we can expand the use of scaffolds or other molecules to display RNAs that might be modified. I think the artificial intelligence and the automated analysis are going to be really important. You know we're going to have to think about if we want to study post transcriptional modifications of RNAs we're going to have to get the RNAs out of the cells where they're produced in vitro transcribed RNAs. So if you're talking about a particular motif in a particular five prime UTR of a particular mRNA that you want to study. How are you going to get enough of that. That is modified at a high enough level that you can put it on a cryo the embryo and actually do structural biology and I think that leads to some question Kristen that's a little bit earlier. And I also think it's going to be important maybe to have more than one structure so you know we were able to compare our structure to the structure from the oneth lab, and that gave additional insight into where modifications were were likely occurring where they were unlikely to occur. And so, you know that gets back to the standards how much do you need to see before you really trust what your, what your eyes are showing you. Okay, I will finish there. And I'll just thank the people in my lab who worked on this particular project to our highlighted yellow, all the support and the funding that we got and I'm eager to see what questions emerge so thank you. Thank you Jeff, let's thank Jeff. So we're close to time but I think I'll ask one put Jeff I appreciate the future perspectives you gave at the end but to follow up on one point this concept of scaffolds and wanting to work on obviously native RNAs. Do you envision a way to combine those approaches to you know capture native RNAs and lock them down so that cryo we can be applied. I'll admit I have not thought about that too much but I think that's an interesting question right so you know perhaps you could get to a point where, if there was a specific RNA structural motif in the cell that you were confident was getting a post transfer from modification you were interested in, and you were confident that the signal that triggers the modification work was contained in that motif. Maybe you could append that motif onto another RNA that's being expressed in the cell, it would get modified and pull it out. But of course there's a lot of ifs there right and so. That's where I think yeah there just needs to be a lot of basic groundwork about what's driving the modification in certain location what's the stoichiometry. Yeah. Excellent. Well in the interest of time and the needs to wrap our workshop up let's thank all of our speakers in this session that was really fantastic. I'm just going to thank all of you that have participated in person and online and all of the speakers. I so appreciate how actively everybody participated. This is hugely helpful to the Academy's committee that has to evaluate this task and I know I've, I've learned a huge amount, and I've also learned what I don't know. So, give yourself a hand please. And then just to thank you so much to the Academy's staff and our AV people back there everything has been really great. So let's