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<B><center>Monday, Jan 02, 2006
<A href="http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=canada_home&articleID=2133482">mytelus.com</a>
<font size=+1 color=purple>Ontario seeks more powers for premier ahead of potential avian flu pandemic</font> </center>
TORONTO (CP) - Fears of a bird flu pandemic has the Ontario government looking to pass legislation before next summer that grants the premier "extraordinary" powers during emergencies, says the province's community safety minister. </b>
Critical personnel would be required to work overtime and travel might be restricted in the event the H5N1 avian flu virus strikes Ontario, according to the bill introduced by Monte Kwinter on the final day of the legislature's last session.
Avian flu has been blamed for dozens of deaths in Asia and has western governments looking to shore up their emergency plans.
"When an emergency happens - it doesn't matter whether it's the avian flu, another pandemic of some sort, a terrorist attack, a nuclear accident . . . we have to respond immediately," Kwinter says.
"We don't have the luxury of being able to say, 'let's call back the legislature if it isn't sitting, and give them a couple of days to get here, and sit down and debate what we're going to do'."
Kwinter anticipates the bill would receive second reading in February, and third and final reading before the end of next June.
He acknowledges the proposals face "potential controversy" because they would suspend certain individual rights in the event of a crisis. But he says the attorney general's office has already vetted language of the bill to ensure it doesn't infringe on Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The proposed legislation would allow the premier to declare a 14-day emergency, which could be extended another 14 days by the lieutenant governor. The premier would have to report to the Ontario legislature within 120 days after an emergency ended to explain what criteria was used to declare it.
Among other provisions, the legislation would fix prices of necessary goods to prevent gauging by retailers, and widen job protection for people unable to work.
"This isn't a power grab," Kwinter says. "Tough decisions need tough legislation to allow us to be able to do it."
Urgent matters at the provincial level could have been dealt with more swiftly during crises such as the August 2003 blackout, recalls Julian Fantino, who was Toronto's police chief at the time and is now Ontario's commissioner of emergency management.
"Everything had to be debated up, down and sideways," Fantino says. "People were good, they came to understandings and agreements. But it was all done on a wing and a prayer and negotiations. In an emergency . . . there may be circumstances where you can't have debate for days on end."
Union leaders are still studying the recently introduced legislation but have raised eyebrows over language in the bill stating that the premier can order a person to "render services" that they are "qualified to provide."
"We will have the ability to say 'no, you can't leave. We need you to do this job'," Kwinter says.
Ontario Nurses' Association president Linda Haslam-Stroud says there are already provisions in her members' collective agreements that address nurses' rights to a safe working environment during medical emergencies and provisions regarding overtime.
"The bottom line is, without knowing what this really means, whatever this emergency act is going to encompass, they need to be consulting with ONA and the front-line nurses, and (ensure that) provisions in the collective agreement will apply," she says.
Bill Robinson, spokesman for the Society of Energy Professionals representing electrical engineers, says there doesn't need to be a law forcing his members to work in the event of another blackout.
He says during the 2003 power outage, employees volunteered to work overtime in the midst of a crisis, and notes that licences to operate power stations require a minimum complement of workers at all times, even during labour disputes.
Critics say if the government is serious about legislating steps to fight an avian flu crisis if it hits Ontario, it didn't accept an opposition offer to address it more quickly.
Kwinter's Bill 56 replaces Bill 138, an all-party committee's proposal that Kwinter says didn't garner enough opposition support to proceed.
But according to Conservative critics, the Liberals were rushing the committee to approve Bill 138 so that Ontario's chief veterinary officer, Deb Stark, could be empowered to quarantine farms and cull livestock, if necessary, if cases of avian flu were detected.
Currently, federal authorities can quarantine farms and order destruction of thousands of birds if necessary - as they did earlier this month at two farms in B.C. where a low-pathogenic strain of the avian flu virus was found. That quarantine was later lifted after the farms were found free of avian influenza.
The Conservatives say they didn't want to rush through a bill that would have sweeping implications on civil rights. But Tory house leader Bob Runciman says his party and the NDP agreed to work with the Liberals on a bill that would address defensive measures against avian flu through "stand-alone legislation."
He says the Liberals never took the opposition parties up on the offer and instead dumped the all-party bill in favour of its own.
Conservative critic Garfield Dunlop, who sat on the committee for the multi-party proposal, says if the government's concerns about avian flu "were so bloody important," it should have called for specific legislation regarding a potential avian flu pandemic just after October's throne speech.
Kwinter accuses the Tories of bogging down emergency management proposals with "procedural wrangling."
did you catch the brief mention that a man died outside of Jakarta in central Java? A BIG BIG DOT. 