Mr. Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North): My question today is for the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Yesterday at the Windsor courthouse, a man being sentenced for assault pulled out a knife, ran to the front of the courtroom and slashed his arms and threatened to slash his throat right in front of the judge. He could easily have been carrying a handgun.

As the minister responsible for public safety in this province, what are you doing to assure the citizens of Ontario that this type of action never happens again in an Ontario courtroom?

Hon. Monte Kwinter (Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services): I thank the member for the question. I honestly can't guarantee that it will never happen in a courtroom again, but we do provide court security, and that is something that we have been doing for some time. We provide transportation from a correctional facility to the courts. We provide officers in the courts to provide that security.

This is an unfortunate situation. I can't really comment on the specifics, because this is something the police will be dealing with and it is really an operational issue for them. But I just want to assure citizens of Ontario that court security is provided, and this is something that is there to help prevent things like this happening.

Mr. Dunlop: Minister, as a result of yesterday's incident, only one of the 10 courtrooms in the Windsor courthouse is open today to the public, and that's because the court staff are too afraid to work in that environment.

A ministry spokesman said in today's Windsor Star that the experts in court security are the police, yet you and your government are not listening to the many concerns of the police about court security. We've heard this over and over again; in fact, your PA has done some kind of examination of court security.

We believe that you have totally dropped the ball on the review of court security in this province, but can I ask you this: What will you do as minister to ensure that the employees of the Windsor courthouse, and all other courtrooms in the province of Ontario, can return to work tomorrow in a safe environment?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I just want to correct the member's statement about my then parliamentary assistant looking into court security. There has never been a question about the actual security in the courtrooms. Where the question has been -- and it's been raised for some time and is a result of downloading by your government when you were in power -- is in paying for court security. This is a major issue with AMO and a major issue with municipalities: worrying about the cost of providing that court security and how it can work, because what is happening is that a courtroom will be in a jurisdiction, and many other communities are using it and they're not paying their share. So that investigation had nothing to do with the actual security; it had to do with how you fund it.

I want to assure you and the rest of the citizens of Ontario that there is court security in all the courthouses in Ontario. That is something we're very concerned about.