Mr Ted Arnott (Waterloo-Wellington PC)
Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex PC)
Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton West / -Ouest ND)
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland PC)
Mr Monte Kwinter (York Centre / -Centre L)
Mrs Tina R. Molinari (Thornhill PC)
Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt L)
Mr David Young (Willowdale PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC)
Mr John O'Toole (Durham PC)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Susan Sourial
Staff / Personnel
Ms Elaine Campbell, research officer, Research and Information
Services
The committee met at 0857 in the Prince Arthur
Hotel, Thunder Bay.
PRE-BUDGET CONSULTATIONS
The Chair (Mr Marcel
Beaubien): Good morning, everyone, and welcome to
beautiful, sunny downtown Thunder Bay. You can't ask for a better
morning than this, especially in the north. It's nice and
cool.
The only announcement I have
to make is, for all the members who have not checked out, we must
check out by 11 o'clock. So make sure that you're out of there by
11.
CITY OF THUNDER BAY
The Chair:
Our first presenter this morning is the mayor of the city of
Thunder Bay. Your Worship, if you could step forward and state
your name for the record, and on behalf of the committee,
welcome. You have 30 minutes for your presentation this
morning.
Mr Ken
Boshcoff: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. My name is
Ken Boshcoff, mayor of the city of Thunder Bay. To my right is
our city manager, Brian MacRae, and to my left is Carol Busch,
our manager of finance.
First of all, I'd like to say
welcome to our city. I know that many of you have been here
before on several occasions; welcome back. We certainly
appreciate you travelling to Thunder Bay to conduct these
pre-budget consultations. This is a welcome opportunity to
present the challenges and issues we face today and to comment on
the fiscal and economic policies of the province.
My presentation will
highlight the main topics covered in our detailed written
submission. As you can see from the booklet, I would pretty much
occupy most of the early morning should we decide to read it. But
it's important to know that the details are in here, and we're
very proud of the document and the research that was conducted
for it.
The city of Thunder Bay has
faced many challenges over the years; however, this year's
challenges are extraordinary. Many of these challenges are
related directly to global economic factors. However, some of
course are specific to our city.
Two recent arbitration awards
have significantly impacted the 2001 budget. Our firefighters
were awarded a wage increase in excess of 13% for the period
1998-2000. This significantly exceeded the 6% negotiated by the
majority of other city groups for the same three-year period.
SEIU members employed at our homes for the aged received a 9%
increase for the period June 1998 to June 2001. The combined
estimated annual difference between the increased cost of these
two awards and costs that would have been incurred had the awards
been consistent with other city settlements is over $1.1 million
per year.
Benefit costs are escalating
as well. Health costs have been increasing at rates well above
inflation. The increase in WSIB administration charges from 19%
to 32% of the value of claims will result in additional costs of
$400,000.
The consumer price index
increased approximately 9% in the last five years. In addition,
there have been significant increases in certain commodities,
including fuel and natural gas. With fuel prices up approximately
27% over last year, the additional cost on an annual basis is
approximately $565,000.
Over the last few years, many
municipalities achieved balanced budgets by financing capital
projects from reserve and reserve funds. Likewise in Thunder Bay,
uncommitted capital reserve funds have been depleted to the point
where opportunities that existed in the past to fund capital
projects no longer exist to the same level as in previous
years.
Our city has responded to the
combined pressures of growing responsibilities and costs, scarce
resources and public scrutiny by focusing on cutting costs and
holding the line on tax increases. The municipal full service tax
rate has increased only 1.2% since 1994. However, the city of
Thunder Bay increased its capital out of revenue by approximately
$1.7 million as a result of the 2001 capital budget review
process. A number of factors have contributed to this increase,
including an aging infrastructure that needs to be maintained or
upgraded to provide core services, a lack of uncommitted reserve
and reserve funds, and a lack of provincial subsidy dollars for
capital projects.
Local service realignment has
brought about fundamental changes to provincial and municipal
roles and responsibilities. Northern Ontario municipalities are
generally disadvantaged due to the following: northern Ontario
municipalities cover large geographic areas, which significantly
increases operating costs; we have more severe weather conditions
than the remainder of the province, which translates into higher
costs, including road
maintenance and snow removal; we also have generally a lower
assessment base.
Municipalities inherited many
capital-intensive programs as a result of the LSR. Local
government must now fund all road improvements and transit
vehicle purchases.
The downloading of social
services to our district social services administration boards
will result in additional capital infrastructure to be
maintained. We must state our fear regarding the devolution of
social housing to the municipal tax base and concerns with
respect to the potential liability associated with the housing
stock and the financial impacts on our costs for social services
in the event of a national economic downturn.
There are still outstanding
issues to be resolved regarding items previously eligible for
subsidy that are not eligible for the community reinvestment
fund. In addition, we must have some assurance with respect to
the level of funding on a timely basis, as delays in confirmation
of funding levels are detrimental to good public service
practices.
To further complicate the
financial issues being experienced by the city, it is now facing
a potential $5.5-million shortfall in revenue as a result of the
recent provincial reassessment. We experienced a drop in our
total assessment base of 4.9%, with total taxable and grantable
assessment dropping to $5.8 billion from $6.1 billion, a decrease
of $300 million. We have requested ministerial intervention to
mitigate the impact of the latest reassessment and Bill 140's
hard cap on levy increases in order to prevent the undue hardship
that residential taxpayers will otherwise encounter: a projected
increase of approximately 20% due to the shift in the overall tax
burden on to the residential property class.
Under Bill 140, the Continued
Protection for Property Taxpayers Act, 2000, there is a shift of
responsibility from the Ontario Property Assessment Corp to
lower- and single-tier municipalities. Municipalities must
initiate a vacancy verification program, thereby placing further
strain on the limited resources of tax departments.
There are several important
issues not dealt with in the legislation, including: will new
transition ratios be calculated to minimize inter-class shifts?
What are the threshold tax ratios for the capped classes that
will determine whether a hard cap applies in a given
municipality? How will levy increases be determined?
We must emphasize the
importance of receiving the Bill 140 regulations on a timely
basis. A considerable amount of administrative time will be
required to review and implement the requirements. If we must
delay our final tax billing, there will be a considerable
financial impact on the city of Thunder Bay.
At the same time we are
dealing with emerging issues, we continue to deal with ongoing
issues. There is a need for the province to commit to ongoing
funding to help with the capital cost to improve our road and
transportation system. From a provincial perspective, announcing
new, major investment in our transportation and transit
infrastructure demonstrates confidence in the province's economic
future and signals that Ontario is serious about remaining open
for business.
SuperBuild and the
federal-provincial agreement on infrastructure are partial
solutions. Municipalities have yet to be informed of how the
proposed billion-dollar millennium fund will or will not assist
in dealing with our road and transit deficit. While these federal
and provincial programs help, and we are grateful for them, there
is much more that needs to be done.
Our city covers a large
geographic area and is responsible for maintaining approximately
950 kilometres of roads. The cost to maintain them to city
standards is $5.22 million annually. Severe weather conditions
contribute to higher road maintenance and snow removal costs,
thereby exacerbating the financial issues. The city of Thunder
Bay currently spends between $12 million and $14 million annually
on transportation infrastructure, including roads, sidewalks and
bridges, which is primarily funded from the property tax base.
More than $20 million annually is needed to meet present and
future demand and improve present levels of service.
With deferred maintenance and
rehabilitation of our road, sidewalk and bridge infrastructure
approaching $100 million, the ability to finance the required
work poses a significant financial dilemma for the city of
Thunder Bay. Likewise, the expanse of the service area, along
with its long travel distances, the urban-rural nature of the
city of Thunder Bay and the discontinuation of provincial grants,
is making it increasingly difficult to provide cost-effective
transit services.
The operation of a system of
public transit is an essential social service. We must stress the
need of infrastructure dollars to ensure cost-effective,
efficient and safe public transportation. Canada is the only G7
country that does not provide infrastructure dollars for public
transportation. It is important that all three levels of
government work co-operatively to find a solution to the issue of
public transportation.
0910
Legislative changes have also
impacted on the cost of providing other municipal services. We
are now fully responsible for paying for local policing costs.
However, the province subsidizes policing costs in smaller
municipalities and unincorporated areas through capping police
costs at $90 per household. Capping of policing costs results in
a significant inequity, as ratepayers in municipalities such as
the city of Thunder Bay are paying the full cost of policing
services through property taxes and contributing further, by way
of provincial taxation, to the costs of maintaining the cap in
other jurisdictions.
Even court security, costing
$460,000 annually, is now our responsibility under the revisions
to the Police Services Act. Furthermore, the cost of having to
transport prisoners, especially young offenders, to facilities
with available beds is now costing our city over $315,000
annually. We have also incurred significant costs as a result of
the provincially mandated adequacy and effectiveness standards,
including a quarter of a million dollars to meet equipment
requirements; and we estimate the additional costs for the new training
certifications to be over $370,000.
In July 1998, the Hotel Fire
Safety Act was repealed and instilled in the Ontario fire code.
Consequently, the responsibility for inspecting and enforcing the
code in the city's 40 hotels and motels, as well as our four
nursing homes, was downloaded to the city of Thunder Bay fire and
rescue service. In addition to enforcement, the responsibility
for education was also downloaded, with a total annual cost of
$45,000.
Two of our homes for the aged
are D-listed. Current legislation requires these homes to become
compliant by 2006. To do so will cost approximately $10 million.
There is an obvious need of infusion of capital funding by the
province in order that capital costs are shared on an equitable
basis.
With respect to the social
housing issues, the senior level of government must continue to
play a role. Through local services realignment, there is a
larger municipal role. However, if needs are to be met globally,
there must continue to be both funding and policy roles at both
the provincial and federal levels.
The city of Thunder Bay has
embraced the three Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. However, today
we are asking for latitude to do it in a fashion that would best
suit our community. Regulation 101, which mandates how we
recycle, focuses on the wrong R. Research of cases in Edmonton
and in European countries found that diversion from landfill
sites is far more effective than the blue box/curbside process
that is currently in the province of Ontario. We strongly
encourage the province to consider such an approach.
Our community is facing an
immediate, critical situation in accessing physician services and
in providing care to the people of northwestern Ontario. While
the concern for recruitment and retention of physicians has been
a concern for many years, it is now reaching crisis proportions.
Training more physicians in northern Ontario is certainly the
best response to this problem in the longer term. We are,
however, in urgent need of support for immediate, short-term
solutions that will allow our community to both retain current
physicians and recruit new family doctors and specialists in
seriously understaffed areas. As residents of Thunder Bay and
northwestern Ontario, we urge you to respond to our community's
and our region's critical and immediate needs. For us, this is
truly a matter of life and death. The new Minister of Northern
Development and Mines has been asked by the previous Minister of
Northern Development and Mines to continue pressing the new
Minister of Health to meet with representation from the city of
Thunder Bay on this critical matter regarding physician and
professional health care shortages.
We are anxious for the new
Municipal Act to proceed. A new Municipal Act can set a valuable
framework reassuring our common electorate that governments are
working together and helping to renew respectful, good
government. However, the city of Thunder Bay has some specific
areas of concern with respect to the proposed new Municipal
Act.
One proposed limitation is
the restriction on a municipality's ability to create or hold
shares in a corporation unless specifically authorized. This
restriction certainly may limit the range of options open to
municipalities for the joint provision of services under
private-public or public-public partnerships. Section 265
provides a very onerous process of disclosing licence fees and
the method of calculation, which is closely tied to the annual
budget process. Section 266 is similar in that it ties the
establishment of fees and charges to the annual budget process
and requires a bylaw establishing such fees and explanations as
to how the fees were established. These sections would result in
a bureaucratic nightmare and would be very restrictive to every
operation within the city.
Flexibility of the
municipality to adjust as required is eliminated, and the city's
ability to conduct operations in a responsive, businesslike
manner is substantially impaired. In addition, the new Municipal
Act does not appear to provide sufficient corporate capacity to
allow Thunder Bay Telephone to provide telecommunications
services as defined by the federal Telecommunications Act,
thereby limiting our ability to provide services as would
reasonably be expected from a telecommunications common
carrier.
Municipally owned telephone
systems should have the opportunity of entering and exiting
existing and new lines of business. Our telephone company has
long recognized the valued role that public and private sector
partnerships play in the successful deployment of services to
residents of northwestern Ontario. It is imperative that the
proposed new Municipal Act allows municipally owned telephone
systems to own shares.
The proposed act restricts
the ability of municipally owned telecommunications common
carriers to fulfill their federal mandate. We are concerned that
the proposed legislation will further impair the ability of the
residents of northwestern Ontario to access the
telecommunications services required in today's knowledge-based
economy and contribute to a further erosion of the region's
quality of life.
In this new millennium, local
telephone companies are faced with more challenges than ever
before. With the advent of local competition and the potential
erosion of traditional sources of revenue, it is imperative that
locally owned telecommunications common carriers be given equal
legislative rights to pursue new business opportunities.
We are supportive of the
following issues that will be raised by Development Thunder Bay,
including encouraging the government to provide adequate funds to
the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines to carry out its
economic development function; increasing funding to our
educational institutions, our regional hospital, the Northern
Ontario Rural Medical School and the Northwestern Ontario
Development Network. We support reactivation of the heritage
fund, especially the inclusion of infrastructure access to
destination tourism as a funding component; and designing an
investment mechanism for
venture capital for uses in northern Ontario communities.
There is a definite need to
be able to expand the revenue sources available to
municipalities. In that regard, we suggest amending the Public
Utilities Act to permit sanitary system or drainage system
utilities, thereby facilitating movement to a full user-pay
structure. User fees should be set so that those who consume
public services pay for them. Easing the tax burden on
lower-income individuals is more equitably and efficiently
handled through income transfers from the provincial government
or through local social assistance programs targeted to specific
groups, rather than through setting user fees at a level below
the cost of the service.
0920
There are solid economic
arguments for the implementation of provincial legislation
permitting municipalities to levy new taxes as a supplement to
property taxes. A municipal fuel tax, piggybacked on to the
provincial fuel tax, makes economic and political sense,
especially in areas with considerable road and bridge
infrastructure needs.
While the city of Thunder Bay
strongly supports the concept of performance measurement and
best-practice emulation to the extent that we are voluntarily
participating in ICMA and the CAO's benchmarking initiative, we
do have reservations about the approach that the province is
taking. Performance measurement is a long-term, results-oriented
management tool to be used to highlight success and identify
areas for improvement. Because of the unclear definition of costs
and the lack of a common methodology for cost allocation, the
results achieved are not comparable. Consequently, there is a
risk that the report card will be used in a punitive manner. We
urge the province to take a leadership role in educating the
public and politicians about the uses and limitations of
comparative performance measures.
Considering the significant
progress that has been made by the municipal CAO's benchmarking
initiative, it may be prudent of the province to consider
partnering with that group to refine the data collection process
and resolve cost allocation issues to achieve a true
apples-to-apples comparison.
Members of the standing
committee, the city of Thunder Bay is committed to providing high
value municipal services through forward-thinking policies and
effective management. To do this, we also count on the province
of Ontario for support and effective policy-making. We greatly
appreciate that the standing committee's report to the House will
include an understanding of the north. Thank you very much.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Your Worship. We have approximately two
minutes per caucus, and I'll start with Mr Christopherson.
Mr David
Christopherson (Hamilton West): Thank you, Mayor. I
appreciate your presentation. I was drawn to page 14, where you
talked about the fact that "easing the tax burden on lower-income
individuals is more equitably and efficiently handled through
income transfers from the provincial government, or through local
social assistance." I just wanted to bring to your attention that
we had an economist in a couple of days ago who pointed out that
one of the things that makes Canada and Ontario work is the
income redistribution that we have. Because there is such a
growing gap between the very wealthy and the very poor-the gap is
one of the greatest in the developed world. If you take just the
gross income of the top 20% versus the lowest 20% income earners,
it's a 27:1 ratio. By the time you finish doing the transfers,
the public services that we provide, our progressive income tax
system, at the end of the day, you end up with a ratio at 4:1,
which starts to even things out a little bit, and that's why
overall there is a better standard of living.
Is it your clear
understanding that if things follow through the way they are, and
you don't get relief in the areas you've outlined here today,
you're going to have to implement more and more user fees in
order to offset your costs and thereby at the end of the day, if
every municipality had to do that, it would probably leave us
with a different ratio and therefore a whole different quality of
life across the province?
Mr Boshcoff:
I think a couple of us will answer that. From the political
standpoint, certainly the pressure is on for municipalities, and
for us to try to find revenue sources becomes more and more
difficult, which leads us down only a certain number of paths
that we have open to us, unless we get some measure of support
from the senior levels. That's really where we're coming from
philosophically. We would probably not have to implement so many
things if the pressure was off, but the pressure is on, and it's
on severely. So we have to look at ways of doing this, which
leads us to the inevitability of user fees.
Mr Brian
MacRae: I think the other aspect here is that we are
looking and need to continue to look for non-tax revenue sources,
which translates into our need to establish a broader range of
user fees for a number of the services that we provide. We are
suggesting that we don't want to be constrained from putting an
appropriate user fee in place because there isn't enough focus on
income redistribution at the more senior levels of
government.
Mr
Christopherson: Right. Thank you.
The Chair:
The government side.
Mrs Tina R. Molinari
(Thornhill): Thank you very much for your presentation.
I have just a couple of questions. One, I was interested to hear
the results of the recent arbitrations that you had with the
firefighters. Before this government was elected, the
arbitrations were decided upon a number of specifics that they
had, and this government introduced a number of regulations. One
had to do with the ability to pay for those who were paying for
the settlements and also comparison factors with others within
the field. It surprises me to hear that an arbitration was
settled in such a vast-so if you could just comment a bit on
that.
Mr Boshcoff:
I'll tell you now that the Association of Municipalities of
Ontario, Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association-just about every municipal
organization-has been sending resolutions in fairly strong terms
to the government as a result of several of these arbitrations
that have occurred across the province, because in almost every
case the argument about ability to pay has been ignored by the
arbitrator. Our concern is that these are very heavy. The
provincial government sets out a standard saying this is where
you should be; municipalities similar to ours try to bargain
along those lines, it goes to arbitration and the costs
inevitably are higher.
The Chair:
Thank you very much. Mr Kwinter.
Mr Monte Kwinter
(York Centre): Thanks for your presentation. You said
you were very proud of it, and you have every right to be. It's
very comprehensive.
I have a concern and it sort
of runs throughout your presentation. You keep talking about user
fees, municipal fuel taxes, and each of these, whether it be
called a user fee or a tax, is a tax. The same person is paying
it. As a politician, do you feel comfortable with doing that? Do
you feel that this is something people will accept?
Mr Boshcoff:
No, I don't feel comfortable about it, Mr Kwinter, but we-and I
say "we" as I'm also on the board of the Association of
Municipalities of Ontario-as municipal representatives, are
against the wall. Our reserves have been essentially used up.
We've gone through many years of cost-cutting and trying to hold
the line on taxes so that what we are left with now are very few
tools to try and sustain municipal finances.
It is one thing to have
special funds come along-those are great, don't get me wrong-but
to me it would be a lot better to have a predictable, stable
level of funding that came out well in advance of when
municipalities prepare their budgets. The bottom line is-am I
comfortable with it?-I certainly am not, and I wish we didn't
have to go that way. The entire gist of our presentation today is
that if we are going to have a new Municipal Act with new
responsibilities, then it would have to have a greater
understanding of the role of the province in funding major
infrastructure for municipalities and stabilizing that funding so
that we know it's coming, we can plan for it and we know when the
tax bills can be sent out, which is also a costing for us.
The Chair:
On behalf of the committee, thank you very much for your
presentation this morning.
Mr Boshcoff:
Thank you.
TOWN OF FORT FRANCES
The Chair:
Our next presenter is the mayor for the town of Fort Frances.
Your Worship, if you could come forward and state your name for
the record, please. On behalf of the committee, welcome, and you
have 30 minutes for your presentation this morning.
Mr Glenn
Witherspoon: Good morning, and I too welcome members of
the finance and economic committee to northwestern Ontario. I
understand that the Chair might have had a little fortune at the
casino last night? A little birdie told me. I too had some
fortune, so it's great.
Mr
Christopherson: Did you win last night?
Mr
Witherspoon: Didn't he tell you that?
Mr
Christopherson: No.
Mr
Witherspoon: What a guy.
Mrs
Molinari: It's on the record.
0930
Mr
Witherspoon: Today I speak to you on three different
subjects, and I repeat some of the sentiment the former speaker,
the mayor of Thunder Bay, spoke about regarding the impact of
Bill 140 and the new reassessment on smaller municipalities. I'll
also speak to you on directing exported northern dollars into
local small businesses and the future of our district jail. I
bring the last subject up because I take every opportunity to
speak to various levels of government, in attempting to get
decision-makers to Fort Frances, about the future of our jail
because it has a big economic impact, especially where we are
located.
First of all, Bill 140
restricts the property tax increase on commercial, industrial and
multi-residential properties if a municipality's tax rate is
above the provincial average, as is the case in Fort Frances and
in 85% of municipalities throughout the province. Any tax
increase needed to continue the standard of service must then go
to residential properties. Fort Frances and the Rainy River
district probably have an average age older than the majority of
municipalities in all Ontario, and additional burdens on
residential property taxes will be very detrimental.
I agree this is a fair bill
when one thinks about Ontario's competitive challenge in the
world today, and I applaud the government for doing this.
However, the end result of reassessment and the moving of such
huge dollar figures in one year has left small municipalities
with a balancing nightmare. Such is the case in Fort Frances.
Over $400,000 was removed from the industrial tax base and now
must be put on the backs of residential taxpayers. We basically
have our paper mill, Abitibi-Consolidated, which contributes
about $3 million a year to our taxes. We raise $11 million to $12
million in taxes municipally. Moving $400,000 of that, plus
constraining any increases we will have on commercial,
multi-residential and industrial, makes it very difficult.
The province must provide a
fund over and above the community reinvestment fund. Creation of
a short-term, special-circumstances fund is required until a more
equitable plan can be established locally. I re-emphasize that we
did have a special-circumstances fund in place two years ago, and
it was discontinued.
I found out about Bill 140
while attending the Rainy River District Municipal Association
annual meeting. Our member, Howard Hampton, presented us with a
document in regard to Bill 140. I emphasize that Bill 140 is
needed to be competitive, but prior knowledge, probably a little
bit of input and the tools to make it work are needed. I'll
re-emphasize that.
The 10-5-5 taxation regulation over the past three
years has worked in most cases. The impact on municipalities is
such that we need help in order to maintain a zero per cent tax
increase while continuing to maintain a service which the
citizens of our province truly deserve.
I take pride in saying I'm in
my 10th year as mayor of Fort Frances. We've had one tax
increase, that being to pay for a debenture for a new sportsplex,
a new theatre and a secondary treatment plant. Other than that,
we have been able to maintain a zero tax increase. But with these
changes coming, I have to emphasize again, we need help. It
doesn't have to be continuous. CRF needs to be continuous because
of the transfer of services, which again we take open-heartedly
because we've always wanted to take a crack at social services
and whatnot, and it's working well. But in this case we do need
help.
The second part of my
presentation: I've been dealing with our Rainy River Future
Development Corp, which does the economic development for the
Rainy River district. They are hired under contract by the town
of Fort Frances. We find it is very difficult for capital
ventures and whatnot to get local money for our small business.
Currently all money that is invested by area residents through
their annual purchase of RRSPs is invested in mutual funds, money
markets or stocks. For Fort Frances and the Rainy River district
alone, this amounted to approximately $11 million in 1991, with
significantly more being invested by the year 2001.
Currently only three
district businesses are listed on the stock exchange, other than
mining companies. These are Abitibi-Consolidated Inc, Normiska
Corp, and Voyageur Panel through Boise Cascade Corp. This is only
a small percentage of local monies that, if actually invested
through RRSPs in the region-the north is exporting its investment
dollars, like our youth, to southern Ontario, Canada and
abroad.
Two other examples of local
dollars going south to benefit urban Ontario and the rest of
Canada would be the Ontario municipal employees' pension plan and
the Ontario teachers' union pension fund, one of the biggest in
the world, which invest northern Ontario investment dollars
elsewhere in Ontario and Canada.
In order to stimulate
development across the north, Ontario must work with Canada to
develop a mechanism which will allow northern residents to invest
in northern businesses and obtain RRSP tax credits. One example
is the labour-sponsored investment funds, such as the Crocus fund
in Manitoba. These funds have been able to redirect significant
RRSP dollars into local businesses. This example has been so
successful that it has grown over $200 million since its
inception in the late 1980s. Investors obtain both an RRSP credit
and an additional provincial tax credit, which increases their
RRSP refund. This upfront return on investment makes such funds
very attractive as part of a portfolio, and investors will lock
in their money for up to eight years in order to gain a
benefit.
Unfortunately Ontario's
fund, the Working Ventures fund, does not appear to invest in
northern companies. To the best of my knowledge, the only company
in which it has invested is in North Bay. With its great rate of
return-7% as of last week's National Post, as compared to the
Crocus fund's rate of return of 0.5%-the fund may be working
well, but it is not working for northern Ontario. We need our own
vehicle for investing in northern companies, big and small.
Another mechanism which I
believe is essential for northern Ontario's future is the
creation of the ability for our entrepreneurs to roll over a
portion of their RRSP funds into a small business. If this were
possible, it would give potential entrepreneurs the opportunity
to use their own money to invest in themselves. Currently an
entrepreneur must cash an RRSP and pay whatever taxes are
applicable prior to being able to use the money in a business. He
or she must finance the difference between the RRSP before and
after taxes in order to do the project. This places an undue
financial burden on the new venture which would not be there if
the total RRSP amount could be used. These funds would be tracked
by Revenue Canada, as the entrepreneur would always owe a minimum
tax to Canada. I believe this would be an inexpensive way for
Canada to generate business and create jobs, especially when we
compare it to having the system allocate monies to business, eg,
Canada jobs fund of late.
I am seeking the assistance
of Ontario in forwarding such initiatives in order to create a
strong northern Ontario economy.
The third subject I'd like
to talk to you about today is the closure of the Fort Frances
Jail, which was announced in May 2000 by then-Minister Sampson.
We've had various meetings at the municipal level, and I've
talked to Deb Reid in the minister's office several times. The
minister was scheduled to come to Fort Frances, and then he had
to resign his post. We have a new minister in Norm Sterling, and
we look forward to his visit to Fort Frances and area to see the
infrastructure that is there.
I present to you today some
letters from the lawyers' association of Fort Frances and the
Rainy River district, also from the people who work at the jail,
as to the importance of the jobs and the economy it will create.
We have 23 people who work in the jail, with a budget of about
$1.5 million. This is going to be very important when it comes to
the new budget, but the province has said they will save
approximately $300,000 or $400,000.
0940
If you read the
documentation that is presented to you in the plan we have, we
need to work together. I've talked to the mayor of Pembroke and
they are attempting to put a package together, but if you
consider that the province will pay $1.1 million to transport
prisoners and then they'll have the same expenses at the other
end with regard to clothing and housing them and the extra
security that will be needed, I feel that indeed it's not a
financially prudent decision. All I'm asking today is that you
take the message back, especially the people of the government,
to the new minister and to the cabinet people who are going to be
putting the budget forward that we request a meeting in Fort Frances. It is
the gateway to northwestern Ontario.
I have a letter here that
states what some of these conditions will mean, especially to
tourism. Carrying a .45 in an RV is daily life for an American.
So if he comes to the border and is asked, "Do you have any
firearms or whatnot?" the majority of them say no, because they
just carry them. It's a way of life. If they do an inspection,
and the guy could be a brain surgeon from Chicago, a pretty
high-profile person, and they say, "Well, we've got to arrest you
because you didn't declare your gun, but, I'm sorry, you're going
to have to go 300 kilometres or 420 kilometres to a jail in
Thunder Bay"-where there are over a million people a year using
our crossing, it's imperative that we maintain the system we
have. If you say to this doctor, "We'll have to take you to
Kenora to lock you up. You can't have a hearing until Monday or
Tuesday," they're never going to come back. These people are not
all criminals.
All I'm saying is that if
they close a jail in southern or northeastern Ontario, with a
proximity of 50 kilometres or 60 kilometres from one jail to
another, that is not very significant. It is very significant-the
district of Rainy River deserves a jail. I can't emphasize it
enough. For example, yesterday the Prime Minister said to a group
of students in China, "The economy is based on a strong judicial
system." The same position stands in Fort Frances. Judicial
services include local jail services. Fort Frances has had local
jail services for approximately 100 years. The Prime Minister
says that the judicial system is needed, and we're depleting our
infrastructure by moving this.
We will be a partner. We
will invest money; the private sector will invest money. We just
need the government to come and see what we have, and we can work
as a team. We know our jail is antiquated. We know we need a new
one. We're willing to house a youth detention centre; we're
willing to house a women's jail. We're willing to work together
and be a partner, but we need help and we need it now, before
2004 comes around.
That's my presentation,
sir.
The Chair:
Thank you, Your Worship. We have approximately three minutes per
caucus, and I'll start with the government side.
Mr Steve Gilchrist
(Scarborough East): Thank you, Your Worship. We
appreciate your coming forward.
I'm impressed with the
proposal of the RRSP for the north. Let me ask you, as a
corollary to that: given that 10% of the population of Ontario is
Sudbury to the Manitoba border, should there be a regulation
compelling the existing municipal and provincial public sector
unions to invest 10% of their resources in some way into the
north? They got the money there. Would you agree it's only fair
to-
Mr
Witherspoon: I'd agree with that, and it would probably
be a first step.
Mr
Gilchrist: It would be an impressive first step. The
teachers' union alone would be investing $6 billion in the north
instead of in office buildings in downtown Toronto.
Mr
Witherspoon: That's correct.
Mr
Gilchrist: So I appreciate that suggestion. That's the
value of these hearings, getting good ideas like this that we
might otherwise not have seen.
Mr
Witherspoon: We don't want to go all the time to Queen's
Park with our hand out. This would just eliminate one hand.
Mr
Gilchrist: I appreciate that. That's the sort of
suggestion we particularly like.
The other question comes
back to something Mayor Boshcoff raised as well, and that's the
issue of Bill 140. My apologies that I didn't bring the detailed
mill rates for your municipality.
Mr
Witherspoon: I have them here.
Mr
Gilchrist: Are you above the provincial average in the
other category?
Mr
Witherspoon: Yes, we are.
Mr
Gilchrist: Are there specific reasons why that
transpired over the years?
Mr
Witherspoon: I've been involved for 15 years
municipally, and in that period of time we've really held the
line, but in the 1960s and the 1970s it was willy-nilly, and
probably commercial and industrial were the least resistant. They
didn't have as many eyes or as many mouths to bitch at the
politicians, so that was easy prey. This is why we're in the
state we're in today.
Mr
Gilchrist: As a last point on this question, you talk
about a transition period and the need to manage your way through
this. I do have your total assessment base; it's about $375
million. Clearly, while there is a shift, $400,000 divided over
that base isn't all that big. What sort of time frame-
Mr
Witherspoon: For taxation purposes it represented,
actually, a 4% increase, but what we did was reduce another
$200,000 out of the operating and took the additional 2%. For
this year alone we said we had to raise our taxes 2%, but now,
with Bill 140, in the second billing the 2% will come off the
industrial and commercial and have to be put on to
residential.
Mr
Gilchrist: What will that translate to?
Mr
Witherspoon: Probably another 2% will be another $50 to
$80 per household.
Mr
Kwinter: Thank you very much for your presentation. I
have some concerns about your proposal on the RRSPs. The whole
thrust behind an RRSP is to provide a vehicle where people can
invest tax-free dollars for their retirement. The fund managers
who manage these funds try-you wouldn't know it by the stock
market today and what's been happening lately-to get a reasonable
return and as secure a return as they can for their investors.
Capital goes where it can get that return, where it can get it at
the least risk and the greatest return. Capital has no
allegiance; it has no love; it goes where it can go.
My concern is that if you
tie an RRSP to investment in the north, you set up the situation
where investment is made not because it makes any particular
sense but because
emotionally you want to put the money into the north. If a
decision is made by some multi-conglomerate that they have to
rationalize and they shut down a mill, they say arbitrarily,
"We're shutting the mill in Rainy River," but it had nothing to
do really with the specifics of that particular company. You hear
it all the time, where a company closes a plant, the workers say,
"We are one of the most efficient plants you've got," and they
say, "Don't confuse us with the facts. We have our corporate
strategy in shutting down." Suddenly, all of these people who are
depending on a return for their investment are left without
it.
I think there's a role for
government to play. This is where you spread the risk over
everybody and, as a matter of public policy, you set up a
development fund for the north. But it isn't tied to individual
residents of the north who have to literally gamble their future
on what happens there. They should be able to mitigate the risk
and have a relatively safe investment.
You really have to think
that through, because there are some very serious potential
repercussions of trying to promote that kind of thing, where
people say, "I know I can get a better return somewhere else, but
I have a responsibility to the north and I'm going to invest my
money there whether I lose it or not." I think that's a role the
government should take; I don't think it's a role the individual
should take. I'd like to hear your comments on that.
Mr
Witherspoon: As you know, most of the industry in the
north would be natural-resources-based. We've just recently hired
Paragon consultants out of California to do economic feasibility,
and the natural-resources-based industries look a lot stronger
than the techs in southern Ontario today, if we watch the stock
market.
0950
We do have some good
companies in the north that require capital funding. It would
behoove the government to work with the federal government to
create a body that would disburse a fund to invest in the north
which could be RRSP-compatible. That would be great. That's my
report to you.
The Chair:
Thank you very much.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you, Mayor, for your presentation.
It's unfortunate he's not here-I don't want to talk behind his
back-but I'm sure he'll return in a moment after doing his clip.
It's interesting that for the government member suddenly, when
you talk about $400,000, it's not so much money as long as it's
your budget that it's coming out of as opposed to his. What
crossed my mind when you said that the 2% could turn into $50 or
$80 a year-I spent time on municipal councils, so I understand
the relationship between municipal and provincial. It's got to be
infuriating-I know it is in my community of Hamilton-to have the
government make as their main gift, if you will, as they see it,
to the people of Ontario all of these tax cuts, but at the end of
the day they're causing increases elsewhere. Everybody else is
having to raise their rates and they're taking the heat. The
mayor who was here before you spoke of user fees that are having
to go up and how that has a detrimental effect on the
lowest-income members of your community.
Anyway, I'll leave that
with you. If you want to comment on that, I'd appreciate hearing
it. But I do find it frustrating, on behalf of municipalities and
other transfer agencies, that the government stands there and
says, "We cut taxes; we cut taxes." You know, cutting budgets is
easy, really, if you don't want to think about it. You just take
your red pen and start stroking and there you go, you've cut the
budget. But at the municipal level of government, where you're
actually there to provide the services on the ground, you either
cut those services or you have to increase. I'll leave that with
you.
Also, on the issue of the
Fort Frances Jail, I've been there.
Mr
Witherspoon: In the jail itself?
Mr
Christopherson: Yes, although I was able to come and go
as I wanted, but I was there.
Mr
Witherspoon: Saturday night.
Mr
Christopherson: No, actually as the minister at the
time. It's a real dilemma, but one of the reasons we backed off
from a lot of the closures was because of the economic impact. It
made sense, corporately, for us to do a lot of the things this
government is looking at. Those plans were in front of me too. So
it looked good for us and it would have made my ministry budget
look good and therefore would have helped the government, but
there was a really negative impact, particularly the farther you
went out from Toronto. The farther you went out, the greater the
impact, whether you went east, west or to the north.
These jails are older and
they require investment, and I know it's difficult, but I would
suggest, and I wouldn't mind your comments, that the government
has an obligation to recognize the impact on the local economy.
Your financial responsibilities don't end at your own budget when
you're a senior level of government like the province. You've got
an obligation to make sure you're putting in place measures and
doing things that support local economies in the community,
because at the end of the day the province is merely a collection
of all our municipal communities. So some of your thoughts on
that would be appreciated.
Mr
Witherspoon: We'll go to your first question first in
regard to tax implications on the $400,000. I believe that the
municipal level of government is the most important level of all
three governments when it comes to the individual people they
serve. They can see us, they can touch us and they can bitch at
us every single day. The implication of the $400,000 is very
significant. Like I mentioned in my presentation, we need a tool
to get us through this. We take pride in developing the service
that people have, and taking $400,000 out of our operating or
future capital purchases is devastating.
In regard to the jail in
Fort Frances and the impact economically, one of your two words
here is "economics," your committee that's looking at economics
for the future. It's very important that we maintain this
infrastructure part. We
have a beautiful courthouse, we have a beautiful civic centre and
we now have infrastructure for recreation, for culture. I
challenge any community our size to go against our
infrastructure, but we also need the social part of it-we are
right on the border-in tourism, and the government of the day is
promoting tourism. We have a million people come and we just
can't take that aspect of it out of where we are. The weather is
severe here. It could be blowing and we might have to transport
10 people today who are a little less than reputable, and if we
have an accident and they're out on the road-we need the jail and
we need it in Fort Frances, especially on the border. I just
can't emphasize that enough.
The Chair:
Your Worship, on behalf of the committee, thank you very much for
your presentation this morning.
Mr
Witherspoon: Thank you. Enjoy your stay in Thunder Bay.
You can always bring this to Fort Frances.
The Chair:
We were in Kenora last year, a little closer.
THUNDER BAY HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION
The Chair:
Our next presenter, the representative from the Thunder Bay Home
Builders' Association, just came into the room. I will ask the
gentleman to come forward when he's ready and to state his name
for the record. On behalf of the committee, welcome. You have 30
minutes for your presentation this morning.
Mr Ray
Williamson: If they hadn't told me you guys were going
to be buying houses, I wouldn't be rushing so fast. I don't do
this for a living.
Thank you, Mr Chairman. My
name is Ray Williamson. I'm President of the Thunder Bay Home
Builders' Association. I've been building homes and have been
exposed to home building in this city all my life. I specialize
in a whole pile of different areas. We're into the high-tech area
of telecommunications. We also do revitalization programs on the
development of communities. So we build more than just homes.
Basically, I'm a volunteer, along with 3,500 other volunteers,
for the province of Ontario in the home building industry through
OHBA, the Ontario Home Builders' Association. I really appreciate
the opportunity to speak to you today. I'll make my report very
brief, which is almost impossible, because once I get going it's
pretty hard to stop. Like I said before, the Ontario Home
Builders' Association represents 3,500 members and they probably
contribute toward the neighbourhood of 180,000 jobs in
Ontario.
Here are some of the areas
I'd like to get into. The major highlights of 2000 include:
start-ups were up across the province, with some areas showing
significant gains. Some of the larger increases were found in
Kitchener, Ottawa-Hull, Oshawa and Toronto. However, there were
few communities that experienced decreases in starts. Here in
Thunder Bay we were down about 34%. In Sudbury they dropped about
13%. So much of Ontario is booming, and we in the north continue
to struggle with a sluggish housing market. Multiple-family
construction was up about 9.4% in 2000, compared with the
previous year, and single, detached starts increased by 4.2%.
However, rental housing construction is still stagnated, despite
Ontario's robust economy and incentives brought forth by the
provincial government.
One of the contributors to
a healthy new housing market in Ontario can be attributed to the
success of the land transfer tax rebate program for first-time
homebuyers of newly built homes. Since this measure was first
introduced in 1996, about $106 million in rebates was given to
over 78,000 Ontarians, which assisted them in the purchase of
their new homes. This, in return, contributed to the growth in
the new housing market. We congratulate the government on making
the rebate program permanent in last year's budget and helping to
ensure that housing remains affordable for first-time
homebuyers.
1000
Every year, the Ontario
Home Builders' Association conducts economic forecast surveys
with our members. The November results of that are included as an
appendix to our submission, which I think everybody has. Nine of
the 10 members surveyed expect sales to increase or remain the
same in 2001 compared to the previous year. The optimism is
reflected in OHB's forecast for 2001. We expect 70,000 starts
this year, which represents the fourth straight year of growth.
We need some of that here. In Thunder Bay we have a really good
council, we have a lot of people with vision and we're struggling
to get our economic growth stable. We're struggling to achieve
that especially in the housing market.
With industry cutting
back-and we've become so dependent on industry. The
infrastructure of a town like this is dependent on mines, the
mills and elevators. When they start cutting back at Bowater from
a 3,000-person workforce to about 800, and then you have the
elevators, from around 3,200-I'm not sure of the exact numbers,
but around 3,000-to about 400, where do you find jobs that pay
that kind of money? What happens is that the market starts to
slow down quite a bit because you don't have the jobs that pay
that kind of money to stimulate it. Our council has the vision to
try to stimulate and get industry back into the community.
Because we're centrally located, I think that's going to help out
a lot.
Renovation spending
continues on a upward trend even in Thunder Bay. About $10.5
billion was spent in this sector last year in the province. We
predict renovation spending will climb to about $11.5 billion in
2001.
Ontario's economic
performance has been impressive over the past year. Low mortgage
rates and strong job creation fuelled consumer confidence and
encouraged the new homebuyer to buy in this market. While
generally optimistic, enthusiasm for the coming year is tempered
with concerns over labour shortages and rising costs of material
and skilled labour. These increased costs, combined with new taxes, fees and
charges, could hinder future growth. More than 60% of our members
cite increased labour costs as an impediment to growth for 2001.
Almost as many as 58% are experiencing difficulty finding skilled
labour.
That brings me to another
issue on skilled labour and the educational system. I dropped off
a report where you can see that basically the provincial
government has been entrusted with the stewardship of educating
our kids. We can't forget the fact that skilled labour is our
bloodline. If we don't have people coming into the industry in
carpentry, plumbing, heating, whatever-the average age of an
apprentice is 27, and the average age of a bricklayer is 55.
We're not doing enough to get those kids interested in the
programming early enough. We used to be in there in grades 7 and
8. Those programs were cut.
There are further
hindrances in our sector with the Ministry of Labour not allowing
kids under the age 16 on a work site, even under controlled
supervision. If you go in like it was before, where you could
bring in children when they're making their initial-at 14 they
get introduced into the high school system. That's when they
start making career choices, and that's when you have to get
them. We can't all be behind a computer or behind a desk. Our
industry's strength is also through the bloodlines of skills and
labour. We have to do something that's going to perpetuate that
into the 21st century so that we're strong. No matter what else
we do, our kids are our future. In Thunder Bay right now, we're
not experiencing a booming housing market, and we had a shortage
of skilled labour about three months ago because one of the mines
pulled most of the guys out of it. Again, when we get into the
labour aspect we have to do something that's going to continue to
develop that in the educational system.
Thunder Bay Home Builders'
Association is fully supportive of the Ontario Home Builders'
Association recommendations that are intended to make sure the
residential housing and renovation market remains strong in
Ontario.
Development charges: we've
been very fortunate with our mayor and council and the staff. We
haven't been subjected to development charges, and I think that
is a hindrance in most situations. We need it, but we always have
to maintain control over it. In some situations in Thunder Bay
we've been fortunate enough that councils didn't implement it,
and that could be set as a role model. How they are able to get
funds from other areas to supplement that should maybe be taken
in other communities. With the Development Charges Act, people
are having a tough enough time buying a house. We've got to
remember the Canadian dream is home ownership. Throughout the
world, people don't have the luxury of having homes, and we're
very fortunate to do that. If we don't have controls like some of
the communities I've been involved with-I actually chair all of
Ontario for health and safety and I'm on the board of directors
for CSAO, so I go down east quite a bit and I see what's
happening to the industries in Barrie and places like that where
the government hasn't stepped in and said, "You can't do it."
They let them go wild with some of these development charge acts.
What it's going to do is, you've got a perpetual motion right now
of people buying, but once it stops it's going to stifle it and
you're going to go back into a recessionary period. We don't need
that. The time to re-evaluate that and implement controls is
now.
I wrote all this stuff, but
I just got back from Toronto myself. I had other stuff and I'm
trying to get myself together here.
Another area that is very
important: You can implement all the policies you want-and I
don't have to read this for this stuff; the underground economy.
If you don't have anything in place to enforce what you set out,
don't bother implementing it because it just makes so much
paperwork; it doesn't matter whether it's through WSIB or through
Revenue Canada. If you implement policies you have to have an
enforcement team that can deliver, that can go out there and make
people follow what you've implemented, because it doesn't do you
any good. What happens is, it's a two-tier system. The people who
comply are being penalized because they're competing against
people who don't have to comply.
We're very fortunate. I
find the people who are in place now have the willingness to
listen. It's all about working together. You guys wouldn't be
here if you didn't want to learn from people. It's really good
that you're here, and I really appreciate that too.
Rental housing: we look at
3.8% as about average. Anything above that is a buyer's market;
anything below that is a landlord's market. Right now we're at
5.8%. In the rental housing market, housing is in short supply in
a growing number of urban areas across the province. Nine regions
have a vacancy rate under 2%, and five cities, including Toronto,
Barrie, Kitchener and Guelph, have a vacancy rate under 1%.
Thunder Bay is 5.8%. Still, that has dropped from a rate of 7.5%
in the year before. Despite Ontario's robust economy, the reality
is that there are very few new housing starts. The provincial
government has undertaken a number of initiatives in the past to
encourage construction of rental accommodation, including most
recently the PST grant program, which is pretty good.
The Ontario Home Builders'
recommends that the government renew the PST grant program and
increase funding for this program initiative to support new
affordable home construction. A review program is critical and is
recommended so that the grant targets the intended sector. In
addition, OHBA urges the provincial government to review the
recommendations from the housing supply working group and seek to
eliminate the disincentives that currently discourage the private
sector from building rental accommodations.
1010
Many municipalities across
Ontario have undergone or will undergo amalgamation. While over
80% of OHBA members support the concept of amalgamating
communities, they do have concerns about increased costs and
delays that are being
incurred by builders as these municipalities merge. Therefore,
OHBA urges the provincial government to expedite the supply of
necessary funding to renew amalgamated municipalities to ensure a
quick, effective merger of building and planning departments and
rewrite zoning and bylaws.
Again, in Thunder Bay we
have a building department that is very receptive to the growth
of our industry. They have a willingness to communicate.
Communication is a key factor in anything. If you lose the
communication skills, you might as well not get up the next day
to go to work, because you have to communicate.
Let me conclude by noting
that this government has cut taxes 99 times since being elected
in 1995, and in last year's budget announced a further 67 cuts
over the next five years. We urge the government to continue on
this path that has proven to be very successful for Ontario. Let
me also repeat that OHBA and its members strongly support the
fiscal policy of the provincial government and encourage the
government to continue in the direction of cuts in spending and
taxes.
If you want to open up the
floor, I can probably answer questions.
The Chair:
Thank you very much. We have approximately four minutes per
caucus, and I'll start with Mr Kwinter.
Mr
Kwinter: Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm
sure you know we've already heard from the Ontario Home Builders'
Association and the Toronto Home Builders' Association, so we've
heard the general concerns and the specific concerns of your
industry.
I'd like to talk to you
about Thunder Bay in particular. I was quite surprised to hear
that home construction in Thunder Bay is down 34%. Is that just a
one-year phenomenon or has that been going on for some time?
Mr
Williamson: It's the worst it has been-it's actually
been on a decline for the last few years, and we need something
to kick-start it. I think industry's going to do that. We have to
try to get some sort of industry in the high-tech programs,
either computer manufacturing or something-because we're
centrally located, call centres are a good idea. Actually, when
you look at a call centre, it doesn't pay enough money to draw
from, but it's still moving in the right direction. You need call
centres, but you need other things that can supply higher wages
so people can afford the luxuries of owning homes and even paying
the rents that are already established. We're running about $650
a month on an average for rental costs. So what we have to do is,
I think, create consumer confidence and the introduction of
industry into this community.
We are centrally located.
Even for shipping or the exporting of product, we have a
beautiful harbour and we have the exporting facilities to get it
all over the world from here. If you're in Halifax and you
manufacture something and you have to ship it to BC, the costs
are huge. But in Ontario you can manufacture and go to both
coasts and you cut your costs in half.
It's just like call
centres. If you're a call centre-this is my perception and it
could be wrong-and you're in the centre and you phone to BC or
you phone to Halifax, your rates are half those than if you were
in Halifax phoning to BC. So actually we're in a super location
and a very competitive location globally even for the American
market because we're right down the middle of the States.
Thunder Bay can offer a
lot, and if we can kind of nurture that and grow with that
concept I think we can rekindle the market a little bit, get
consumer confidence up in this region and get spending back into
housing.
It doesn't matter what
market you look at: if housing is not booming, you don't have a
very good market economically anywhere, so it's a good indication
to look at. If you've got a booming housing market, you usually
have a very stable economic climate.
Mr
Kwinter: Have you done any analysis? Is the decline in
housing starts because of affordability or because of population
decline? Is there a pent-up demand for housing but people just
can't afford to buy it or is there no demand?
Mr
Williamson: I just think basically Thunder Bay is not
growing. We have to get people to come in here. That's the
pendulum. That's going to start the motion swinging, because it
has kind of been stagnant. There really hasn't been a lot of
growth in Thunder Bay for people coming in. I think the market
has been dependent on existing families who have been supporting
it. I think a growth issue has a lot to do with it. If you bring
industry in and you bring professionals in-the hospital is a
phenomenal opportunity for the community to start experiencing
some of that growth. The casino was a phenomenal opportunity for
this community to start experiencing some of that growth. We need
a lot more of that. It's not enough. We need more.
Once you get industry
coming in, you're going to get the jobs, you're going to get the
families, you're going to get housing, and you're going to get
stability.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you very much for your
presentation. I want to tell you, it's a breath of fresh air to
hear somebody from the home builders talk about the fact that
higher wages are an important part of our economy. It's a shame
that has to be seen as such a big deal, but very few will come
forward and acknowledge that, I guess mainly because they're
looking at the micro, maybe their own business, and cost is their
bottom line. But at the end of the day, if you had the whole
province working at minimum wage, you would be out of work. You
wouldn't have a company, because nobody could afford to buy a
house. So I really appreciate the fact that you at least
acknowledge that.
I want to pose to you a
dilemma, though, that I have trouble getting over in my own mind,
and it's this. I can appreciate that you like the tax cuts.
Nobody likes to pay taxes, nobody. If they can pay less, they're
all for it, and you've advocated that the government continue to
do this. The difficulty we see from our perspective is that this
has cost us somewhere in the equation.
You mentioned what's been
cut in education. I would argue that the government needed to
take $1 billion out of
education to pay for their tax cuts. You further talked about the
lack of skilled trades, of skilled labour. Again, in order to do
something about that, it takes a reinvestment of money. That's
public money. It's hard to find a pool of public money when
you've just cut your revenue stream and you don't have as much
money coming in because you've cut the taxes.
The underground economy is
being hit a lot. I heard from a lot of the construction
companies, and I praise them for it, "Look, we're here to
represent those who play above-board. We're prepared to play by
whatever rules are fair for us, but you've got to make sure
everybody is onside." Fair enough. But, again, in order to
enforce-and that's where you put your emphasis-it costs money.
Some things are recoverable but not everything. Again, we have
this dilemma that in order to meet some of the needs you've
identified for the future, we need to spend some money, but to do
that at the same time that we're cutting creates a real
problem.
Let me pose one more thing
to you, and that is, if you've got people who are working in your
industry-
Mr
Williamson: I hope I-
Mr
Christopherson: You can comment on whichever part you
like.
Mr
Williamson: No, it's just my memory. I hope I can
recall-
Mr
Christopherson: I'll give you a whole cherry tree and
you pick the cherries you want. How's that?
Mr
Williamson: OK, good.
Mr
Christopherson: Today is clearly going to be a very sad
day in a lot of households, as they watch their mutual funds go
through the floor. With the downturn, there are going to be
people it will affect. If all of this continues, there are going
to be more and more layoffs, and it's going to be felt first
right where you are, at the housing end of it.
I'm really concerned about
what happens to your employees and other employees who get laid
off, not because you want to lay them off but because you don't
have the work for them. Only one third of all workers in Canada
now qualify for EI. So if you aren't one of the lucky ones there,
you fall through. Social assistance has been ratcheted down,
again, to pay for the tax cuts, so a lot of people aren't going
to make it there. In the course of one year, you could very
easily go from making really good money as a construction worker
to, a year later, putting your own house on the market because
you can't afford to keep it any more.
I see all of these problems
built into further tax cuts. We had mayors in here this morning
saying if they don't get more assistance from the province,
because of the cuts there, they're going to have to increase user
fees, again affecting the quality of life. I just don't get how
all of that is going to work for us.
Mr
Williamson: But do you know what? It's the
restructuring; that's what it is. You've started the process.
You've made the cuts, and now it's a rebuilding time. So we're
not saying, "Cut, cut, cut," with no reason. You're making cuts;
you're making them in areas that needed to be cut, but now you
can sit back, reassess any damage that has been done and rebuild
from that. It's a learning process. I would say on that end that
it's not just, "Keep her coming"; you have to do it within
reason. But again, the underground economy-there are numbers that
show the astronomical amount of money we're losing from that, and
it's revenue recovery. It doesn't matter what process you go
into. If we can start recovering some of that money, it would
justify any of the cuts you're making in other areas. It's
astronomical.
1020
When you get into the
Thunder Bay area, it's 82% owner-built. Again, where are the
controls, when an owner builds a house and a builder builds a
house? If I build a house, I have the Ministry of Labour, I have
everything, the process, all on me. When an owner builds a house,
he doesn't have any of those restrictions. Nobody is checking his
stuff to make sure everything was paid. Basically, again,
enforcement: when you implement policies to control, they have to
be fair across the board. We've been fighting for that fairness
for everybody, right from notice of projects, because again, it
starts the process rolling. If an owner built a house before-
Sorry if I'm-
Mr
Christopherson: No, I was looking to see if I had time
to ask you a follow-up question and he's signalling to me no.
Mr
Williamson: I was just going to say that with an
owner-built house, they didn't have to have the notice of
projects, therefore the Ministry of Labour didn't have to go to
the site. For owner-built houses we've actually pushed the issue,
because the law was always there-it's just that they didn't
really enforce it-that if you employ more than one person, you're
classified as a constructor and therefore have to comply to the
Ministry of Labour's guidelines. Our city was very receptive on
that, to say, "OK, fine, we're going to start passing out those
forms now," because an owner didn't have the obligation to go get
one. Therefore, there is revenue that could have been lost
because Joe up the street decides to do it for cash or another
guy is working over here, and there's a lot of money lost in
those areas.
It's working together as a
team, working with the municipalities, with all levels of
government, from education to labour to finance, putting the
package together and delivering it. That's all we're saying, is
to make sure, before you do it-I've always said when you get in
there you should stay close to the people you serve.
Mr Doug Galt
(Northumberland): Thank you for your presentation. It
was most enjoyable. I appreciate some of the comments you made.
It's delightful to have it juxtaposed with the gloom and doom we
just heard from the third party. We heard their whole platform in
about four minutes here. It's good to hear your comparison.
What I wanted to explore
were the labour concerns you expressed. You expressed concerns
about labour shortage. My understanding about salaries is that
you were concerned about the high labour costs as they related to construction, and
also the skilled labour. Certainly, as chair of the Premier's
Task Force on Rural Economic Renewal, skilled labour in rural
Ontario, small-town Ontario, was a very big concern.
Along with that, I've
recently had a construction workers' union-I think their official
name is Universal Workers' Union, number 183-come to my office.
They do a lot of training of their own, just-in-time training, so
if a large facility is coming in, they would have the workers
ready to go as the tenders were released. In the area of
construction, carpenters etc, they would have them ready to
go.
It's refreshing to see this
kind of thing happening in the private sector, rather than
government. How much is this a government responsibility to have
them ready, as you're describing-when I say "government," I'm
talking about community colleges etc-or is it a union
responsibility? Where does some of this lie? How do we make it
happen?
Mr
Williamson: First of all, it is a government
responsibility because they've taken the task and they've been
entrusted, as I said, with the stewardship of education for our
children. It's a partnership everybody has to be involved with,
right from the unions to everything. Nobody can just walk away
from it. The thing is, we've already started the process. The
educational tool has been the tool we use to develop a child's
mind or set the direction they're going to grow in. We've removed
that through the technical aspect.
Before, we had grades 7 and
8 shop. They're not there any more. You had high school, where in
the introduction to high school you could take them out and they
could actually work with the industry; you can't do that any
more. Now it's two years into the system before they're permitted
on the site. It's against the law in the province of Ontario for
a child under the age of 16-and when I say "child," it's not a
child; 14 years old isn't really a child but we're calling him a
child-to be permitted on a site; it's a $25,000 fine. So if I had
a co-op program that the board of education was trying to
introduce, their hands are tied. Now do you get it?
It puts more responsibility
on them. They've been cut so much. Go into their shop systems.
Take a look at what they have to work with. The equipment is
archaic. If you get into architectural services, they're running
386s, and we all know they can't keep up the process; Pentiums
are all in there. So they're putting kids out into the system who
are frustrated before they even get started.
Then you get into the
technical sides where you get into the shops where they're using
power saws and that. They're 40- and 50-year-old pieces of
equipment and if they break down, it's a catastrophic event for
one school. Right now there's $75,000 allocated through OYAP,
which is the Ontario youth apprenticeship program, for all the
schools for Thunder Bay; but the Toronto board gets the same
thing. So all the schools are only getting $75,000. But it
doesn't go for equipment. It just goes for the student who might
need extra help on books or whatever else; it doesn't go for the
actual development process.
So I think we have to look
at developing that, because again, when we get into skills, to
the migration of people coming over, we've lost that. You can get
the stats on that. I had them and I was actually going to do a
little bit of follow-up on that and I didn't have time. I'm
sorry; I apologize for that. We used to have a high migration of
skilled labour, but because the work isn't there, especially up
here, they're not migrating here, so we don't have that resource
to draw from. So we have to think of alternatives.
And we haven't been
replenishing our youth, because everybody is saying, "Don't go
into that. It's hard; it's tough. It's everything else." It's
not. It provides a good life. You can make a good living and you
can provide a good opportunity for growth in the family sector,
like have a family, have a house and work that way.
The Chair:
I have to bring the discussion to an end since we've run out of
time, but on behalf of the committee, thank you very much for
your presentation this morning.
LAKEHEAD ELEMENTARY TEACHERS OF ONTARIO
The Chair:
Our next group is representatives from the Lakehead elementary
teachers. Could you come forward and state your names for the
record. On behalf of the committee, welcome, and you have 30
minutes for your presentation this morning.
Ms Christina
Lofts: I'd like to thank you for the opportunity of
allowing us to make this presentation. It's being brought to you
from a local perspective. My name is Christina Lofts and I'm the
president of the Lakehead Elementary Teachers of Ontario. My
co-presenters are Sharlene Smith, vice-president, and Stuart
McNabb, vice-president.
I just want to say that in
spite of the funding cutbacks to education, the teachers are
working very hard in the classroom and are providing excellent
learning opportunities for the students, often at their own
expense and certainly ensuring that these experiences will enrich
the students and will provide the best possible citizens of this
province for the future.
The Lakehead Elementary
Teachers of Ontario are here to present their issues and concerns
to the standing committee on finance and economic affairs. The
Lakehead Elementary Teachers of Ontario represents 530 members,
who belong to the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario.
LETO is proud to represent the interests of public elementary
students and teachers and to defend the public education system.
The need for this role has never been greater.
We'll first address the
imbalance of funding. Last year, LETO spoke to you regarding the
underfunding of elementary education. This year we bring the same
concern. Although we believe the entire education system lacks
the resources necessary to provide the best learning conditions
for all Ontario's students, our purpose in this submission is to
demonstrate how "student-focused funding" is especially punitive and
disproportionately disadvantages our elementary students-our
youngest and most vulnerable learners.
1030
The imbalance in funding
between elementary and secondary students, although historical,
is certainly not justifiable. Resources directed to the early
learner not only improve a child's chances for future success in
school but also save all of society significant expenditures in
the future through reducing dropouts etc. This government has an
opportunity to do the right thing. They had the opportunity to
correct the imbalance that existed when they assumed control of
education funding. However, they chose not to. Moreover, the new
funding model actually has increased this gap between elementary
and secondary funding. They took money away from early learners,
increased primary class sizes, cut funding to students at risk,
reduced the number of teachers in the system and cut valuable
programs for elementary students. Let's take a closer look at
what student-focused funding means for our children.
Cuts to the classroom: a
good education system has many components, not the least of which
is its teachers. Elementary teachers are on the front lines of
education every day. They see the children who come to school
hungry, frightened or hurt. Not only do they teach young students
how to learn, they identify difficulties early in a child's
education to ensure that the student can get the extra help
needed to secure the best chance for success in later years. What
did the new funding model do? It eliminated teachers; it
eliminated programs; it eliminated resources for the early
identification of special-needs students. The student-focused
funding therefore resulted in fewer teachers for our students,
not more.
A further casualty of this
funding model is the loss of specific valuable programs and their
teachers, such as instrumental music, industrial arts, home
economics and teacher-librarians. Teacher-librarians were people
who had specific skills in assisting the further education and
the further implementation of curriculum with classroom
teachers.
Our recommendations are
that (a) the foundation grant for elementary pupils be increased
to eliminate the gap in funding between elementary and secondary
students; (b) all elementary schools have a minimum
teacher-librarian allocation of half a full-time equivalent; (c)
as a minimum, any funds generated for elementary education be
used exclusively for elementary education, and both the ministry
and school boards be required to report revenues, allocations and
expenditures by panel.
Ms Sharlene
Smith: Our next section is that research on class size
overwhelmingly points to the importance of small classes in
elementary schools. Student achievement improves in smaller
classes; learning problems are more easily identified.
Remediation can occur early, when it is most beneficial, and
integration of students with special needs is more successful
when class sizes are kept lower. Studies show that students who
were in small classes in their elementary years benefited
throughout their entire school career.
The special education
funding drives more students into full or partial integration.
Where these students are integrated, class sizes should be
reduced even further, in order that the classroom teacher can
give every student the valuable time each deserves. Adequate
education funding should be available to allow special education
teachers the opportunity to work directly with these students in
order to provide the support and appropriate learning for the
success of these students.
The restrictive space
limitations, coupled with the mandated averages, increase the
number of combined-grade classes. At the same time, the province
also introduced grade-specific curriculum. In the context of
larger class sizes and rigid grade-specific curriculum, combined
grades disadvantage elementary students and increase the workload
of your elementary teachers. Teachers have to prepare more
lessons; students take more work home now. The average class
sizes for combined grades are alarmingly high.
What happens in the first
few years of a child's life sets the base for later learning.
During their kindergarten years, children acquire important
skills, knowledge and attitudes that will affect their ability to
learn. Class sizes must be reduced to allow for more
teacher-student interaction. Children in kindergarten are
involved in problem-solving, literacy, numeracy and developing
their social skills. Adequate funding must be there to ensure
they get a fair start in lifelong learning.
Ontario's elementary
students are being forced backward at a time when the trend in
other provinces and even in the United States is to recognize the
importance of early years through injections of new money aimed
at reducing their class sizes. For instance, initiatives in
British Columbia will mean no kindergarten class over 20, and
grades 1, 2 and 3 will have 22 by 2000-01. California launched a
US$1.5-billion effort to reduce class sizes to a maximum of 20
for students in kindergarten through grade 3. In the United
States, President Clinton introduced a seven-year initiative to
reduce early-years class sizes to a national average of only 18.
The recent settlement in Quebec includes a four-year,
$100-million reinvestment in the education sector to hire 2,000
additional teachers to reduce kindergarten through grade 2 class
sizes.
If this government wants
our students to excel, with particular emphasis on grade 3 and
grade 6 testing due to standardized tests, then they must fund
the appropriate supports by providing an infusion of money for
textbooks, resources and fewer combined grades in the elementary
grades, especially within grades 3 to 6, to build a strong
foundation for future learning. Teachers are presently delivering
programs without textbooks and resources. They must find or
create the appropriate support materials for their own
curriculum.
Our recommendation 2 is
that (a) funding be provided to reduce class sizes in
kindergarten to grade 3 to no more than 20 students, (b) funding
for full-day senior kindergarten be restored, (c) real caps be
placed on elementary class sizes, (d) class sizes for grades 4 to
8 be no more than 22
students and (e) adequate funding be provided for textbooks and
resources for classrooms.
Special education needs:
Parents, teachers and school boards have been telling the
government for years that programs for students with special
needs are dangerously underfunded, cheating these students of the
extra supports they require. Underfunding in these programs hurts
young children disproportionately. Learning problems and
exceptionalities must be identified and addressed as early as
possible. The role of the special education teacher has become
one of filling out forms and reports, which generates hours of
work, when applying for special education funding. This is more
costly and less effective. Remediation is what is needed if
special-education programs are cut or time continues to be used
for paperwork. Identifications are slower. Students are now on
waiting lists for placements, or programs are dropped for lack of
funding. Our youngest students are being robbed of their
futures.
One of the problems we have
is the failure of ESL funding to capture the needs of those
students born in Canada who come to school from
non-English-speaking households. These students entering school
are suffering because language programs are inadequately funded.
They do not qualify for ESL teaching support.
When children are at risk
due to their socio-economic circumstances, their best chances for
success rest in what the school setting can do for them in their
earliest years. If they get enhanced programs, help with reading
and individual attention, they have chances for success that
their home environments may have otherwise denied them. A
government that continues to fail to fund the needs of
special-needs and high-risk learners is a government that will
condemn these children. In the end, this ill-informed,
mean-spirited view of educating Ontario's most needy will cost
all of society more in human and financial resources later. This
situation is reminiscent of the stance this government has taken
towards blaming the poor for Ontario's economic deficiencies.
Our recommendation 3 is
that special education, learning opportunities and ESL grants be
increased with new money to address the needs of these elementary
students, and that ESL grants include students who come from
non-English-speaking Canadian families.
Mr Stuart
McNabb: The model funds pupil spaces-maintenance,
renovation and new spaces-at a lower level for elementary
students than for secondary: 100 square feet per elementary
student and 130 square feet per secondary student. This
limitation is arbitrary and unrealistic in a time of
child-centred learning. Young students need as much space as
older students. To limit them is to limit their learning
opportunities.
The space limitations are
forcing school closures, which means some students as young as
four years of age are now spending an hour or more on the bus in
order to attend larger schools further from their homes. There
are other repercussions. When a school closes and students move
to a neighbouring school, it means loss of program. The loss to
the community is immeasurable. The receiving school must convert
science labs, libraries, music or special-education resource
rooms to classrooms to accommodate the influx of students. Class
sizes will be driven to maximum capacity, making it impossible to
lower elementary class sizes.
Our recommendation 4 is
that the formula for funding elementary pupil spaces be
increased.
1040
The funding formula further
undervalues elementary students by undervaluing their teachers.
The formula does not even meet the standard set out in Bill 160.
Consequently, elementary teachers are left to implement nine new
curricula in larger classes with more special-needs students.
Despite these increased demands, administrative support has been
reduced, special-education support has been reduced, new report
cards have been implemented and documentation requirements are
escalating. Without textbooks, resources and materials, teachers
spend many hours searching for age-appropriate materials in order
to deliver the programs. This requires time and effort in
addition to the normal classroom expectations. As part of their
regular routines, teachers continue to liaise on a daily basis
with parents and outside agencies. The expectation is that
elementary teachers do all this with a level of support
significantly below that given to our secondary colleagues.
Therefore, it is the
recommendation of LETO that prep time for elementary teachers be
funded at a rate no lower than the 200-minute standard set out in
Bill 160. Meeting these recommendations would go a long way to
restoring the quality of elementary education, which we believe
has been eroded since the inception of the current funding
model.
Our recommendation 5 is
that prep time for elementary teachers be funded at a rate no
lower than the 200-minute standard set out in Bill 160.
By removing from boards of
education any flexibility to access local taxes for local
initiatives, the new funding model stifles innovation. The way to
ensure flexibility and innovation is to return to school boards
access to their own sources of funds. This will also ensure that
programs match community needs. Other factors must be taken into
consideration-geographic isolation, population etc-which drive
the cost of materials and availability of resources higher. Lack
of funding forces school closures and a move toward placing
elementary students into secondary sites.
Our recommendation 6 is
that the right to levy taxes for local education needs be
restored to school boards.
Teacher shortage: Teachers
perform one of society's most important jobs. They shape young
minds. Our future voters, taxpayers, Prime Ministers and Premiers
are sitting in elementary classrooms right now. They are students
today, developing into the citizens responsible for the society
we leave to them tomorrow. Every day, elementary teachers invest
in that future. They invest their time, their energy, their own
money and their expertise in young people. It's time the
government invested in elementary teachers. In this time of
teacher shortage, the
government needs to make teaching an attractive alternative for
our university graduates.
It's our recommendation
that the funding formula fully recognize increases in inflation
and enrolment and, secondly, that the overall funding for
elementary and secondary schools be increased immediately to
reverse the cuts to funding that have been made since 1995.
Ms Lofts:
This government wants to be proud of our education system, and so
do our teachers, parents and students. Lakehead Elementary
Teachers of Ontario is looking to this government to restore
funding so that Ontario can return to being the leader in
education in this country.
Studies clearly show that
the long-term benefits of early childhood education far outweigh
its cost. Indeed, for every dollar spent on early education for
four- and five-year-olds, the benefits gained by the whole
society are over $7.
Our commitment must be to
an education system that emerges strengthened and enhanced. It
must be accessible to all students, and equal opportunities for
success must be available to all. In this way, the investment we
place in these young citizens will reap benefits for the
community and the future.
The last page is a summary
of all our recommendations.
The Vice-Chair (Mr
Doug Galt): Thank you very much for an excellent
presentation with precise recommendations at the end that bring
it to our attention. We have about three minutes for each party.
We'll start with Mr Christopherson.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you for your presentation; it's
very good. I'll start by mentioning that special needs continue
to come up at every single location, every hearing, every
community, and I go through it in Hamilton. I'm just glad you've
raised it. If you want to add anything a little later-I have one
question-please go ahead. We've got to underscore this. We've got
to put enough heat on the government that they take the pressure
off that. We've got kids who should be in school, could be in
school, used to be in school and aren't, and it's simply because
of the dollars.
Also, the cuts to the
classroom have been a fascinating shell game to watch as the
years have unfolded. What the government did was say, "We're
going to focus on those things that affect the student in the
classroom. That's going to be our emphasis." They call it
student-focused funding. Then what they did was redefine those
things that they determined constitute classroom funding versus
others-administration. In doing that, you know as well as I do
that they cut out custodial work. They cut out transportation,
and I would think that's huge here and wouldn't mind hearing
about that. I know it's huge in my new city, and it's not nearly
the geography we're talking about here in Thunder Bay. The
maintenance of computers isn't considered part of it. The hydro,
heating the classroom-those things somehow magically don't have
anything to do with what is happening in the classroom.
In effect, what they did
was reduce all these things, take those out of the equation, and
then throw a little bit of money at what is left and say, "There
you go. We increased student-focused funding by X percentage of
dollars. We're the ones who really care about kids." It's tough
to get the message through to the public that you've got to look
past the rhetoric. You've got to take a look at what is left in
that funding. What are the things that were defunded in order to
pay for the tax cut, and what was the trade-off in terms of the
few dollars that went back in?
I wanted to hear whether or
not that's what you've experienced and what your view is from
this part of the province also.
Ms Lofts:
What we found ourselves in is that when the new curriculum came
forward, we very energetically became involved with it and
studied it, but without any resources, without any training and
without any textbooks. Right now I am in the process of collating
information from our classroom teachers which clearly indicates
we still do not have textbooks in our classrooms or the resources
in order to assist us in the application of the curriculum.
What the teachers do is go
on the Internet and search out the materials. They have to make
it age-appropriate because a lot of the resources are designed
for the adult learner, so we must make them suitable for the
age-appropriate classroom. That's the first thing.
The other thing is, you're
right about the custodians. We used to have the custodians come
into the classrooms on a daily basis. They are only able to clean
the classrooms every second day. That becomes a health hazard.
There are other issues associated with that. They aren't able to
do all the work that they used to do, and this impacts our
classrooms, our day-to-day environment. I've often said to my
students, "This is our living space for at least a five-hour day
every day. It should be healthy and it should be clean. It should
be a place that we want to go to every day."
When you mention special
education, you're absolutely right. The government has forced
teachers, and special education teachers, to do hours-I have
heard up to 400 hours a year-of paperwork in order to make
applications for funding. They are filling out special paperwork
for testing because there is an auditing done of the boards. They
spend hours and hours doing the paperwork. They are not able to
provide direct service to those students who need it. The time
that is there, the money that is spent in paying for their
salaries, is just an extension of a job that is now part of, I
guess, a government job, because they're doing the paperwork.
The
Vice-Chair: We're well over four minutes. We're going to
have to move on to the government.
Mrs
Molinari: Four minutes is hardly enough time to address
a lot of the points that you've made in your report. We've had
several presentations from various teacher groups and there seems
to be some consistency in some of the comments that are being
made.
I would just like to put on
the record a couple of things. The funding model that is
presently in place is a far fairer model than the one we used to
have. Over years and
years, studies have been done that determined that the funding
model was flawed, and yet no government prior to this one had the
courage to do anything about it and change that. This funding
model now allows for every student in the province to have equal
access to equal dollars. The old funding formula gave rich
assessment boards more funding than poor assessment boards, and
it was not equitably distributed through the province of Ontario.
The reasons for the change in that were called upon by all
boards, teachers and everyone. There was a problem with that. The
way the model is now, it's more equitable to all the students in
the province.
I want to also address some
of the comments you made on special education. It's certainly a
very important factor. Having been a school trustee for 11 years
and chair of a school board and also chair of SEAC, I know a lot
about the issues with respect to special education. It's
ever-evolving. I don't think we're ever going to reach a point in
time when we say that it's perfect, because students are all
different. They all learn at different levels, especially our
special-needs students, and that is evolving. I understand there
is a lot of paperwork that is done by teachers, and the Minister
of Education is very receptive to input from everyone on how best
to serve those students, because at the end of the day that's
what we want to do: serve those students to the best of our
ability.
1050
You talked about some
combined grades. Combined grades are a reality in any small
school, and that is an issue that's been ongoing in a number of
areas, but it's a reality when you have small schools that you're
going to have combined grades. The best way to approach that is
to look at the individual student and certainly the principal
along with the teacher to decide on which students would benefit
best from a combined grade rather than a strict grade.
Teacher shortage is
worldwide; it's not just in Ontario. As a matter of fact, the
chair of the Toronto District School Board, Irene Atkinson,
recently reported that it's not just an Ontario problem; it's a
worldwide problem. Certainly it's something that as a provincial
government we need to address, but it's not something that is
just an Ontario problem.
Learning materials-you
talked about textbooks. The way the funding model is now, there's
specific money given for students for textbooks and it's up to
the school boards to determine how that money is spent. It is one
of the envelopes where there's some flexibility and the school
boards have the ability to do that. Is it something that we
should look at, taking away the flexibility so that boards have
to spend it specifically on textbooks? That's a question that
we're looking for input on. Is that something boards are asking
for, more flexibility on how they spend their dollars? Because
most boards are spending above the average salary that is given
for grants, then boards need the flexibility in other areas to be
able to provide for some contractual agreements that they
presently have. So there are a number of issues. I think I'm
running out of time here.
The
Vice-Chair: Ms Molinari, you've used up four minutes.
That's a minute over what you were allowed.
Due to the circumstances,
you won't be able to respond to Ms Molinari, but I can give you
two minutes to wrap up. If you want to make reference to her
comments, you may, but you have two minutes to wrap up.
Ms Lofts:
I'm going to say that the funding model just doesn't fit, so the
government has to look at it again. It doesn't address the
inequities, it doesn't address the transportation costs we have
in the north, and it doesn't address what is happening in my
classroom. So if you're going to tell me you've put enough money
there, I'm going to tell you it isn't enough.
With regard to what are
appropriate incentives, if we have a global teacher shortage we
want to attract the best-qualified and the best teachers to our
province. You know, the United States is doing it. The incentives
have to be there, and that does cost money as well. We want to
make sure we have the best possible system.
Combined grades? You have a
double curriculum there. We need to address that issue. We need
to address how those teachers can deliver that program as
effectively as possible. We need to make sure the best funding
model truly does address the concerns in the classroom, because
the people in the classroom are our future and we need to make
sure the money is there, all the money that is necessary.
We also need to look at the
way all the paperwork and all the other things that go along tie
the hands of boards, yes. But you have the money now. You have a
surplus. You can direct that surplus into what is going to come
back and reap benefits for you, and that is our
recommendation.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation.
We much appreciate it. The recommendations are very specific, and
we appreciate that. Have a good day.
ONTARIO MINING ASSOCIATION
The
Vice-Chair: Our next delegation is the Ontario Mining
Association: Patrick Reid, president, and Peter McBride, manager
of communications. If you're both here, come forward. Welcome,
and state your name at the beginning for the record. We look
forward to your presentation. You have a half-hour in total for
presentation and the remainder that you don't use will be split
up among the three parties here.
Mr Patrick
Reid: Thank you, Mr Chair. I'm Patrick Reid, the
president of the Ontario Mining Association. My colleague Peter
McBride is attending an energy committee meeting across town, so
he will not be with me. He has let me out on my own today.
I'd like to thank you folks
for coming to the northwest part of Ontario. We're in the middle
of Indian summer here, as you've probably noticed. I come from
this area. I was born in Fort Frances, some 220 miles west of
here, raised in Atikokan. I represented Rainy River in the
Ontario Legislature for a few years.
Mr Christopherson: Welcome
back.
Mr Reid:
Thank you. The Ontario Mining Association has been holding its
energy committee up in Thunder Bay. We have a number of mines in
the area. They have gold mines: the Red Lake gold mines;
Musselwhite, north of Red Lake. Yesterday we had a tour of the
Palladium mine, North American Palladium, who are just undergoing
a US$125-million, so about C$250 million, maybe more-I've been
away from the financial centre of the universe-depending on
what's happened to our currency. So they're investing US$125
million in a new facility, which is about an hour-and-a-half
drive north and a little west of Thunder Bay.
I probably will not take my
full time. I again want to thank you for coming to this part of
the province. I think it's very useful for MPPs to see the rest
of Ontario and certainly to get a feel for how big the north is.
I don't want to lecture you, but you're probably aware that if
you look at a map of Ontario, you see that southern Ontario looks
like it's about three quarters of Ontario. If you look at a real
map, you'll see that northern Ontario is 80% or so of Ontario and
southern Ontario is only about 20%. So we have those problems of
time and space and communication in this part of the country.
I'm not going to touch on
everything in the brief. I just want to reiterate for you that
modern-day mining is a high-tech industry. We can't compete
around the world unless we are in the high-tech business. I grew
up in a mining town. It's amazing to see what has happened in
mining in 30 or 40 years since I first worked in a mine. But we
are a high-tech industry. We are not a pick-and-shovel
industry.
We have about 20,000 direct
jobs in mining. They're high-paid, high-skilled jobs with about
70,000 spinoff jobs. We're a major provider of government
revenues. We have very high productivity. Our productivity is
twice that of manufacturing. A large part of what's directly
responsible for that is the high-tech end of our business. Our
value added is about $205,000 per employee annually. We make
significant investments in employee safety and training,
environmental protection and research and development. With a
lost-time injury rate of 1.4 per 200,000 hours, mining is the
third-safest industry in Ontario, behind hospitals and the pulp
and paper industry. We are the main economic engine in 50 Ontario
communities, including many in northwestern Ontario and a number
of mines in southern Ontario.
In recent years the
provincial government has given a big boost to mining,
particularly in last year's budget, when the Treasurer announced
that there would be a 50% decrease over five years in the Ontario
mining tax; there has been an offer of a 10-year Ontario mining
tax exemption for new and remote mines. We may well have a new
diamond mine up near Attawapiskat, near James Bay, hopefully.
You've made available tax incentives for investors and
flow-through shares invested in geoscience and advanced
technologies. The government has also promoted mineral
exploration activity through its Operation Treasure Hunt and
earmarked $29 million over three years and, importantly, has
invested $27 million in the rehabilitation of abandoned mines and
mine sites. Industry has been assisting in this area.
1100
Ontario has a long history
of mining and in fact is very responsible for the opening up of a
large part of Ontario, particularly northern Ontario. But there
is a legacy of mines that were shut down, some as many as 100
years ago. They were shut down without the knowledge we have
today of possible environmental and/or health and safety hazards.
So there are some of these sitting out there that the government
is doing a good job in rehabilitating, making them safe and
stopping any environmental problems, but much has to be done.
All these have had a very
positive impact on the investment climate for mining in Ontario,
and the Ontario mining industry is very grateful for them. We
still have a vast geological potential for future mineral
development which will benefit all Ontarians.
The response to these moves
by the government has been that exploration has increased by over
20%. Falconbridge in Timmins has announced a $650-million
investment in its Kidd Creek mine. That's the second-largest
investment that was announced last year, other than the Toyota
plant. Inco has announced expansion plans and investment of $116
million in new developments. Barrick Gold is expanding its mill
at the Holt-McDermott mine. I've mentioned De Beers, a possible
diamond mine at Attawapiskat. Northwestern Ontario, where we are
presently, is sharing in this new and renewed mineral
development. I've mentioned North American Palladium spending
$125 million to upgrade and expand its Lac des Iles mine.
Goldcorp opened its Red Lake mine last year; that was about $90
million. Kenora granite is putting $4.5 million into a dimension
stone quarry south of Red Lake near Ear Falls. Along with
continued production from its Campbell mine, gold producer Placer
Dome is putting up more than $8 million for exploration in the
Red Lake area and has spent $90 million sinking a new shaft in
the Madsen-Red Lake area.
All of these have a very
positive effect on the city of Thunder Bay, because a lot of the
people are from Thunder Bay or live in Thunder Bay, and most of
the goods and services that are provided to these mines are
either provided directly by Thunder Bay businesses or are in
transit through Thunder Bay. Musselwhite, for instance, includes
260 direct jobs, including 60 from the first nations, a monthly
payroll of $1.7 million in wages and benefits; $700,000 in
monthly expenditures on various types of energy; $2.6 million
spent monthly on other goods and services, with about half of
that being spent locally. The types of goods and services
provided by local companies to Musselwhite include flying
services, explosives, trucking, janitorial services, catering,
underground mining equipment parts and maintenance, fuel,
hardware, lubricants and service vehicles. First nations
companies are providing several of the goods and services
purchased by the mine, and it is estimated that Musselwhite
generates $56 million in benefits to Thunder Bay.
North American Palladium's major expansion means
that Thunder Bay is a prime beneficiary of the socio-economic
benefits generated by the mine. The expanded Lac des Iles
operation will spend more than $55 million annually on labour,
goods and services, with more than $28 million of that total
being spent in Thunder Bay. The expanded Lac des Iles operation
will support 700 full-time jobs in Ontario, 234 direct and 466
indirect and induced. Employee-related payments to governments,
in taxes etc, are anticipated to be in the range of $4.5
million.
Mining operations strive to
be responsible partners in society, making contributions in the
communities where their employees live. I might add that there
are only two palladium mines in North America. One is Lac des
Iles, which I referred to; the other is the Stillwater mine in
the United States. Other than that, most platinum and palladium
comes from Russia. Palladium, particularly, is used in catalytic
converters for automobiles, to take some of the noxious gases out
of the air. It's used as a cleansing instrument for combustion in
automobiles.
The mining-you have this;
I'm not going to go through the rest of it. A recent survey had
indicated that in North America, Ontario is third-ranked as a
place to look for and invest and develop mines. This is largely
due to our geology, but also government policies, including tax
rates.
That's all the good news.
There are a few-
Mr Galt:
Stop there.
Mr Reid:
You'd like me to stop there? There are a few flies in the
ointment. One is in the area of property taxation. The Chair is
well aware of this situation. We have a situation where two
uranium mines in Elliot Lake went out of business in the late
1980s, early 1990s. One by-product of mining is that you have
what are called tailings, the waste rock after you've extracted
the minerals. You have to store these on, usually, very low-grade
land. Mud is what it is, generally, and it's usually placed in
low-lying areas, usually in what amounts to swampland. The mining
companies are no longer situated there-the ore had been mined
out-but Elliot Lake is asking for a review under the assessment
review commission to have the land on which these tailings are
situated elevated from commercial, the lowest rate, to industrial
or occupied-industrial rates. This would mean that for all of the
mining companies across Ontario, probably, if this went through,
their taxes for basically what are sterile areas not useful for
anything else could go up anywhere from 300% to 400%, depending
on what happens. This is not, believe me, an incentive to look
for and develop a mine in Ontario.
In fact, mining companies
are required by law to rehabilitate the lands, which means taking
down the buildings, capping the shafts and making sure that the
tailings areas are safe and secure. Under market value assessment
there are no willing buyers for this property. So the property is
worth nothing, in effect. The mining companies would be quite
happy if somebody would take it off their hands for a buck. This
is a bit worrisome for us and we hope that through Mr Beaubien's
committee there will be a rational response to this particular
problem.
The other problem, and I
think it's much larger than just for the mining industry, is
energy costs. Mining operations spend about $250 million annually
on electricity, and Ontario has the second-highest industrial
electricity rates in Canada. The current rate freeze is very
helpful, but we really need to move to a competitive market in
electricity. Between 10% and 15% of the cost of producing metals
is related to energy, but in the pulp and paper industry-and they
can speak for themselves, but we've been talking to them as
well-they're up in the 20%. So if these costs of energy go up,
unfortunately unemployment goes up as well, because people have
to cut costs somewhere and often it's the worker who
unfortunately gets stuck holding the bag for these increased
costs. So we need to really go to the competitive marketplace,
and we realize the difficulties that have been experienced in
Calgary, Alberta, and California, but there have been particular
reasons why those things have gone awry out there.
1110
We would like to see the
government sell the transmission and generation assets to reduce
the stranded debt and ensure that the need for the creation of a
genuine electricity market is met.
The third issue we have is
the inclination now of government ministries, particularly
environment, to do what they call cost recovery. We have no
problem with the concept of cost recovery if it is directly
related to the services that are unique to, in our case, the
mining industry. However, it would appear that the recent
initiative of the Ministry of the Environment is to recover more
than just cost recovery for those areas and to in fact come in
the side door with what amounts to taxation. The Ministry of the
Environment is proposing to charge companies to report their air
emissions and monitoring, to set up an emissions Web site
database which would be accessible to the public, for instance.
We think this is something that should be paid for out of
government revenues. It is one thing to have user fees which
realistically cover the cost directly associated with
administration fees for a licence, but fees to cover the cost of
government programs are probably more suitably financed from
general government revenues. The OMA would like to see a
limitation on the apparent proliferation of these cost-recovery
fees.
And-the best words that I
know you hear from everybody who sits before you-in conclusion,
the government has done a great deal to restore the recognition
and encouragement of responsible mineral development in Ontario
to benefit all citizens. We would like to see the government
continue on that path. Thank you very much today for this
audience and best wishes in your work in helping to build a
budget for the next fiscal year which will benefit all Ontarians.
Thank you, Mr Chairman.
The Chair:
Thank you very much. We have approximately three minutes per
caucus and I'll start with the government side.
Mr Galt: Thank you for your
presentation. I remember several presentations last year on
mining. Of course the concern was the 20% tax, and more equitably
it would be at 10%. As you know, and have in your presentation,
the Minister of Finance in his budget last May did come through
with reducing this over some time, 20% to 10%, and also the
exemption for exploration.
We hear the criticism from
opposition as we cut taxes, "There's going to be no revenue to do
other things with and therefore you're going to have to cut," and
all the rest of it. What I want to explore here is that you
mentioned different mines being opened etc. Down the road, with
the change in that tax structure for the mining industry-and I
know you won't have the specific dollars; there's certainly
stimulation, and you've indicated that-to what degree do you
anticipate this? Would it double the mining industry in Ontario,
therefore compensating for that 50% cut in the tax? Will more
mines come on? Will current mines step up their production etc?
How much of a feeling do you have as it relates to tax
recovery?
Mr Reid:
First of all, miners are the highest-paid industrial workers in
our society, so the more miners you have the more they're paying
in income tax to the provincial coffers. We also pay, by the way,
corporate income tax. For those taxes, the more income they earn,
the more they will pay. I can tell you that in at least two or
three instances the cutting of the Ontario mining tax resulted in
a positive investment decision by three companies that I know of.
They frankly don't tell me everything about their internal
workings, especially when their price is going up, or down, for
that matter, but it certainly has had a very positive impact. I
think the more economic activity that you generate, obviously the
more taxes the government is going to get. I can't give you a
specific number but I can assure you that it has really focused
people's attention on Ontario as a place to explore and develop
mines.
Mr Galt: I
think I've come across someplace where we're now the third most
competitive region in the world, or in North and South
America.
Mr Reid:
We're seen as the third-best place to look for and invest in
mining, Nevada being the first one. These recent changes moved us
up from about sixth place to third.
Mr Galt:
From what I've heard from your comment, we may not recover fully
that 20% to 10% loss, but where we will recover is in other
corporate taxes, in other income taxes from miners, who I think
you said were the highest-paid industrial workers in the country.
That will more than compensate for that reduction in-
Mr Reid:
Absolutely. Yes, it will.
Mr
Kwinter: Thank you very much for your presentation. It's
rather nice to suddenly hear you in a positive sense, because
over the years when you've appeared before us we've always
acknowledged that Canada had the reputation of having the best
mining people and we certainly had good geology, but,
notwithstanding that, a lot of Canadian mining companies were
going other places to invest because of the climate, and that's
changed. I think that's good.
I want to address some of
the negatives that you're still pursuing. One of them has to do
with the slag storage, or the tailings. Are mining companies
getting secondary recoveries out of those tailings?
Mr Reid:
In some cases they've tried. For instance in Cobalt, they've gone
back and run some of the old tailings through a mill to recover
the cobalt and silver. In some of these old mining camps where
the technology wasn't as good and they got what we call
low-recovery grades, they left a lot of the metals in there. But
it's not a big thing.
Mr
Kwinter: You say it's not a big thing. The reason I
raise that is, if that is the case, it's hard to justify a
finding that there's no activity taking place on those lands and
they shouldn't be taxed if in fact there is commercial activity
by the secondary recovery of tailings. I'm just raising that as a
question.
Mr Reid: I
think, as I say, you could buy them from a company pretty
cheaply, if you wanted to try that yourself. In most cases
there's no value to them.
Mr
Kwinter: The second comment I'd like to make is that I
agree with you that the current energy issue in Ontario, and
electricity particularly, could potentially be a very strong
deterrent to a lot of economic activity. I'm curious to see where
you suggest there should be some competition in the transmission.
Transmission lines are a natural monopoly. I hope you're not
suggesting that companies should come up and set up competitive
transmission lines on the grid.
Mr Reid:
No. We're more concerned about the generation, really. It's the
generation where the problem is. Right now, Ontario Hydro, no
matter what they say, is still controlling all the generation,
and nobody is going to come in and set up any generation
facilities until they can be sure that there will be open
competition.
Mr
Kwinter: I agree, and we've raised that question from
day one. As I say, I just picked up on the fact that you included
transmission.
Mr Reid: I
think what we're getting at there is that we're a little
concerned that Hydro is buying up all the municipal transmission
systems, which again puts them back in a monopoly situation.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you for your presentation. Let me
make two comments at the outset: one, if the government was
hell-bent for leather to go ahead and cut taxes, then let me say
that the money invested in the cuts to the mining was probably a
good idea. There was more that needed to be done in the north.
Other than the fact that we didn't think it was a time to be
cutting taxes, if you're already into that world, then at least
there's something productive about that that's going to lay the
groundwork. I don't disagree with what the good doctor raised in
terms of future revenue and job growth, as well as economic
growth, as a result of that.
1120
Having said that, I also
want to point out that the long and bitter strike at the gold
mine in Red Lake was certainly a real black eye to that company and,
I suggest to you, didn't do mining overall a lot of good. There's
a lot of reverberation, certainly within the labour movement
across Ontario, as a result of that. It's the sort of vicious
labour relations that does a lot of damage to business and sends
out a bad signal to investment, I would say, not to mention to
the ability of those people you said make good money. Part of
that is having collective agreements, because you sure can't rely
on minimum wage in this province to give you a decent standard of
living, and of course you can comment on that if you choose.
Having said that, I want to
make one other observation and ask your thoughts on it. You
mentioned flies in the ointment, and you mentioned two examples
where the municipality was making moves you have some difficulty
with and probably-I don't know that you used the term-would see
it as a cash grab. To you, it was a way not fairly applied in
terms of extracting money. Then on page 10, you also make
reference to a number of provincial ministries that you likewise
believe are charging you money that you really shouldn't be
paying. Then you say, "But fees to cover the cost of government
programs probably are more suitably financed from general
government revenues."
The dilemma is that if
everything is "Cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes," and that's your
way to ride the boom as well as get out of a recession or a
downturn, if that's everything, then at the end of the day it
shouldn't be surprising that municipalities-if you heard the two
mayors who were here this morning talking about the cuts they've
had to their budgets, which is what the provincial government had
to do in order to do all the tax cuts, particularly on the income
tax side that especially very well-to-do Ontarians were very
happy with. The same with the ministry itself: once they cut
their own budget, then they also have other demands, and they try
to find those internally without having to go on bended knee to
the finance minister saying, "I need more money in my
budget."
My question to you is, this
blind drive toward tax cuts above all else, in my humble
submission, is going to result in these sorts of things in a
whole host of other areas, and the two just aren't compatible.
There's got to be a balance, and what we don't have in this
province is a balance. So maybe your thoughts on those
things.
Mr Reid: I
don't comment on individual companies-you referred to the strike.
I have no mandate. As a matter of fact, I would be among the
ranks of the unemployed if I did.
Mr
Christopherson: Fair enough.
Mr Reid: I
would only comment that there are always at least two sides to
each story, but I can't comment otherwise.
In terms of the dichotomy
supposedly between cutting taxes and providing services, I think
the theory-and it has been seen to work in some jurisdictions-is
that if you cut taxes, you put more money back in the hands of
the consumers, who are responsible for 60% to 70% of the economic
activity in the economy. The more the consumer has to spend, the
more he/she/we will spend, and that in fact creates economic
activity. As the pie grows bigger, you get more revenue. That at
least is the theory.
We had somewhat this
discussion last time, as I recall, Mr Christopherson.
Mr
Christopherson: That's right, we did.
Mr Reid: I
guess I still hold to the view that creating jobs is the main
thing. If people have jobs and they have money, then they're
paying taxes and companies are paying taxes, and hopefully there
will be enough to go around.
As far as the
municipalities are concerned, I'm not always sure that-and I come
from this area, so I say this and I'll get in trouble. As a
matter of fact, I ran into one of the mayors downstairs who was
before you. He's an old friend of mine. Municipalities have a
tough time raising funds, and I'm not speaking specifically of
any community. If you look at the tax rates in some of these
municipalities, the residential tax rate is relatively low for
the services they get.
I'm probably sounding very
nostalgic when I say there used to be a connect between taxes you
paid and the services you got. There now seems to be a complete
disconnect. But for accountability purposes I think that if
people in municipalities were paying more for their residential
taxes, they'd be more aware of the services they were getting and
they might be saying, "We can do with this and maybe we don't
need that." In many of these municipalities, the
commercial-industrial is carrying 70% of the tax load, and the
residents, who are getting most of the benefits-not all of them,
because obviously it's a bigger situation than that-
Mr
Christopherson: Of course municipal property taxes are
very regressive.
Mr Reid:
That's a problem.
The Chair:
With that, I have to disconnect the discussion, because we've run
out of time. On behalf of the committee, thank you very much for
your presentation this morning.
Mr Reid:
Thank you very much, and enjoy yourselves in the beautiful
northwest. You really should come back in the spring and
summer.
CONFEDERATION COLLEGE
The Chair:
Our next presenters are representatives from Confederation
College. Would you please come forward and state your names for
the record. On behalf of the committee, welcome. You have 30
minutes for your presentation.
Ms Pat
Lang: Thank you and good morning. My name is Pat Lang,
and I'm the president of Confederation College. David Ramsey is
with me today. David is a member of our faculty union. I also
have two other people in the audience from the college. Larry
Brigham, a counsellor who works directly with our students, is
here. Jan Lewkin has just arrived. Jan is a member of our
board of governors.
Lorne Sarmiento was here a moment ago; I think he has
disappeared. He's the president of our faculty union.
Thank you for the
opportunity to be here today and to present. I'm going to use
overheads. Does that work for you?
The Chair:
Yes, you may.
Ms Lang: I
also have copies of my presentation for you, so you can take
notes on that, if that makes it easier for you.
First of all, thank you for
the opportunity to be here today. I realize you had more requests
than you could accommodate, so I certainly value the opportunity
for the college to present here today, and I know my colleagues
do as well. Thank you for the invitation and for accommodating
us.
I'm going to speak about
three things today. First, I'd like to tell you a little about
who we are as a college; secondly, I'm going to talk about what
our major issue is; and, thirdly, I'm going to leave some
recommendations for you.
Given that this is the
pre-budget consultation process, I assume you can well imagine
our biggest issue is going to be funding. I'll begin by talking
about who we are as a college. I know you've been completing
these exercises elsewhere, so you have a sense of what the
community college system is about in Ontario. In terms of our
particular college, we have 4,500 full-time students and 10,000
part-time students. We offer a full range of programs, from
post-secondary education through to apprenticeship and basic
skills. We're not dissimilar to other colleges in that we serve a
fairly large region. Our main campus is here in Thunder Bay, and
we have six regional centres as well, as far north as Sioux
Lookout. Geraldton, Marathon, Fort Frances, Kenora and Dryden are
our campus locations, so it is a very large territory that we
serve. We tell people the territory we serve is the size of
France, if that gives you a context in terms of distance and
space.
1130
We have over 50
post-secondary and post-diploma programs at the college. If we
had three hallmark programs, or programs for which we would be
best known, they would be our aviation programs. We have aviation
maintenance, flight and manufacturing, and we have aboriginal
programs. Law and advocacy tends to be the one for which we're
most recognized. Our newest programs are in the field of media:
film production and multimedia. So that's just a general overview
of who we are and what we're best known for.
Just so that you can see
the size of the area that we serve in comparison to the rest of
the province, the other 24 colleges consume this part of the
province, and this is the large sector that we serve as a
community college. It serves area 18, which is over half the land
mass of Ontario.
The other interesting
statistic that I can share with you today is that Confederation
College is the largest user of Contact North services. We use
Contact North as our means to connect with our communities to be
able to provide both part-time and full-time studies to the
students within the catchment area.
I just want to give you a
little bit about the history of the funding for community
colleges and how it's changed. These statistics that I'm sharing
with you are provincial statistics. The enrolment in community
colleges in the last 10 years has increased by 35%, and
government funding is down 39.9% of operating funds. We are the
hardest-hit sector per client of all sectors that are served by
the government. In Canada, nine provinces have already increased
their post-secondary funding, and 43 out of the 50 states have
increased their post-secondary funding as well. The Ontario
colleges are one of the lowest publicly funded systems in Canada
and the United States. This is a major issue for us as we try to
meet the needs of our communities.
One of my fundamental
beliefs about community college education is that we are
inextricably linked to the success of the community. When
communities are successful, the college is successful, and the
opposite of that is also true. The reason for that is because of
our link to economic development. We prepare people for the
workforce, so the colleges do play a critical role in our
government's agenda.
Just a story about tuition
fees and how the tuition fees have changed over the years. Since
1991, tuition fees have increased 132%. We are now limited to a
2% increase in funding, but the overall average in that last
10-year period has been a 132% increase. Even with that increase,
we are still below the average and the median of all provinces in
Canada. The university tuition fee is almost $4,000. But probably
one of the biggest concerns we have is that student debt
continues to rise. It's not uncommon for us to hear of students
graduating with $20,000 and $40,000 worth of debt after having
completed their post-secondary studies.
There has been an argument
that the tuition fee is meant to offset the decrease in
government funding. That does not compute. The net decrease in
funding, regardless of the increase in the student funding, is a
35% difference. So we still have a decrease of 35%, regardless of
the increase in the student tuition fees.
I'll give you an example of
what's happened to our operating revenue in the last few years.
Initially, in 1994-95, we were operating at about $63 million,
and right now we're just about $45.5 million. That's the graph
that shows the decline in the funding to our college, in
particular, during that same time period.
What kind of an impact has
it had? We've eliminated 10 programs that we previously were able
to offer throughout our catchment area. We've consolidated seven
of our technology programs. The reason that is significant is
that one of the areas this province needs to continue to prepare
graduates for is the whole field of technology. It is a growth
sector, and yet we were having to consolidate our programs
because of the cost of delivery of those programs.
We have been able, in spite
of the funding decrease, to develop seven new programs in the
last 10 years. Our enrolment has increased at this college by 7%.
We have five new programs planned for the fall of 2001, in spite
of the fact that we're getting no new funding for new programs.
So the theory of us doing more for less is really true, but we're
on the verge of no longer being able to do that. I think we've
arrived at the stage of no longer being able to do more with
less.
We talked earlier about the
fact that the funding to colleges has been decreased by 39.9%.
Interestingly enough, our full-time faculty ratio is down 39% in
the last 10 years. Our full-time administration is down by 35%,
full-time support staff is down by 26%, and we have lost 33% of
our workforce since 1992. So it's interesting that the funding
was decreased by 39.9% while our staffing has decreased by a
third at the same time.
I want to speak about one
of the trends that you're going to be hearing more and more
about, and that is the trend toward e-learning. Confederation
College has been at the forefront of alternative delivery for
years. We have been servicing the six communities that we serve,
that large land mass, through audio conferencing and video
conferencing. The shift now is into e-learning. I'm sure you're
going to be hearing at the government tables as the presentations
come forward about the Ontario Knowledge Network for Learning. I
know they are asking for funding. The Ontario Knowledge Network
for Learning is a very critical part of our ability to be
successful within our catchment areas and I would ask that you
give it due consideration and support as well.
You do hear about the great
digital divide. When that terminology is used, it is usually
based on economic lines. I am discovering in northwestern Ontario
that the great digital divide does not only apply from an
economic perspective but is also a geographic issue. We do not
have the infrastructure in place to provide e-learning. I can
ship a course to China faster and easier than I can ship it
within my catchment area using technology. That's the kind of
change that we need to see happen within our province. In terms
of the need to shift to be able to offer courses through
e-learning, it will make us a provider of that service as opposed
to an importer of that service. I think that's an important role
that we have to play as educators.
In terms of the
recommendations that I would like you to consider as they apply
to funding, obviously we need to increase the funding levels for
colleges. Also, the aboriginal funding needs to be increased. If
there were any way to sign an agreement between the province and
the feds for HRDC training, that would be wonderful. Obviously,
supporting the telecommunications infrastructure in northwestern
Ontario is critical, as well as support for the Ontario Knowledge
Network for Learning report that I assume you've already
seen.
In terms of some of the
specific details related to that, increasing the funding level,
what is a fair funding level for a student? That needs to be
determined. I would ask as well that you examine the funding in
other provinces. For example, a small college in Alberta right
now gets between $6,000 and $12,000 per student. Our operating
grant per student, on average, is $3,750.
We would ask that we start
by returning to the 1994-95 transfer levels and that we fund the
actual growth in enrolment. We are continuing to grow and yet the
funding is not increasing. Interestingly enough, with all of the
salary settlements that occurred provincially within the last two
years, the cost of those increases has increased our costs of
delivery by 12%. So we're operating at a time when our enrolment
has increased by 35%, our operating funds have decreased by 39%,
and, in the last couple of years, our salaries have increased by
12% across the board. Those are significant changes for us to be
able to manage on that decreased funding.
We're also asking you to
consider an increase in the targeted funding that is made
available. There has been a submission made by the Association of
Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario, and we
support and endorse their requests for funding. One of the
requests that they've put on the board is to create an
educational technology fund so that we can deliver e-learning
courses. As a province, they're asking for $40 million, and
Confederation's share of that would be $1.1 million.
Institutional equipment is
critical. Inasmuch as our operating funds have decreased, so have
the funds for our equipment. We talked about our technology
programs. You all know the price of computers. All of those costs
continue to escalate, and we need to be able to fund that aspect
of our delivery as well.
We're also asking that the
key performance funding be increased funding as opposed to part
of our regular funding. The province is asking for a $28-million
increase in that, and the amount for Confederation College, if
that were done on a pro rata basis, would be $750,000.
1140
Faculty renewal is an
important element and you're starting to see that in the paper,
particularly as it applies to universities. It also applies to
colleges. Professional development budgets have been slashed
throughout the years, and we need to ensure that our faculty
remain current and relevant. Faculty renewal is critical. We're
asking for the ATOP funding to be maintained this year at the
same level it was last year and the amount for Confederation
College out of that would be $680,000.
In terms of the aboriginal
funding that I mentioned earlier, Confederation has the largest
body of aboriginal students for all colleges in Ontario. The
population in northwestern Ontario that is aboriginal is 18%. We
need to be able to better serve these clients and we're not able
to do it with our current funding. We would request a larger
share of the special purpose funding for aboriginal programming
so that we can continue to work with our aboriginal communities
to meet their needs for learning.
We are also requesting that
there be a signed agreement between the feds and the province
related to training. When the college system was created in the
late 1960s and well into the 1990s, the funding for all of our
regional campuses came as a result of the agreement between the
federal government and the provincial government. That funding has virtually been
eliminated and this has had a major impact on what we are able to
deliver within our catchment area. We would ask that that be
revisited and, hopefully, signed.
We talked about improving
the telecommunications infrastructure in northwestern Ontario. I
know it's hard to believe that we live in a part of the province
where the electronic highway does not connect to the other, but
that is true in northwestern Ontario. The bandwidth, for example,
to access a T1 line in Thunder Bay is four times its cost in
Toronto. The farther away you go from Thunder Bay, the more
expensive it is. I was meeting yesterday with some of my
colleagues from the boards of education in northwestern Ontario,
and their costs are 14 times what it is to access bandwidth in
southern Ontario. Those are costs that need to be considered. The
T1 access is not available throughout our entire region and,
obviously, for us to be able to meet those learning needs, you
need to be able to access that kind of delivery.
In terms of a summary, as I
said earlier, education and training are critical in northwestern
Ontario, and the role the college plays in that is vital. We have
faced the revenue declines over the past years and we've gone
through what that looks like. However, we really believe that
support for our colleges is critical. We often talk about the
fact that the two things that separate a Third World country from
a First World country are the quality of education and the
quality of health. I'm concerned that we're on the verge of
creating a Third World education system unless we start to fund
it.
I am certainly open to
questions and comments. I know my colleague Dave Ramsey would
like to make a few comments as well.
The Chair:
Go ahead.
Mr David
Ramsey: Good morning. Just as a quick survey, how many
people here have had children?
Mr Gerry Phillips
(Scarborough-Agincourt): My wife has.
Mr Ramsey:
The reason I asked that question is that, as an employee of the
college system for the last 25 years in my capacity as a faculty
member, and now in the latter five years as a counsellor, I come
in contact with students who value coming to school. But my
frustration as a faculty member has increased over the years
because the ability for faculty members to treat students as they
should be treated-uniquely, with attentiveness and with all sorts
of extra help-has gradually diminished. As Pat has indicated, the
numbers of students have increased and the number of people
available to assist them has correspondingly decreased.
My experience in the
classroom is such that some of our students-many of our students
at times, given the year-don't always readily grasp the issues
they have to deal with. So taking time to speak with them
individually, giving them opportunities to perhaps do
supplementary assignments, that's done in order to ensure that
they're successful. That's always been, I think, the objective
that my colleagues on faculty have had: to help the students be
the best that they can be.
But we can't expect that
that will happen for all of the students. Some students can come
in the classroom, can readily follow the directions, can readily
be successful in any assignment they're given. There are other
students who need some extra help, and quite frankly, as a
parent, as a citizen of Ontario, it concerns me greatly when I
can't give all of the time that I feel these students need,
because they're our investment for the future, as we all know.
Although that may become a bromide these days, the reality is
that these young people are our future.
As a counsellor I know
there are many students who either have to leave school early or
who can't be as successful in school as they would like to be
because they've had to take more than one part-time job in order
to meet their financial commitments. As Pat has suggested, the
increase in tuitions has greatly burdened many students. The
number of students who now need a student loan is significant,
and a student loan, unfortunately, is often inadequate to meet
students' needs while they're at school. So they have to take
part-time jobs, and oftentimes they have to take more than one
part-time job. Quite frankly, the demands we place on our
students are high. We expect them to be able to cope with the
academic standards that we've set, but we're frustrated when we
see good students fall by the wayside because in order for them
to survive economically they can't give all of their attention to
their main job, which is their education.
As you may be familiar
with, there have been two significant reports in Ontario on
post-secondary education in the college system. The first one was
done in 1985 and the second one was in 1996. The Ministry of
Education, in 1996, said very clearly that if resources, mainly
dollars, were not going to flow into the system, there would be
negative impacts on access and on quality. The report that I've
given you today, Voices From the Classroom, was commissioned and
completed in November 1999. The main point of this document was
to survey faculty across our 25 colleges. There were 517 faculty
and counsellors who were surveyed, and they were asked questions
as to what was happening from their vantage point on the front
lines. This report very clearly indicates that the prediction
that was made in 1996 by the Ministry of Education report, that
if resources were not forthcoming, serious compromises would
occur to the quality of education, has unfortunately come true. I
want to hit just two points from this report, and I hope, if you
have an opportunity, you will look at the summary because there
are other good things in this report. But there are two things
that my colleagues have said across the system.
First of all, they said
they are dismayed and they are frustrated that the potential for
dialogue and interaction between the teacher and the student in
the class and after class has been seriously diminished, and it's
been diminished because there have been more students whom each
faculty member has had to have responsibility for because there
is less faculty and there are more students in our system. Anyone
who's ever had the opportunity to try to teach something to someone else knows
that it's not just the material, it's the way you convey that
material that is so important. And it's the relationship that's
established between the person who's trying to convey the
material to the person who is the learner.
When I was a faculty
member, when I started at the college 25 years ago, I had the
benefit and the opportunities not only to know each of my
students by name and know of their personal situations, know
their strengths and weaknesses, but I also had opportunities
outside of the classroom time to individually tutor them, to meet
with them, to give them mentoring on their projects. That, sadly,
has gone by the wayside very seriously right across the Ontario
college system.
1150
The second point this
report reveals is that the types of evaluations and assignments
that are now given by my colleagues are not of the same quality
that they once were. Many of my colleagues used to give essays
and projects. These were huge undertakings, and many hours were
spent reviewing them and helping the students come up with the
results they needed to be successful. Because of the increasing
numbers of students, because of the fewer numbers of colleagues,
many faculty have now had to resort to multiple-choice
evaluations. This is a very serious situation, because it leads
to not only a uniform method of evaluation that, for some
students, is not a fair way to assess what they really know; in
fact, some students cannot perform well on multiple-choice
testing. But, secondly, it robs the student of the opportunity to
have a holistic evaluation. I would mark the grammar, I would
mark the spelling, I would mark the thought process that was
present in projects. But that cannot be done on a multiple-choice
test, and I think that's a serious deficiency. I mourn the loss
that this means for our students who are graduating today.
I know demands for money
are always high. I know priorities are difficult to set. But I
would ask you, in your deliberations, to please keep in the
forefront that when we're talking about education, we are talking
about an investment in the future of our community. We want, all
of us, to have an accessible education system, one that doesn't
have barriers because of increasing tuition fees-and that does
produce barriers. We want to ensure that our education system is
healthy so that people are not burning out in the ability to do
the work that they want to do, the kind of quality things that
are involved in the interaction between students and their
faculty members.
Thank you for this
opportunity. As Pat says, we'll certainly entertain any questions
that you have.
The Chair:
We've basically run out of time, but I'm going to be fair: I'm
going to allow each caucus two minutes for a question. I'll start
with the official opposition.
Mr
Phillips: First, if I might make a comment,
congratulations to the community colleges. I think they have a
terrific reputation. I live in Scarborough, and Centennial has a
fabulous reputation there. You're doing great work, and I think
everybody recognizes it. My congratulations. By the way, I don't
have time, but you may want to read the government's own document
on why you should invest in Ontario. It talks about "Ontario's
highly accessible system of 25 community colleges" and
"substantial reputation among employers," blah, blah, blah. It
goes on to say, "Despite its massive commitment to education and
training historically, Ontario is increasing its investment."
That's what they're saying; the facts are a little bit different,
as you point out.
Here's the challenge for
us, and that is that the government has committed to substantial
tax cuts. We're heading into a period of an economic
downturn-hopefully not a recession, but a downturn. So that is
going to be a big claim on it. The government said that health
care costs will increase by 5%. They've said they'll meet those
needs. In spite of what we in the opposition will say, the NDP
and ourselves, yesterday the Toronto-Dominion Bank pointed out
that while the US states are increasing their investment, Ontario
is decreasing its investment. There is not the public cry that
there should be in this area. I guess I'm looking for advice from
the colleges. How can we mobilize more public support for the
cause? That will be necessary to actually make this happen,
because the opposition has a relatively limited influence on the
government, tragically.
Ms Lang:
That's an interesting question. Part of the dilemma in responding
to the need to make this a public issue is if there were some way
for us to resolve the issue without it being a public issue, that
would be the direction I would prefer to choose. The reason I say
that is I don't want the public to lose confidence in the system
that we offer. So we've been trying to keep this debate out of
the public realm and off the front of the newspapers for that
very reason. Maybe what you're telling us is we need to rethink
that and maybe through ACAATO and provincially we need to start
to be on the front page of all the newspapers and get that
message out. But our approach has been to try to keep that off
the front page because we don't want the families and the
students to be concerned about the quality of their
education.
The other challenge we're
going to face is that when there is a downturn in the economy,
guess what students do? They go back to school. So as the economy
goes down, the enrolments in community colleges increase. That's
a trend we've seen unfold over the years and I would think we're
going to continue to see that. So we're going to be hit
again.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you both for your presentation.
Like Mr Phillips, I'm lucky to have a prestigious community
college in my riding, as part of my new expanded riding, Mohawk
College. I'm sure you know Catherine Rellinger. We're very proud
of the coordination.
You didn't get a chance to
talk on, and if you get a second I wouldn't mind hearing just a
little comment about-I know we're tough for time, Chair. In
Hamilton, McMaster University and Mohawk College-and I happen to
represent both-have been working diligently under Keith McIntyre,
who played a key role in making that happen, in trying to have more
co-operation, coordination and fluidity in terms of the students'
educational career between the two institutions. I think that's
giving us some real advantages. I'd be interested to hear whether
you have a similar relationship happening.
I'm just going to get all
mine out, David, because the Chair's going to shut me down at any
moment and I want to try to get as much as I can out.
Ms Lang:
He knows you well.
Mr
Christopherson: Oh, yes.
I also was very impressed
by the fact that-I guess this is directed toward you, Pat-you
have both union representation and board of governors
representation here making your submission. I think no matter who
the party is in power, that always tends to have a stronger
impact on us, because you're speaking with one voice. It's
obvious why that works on us.
I also wanted to mention
that it's a shame we can't see the government seeing the benefits
of investing-not spending per se, but investing-money in our
post-secondary education system, as easily as they do in, say,
the mining industry, which was just in here a little while ago.
They're all for that-"Yes, it's a great investment; that's going
to help out"-but somehow they don't seem to see the same
equation. As Gerry mentioned earlier, we had the TD Bank. I've
raised this whenever we get an education submission, because I
think it's terrific that the chief economist with the TD Bank, in
his presentation, took two of the charts he presented to us and
spoke in a business context about the concern they have for the
declining investment in post-secondary education. You may want to
get a copy of that or be aware that you have an ally in the
bankers. That usually comes as a surprise to all of us when it
happens.
The last thing is the point
you ended on just now about increased enrolment. Am I hearing you
say that you have some concern that if we have the same kind of
trend and we get into a bit of a longer downturn, you may not be
able to meet that demand, thereby denying a whole lot of people
who are looking at this as their hope for the future being shut
off from it, and where else do they go if the jobs aren't there
and they can't get into community colleges? I would suggest maybe
the same thing is happening at the university level.
Ms Lang:
I'll answer your three questions. The first one is in terms of
our relationship with Lakehead. Yes, we do have a very positive
working relationship with Lakehead, and the two presidents have
just decided that we're going to create a blue-ribbon panel to
take a look at what kind of opportunities we can create to create
a greater seamlessness and a greater transferability and
accessibility between our two institutions. That will be
unfolding within the very next period of time.
In terms of my colleagues
being here with me today, I did want to tell you our students
were due to come with us as well. Unfortunately, it's election
time and I know each and every one of you understands what it
means when it's election time. They called and apologized at the
very last moment, but they needed to do some electioneering. So
there they are; they would have been here as well.
1200
In terms of the impact on
enrolment, not only will we see an increase in enrolment when we
see a flattening of the economy, but we are also getting prepared
for the double cohort. My colleagues, the directors of the boards
of education in northwestern Ontario, said yesterday that it's
not going to be a double cohort; it's going to be a quadruple
cohort because of the number of students they have who are
fast-tracking through high school to get ahead of the double
cohort.
Mr
Christopherson: I don't blame them.
Ms Lang:
So I think it's going to be a bigger issue than just the double
that they're predicting. I think we are going to be affected by
that.
The Chair:
Thank you very much.
Mr John O'Toole
(Durham): It's Pat and David, is it?
Mr Ramsey:
Yes.
Mr
O'Toole: It's a pleasure. To answer a couple of your
questions, I have five children, all of whom have gone to
university. In fact, one did a graduate degree here at Lakehead.
As a parent of five children, the $40,000 debt load is
unimaginable to me. How someone could do that would perhaps be an
argument in itself. I could say that if any of mine ever
accumulated-we're just average people, and I'd be depressed that
their future didn't look very good in terms of money
management.
I am also very proud to
have Durham College in my riding. It's a wonderful facility. In
fact, Gary Polonsky is from here. He's a wonderful guy and a
great initiator, if you will. He is very much pushing what he
would call the applied degree status for the colleges, and
perhaps you could respond to that.
More importantly, I
recognize the job you're doing under difficult circumstances.
Certainly a geography the size of France is pictorially easy to
understand. I think that e-education, as you called it, is a
solution that has to be there, not just for you but for the whole
issue of access and affordability. It's certainly one of the
solutions-not the only one. The socialization part of it, the
contact, is extremely important, and I understand that.
The Ontario Knowledge
Network is moving forward, and you talked about contact learning,
is it? Is that the program?
Ms Lang:
Contact North.
Mr
O'Toole: You talked about some of the digital divide
infrastructure questions. Hopefully, they are being addressed. I
know that under Minister Wilson that whole access question is
paramount in the Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology. In
your response you could probably give me some response to that as
well.
On the funding-I am quite
interested in the double cohort, the increasing enrolment
issues-would you like to see tuition tied directly on a per
student basis, where it's a per student and not a course load
issue? If there was funding, we'd tie it directly to students. As
you know, the KPIs, the outcomes, the key performance indicators
are absolutely
critical in the new funding piece. Not everybody can be teaching
hairdressing at every college just to fill courses.
I want to admit that the
government has made a significant commitment, as you know,
through SuperBuild. That SuperBuild commitment, in capital, is
$286 million. I think that funding will eventually follow up with
operational funding.
The Chair:
Mr O'Toole, you're going to have to wrap up your question.
Mr
O'Toole: I just want to make sure there is one fund you
are involved in: the strategic skills investment fund. In my
understanding, with the global entrepreneur and electronics
commerce course you offer, you are a recipient of funding under
the SSI fund.
I appreciate your being
here. I appreciate the job you are doing. As parents and
taxpayers, we certainly want to help make sure you are able to
deliver quality education in the future. I appreciate your plea
to us this morning.
Ms Lang:
Thank you. In terms of the student debt load, what I will do, if
you give me your business card, is get information to you on the
student debt load. It is very real and I think we need to be
cognizant of that, so I will get you that information.
One of the questions you
had was around the infrastructure that needs to be built. The one
caution I would have for the government is: education is asking
for an infrastructure, telehealth is asking for an
infrastructure, the municipalities are asking for it, and I have
a concern that we're not going to coordinate all of that and
we're all going to be asking for the same thing and somehow we're
going to overspend in one area and underspend in another. So I
ask that there be a concerted effort around that across all
ministries and across disciplines.
Your other question was
with regard to-I'm having a senior moment.
Mr
O'Toole: The access and some of the technical
difficulties, your bandwidth and that. Are you able to deliver
distributed learning? It sounds like you are.
Ms Lang:
We are, but only to our campuses.
Mr
O'Toole: It's not at the home.
Ms Lang:
It's not at the home, because the access lines are not there.
I do appreciate the special
funding the government has provided. We were not only given money
under the SPI fund but also under SuperBuild. We were given $3.9
million for that. That is wonderful and we truly appreciate and
value that and will use it wisely. The challenge is that it is
not operating, and we need both. So we're going to have a
building and we won't have the operating funds.
The Chair:
With that, I have to bring the discussion to an end. On behalf of
the committee, thank you very much for your presentation this
afternoon.
Mr Ramsey:
I would like to say just one word, if I may, Mr Chairman.
The Chair:
You certainly may.
Mr Ramsey:
A question was asked about collaboration. I am glad to hear Pat
say that a committee is established, but as a faculty we are
deeply disappointed that, where every other college has managed
to make arrangements with a university with the same kind of
qualifications as our nursing faculty, the collaborative
arrangements between our two nursing faculties have not been
successful here. We are hoping we can have some sort of mediation
to assist in this process, because it will gravely affect
students in this community who wish to be educated here, and we
feel we have a responsibility to those students to make this
program accessible to them.
One last comment, if I may,
about the advocacy issue. I think it's your responsibility as
leaders to ensure there is equitable funding for all three public
services, whether it's health, education or social welfare,
because these are the tripods that our society rests upon. If one
of those legs is missing, we are going to have significant
difficulties in this society. I hope that you will, in your
wisdom, ensure there is equitable funding for all three serious
public services.
The Chair:
One announcement: the shuttle bus for the airport will be leaving
at 6 o'clock in front of the hotel, so let's be on time.
Mr
Christopherson: Will the room be secured during the
lunch break?
The Chair:
We'll make sure it is.
The committee is adjourned
until 1:30.
The committee recessed
from 1208 to 1326.
THUNDER BAY TRANSPORTATION AND INDUSTRY
COMMITTEE
The Chair:
Good afternoon, everyone. If I can get your attention, I'd like
to bring this committee back to order.
Our first presenters this
afternoon are representatives from the Thunder Bay Transportation
and Industry Committee, if you could please come forward and
state your names for the record. On behalf of the committee,
welcome. You have 30 minutes for your presentation this
afternoon.
Mr Jim
Pretchuk: Thank you very much. My name is Jim Pretchuk.
I am the treasurer of this transportation and industry committee.
I presently have been the chair of the National Transportation
Week committee in Thunder Bay for the last six years and sit on
the chamber of commerce transportation committee and get paid by
Consolidated Fastfrate.
Mr Hartley
Multamaki: Thank you very much. My name is Hartley
Multamaki. I'm the vice-president of planning and development for
the Buchanan Group of Companies, and I also sit on this
transportation and industry committee as one of the industrial
representatives, basically representing a part of the heavy
industries that are in Thunder Bay and the region.
To give you a bit of
background on the Thunder Bay Transportation and Industry
Committee, it has been around for a number of years now and it
represents over 30 of the major transportation and heavy
industrial companies in Thunder Bay and throughout northwestern
Ontario. That's a
range of everybody from very small trucking companies through to
major multinational organizations, from the one and two employees
up to the several thousand, 4,000, 5,000, 6,000-plus employees.
So we do have a broad base of representation. We are very
committed and knowledgeable in the transportation end of the
industry. We're hoping we can bring some valuable points for
consideration to your deliberations.
We're going to try to limit
this to about 15 or 20 minutes, the presentation part, because
we're quite prepared to answer questions and we think it's very
valuable that you have the opportunity to ask us. There may be
some members in the crowd as well who are with us, by the
way.
The first issue we wanted
to talk about was the load restriction issue. This is the
half-loads issue on secondary highways in northwestern Ontario.
It applies throughout northern Ontario but particularly in
northwestern Ontario, which affects the city of Thunder Bay and
the surrounding area.
There was a recent change
in legislation that moved the load restriction date back from
March 1 to February 15. That's a huge fundamental change in how
the Ministry of Transportation does business, and the rationale
behind that of course is that you place half-loads or load
restrictions on heavy trucks to limit the amount of damage to
secondary highways during the spring breakup period. I guess the
thinking on it is that we are experiencing some difficult weather
patterns; warming up is happening much earlier. I'm not sure that
we necessarily buy the fact that suddenly global warming has hit
and the spring thaw has moved 15 days earlier into February. I
think that's something that is more of a long-term issue than a
four-month or six-month issue. However, the impact of load
restrictions on the resource-based industries, particularly the
pulp and paper industry, the sawmilling industry and the
wood-using industries, is huge.
Really, the issue there is
that the forest-products industries start cutting winter wood
down in the swamps about January 1. We have basically six weeks
to cut, skid to roadside, process, load on to trucks and haul
that wood to the mills to build up enough inventory for five to
six months' worth of operation. That's assuming that this date of
February 15 is enforced. In the past, it has always gone into
March 15, maybe March 2, March 3.
To put it into perspective,
that additional 15 days will mean that the forest-products
industry in northern Ontario could potentially have to move an
additional 30,000 loads in those 15 days, and I don't believe it
can be done and I don't think any of my colleagues believe that
can be done. The vehicles simply aren't out there, and the
ability to harvest wood that quickly isn't out there. So it has
the potential to have a huge impact on the resource-based
industries in northwestern Ontario.
Also, to try to put it into
perspective, the city of Thunder Bay sees approximately $2.8
billion worth of forest products flow through this city, all of
it over the Queen's highways, and any change in those dates has
the potential to impact on that.
I'd also like to point out
as well that there is a huge amount of crown revenue that's
involved in the resource-based industries in the form of
stumpage. The forest-products industries pay a large amount of
money to the province of Ontario for stumpage. If we don't move
that wood, the stumpage doesn't get paid and it doesn't get
collected. Also, there's personal income tax, corporate income
tax and fuel taxes. I understand that there are going to be other
groups that are going to come forward with this discussion of the
issue of fuel taxes and how it affects industry. That's a problem
for us as well, but I won't dwell on it here because I understand
it will be dealt with by other groups.
I want to leave you with
the understanding that this change in load restrictions on
highways, first of all, is a huge issue for us and needs to be
addressed; and second, with the thought that the simple solution
of course to it is to upgrade our secondary highways to a
standard whereby there's no necessity for putting on load
restrictions. It is a monetary issue. Upgrading highways is very
expensive, but I think the payoff in the intermediate to long
term is certainly there. It allows us to operate 12 months of the
year on the highways and not have to carry huge inventories, and
in this case we may not even be able to build the inventories to
keep our operations going.
The other issue I'd like to
bring your attention to is the recent turnover in the last decade
of a number of highways to local municipalities, towns, cities
and whatnot. There are a number of roadways out there that have
been turned over, and there have been indications that some of
the local communities would like to place load restrictions, ie,
move heavy truck traffic off these undesignated or redesignated
highways. That again is a huge problem for the transportation
industry and the heavy industries that rely on truck transport,
because it means that in some cases there is limited or
inappropriate access to the industrial facilities. An example of
this is the main road through Greenstone, the old community of
Geraldton. There have been discussions of closures on that road.
It is the only highway to the latest and newest sawmill, which
was an investment of $50 million to $100 million, which would be
in jeopardy if that were the case. It's the same thing with
highways like Highway 102, which is Dawson Road coming into the
city of Thunder Bay. The Trans-Canada traffic relies on that
basically from Vancouver to Toronto. It is part of the
Trans-Canada traffic. Also, the local industry relies very
heavily on Highway 102.
I think we'd like to leave
you with this thought: there should be a dedication of highway
traffic corridors and some mechanism for ensuring that these are
protected and that industry can make multi-million dollar
investments and be able to count on the fact that those traffic
corridors will in fact remain available to them on a permanent
basis.
Finally, I'd like to touch
on the issue of dedicated funding. I think all of the issues
we've discussed so far really rely on having dedicated funds to
deliver on the programs, things like upgrading the highways.
Obviously it takes a fair bit of money to bring a secondary
highway to a primary highway status and eliminate the need for
half loads, and it obviously takes dedicated funding to deal with
some of these municipal type issues with load restrictions and
road closures. The obvious solution to the Highway 102 problem,
of course, is to construct the Shabaqua bypass, which would
eliminate most of the need for Highway 102 to remain open. We are
suggesting that there are various avenues available, things like
the SuperBuild fund, things like the northern Ontario heritage
fund. They have been very helpful in the past, and our
organization strongly supports the continuation of these funding
sources and perhaps the dedication of portions of those sources
of funding to transportation issues.
At this time that's all I
really had to say, but if there are any questions, we'd be
pleased to address them.
The Chair:
Thank you very much. We have 15 minutes, approximately five
minutes per caucus.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you very much for your
presentation. I have to say that one of the benefits of travel is
that it gives you a new opportunity to have a different first
impression when somebody throws something out at you. For
instance, if you talked about transportation problems to most of
us while we were back at Queen's Park, the first thing you think
of is of course gridlock in and around the GTA, which is a real
problem even for your industry. But if you're from the north,
this is likely to be the first thing you think of. So I just want
to say to everybody that it does underscore the importance of
getting around. As much as it's not always convenient, it does
seem to be important.
I just wanted to talk to
you about the communities that have responsibility now for the
highways. I'm a former municipal councillor, so I understand sort
of looking at the world from that point of view. Are these areas
where there were traditionally problems anyway even when the
province still had control over those highways, that there were
still these concerns being raised in these communities, or did
something change besides just responsibility?
Mr
Multamaki: It really depends on the individual
situation. I don't believe, from my conversations with other
people within the industry throughout the province, that this is
an isolated instance in northwestern Ontario. It's occurring in a
number of locations, from what I can tell. I think it is on an
individual basis. It depends on the history of each individual
highway or road that MTO previously had responsibility for and
that was turned over to the municipalities.
It appears to me that it is
somewhat of a standard problem that's combined with things like
municipal planning processes and zoning changes and so on. But
over time, what has tended to happen with these transportation
corridors is that they start off as a main highway, and as the
community grows it tends to place what we would consider somewhat
inappropriate uses adjacent to the highway, such as residential,
schools and so on, without the appropriate setbacks or the
appropriate planning. Over time, it gets to the point where
people start to complain that there is in fact heavy truck
traffic on the highway. Also, there are a whole bunch of things
like increased traffic as the economy picks up and so on, and as
the community grows. So there are a whole bunch of contributing
factors to this issue.
At the end of the day, as
long as it was under the control of the province, it was always
recognized that there would be heavy traffic on the highway
itself and there was really nothing anybody could do about it;
it's got a long history of that and there's a lot of investment
on it and, no, we will not change the fact that it's a designated
highway and there are trucks on it. Once the province
relinquishes control over some of these critical highways, then
the local decision-making takes over.
1340
Mr
Christopherson: Then you can do something about it.
Mr
Multamaki: That's right. Then you can actually do
something to address these situations. There has been the intent
to do that in some locations, which is a huge problem because
industry does make investments based on the fact that you have
the free flow of goods and products.
Mr
Christopherson: I wouldn't question that at all.
The other side of it is
that regardless of whether it was poor planning or not, if you've
got trucks rumbling in front of your house or in front of the
daycare centre or school, it's going to add to your concern,
especially if you're new to the community and don't know the
evolution of it.
Mr
Multamaki: Absolutely.
Mr
Christopherson: Assuming that it's one of those where
you don't have an easy, "You're right; you're wrong," because
anybody can do those-we tend to get the ones where, "They're
right and they're right," and now what do you do? Let's just
assume for the sake of argument that you've got situations where
the communities have a legitimate concern that they've raised.
Certainly I don't think anybody at this table would argue that
you haven't raised legitimate concerns. What do you do? Are there
any other win-win solutions, or do they cost money? If you're
going to build detours around each of these-
Mr
Pretchuk: It costs huge dollars. You're absolutely
right. As a community, as a taxpayer, as a business owner,
runner, we don't believe in spending money needlessly. Some of
the solutions are dreams. I don't want to get rid of anybody's
dreams, but let's face it, some of them are dreams. So what we're
asking for is just some firm legislation in place and then to
have them looked at so that we don't have to get bogged down with
what in most cases is pretty obvious: you just do not change a
Queen's highway without building a massive, multi-million dollar
alternative.
Mr
Christopherson: But again, you can appreciate the
council's concern that, number one, they are getting pressure
from their constituents and there are perhaps in some cases legitimate health
or safety concerns, and to just take a blanket provincial law
that says, "No consideration whatsoever. It is and it shall
forever be," may be a little bit short-sighted. I'm saying
there's no easy answer here.
Mr
Pretchuk: You're right. We agree with that. Again, every
community would be different. If there are alternates, everybody
should work together to do it. If there aren't, then we don't
want to have a situation where you're sweeping your dirt under
your neighbour's doormat, and in some cases that's what it is. It
is a municipal concern, and I think the municipality should just
somehow put an end to those-
Mr
Christopherson: You can see why they get upset, though,
because they're paying the freight. They're maintaining it,
they're responsible, and now they are going to accept this
problem that they don't have to any more. Why should they?
Mr
Multamaki: I think, though, there are some legitimate
ways of at least addressing some of these situations. For
example, yes, the municipality does take over the costs of having
traffic on that particular piece of ground, but in exchange for
that they also collect taxes from the industry that is using
that. There may be the opportunity, for example, through
provincial transfer payments to the municipality, for something
with respect to the fuel tax. I don't know that-
Mr
Christopherson: Don't hold your breath.
Mr
Multamaki: I understand there may be some challenges
there, but that is the sort of thing. In the past there has been
compensation in most of these cases from the province to the
municipality to take it over.
Mr
Christopherson: The council would still benefit when the
province owned it, and they didn't have to pay the bill.
Mr
Multamaki: Yes, but they also received a payment in most
cases when they accepted responsibility for that.
Mr
Christopherson: The whole downloading thing is a
big-there's not total agreement.
Mr
Multamaki: It is an issue, and I don't think it's
necessary for us to get into that. I think there are other things
as an industry as well that we are obligated and we have a
responsibility to do as well in this situation. I'm not sitting
here telling you, as heavy industry and as the transportation
industry, that we don't have some obligations as well. If it's a
health and safety issue, if it's a speeding issue, if it's a
noise issue, we have an obligation to the people of Ontario and
the people in the community to deal with that as best we can.
Part of the mandate of our committee is to look at each of these
situations, and we have zero tolerance for things like that.
Mr
Christopherson: But you can't do that-if you're not able
to take care of your business, you can't do those things
either.
Mr
Multamaki: I see it as part of our business.
The Chair:
With that, I have to go to the government side. We've run out of
time. Mr Galt.
Mr Galt:
Thanks for your presentation. I think I remember, either with
this one or the presentation of the Task Force on Rural Economic
Renewal, the talk about the half-load issue.
Can we explore that just
for a few minutes? You're concerned about the date changing. I
can understand that. There must be ways of predicting when the
roads are going to be in this condition.
As a kid driving a tractor
on the farm, in the morning you could go across a ploughed field,
and in the afternoon you'd get stuck just because of some frost
on the ground. I would think on a highway there's a certain
amount of frost that's going to carry a vehicle fully loaded
versus a day once it starts to thaw out. Meteorologically, can
this not be predicted?
Mr
Multamaki: Yes. Other jurisdictions are using a number
of different techniques and technical methods for determining
when half-loads should go on, from a meteorological perspective.
One, obviously, is frost probes, where you install frost probes
in these highways that are subject to load restrictions. Based on
the amount of frost in the road base, you place the load
restrictions.
There's a certain amount of
art involved in that science as well, because every road base is
not exactly the same, but it does give you a fairly reasonable
estimate of the amount of frost and the loads that could be
carried on it. We certainly support the use of technical
assistance and tools of that nature to help in the
decision-making.
Mr Galt:
Now, the technology is there to say, "Today it's safe and
tomorrow it's not," or vice versa, and I expect pre-February 15
there's probably the odd day that you shouldn't have that big a
load on; I don't know, but possibly. How do you get the message
out and how do you police it? Is this something that could be
handled on the weather channel? How would truckers be informed?
Would there be an 800 number to dial into? There is policing and
you don't want them out on a day when it's really going to wreck
the roads. You want to be able to say, by law, if somebody's
stopped with a full load and it's going to stand up in court,
that they're doing something they shouldn't be.
Mr
Multamaki: Yes, there certainly is the legal perspective
on that. I think the reality, though, is that on roads that are
half-loaded, there is signage on them. When the signs are up, you
cannot travel on it. When the signs are down, then you would be
able to.
In the past we have always
supported what we call "bagging." You bag the signs when it's
suitable to travel on it with full loads. You take the bags off
the signs so that the signs say the half-loads are in effect and
you go ahead.
It's very easy to inform
the trucking industry that this is the way the system works.
Certainly, there is a variety of methods that could be used,
whether it's a call-in number or it's a contact number or
whatever. We're in an age where technology is very good for that.
It may be just an e-mailing list that comes out and every morning
the transportation managers check that list or phone that number
or are phoned by that number and know whether or not the road
they're interested in is available.
Mr
Pretchuk: But that's not happening right now. The
important thing is that everybody understands what's happening now is that a news
release is put out prior to the half-loads. It's in stone, more
or less.
Mr
Multamaki: That's right. Where it goes up, it goes
up.
Mr
Pretchuk: That's the problem, because what will happen
is, let's say the 15th was half-loads, and along came the 15th
and it was freezing cold and it was cold for another three or
four weeks. We want to see something that can happen very
quickly, at least addressing some of these ideas with the
technology we have, an 800 number etc, where the ministry will
show the flexibility. Right now, that's where our concern is: OK,
once it's said, it's done and that's the end of it.
The Chair:
We have to go to the official opposition. Mr Kwinter.
Mr
Kwinter: Yes, I'd like just to follow up on that because
I have the same concerns. Is this new legislation mandated that
on February 15 half-loads go into effect regardless of the
weather?
Mr
Multamaki: No, it's not mandated, but it allows MTO to
put the half-loads on as early as February 15. It does not allow
MTO to put them on prior to February 15.
Mr
Kwinter: And once it's on, it can be taken off if the
weather allows it.
Mr
Multamaki: Not very easily. I'm not sure of the
legislation on it. This is the bagging issue, where they can bag
the sign. It appears to be a very, very difficult process. I
don't believe it's a legislative process. I believe it's the
policy, procedure and internal workings of MTO that prevent them
from easily reopening a road once it's on, because there's a
30-day public notification process that goes into the paper, and
it's this whole policy and procedure on notice that appears to be
the hang-up with MTO.
1350
Mr
Kwinter: Just so I understand it, there is the
flexibility that they don't have to commence the half loads on
February 5. They can, but they don't have to. But you're saying
that once they do-for example, if there's a really cold spell on
February 15, they could postpone it until they think the
conditions warrant it, and then, once that happens, it's
difficult to take it off.
Mr
Multamaki: In fact, right now, half loads could be on
every highway in northern Ontario. It is after February 15 right
now. The problem for industry is that we can't plan for a March 1
deadline to build our inventories in the mills if we know that
the ability to put half loads on comes on February 15. We can
only plan on February 15, because it can occur that early. We
have to make sure we have the inventory in the yards to keep our
mills running prior to February 15. We can't say, well, the
weather might be cold until March 1, so we'll plan to move all
that wood up to March 1. We now have to have every stick of wood
that we need to carry us through till about June 15 in the
millyards by February 15, and we don't start cutting in the
swamps until January 1.
Mr
Kwinter: Does this issue only pertain to the forestry
industry?
Mr
Multamaki: It's primarily a forest industry problem or
concern, but also for the mining industry, who move heavy
equipment and that sort of thing, drill rigs and so on. It does
impact them to a certain degree as well, and it also to a certain
degree affects some of the highway haulers who are hauling into
places like Armstrong, Aroland-
Mr Galt:
Pickle Lake.
Mr
Multamaki: Pickle Lake, yes. So it is an issue for the
trucking industry in general, but primarily for the forest
products industry. By the same token, the forest products
industry is the bulk of the industry in northern Ontario.
Mr
Pretchuk: It literally doubles the cost.
Mr
Phillips: Just to comment on that, I went out for a walk
at noon, and there's no need for a half-load limit today.
Mr
Pretchuk: Absolutely. You can make the decision.
Mr
Phillips: I hope you can rest comfortably until tomorrow
at least.
But my question is, what
has led up to this? We've gone through a local services
realignment; that's the term that's used. In my judgment, there's
about $1 billion of capital that used to be spent on things
transferred to municipalities that hasn't been accounted for, and
I think municipalities are now starting to realize there were two
parts of the downloading. One was the operating and the other was
the capital, and in my opinion there is a $1-billion shortfall on
the capital side.
I'm just trying to
determine: have municipalities been encouraging the Ministry of
Transportation to move this deadline up, or did the Ministry of
Transportation simply decide that now they needed to move it for
their own reasons?
Mr
Multamaki: I do not believe the municipalities on
secondary highways that are controlled by MTO are encouraging
them at all; in fact, quite the contrary. It's not in a
municipality's best interests to have half loads on the Queen's
highways, where they pay none of the costs. The cost of highway
maintenance is entirely the province's.
Mr
Phillips: So this is purely on provincial highways,
then? There's no municipality that's moving these load
limits?
Mr
Multamaki: That's right. There's another issue with
municipalities. There's a whole number of municipal roads that
are half-loaded by the municipalities themselves, but that's a
separate issue. That's an issue we have to deal with directly
with the municipalities.
Mr
Phillips: And they have the right to determine those
dates independently.
Mr
Multamaki: Yes, they do.
Mr
Pretchuk: They generally tend to follow the
ministry.
Mr
Multamaki: Yes, they do. They tend to follow the
ministry. The other thing is that when MTO puts the half loads
on, the municipalities tend to follow suit at the same time. If
MTO puts the half loads on on February 15, like yesterday, a fair
number of municipalities would probably look out the window and
say it's not necessary, because they live in those communities and they
realize that, for example, yesterday in Nakina it was -32ºC.
It was raining in Toronto. Obviously, in Toronto you would want
to put half loads on. In Nakina, you've still got at least a
month before you would think about it. So it's a case of scope
and geography and everything else with this half-loads issue.
There's a huge difference in weather patterns within the
province, even within northwestern Ontario. Fort Frances tends to
break up and the roads tend to be in jeopardy much earlier than
they are on the Nungesser Road, which is 50 miles north of Red
Lake.
The Chair:
With that, we have to bring an end to the discussion. On behalf
of the committee, thank you very much for your presentation this
afternoon.
KINNA-AWEYA LEGAL CLINIC STEERING COMMITTEE ON
SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
The Chair:
Our next presenters are the Kinna-aweya representatives. On
behalf of the committee, welcome. You have 30 minutes for your
presentation this afternoon. If you could please state your name
for the record also.
Ms Sarah
Colquhoun: My name is Sarah Colquhoun. I'm a lawyer and
the coordinator of legal services at the Kinna-aweya Legal Clinic
in Thunder Bay. Kinna-aweya Legal Clinic is funded by Legal Aid
Ontario to provide poverty law services to low-income people in
the district of Thunder Bay.
I am also a northern
clinics representative on the provincial Steering Committee on
Social Assistance, which is an organization made up of legal
clinic advocates from across the province, lawyers and community
legal workers. Our mandate is to work toward systemic solutions
for problems that our clients face with respect to the social
assistance system, and that's what I would like to speak to you
about this afternoon.
Our clients are people
struggling to survive on social assistance in Ontario. Even for
the other work that we do-for instance, at our clinic at
Kinna-aweya more than half of our casework at present is with
respect to disability appeals for the Ontario disability support
program. We also do appeals for other income maintenance
programs, tenancy work and other poverty law issues, but most of
our clients are on social assistance. They're in receipt of
either Ontario Works benefits or Ontario disability support
program benefits, and that's how they support themselves and
their families.
It's apparent to those of
us who work with and talk to people on social assistance that the
struggle to survive on the level of benefits that are available
today in Ontario is a struggle that is becoming more and more
desperate.
Social assistance
recipients are not a vocal constituency. Because of the practical
demonization of people receiving public assistance in recent
years, many recipients are deeply ashamed that their
circumstances have forced them to rely on welfare or disability
benefits. I can't tell you the number of people who have sat in
my office and said, "I know from reading the paper that people
who are on social assistance are cheaters and liars and fakes,
but I know that I'm honest and hard-working and I need those
benefits." They have internalized the myths about social
assistance recipients and they recognize that they don't meet
those myths, but they still think that other people on social
assistance do. They don't want to be identified as people on
social assistance.
Most people who are
struggling day to day to pay the rent and put food on the table
do not have any energy left to be political. They are not in a
position to speak publicly about the debilitating effects of
trying to cope with too little money to pay for basic
necessities. That's why the Steering Committee on Social
Assistance has taken this opportunity to speak on behalf of our
clients. Although some of us have experienced living in poverty,
personally I have not, but I do have day-to-day experience of
talking to people who are struggling with living in poverty. So
we've taken this opportunity to speak on behalf of our clients
and to urge this committee to recommend to the government an
increase in social services spending in the coming budget.
We deal with lots of
different issues related to social assistance at our office. We
help people who've been cut off for various reasons: because
they've been fired from a job because they were off sick or if
they're not getting enough money because there is a deduction
from their benefits for money they're not receiving. They're all
sorts of issues that we deal with. In the past few years it's
become increasingly clear to those of us who work with social
assistance recipients that the primary issue for them is
adequacy.
1400
No one chooses to be on
social assistance. It is an income of last resort. It's the
bottom of the safety net. It's where you go when you have no
other choice. The program changes over the last five years have
been extensive. They have tightened eligibility requirements to
the extent that everyone recognizes that there are now people in
need, who have no income or assets, who are not eligible for
benefits. Everyone who is receiving benefits has been
pre-screened and screened and has provided written verification
to verify everything that needs to be verified, and they have
been determined by the bureaucracy to be in need and eligible for
benefits, yet the benefits that they receive are hopelessly
inadequate.
The social assistance
benefits available in Ontario through the Ontario Works program
and the Ontario disability support program are not adequate to
allow recipients to meet their basic needs. The amount that a
single employable person receives is not enough to pay rent and
buy food in most municipalities in Ontario, let alone pay for
other necessities like clothing and transportation. It is not a
matter of budgeting more carefully or being more wise in choices;
it's a matter of there simply not being enough money to pay for
everything that needs to be paid for. The amount of money that
people receive is simply inadequate to meet their basic
needs.
In 1995 the provincial
government reduced social assistance rates by 22.6%. They stated
that their aim was to
set benefit rates at 10% above the average of the rates for other
provinces. But the rates were set without any meaningful analysis
of the cost of living in Ontario and whether the amounts provided
would allow recipients to meet their basic needs.
That rate cut in 1995 was
devastating for recipients. In the five years since the rate cut,
despite steady increases in the cost of living, social assistance
rates have not changed, leading to a further erosion of the value
of benefits. The total decrease in the value of benefits since
1995 is 27% to 30%. That's a 30% decrease in the spending power
of people whose benefits were already well below the poverty
line. In real terms, welfare benefits at present are the lowest
they have been for decades in Ontario. Welfare benefits have
always been far below the poverty line; in the last five years
they have been falling farther and farther below the poverty
line.
There have been a number of
reports written recently outlining the devastating impact of the
reduction in welfare rates on families who rely on social
assistance in Ontario. The Ontario Federation of Indian
Friendship Centres commissioned a report, called Urban Aboriginal
Child Poverty: A Status Report on Aboriginal Children and Their
Families in Ontario, with heartbreaking stories from parents who
can't provide the necessities of life for their children on
social assistance. The Ontario Social Safety Network has produced
a report called Five Years Later: Welfare Rate Cuts Anniversary
Report. I've included the Web site www.welfarewatch.toronto.on.ca
in my submission, where a copy of that report can be found, along
with other very interesting analyses of social assistance
issues.
Everyone who has examined
this issue agrees that rates are simply inadequate. Two thirds of
social assistance recipients spend more than their allotted
shelter subsidy on rent; that's because the maximum amounts
provided for shelter are far less than the average cost of rental
housing in any Ontario city. Just to use Thunder Bay as an
example, a single parent with one child on social assistance
receives a maximum of $511 for shelter, which includes rent and
utilities. The average cost of a two-bedroom apartment in Thunder
Bay is almost $700. The average cost of a one-bedroom apartment
in Thunder Bay is more than the amount that a single parent with
one child receives for shelter. Most people on social assistance
have to spend money that's supposed to be for other basic needs
to maintain their shelter. Use of food banks has steadily
increased as people use their food money to pay for rent.
I think it's important for
you all to remember that we are talking about people who everyone
would agree have no option but to rely on social assistance for
their basic needs. These are people who've been through the
process, they've provided all the documentation; they've been
determined to be eligible. They don't have any other choice.
They're people who are temporarily unemployable because of health
reasons. They are single parents with small children who've just
left a relationship. They're older people, 50 years old, who've
been downsized and have run out of employment insurance, have
degenerative disk disease in their back and can't do the kind of
work that they've done before. These are people who have no
choice. That is why we have a social assistance system in
Ontario: it is to provide the necessities of life for these
people who everyone agrees should be receiving benefits. But the
benefits they receive now aren't enough.
I'd like to give you just
one example. I could sit here all afternoon and give you examples
of the hardships faced by our clients, but I've included in my
submission an example of a client of our office who was a woman
in her early 50s who had always supported herself as a waitress.
She's a single woman, no children, no family to provide any
support to her. She had medical problems. She had to have surgery
on both her knees, so obviously she can't work as a waitress
while she's recovering from the surgery. Everybody would agree
that she has no choice but to go on social assistance. She got
employment insurance benefits as long as she could, and then she
had no income; she had no money to pay for basic necessities. So
she applied for Ontario Works benefits.
As a single person, the
maximum amount of benefits she's entitled to receive is $520.
That's made up of a maximum shelter amount of $325 and a basic
needs allowance of $195 to pay for everything. She lived in a
small house that she had rented for a number of years, and the
rent was actually quite reasonable. It was only $400 a month.
That's less than the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in
Thunder Bay. But once she'd paid the rent, she didn't have enough
money left to pay the utilities and buy food. She's never had any
experience on social assistance before; she had always worked.
She was astounded because, from reading the newspapers, you get
the sense that people on social assistance are living a life of
Riley, sitting around drinking beer, according to Premier
Harris.
So she contacted her
worker, thinking there must be some mistake, that there must be
more money available. She was told no, the most she could get was
$520. She said, "What can I do? I'm going to be off work for the
winter. I can't go back to work for months yet. How am I going to
survive?" Her worker said, "I guess you should move to somewhere
cheaper." Move? This woman can't even walk. She's had surgery on
both her knees. How could she find somewhere cheaper? There is no
place cheaper. I mean, $500 for a single person is really cheap
in terms of accommodation.
As I said, this woman is
not a woman who has choices. She has no family in a position to
support her. She has no option but to rely on these benefits.
She spent the winter
huddled in her frigid house, because she kept the heat turned way
down because she couldn't afford to pay the utility bills. She
relied on friends to bring her food. She was fortunate that she
had a sympathetic landlord who allowed her to fall behind in her
rent on the understanding that she would catch up later, when she
was in a position to do so. Many landlords aren't in a position
to be that sympathetic.
She survived, but at what cost in terms of her
dignity and her self-esteem, in terms of her health? She's not an
isolated example. People who have to rely on social assistance
should receive enough money to pay for the necessities of life in
Ontario in the year 2001.
When the cuts were made in
1995, the government promised that people would be able to earn
back the difference if they found part-time work. There's a
program called the supports to employment program that was
introduced in the late 1980s to assist in the transition from
welfare to work by allowing people to keep a certain percentage
of the money they earned before they were cut off social
assistance, so that even when they were earning money and weren't
eligible for monetary benefits, they might still be eligible for
prescription medication coverage or something, just to ease the
transition from social assistance to work. It's been a very
successful program, and these sorts of programs that help people
make the transition from social assistance to work have been
successful in other jurisdictions in Canada and in the United
States.
1410
This program has recently
been gutted by the provincial government. Recipients who work
part-time will now be able to keep less and less of their
earnings over time. The longer they have earnings, the less they
can keep. Rather than an incentive to find full-time work, these
changes amount to a penalty for those who are unable to find
full-time work. It's basically a disguised welfare cut, as people
with earnings will see their welfare benefits decrease over
time.
With respect to the general
issues of adequacy of social assistance benefits, the
recommendation we make to the committee is that benefits must be
increased generally to recipients of social assistance. In
particular, social assistance rates should be raised immediately
to the levels they were at before the rate cuts in 1995. In
future, rates should be set after careful analysis of the true
cost of living in Ontario, not some sort of artificial 10% above
the provincial average which doesn't take into consideration that
the cost of living in Ontario is more expensive than in other
areas of the country, and provision must be made for automatic
annual cost-of-living increases in social assistance benefit
levels.
I've been talking mostly
about Ontario Works benefits, which were subject to the rate cuts
in 1995. Disability benefits, which are now paid through the
Ontario disability support program, were not reduced in 1995 but
have not been increased either. They are also inadequate,
although they're significantly higher than the benefits available
to people who can't meet the very stringent definition of a
person with a disability. Time-limited changes in the variable
exemptions under STEP should be revoked.
I'd like to speak for a few
moments about the particular issue of child poverty. The number
of children living in poverty in Ontario has increased in the
last 10 years, in both relative and absolute terms. Researchers
agree that adequate income and a healthy start in life have an
immense long-term impact on the well-being of children. Poor
children have higher rates of health problems, learning
disabilities and emotional problems.
The federal government has
acknowledged the importance of public investment to protect
children from poverty. The national child benefit supplement was
introduced in 1998 and increased the amount payable to families
with dependent children under the child tax benefit. But the
provincial government immediately started deducting the amount of
the national child benefit supplement from the cheques of social
assistance recipients. These are the poorest of the poor children
in Ontario. Yet when the federal government tried to assist their
families, the provincial government simply took the money. This
is a windfall for the provincial government, because it's money
that's deducted from benefits that have remained static. It means
the poorest children in the province receive no benefit from the
national child benefit supplement.
Poor children live in poor
families. They are not poor in isolation. Efforts to alleviate
child poverty have to recognize that there have to be efforts to
alleviate the poverty of the whole family. There are not enough
good jobs to enable all poor families to lift themselves out of
poverty. If every available job opening in the province was
filled today, there would still be people who would be reliant on
social assistance because they would not have a job. The meagre,
inadequate amounts of social assistance benefits mean that
children in families relying on social assistance are being
deprived of the necessities of life in the present and of
opportunities for the future. Report after report details the
painful choices made by parents on social assistance as they try
to decide whether they should pay the rent or pay the utility
bills, and decide to keep children home from school rather than
send them without lunch because there's no food in the house.
Benefits that are available
through assistance to families with children, such as the
back-to-school allowance paid in the fall and the winter clothing
allowance, are hopelessly inadequate. The winter clothing
allowance is $105. That isn't enough to buy a snowsuit and a pair
of boots, let alone anything else you might need for the winter.
It's only available if the family has been on social assistance
in the month of November. If they have earnings in November and
they don't get a cheque, they don't get a winter clothing
allowance in December, January or February.
Reductions in social
assistance payments have resulted, as predicted by those of us
who made submissions to the government about the intention to
reduce, in increased pressure on other government-funded
programs. You will probably all have noted in the paper in the
last few days that the provincial government recently announced
increases to the budgets of child welfare organizations because
the number of children involved with child welfare organizations
has increased dramatically in recent years. This is not a
coincidence. This is something we predicted when the government
indicated they were going to make less money available to
families with
children. Children's aid societies across the province recognize
that the increase in the need for their services is related in
part to the desperate poverty experienced by families on social
assistance.
We recommend that the
benefits paid to families with children be increased in several
ways: that the clawback of the national child benefit supplement
be ended immediately and that families on social assistance be
entitled to keep that supplement, and also that the amounts paid
for back-to-school allowances and winter clothing allowances be
increased and be more widely available.
Housing: Homelessness is
increasing across the country. Reliance on emergency shelter has
increased in Ontario to a frightening extent, particularly among
families with children. More and more families pay more than 50%
of their income on rent. Among social assistance recipients in
Toronto, the number of families that use some of their allowance
for basic needs to pay for shelter because the shelter subsidy is
hopelessly inadequate, is higher than 60%.
The production of social
housing in Canada has fallen dramatically in the last 10 years.
Waiting lists for subsidized housing have grown just as
dramatically. The goal of affordable, safe, secure housing for
all families is of course a long-term goal and is dependent on
senior levels of government developing a long-term housing
policy. But in the meantime, it's important that low-income
families be provided with sufficient resources to secure adequate
housing. Shelter costs, which are the most significant item in
the budget of most families, including families that depend on
welfare, are much higher than the maximum amounts available for
shelter in social assistance programs. The shelter subsidy
amounts are simply too low.
Even families that are
fortunate enough to live in rent-geared-to-income housing find
that their tenancies are less secure than was previously the
case. Our legal clinic provides services in tenancy law. Prior to
the welfare rate cuts in 1995-and I've been doing this work since
1984-having a client who was being evicted from subsidized
housing because of rent arrears was really rare. People
recognized the importance of trying to maintain subsidized
housing, and they did everything else to catch up if they fell
behind in their rent. They used their food money and went to food
banks. They cut corners in other areas and got their rent paid up
to date. It was really rare to see somebody being evicted from
subsidized housing for rent arrears.
Since 1995, our office has
seen dozens of families facing eviction from subsidized housing
because of rent arrears. There is so little money available to
these families that an unexpected expense leaves them no option
but to use money earmarked for rent, with no way to catch up. You
can't cut back on food money and start running to the food bank
when you're already going to the food bank because the money you
receive is so inadequate.
Our recommendation is that
the maximum shelter subsidy amounts be increased to reflect
average rents in communities in Ontario.
1420
A word on the issue of
violence against women: the cuts to social assistance programs
have had a devastating effect on women fleeing violent
relationships. The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition
Houses reports that 100% of their members felt that cuts to
social assistance had a severe impact on survivors of abuse.
Women are choosing to stay-it's not a real choice-in violent
relationships or to return to violent relationships when they're
faced with the option of not being able to provide the
necessities of life for themselves and their children. When they
go into a shelter for abused women and find out how much money
they're expected to live on in the community if they leave their
spouse and try to set up their own residence, they feel that it's
just not possible. The government has stated that it is concerned
about the issue of violence against women, but its actions in
reducing the benefits available to women who are trying to leave
violence have increased the likelihood that they will be forced
to stay.
In conclusion, the Steering
Committee on Social Assistance urges the standing committee to
recognize that social assistance payments in Ontario are not
adequate to meet people's needs, and to recommend that the
government immediately take steps to improve social assistance
benefits in accordance with the recommendations we've made.
Thank you for the
opportunity to speak to you this afternoon.
The Chair:
Thank you very much. I'm going to take one quick question from
each caucus. We have three minutes left, so I'll be tight on the
time. The government side.
Mrs
Molinari: Thank you very much for your presentation. I
don't have a question but I would just like to make a couple of
comments.
It's important to note that
Ontario's welfare rates are 34.7% higher than the average in the
other nine provinces, and you have indicated some of that in your
presentation. I wanted to clarify that for the record.
With respect to the
national child benefit program, Ontario has reinvested $100
million in 1998-99 in the Ontario child care supplement for
working families, bringing the total value of Ontario's
supplement to $200 million annually. You indicated in your
presentation about the money coming from the federal government.
We have reinvested it in child care and services.
Also, the 1998 poverty
profile report released in December by the National Council of
Welfare states that Ontario's poverty rates were among the lowest
in Canada and were well below the national average throughout the
period.
So we are concerned about
some of the issues you've expressed, and certainly as a
government we feel there's always more that we can do and that
can be done. Certainly in listening to presentations, the
suggestions and recommendations you have will be taken into
consideration with a number of others that come forth. When the
pie is only so big, it's challenging for the government to be
able to make decisions-
The Chair: Ms Molinari, we're
out of time.
Mrs
Molinari: That's my last comment. It's difficult to make
decisions and please everyone, but certainly your recommendations
will be taken into consideration. Thank you.
Ms
Colquhoun: Just with respect to the investment in child
care with the money that's being deducted from the national child
benefit supplement, I would argue that it would be more useful to
families to have that money directly in their pockets to pay for
food and housing.
The Chair:
The official opposition.
Mr
Phillips: Thank you. I appreciate your comments.
There's a fundamental
problem, I think, and I've said this publicly many times to the
government. I think what has disturbed me the most about the
actions of the Harris government are things that Mr Baird has
done recently. I've said this publicly. A year ago I was with our
local member here. We went across the North Shore of Lake
Superior and went into a city hall and there was a poster there:
"Phone this 1-800 number if you suspect anybody of welfare
fraud." It was sort of like a Wanted poster. He often gets up in
the House with a gold credit card, implying that thousands of
people on social assistance have these gold credit cards that no
one else has. There are his actions with the syringes and the
drugs. In my opinion, rather than being the advocate for the most
vulnerable in our society, he is attacking them.
I've said it to his face,
I've said it in the House, and I'll say it again here: we should
be ashamed of ourselves for demonizing people on social
assistance. They are the most vulnerable in our society, and
99.5% of them are there for reasons not of their own doing. I
know it's politically convenient and useful to attack people on
social assistance, but until we change that, we'll never tackle
your issues. I don't know how to solve it. I really don't. I
think perhaps the Legislature has to humanize this. Perhaps a
legislative committee has to meet in the community with people on
social assistance to understand how they're struggling. We have
to go back to the days of the Bill Davises of this province, who
recognized that we have a responsibility to those people.
Ms
Colquhoun: I agree, Mr Phillips. I think it's a moral
issue, really, in terms of how vulnerable and unfortunate people
are treated in our society, and at present they're treated very
badly.
The Chair:
I have to bring it to an end, Mr Phillips. Mr Christopherson.
Mr
Christopherson: If more people knew that the United
Nations has condemned Canada because of the number of children
who are in poverty relative to the kind of wealth we have and the
kind of economic boom we've had in the last half-decade, it might
shake them up a bit. Quite frankly, just to pick up on a bit of
what Gerry was saying, it's outrageous and it's just
mind-boggling to believe the government, with pride, within weeks
of taking power, announced that they were going to cut the income
of the poorest of the poor by 22%.
If they had said that the
very wealthy in this province are going to cough up 22% every
year, there would have been a counter-revolution within 24 hours.
As it was, not enough people said anything. I was at a
demonstration in Hamilton; there were about 15 of us. It was
heartbreaking. I have no doubt in my mind that when the history
books are written, this is going to be seen as one of the darkest
times in the whole evolution of Ontario as a civilized society.
It's just so outrageous, and the fact that you can come in and
remain so calm says a lot about you, because it still drives me
crazy that in my lifetime something like this happened. I still
find it hard to believe that it really happened.
Further to that is the fact
that they took this windfall money where the federal government
finally-and let's recognize this is the federal government that
decided they had $100 billion extra to give away to the very
wealthy-at least put this in place, and these guys scooped it and
said, "We're going to use this to give further tax cuts to our
rich friends."
It's outrageous that it's
happening. Welfare rolls are increasing, and those are the people
who did manage, as you point out, to get through the system.
January showed us there were 4,500 more people in Ontario on
social assistance. When that happens in this province under their
rules, you know we've got serious trouble, so please keep doing
what you're doing.
Ms
Colquhoun: OK. Thank you.
The Chair:
On behalf of the committee, thank you very much for your
presentation this afternoon.
NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO DEVELOPMENT NETWORK
The Chair:
Our next presentation is from the Northwestern Ontario
Development Network. Could you please step forward. On behalf of
the committee, welcome. Please state your name for the record,
and you have 30 minutes for your presentation this afternoon.
Mr Harold
Wilson: My name is Harold Wilson. Ladies and gentlemen,
thank you very much for coming to the northwest and providing
this opportunity for us to give comment during the pre-budget
consultation period.
I am the executive director
of the Northwestern Ontario Development Network, an association
of community development practitioners and partners in
northwestern Ontario. Our core membership consists of the
economic development offices and community futures corporations
serving the region, which extends from-always the geography
lesson-Manitouwadge to Kenora, from Atikokan to Pickle Lake, but
also includes some 33 economic development people through the
Nishnawbe-Aski development fund. To drive west to east would take
nine hours, equivalent to the drive from Windsor to Montreal.
Approximately half of the
region's population of 246,000 resides in Thunder Bay. With the
exceptions of Kenora at 17,000, Dryden at 10,000 and Fort Frances
at 9,000, the remainder of the communities have a population of
fewer than 5,000 people, often separated by distances that are
unparalleled in the rest of Ontario. In 1981 the region was home to approximately
236,000. A review of our current demographic trend suggests that
the minuscule total growth rate for the region of 4.2% over the
period of 1981 to 1996 may even now be eroding.
The northwest has been well
served by this government's commitment and investment in our
roads these past few budgets. There is still much to be done, and
we are hopeful that this concentration of financial support for
infrastructure continues. However, our concern today lies with
the fundamentals of our economy. We look to your committee to
consider the opportunities to make effective changes that will
assist our communities to improve themselves. Identifying the
directed, strategic investments that are needed and working to
make them happen define the efforts of our economic development
members.
1430
The first fundamental issue
is the fact that the existing property-based municipal tax
structure does not provide an adequate tax base for northern
Ontario communities. This is because the north is a
resource-based rather than a property-based, manufacturing-based
or population-based economy. Inadequate revenue generation from a
property tax base has resulted in the dependency on transfer
payments and support. Northern Ontario is not self-sufficient or
self-sustainable at the municipal level, and the sparse
population and vast distances between municipalities are an even
bigger issue in the northwest than in the northeast.
Despite the opportunities
of the new economy, the resource-based sector remains the engine
of regional wealth and job creation. Much of our future still
rests with the development of our natural resources rent with a
value-added component. As the share of revenues generated by our
natural resources to companies and government has increased, the
wealth from our resources, which fuels our communities, continues
to be reduced within the region, with less available for the
services whose costs are increasing. Current measures to support
our economy are short-term and subject to cost-cutting measures.
Moreover, inadequate already, our current tax base is also
shrinking. Service or user fees are also inadequate tools to fund
municipalities and their services. Increasing the tax base or
reallocating the wealth generated in the area has yet to be
addressed.
The Northwestern Ontario
Development Network, in association with the Northwestern Ontario
Municipal Association, NOMA, and the Federation of Northern
Ontario Municipalities, FONOM, produced in 1997 a discussion
paper on the rationale for a resource revenue retention mechanism
for northern Ontario. While a preliminary review, it is a concept
that deserves to be thoroughly discussed with the provincial
government. It is one method to address the shortcomings of the
existing property-based municipal tax structure in northern
Ontario.
Our organization and others
have long requested that consideration for the economic rents
that our resources bring in and the considerable taxes paid to
the province find their way back to supporting our local
municipal organizations in a consistent, comprehensive manner.
For example, in 1997, direct contributions to the provincial
government from forestry operations in the northwest were $304
million.
We need the support of the
Ministry of Finance to consider different mechanisms, such as
that of the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board in
Minnesota. It has long been an instrument to return some of the
wealth generated by the Iron Range to the regional economy, for
use in developing its own economic development initiatives. This
is but one model that needs to be reviewed for applicability to
the northwest. The Ministry of Finance is the perfect instrument
to do this.
As was stated previously,
we are a resource-based economy and lack the tax base to support
necessary infrastructure investments. For example, telecom
infrastructure is essential in moving to the new economy. In the
northwest, we do not have the concentration of population to
attract the private sector investment without government support.
At the same time, government investment based on a per capita
formula ensures that population-rich areas in southern Ontario
will experience significant leading-edge infrastructure
enhancements, while our region prepares business case upon
business case for approval of the most basic services. It is
important that the north be provided with the tools necessary to
have a significant impact on providing essential services and
enhancing their ability to compete for investment.
The system in place ensures
some transfer of funding from the province. However, it is
through specific programs and the specific identified priorities
and requirements of senior levels of government. Often, these do
not match the needs that are recognized at a community level. To
repeat, a commitment to consider alternatives to the municipal
tax structure that currently exists must be reviewed.
Of particular interest to
economic development practitioners in the northwest is the role
of the province. To quote the Ontario Jobs and Investment Board's
A Road Map to Prosperity:
"Economic prosperity is a
`bottom-up' process that is driven by individuals' pursuit of
opportunities and success;
"There is a great regional
diversity within the provincial economy and no single recipe will
work for all regions or communities to create jobs and economic
growth....
"Economic development
cannot be `commanded' by government, although governments have
important roles to play through leadership and facilitation."
The provincial government
has increasingly placed the responsibility for economic
development at the municipal level. At the same time, the
province, which used to have a significant role in
community-based economic development, has withdrawn its support.
The province's previous support enabled community-based economic
development to be delivered in a formal, professional manner by
our individual communities. The loss began with the phasing out of the municipal
economic development assistance program.
Projects require nurturing,
partnership-building, community involvement and advocacy to all
three levels of government-a long-term activity. Return on
investment often takes years, and while it is easy to show the
benefits after a project is completed and the tax assessment has
been enhanced or in some cases stabilized, this is not automatic;
it never has been. The smaller centres require sufficient
resources to take on the task of considering new initiatives.
These projects and opportunities could become the enhanced tax
base we need. To repeat, the northwest generates great wealth,
but it does not find its way to the tax base.
We would hope that the
Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, as the lead ministry
for northern Ontario, would be properly and effectively financed.
It has a key role to play at the community level, but it is
unable to participate financially. This issue of some funding
allocated at a local level for the Ministry of Northern
Development and Mines to participate is essential to develop the
types of projects that can later attract the funding of
SuperBuild, the northern Ontario heritage fund or other supports.
Many of the projects currently funded through the large capital
programs that exist have had their beginnings as very small,
local projects. Work is done locally to develop the feasibility
of a project; then external dollars are sought. Projects require
considerable partnership dollars at the community level.
Presently it is the
municipalities and the federal government through Fednor that
provide investment seed dollars; the province is not there. It is
crucial that MNDM be provided with some walking-around money and
get back to the role of being an advocate for seeding
community-based economic development, to be able to participate,
leverage the provincial interests and harvest the results.
Without specific commitment from the province to support the
promotion and effort required for effective community-based
economic development, local projects to enhance the tax base will
be more difficult to get off the ground.
Another opportunity to
broaden the tax base for our communities is in provincial
approval of cottage lot development. NOMA completed its Crown
Land Acquisition Study in April 1998. Several municipalities have
been ready for some time to proceed on the acquisition, having
prepared the required development plans. This approach has long
been advocated, but for years municipalities have been
discouraged by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Support from
the provincial government, from the minister to the district
manager, for communities that are ready is required immediately.
There is great potential, but it requires the desire and action
of the province. The economic development practitioners welcome
the chance to be included in the assessment and approval process
at the local level.
Another critical need is
private investment capital in the northwest. Labour-sponsored
venture capital corporations such as Working Ventures are very
well set up to remove money from our area, but there is no
mechanism for investing that money back into the region. There
are significant incentives to encourage people to invest into
these vehicles, but although there have been many attempts,
including by this government, to ensure that investments are
made, they have not been made in northern Ontario; there are no
plans that we are aware of, nor have there been any investments
in northwestern Ontario by Working Ventures. The other
labour-sponsored funds are even less likely to consider
investment here. We have the need but not the tools.
In the early 1990s, the
province's small business development corporations program was
wound down. This program provided one mechanism by which local
people and communities could have invested in a corporation, with
some tax support, and then been able to have it invest in
projects within the defined geographical or sectoral area.
Initiatives similar to this should definitely be looked at again.
The opportunity for people to utilize their RRSPs for strategic
investments in local projects would be a significant step forward
for northwestern Ontario.
Last but not least is the
importance of provincial investment in our institutions. It has
long been the history of northern Ontario that the surpluses from
the resources culled in our region were used in the southern part
of this province for the construction and development of many
important institutions, from the Parliament Buildings to museums,
universities, hospitals etc. The development and investment in
our northern institutions is critical. These become economic
engines in themselves and will support considerable economic
activity through their presence, adequately funded. Confederation
College, Lakehead University and our hospitals throughout the
region are but examples.
1440
A project that has been
proposed and is supported across northern Ontario is the Northern
Ontario Rural Medical School. An institution of this nature will
serve many purposes, such as increasing the possibilities of
health professionals remaining in the north.
However, it would also be a
profitable, strategic investment from an economic development
standpoint. Companies that are considering locating in
northwestern Ontario or expanding want to know that employees
will be able to get adequate health care. This issue is
increasingly a factor in our ability to attract business. For
example, Pickle Lake has gone for a five-month period without any
doctor or nurse practitioner. How can one attract either
employers or their employees? In addition, the proposed Northern
Ontario Rural Medical School will itself become an economic
engine that will spawn other possible business opportunities and
must be considered a strategic, long-term investment.
There are great
opportunities in the northwest, and always have been. We need to
work with the provincial level of government to develop more
effective methods for revenue retention and expansion. As The
Road Map to Prosperity
stated, "Ontario needs to champion and embrace change, not resist
it." Fundamental changes to the existing system are crucial. We
want growth in population, employment, innovation, amenities and
the tax base in the north. The province needs us to be a strong
contributor, and we want this too. With your help, we can again
be the choice location to live, work, invest and raise a
family.
Thank you for this
opportunity to present to you today.
The
Vice-Chair: Thanks very much, Mr Wilson, for your
presentation. It was very well put together and very
thoughtful.
We have about three and a
half minutes per caucus and we start with the Liberals.
Mr
Kwinter: Thank you very much. I totally agree with your
presentation. Earlier today we had a presentation by the mayor of
Thunder Bay, who felt there should be some more user fees, there
should be taxes on fuel, a municipal fuel tax. I feel that is not
the solution to the problem. I think the government has a role to
play.
I just want to relate to
you an exchange I had with the then Minister of Economic
Development and Trade, Bill Saunderson, in the House back in
1995. He said that the government has no role to play in economic
development. When I got back to my office I sent a letter to
Judith Wolfson, who was the deputy minister, and I said, "If the
government has no role to play in economic development, what kind
of a boondoggle are you running over there? Why don't you shut
off the lights, send everybody home and save the taxpayers a pile
of money?"
I never got a reply to
that, but the thing that I feel very strongly about is that there
are resources being developed in the north. I think that is where
there is an opportunity to get some financial input into further
development in the north. I think that's something that should be
pursued because, quite frankly-and you've spelled it out in your
presentation-a lot of these labour venture funds look at these
proposals and they don't make initial economic sense. As a
result, they have a difficult time justifying to their boards of
directors: "Why would we put money in there when we're not going
to get what we consider to be a reasonable return?"
The other thing I want to
comment on, and I'd like to get your reaction to it is, we had
various regional development corporations back when we were in
government-I think they were there before we got into
government-and they performed a very useful role. One of the
greatest criticisms I used to get when I was the minister and
went to estimates is that people would say, "Your bad-loan risk
was too low. You were acting as a bank." Banks traditionally like
to have about no more 1.5% of their portfolio in bad risks.
The development
corporations were a little bit higher than that, but, as I say,
our critics felt we should have been up about 10% because,
"Otherwise, why do we need you? If you're going to serve the same
function as banks and only fund projects that are absolutely
foolproof and secured, then you have no role to play. Your role
is to pick up where the banks won't go and provide the sort of
investment to allow these projects in the north to have a chance
to survive."
I think that's something we
should continue to do. You spell that out, but do you have any
comments on that?
The
Vice-Chair: You've taken three and a half minutes, but
we'll give you 30 seconds anyway.
Mr Wilson:
OK, 30 seconds. First of all, the statement that Minister
Saunderson made, I think I've seen actions from this government
that show there might not have been that same thinking elsewhere.
The OSTAR program, for example, and some other things have shown
that the province does believe it has a role in economic
development. It's just a matter of that role being in tune with
the needs of the people and the populations.
Regarding the
labour-sponsored venture capital, with so many of the investment
firms it's the due diligence part that's the problem. I mean,
when they're looking at a deal, they're figuring out, well, "Five
trips to Thunder Bay. Let's see what Air Canada's charging these
days." At $1,340 a crack times five, you've got to know it's a
really good project before you'll come up. So again, although the
investment's there, it's the due diligence and people making
these kinds of decisions who don't even consider projects, no
matter their merit. That is a concern as well.
Regarding the NODC and
those other forms, what we would prefer to see is more of what we
call the walking-around money for northern development and mines,
which we think has the role, has the leadership there, but just
doesn't have the financial wherewithal to make it happen.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you, Mr Wilson, for your
presentation. I would just point out that certainly I would agree
with your argument that you've got to make the investments in the
institutions if you want to have a community that works in all
aspects, not just in terms of the service they provide, but the
economic aspect of it.
It's probably even clearer
when you get into the north because the numbers are smaller, so
the picture's a little clearer: there isn't as much there. It's
an important message for us to help take back to the government
that when we talk about investing in institutions across the
province, this isn't about special interests getting their itch
scratched; it's about making sure we're putting Ontario's money
where it'll do the most good. Of course, we would argue that
that's even more important than a personal income tax cut where
you've got a choice between the two.
Further to that, you
mention Pickle Lake. That's a great example. I'm going to use
that one, because nothing could get clearer in terms of the
quality of life having an impact on investment decisions. You're
right. You've got Pickle Lake five months with no nurse, no
doctor. If you're a young family ready to lay down some roots and
you've got a few kids, is this going to be on the top of your
list? So I think that's an important message.
It's the same thing in
terms of cuts to the environment. What upset us the most was that
it's stupid economics in the long run, Walkerton being of course the
biggest example. But anything that erodes the environment and
doesn't give you as close to a pristine or as safe an environment
as you can make is going to affect investment, because that's
where the people are going to live. Again, I thank you for that
message.
I have two straightforward
questions. One is, can you just give me a quick outline of what
the crown land acquisition study in April 1998 actually said,
very briefly, and also a little bit on the Iron Range Resources
and Rehabilitation Board in Minnesota? I was there not that long
ago, a beautiful state. I've never heard of anything like this. I
just wondered how it works.
Mr Wilson:
I will be quick, as you said. With regard to the NOMA study, this
goes back well over 10 years. In fact, I think I was there at the
unveiling in 1987: crown land as a development tool. I hope I
don't hear groans, but it was the idea that we would utilize
crown land and they could use it at the municipal level to be
able to develop-to do things to increase that tax base.
In 1998, NOMA, the
Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, released their
report, ready to go. The minister at the time and the current
minister were quite behind it, but it still hasn't happened.
There seems to be some kind of slippage between what they want to
see and the release of that land. There are some incredible hoops
that have been put forth that they have to go through, and if
they could be done jointly, that would be effective, but it seems
that to relinquish control over land is something that is not
being supported by the Ministry of Natural Resources, and
therefore an opportunity to enhance the tax base is not there for
them. Again, it's been pursued a lot by NOMA and we've been
supportive of them.
On the second matter, the
IRRRB is in northern Minnesota. I believe it just had its 50th
anniversary the year before last, and it is a mechanism by which
some of the tax dollars that are generated through the Iron Range
can be returned into a fund that is administered and the
priorities chosen by the people of that area.
1540
Mr
Christopherson: Is it a transfer from the collection on
government?
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. We'll move on to Mr
Gilchrist.
Mr
Gilchrist: Thank you, Mr Wilson, for the presentation.
It's going to sound like a broken record, but I too agree with
most of the points in your submission here. In particular I
appreciate that you've made a suggestion similar to one we heard
earlier this morning about the idea of creating a mechanism where
folks in the north could be able to invest in either a venture
capital fund or some RRSP mechanism to ensure that their money
stays in the north. I posed the question earlier today and I
would seek your response as well, whether the existing municipal
and provincial public sector union funds should be required,
given that 10% of the population is from North Bay west, to
invest 10% of their funds in the north? In the case of the
teachers' fund, that would be an immediate infusion of $6 billion
in the northern economy.
Mr Wilson:
That's interesting. I'll go around it in a circuitous way. The
first thing, with the issue of labour-sponsored venture capital:
yes, some mechanisms have existed before. They've tried a couple
of things; some of them haven't worked. It always comes back down
to the RRSP side of things. So you're right, if we can find some
mechanism to do that, then some investment will be there.
It will be interesting to
see, though, what the response is going to be, because some of
the pension funds that are already set up do make investments. I
understand that the teachers' pension fund is one of the bigger
investors in WestJet, which has been an incredible boon to
northwestern Ontario; also Cadillac Fairview. You will find that
some of their dollars, I believe, have gone to Intercity Mall. So
there are some things from that.
Unfortunately, we're not
10% any more; we're down to about 8% and our concern is that, as
Ontario grows-it's estimated to be, what, 14 million by 2010?-we
might not be growing at all. This becomes another issue too, and
a need to try to stimulate our area, hence the importance of
really considering mechanisms that haven't been tried yet. I
would think that they should be looking at, with their
membership-and their membership should also be advocating-what
kind of investments they are making in the areas that they come
from, where they are resident.
Mr
Gilchrist: Isn't that the irony? Presumably 10% of the
teachers are represented in the north, not to single them out.
They just happen to be a homogeneous group. We don't have to talk
about, in the municipal plan, which municipality contributed
which amount of money. But the principle that those who live in
the north, who are seeing the same issues that you and others
have described here today, are ironically sending their pension
funds to support other things in Canada, internationally, and in
southern Ontario-we appreciate the dollars that have stayed in
Ontario, but it seems to me it would make a lot of sense if their
own interests were furthered by ensuring that those dollars were
kept here.
Let me ask you one very
quickly, if I've got 30 seconds. We can approach the issue of
economic development one of two ways: funds can be raised
somewhere else and applied in an area that in and of itself might
not be self-sufficient, or you could eliminate more taxes in
those areas that you want to stimulate and attract business
there. So rather than artificially maintaining a higher tax level
somewhere else to provide a subsidy, what would happen if, let's
say, northern Ontario was to see a different sales tax rate or a
different income tax rate or a subsidy on your property tax?
Would that have the same or a better effect than bringing
southern Ontario money north?
Mr Wilson:
To go out on a limb, the issue with the property tax is a
difficult one. If you take a look at some communities that are in
difficulty, their cost of a home is so low that that itself
should be the attraction, and yet that isn't the thing that's
attracting. They still need the jobs. In a sense, they might be
more interested in that, but you need those strategic
investments.
About the issue of cutting the taxes or some of
the sales tax, I advocated a WCB-free zone at one point. Let's
see what happens there, if we can attract investment to a
specific area, just to try something, in the same way they have
free-trade zones and other things like that. I think we've really
got to be creative and look for some other things that will
stimulate.
But it's strategic
investments that need to be done to bring the infrastructure in
the north to at least the same level as enjoyed-I know in rural
Ontario they don't have that infrastructure benefit either, and I
know that work through OSTAR and other things are helping with
that. But I think we have to take a look at the strategic
investment side in parallel, if we're going to look at tax cuts
or anything like that, because if those investments aren't there,
if people aren't prepared, you won't be able to attract the
businesses.
The
Vice-Chair: On that positive note, thank you very much
for a very thoughtful presentation. On behalf of the committee,
thank you for being here.
THUNDER BAY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The
Vice-Chair: Our next delegation is the Thunder Bay
Chamber of Commerce, Mary Long-Irwin, president.
Mr Don
Slobojan: Needless to say, I'm not Mary Long-Irwin.
The
Vice-Chair: He doesn't look like Mary Long-Irwin to
me.
Mr
Phillips: Mrs Molinari isn't here right now, but just in
case I forget, I think she mentioned the number on the average-I
think 34% or 37% higher. I hadn't heard that number before, and
just so I don't forget it, I wonder if we might ask her to table
the source of that for us. It would be helpful.
The
Vice-Chair: Welcome. We appreciate your coming. State
your name for the record. You have a half-hour, part of it for
presentation and the rest of it divided among the three parties
to ask you questions and for discussion.
Mr
Slobojan: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. My name is Don
Slobojan. I'm the first vice-chair of the Thunder Bay Chamber of
Commerce. On behalf of the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce, we
welcome the opportunity to present before the standing committee
on finance and economic affairs. We have three issues that we
would like to go over this afternoon: the northern medical
school, transportation issues here in the north and a review of
the retail sales tax.
We all realize that our
physician shortage in Canada is at the breaking point. However,
in the north it has reached the crisis point as far as we are
concerned. Ontario has fewer physicians than it needs. The
shortages are particularly serious in northern, rural and smaller
communities. A quarter of the province's population lives in
rural Ontario, yet only 10% of family physicians work in these
communities. We can no longer apply Band-Aid solutions or quick
short-term relief for this crisis. It has not worked, and in the
long run this crisis has only got worse. The government must work
collaboratively on measures that will encourage more physicians
to work in the province's rural and northern areas. We need a
long-term-solution approach to this issue.
The proposed northern
Ontario medical school, to be operated out of Lakehead University
and Laurentian University, offers a solid solution that not only
addresses the northern region physician shortage but will also
assist in solving the concerns of many other communities across
Ontario, as many smaller communities in southern Ontario are also
finding it more and more difficult to recruit doctors to service
their populations.
We know this is not a new
concept. This issue has been successfully responded to in other
areas such as New Mexico, Grand Forks, northern Europe and
Australia, with success in both increased enrolment of medical
students and in graduating family doctors and specialists who are
remaining in the area and setting up practices in rural and
underserviced regions.
Networks for teaching
already exist in the north. Both Laurentian and Lakehead have
solid undergraduate science programs with strengths in the new
biomolecular sciences and provincially accredited nursing and
nurse practitioner programs. Both hospitals that serve these
communities have the potential and the desire to work with their
university partners to develop teaching hospital status.
This issue has strong
support from mayors, chambers of commerce and residents from
northern communities such as Sault Ste Marie, Timmins, North Bay,
Thunder Bay and Sudbury.
Here in Thunder Bay we have
respected physicians and specialists who are leaving because of
the existing shortages and long hours, with no light at the end
of the tunnel. Some of these doctors are leaving for the United
States. All of us in this country lose when this happens. Clearly
the problem is getting worse with each passing day. We must act
now. Not doing so has brought us to this critical situation. The
north needs to have its own medical school to resolve this
situation.
On the second issue, our
organization has over 1,000 businesses located in Thunder Bay and
just over 2,000 throughout northwestern Ontario in our
northwestern Ontario associated chambers of commerce affiliation.
We also have a strong transportation committee working on these
issues. All of us are in some way dependent on transportation for
our ongoing viability.
As a result of the city of
Thunder Bay community development plan, now called Thunder Bay
Fast Forward, a new Thunder Bay transportation council has been
created. This council consists of representatives of the owners
of public and private infrastructure in our area: highway, road,
rail, marine and airports. The council also includes in its
membership the owners and operators of the carriers: trucking,
busing, airlines and ships. The transportation council's mission
statement is as follows: a forum for the development and viability of
transportation in Thunder Bay and the region.
1500
Regarding some of the
highways around here, one area we wish to raise with you is the
plans of this government for new road development in this area.
The chamber is of the opinion that the decision by your ministry
to concentrate the last five years of funding on upgrading the
existing network was appropriate. However, we understand that
commencing with this provincial budget there will be an
opportunity to begin work on some of the outstanding projects
that have been in the planning stages for quite some time. We are
raising this issue to allow for the construction of the first 13
kilometres of the Shabaqua highway, extending the existing
Harbour Expressway west to connect with the existing Highway
11-17 at the 10th Side Road. This link will relieve what we
believe to be significant pressure on the Arthur Street corridor.
It will create a truck route with a direct connection to the
heavy industrial area of the city. This will be supported by a
ban on all but local truck traffic on Arthur Street, which is
also known as Highway 17. This route has been in the planning
stages since the mid-1970s. The land has been acquired, the right
of way cleared and, we understand, all the environmental reviews
completed. Its completion will divert the heavy traffic from a
major thoroughfare that travels through a residential area.
We are strongly encouraging
the provincial government to commit funding for this project in
the next two budget years. We believe it appropriate that a small
portion of the $1 billion allocated in the next budget for
highway construction be allocated to this project.
A key area of concern for
this region is the reality that both Highway 11 and Highway 17
share a single roadbed for a significant portion of the link
between the junction of Highway 11-17 just east of Nipigon to
Thunder Bay. Over the last number of years significant weather
events and traffic accidents have forced the closure of sections
of the highway for long periods of time. Where both 11 and 17
share the same roadbed, there is no Canadian road alternative to
keep our east-west commerce functioning. It should be noted that
when Highway 17 north of Lake Superior is closed, commercial
travellers can access the northern Highway 11 with a minimum loss
of time. The same is not the case between Nipigon and Thunder
Bay. When the section between Thunder Bay and Nipigon is closed,
or the section between Sistonens Corners and Shabaqua west of
Thunder Bay is shut down, nothing moves between Manitoba and
southern Ontario unless they go through the United States. In
addition, some Canadian commercial traffic is prohibited from
traversing US highways due to local state restrictions.
It is estimated that
upwards of 70% of all truck traffic traveling through Thunder Bay
is passing through, providing goods from southern Ontario to the
west and vice versa. This route is clearly Ontario's only
Trans-Canada trade corridor. A closure of this section of the
Trans-Canada Highway is not in anyone's best interests.
We want to see our fuel tax
dollars used to create a divided highway in all those sections
where 11 and 17 are together. We believe that in the long term it
makes good economic sense. As a country and as a province, we
cannot afford to have our east-west commerce held hostage.
The members of the chamber
understand that twinning this section of the highway is an
expensive proposition. We also understand that a significant
amount of planning needs to be done before the project can begin.
We urge this government and the transportation ministry to
accelerate the planning process and establish construction
targets for commencement of the twinning. We also encourage the
ministry to develop a 10-year plan that would see the project
completed in a way that would provide stability in the highway
construction industry in the area for a significant period of
time. Our preference would be for the twinning to commence at
either end of the corridor in order to deal with the most crucial
sections first.
The chamber is of the view
that this major undertaking should not be Ontario's
responsibility alone. The initial construction of the
Trans-Canada Highway was only possible through a major financial
contribution by the government of Canada by designating the
project as a matter of national importance. The Thunder Bay
transportation council has written to the Honourable David
Collenette and to the Minister of Finance, the Honourable Paul
Martin, to request that the government of Canada contribute to
the twinning of this section of the Trans-Canada Highway, and we
support this initiative. We believe this contribution would be
consistent with previous efforts by the federal government to
assist the prairie provinces in their twinning effort, the
construction and ongoing upgrading of the Yellowhead Route, which
parallels the Trans-Canada Highway. We further understand that
the federal government will accept applications for partial
funding for this project. The province has every right to expect
the federal government to come on board for the funding for the
Trans-Canada Highway. Last year, Paul Martin had set aside $600
million for highways. We as residents from northwestern Ontario
also have every right to expect safe roads.
The province of Ontario is
investing significant funds, both capital and operating, in
enhancing the tourist opportunities of this region. Private
sector developments in the forestry and mining sectors will
continue to add traffic volumes on the area highways. A further
investment in the transportation infrastructure will ensure that
there is a maximum benefit to both the region and the entire
province of Ontario over the life of the project and beyond.
Here in northern Ontario we
do not have the transportation alternatives readily available in
other parts of Ontario; therefore we must rely more heavily on
personal transportation vehicles for the economic and personal
well-being of the area. We need roads that are not only safe but
accessible at all times. This was considered an important
improvement to the northwestern Ontario highway system 10 years ago, and there is no
question that the need is even greater today with the increase in
traffic that has taken place over that time period. The time for
the province to act is now. If the province commits its own
funding to this project in the next year's budget, it will be in
a strong position to bargain with the federal government to
provide support for the Trans-Canada Highway in Ontario, which we
have all been led to believe they will.
The last issue we would
like to bring to your attention is the retail tax issue. It was
mentioned a little earlier. We suggest that the government
consider a review of the provincial sales tax. Over 10 years ago
it was proposed that the rate be dropped by 1% to 6%;
unfortunately, the government decided to go the other way and
raise it from 7% to 8%.
Interjection.
Mr
Slobojan: Pardon me?
Mr
Phillips: No, I'm just kidding.
Mr
Slobojan: OK. We respectfully request that the Ministry
of Finance consider this as the next tax to consider for
reduction and review. Additional income tax cuts, as we know,
will not assist those at the lowest level of our economy. By
dropping the sales tax, you help those who use the majority of
their income for consumption. Those at the higher end, as long as
they live in Ontario, will receive a benefit.
Thank you for this
opportunity to present our views and considerations in these
pre-budget consultations. The council and the chamber of commerce
certainly wish you well as you work toward the development of a
budget that will cover these concerns.
The Chair:
Thank you very much. We have five minutes per caucus and I will
start with Mr Christopherson.
Mr
Slobojan: Before you start, if you don't mind, Mr Wilson
is backing me up. He was just here. He's the past chair of the
board of the chamber of commerce. I'm fairly new on the block, so
if you don't mind, I may have to refer to him.
The Chair:
No problem.
Mr
Christopherson: Excellent presentation. I want to
comment that for the longest time I couldn't understand why so
many of the chambers, which are made up primarily of small
business-at least that's been my experience, and certainly it's
the case in Hamilton-would support the emphasis being on personal
income tax when small business needs the average citizen to have
discretionary income so they'll spend money in their local
establishments, thereby keeping the money circulating in the
community. I think you're the first one I've seen who's come out
and said it that clearly, and I want to compliment you for
it.
I realize it's in
self-interest-you're here to represent your community, the
business community-but nonetheless it has always really bugged me
that there wasn't this recognition that helping those who are at
the bottom of the economic food chain also helps small business.
And that means decent wages and it means a fair taxation system,
and if you're going to do something along the lines of relieving
tax pressures, make sure you're putting the bulk of the emphasis
in the area where it will benefit our broader economy as well as
the local economy, which is those who spend practically every
dime they get. So I want to compliment you for putting that in
there and for saying that, because you'll have some opponents
within your corporate world who won't like that as much. They'd
rather have it on the personal income tax, because if they're
already pulling down a quarter million a year, that's where
they'll personally see the benefit. This is a far better way to
grow the small business community in municipalities, in my humble
opinion, and I want to compliment you for that.
Having said that, I want to
pose something to you, and I'm not trying to trick you. I
legitimately said what I said and meant it and wanted to
emphasize it. Now I want to place before you from that same
perspective that came up with that-
Mr Galt:
Watch him.
1510
Mr
Christopherson: Never mind, Doc. That's just because
he's so easily fooled, he worries about everything.
You've noted that you
needed money and transportation, that to do some of the things
you'd like to do is going to cost some big bucks.
Mr
Slobojan: Correct.
Mr
Christopherson: To address adequately the health care
needs in the north is going to take some big bucks and, as was
mentioned by Mr Wilson earlier, investment in the institutions is
usually big-dollar stuff.
If it came down to it,
where you had a choice between seeing the-
Interjection.
Mr
Christopherson: I know, but these are the kinds of
decisions we're given as legislators. But if you had to make that
choice-again, this is not trickery or trying to put you in a
political box. I'm curious: from what you've already said here,
which one do you think would give you the better benefit? I'm
obviously prepared to accept either answer, but if you had to
choose either/or, which would be in the best interests of
sustaining small business and growing it?
Mr
Slobojan: Thank you, first of all, for the compliments
and setting the things out. With what is available, and the
federal dollars that are available at this point, I think the
highway issue could be addressed. At the same time, if dollars
are also available from the provincial government for starting
the medical school, I think we can probably end up having both. I
know that's not answering your question-
Mr
Christopherson: But this is good. I'm just trying to get
a sense of where you thought-really, I thought you were providing
an honest comment there and I meant that. I was very serious when
I complimented you on that. I happen to agree with you. I'm just
curious how someone who says that then views the whole issue of
those kinds of investments versus the benefits, economically, of
a sales tax cut.
Mr Wilson: With regard to that,
as you said, if you're providing that kind of a choice, again the
issue of the sales tax cut has merit and really should be
reviewed. It should be looked at because of this issue of being
able to drop disposable dollars. What you're talking about with
the other side, though, that would be strategic investment. I
think your real question is choosing between strategic
investments and income tax cuts-that seems to be more what you're
choosing-rather than between sales tax cuts-
Mr
Christopherson: Actually, that one I'm pretty clear on
because I know where I'd go. It was on the other one where I was
legitimately torn and wanted your opinion.
Mr Wilson:
Again, one of the things with the sales tax cuts is, as has been
noted-when they did income tax cuts they thought there would be
less taxes coming in-there were more taxes coming in as people
then utilized those discretionary dollars. I would suspect that
with sales tax cuts, and from some people I talk to in retail,
you may not lose anything from the retail sales tax perspective.
The government would still be getting their money in. From a
consumption point of view, that might be the stimulus they
need.
Mr
O'Toole: I'm probably going to share my time with the
member from Northumberland if it works out that way.
I appreciate, Don and
Harold, your presentation. I just want to make a couple of
statements with respect to infrastructure, transportation
specifically. We have heard a different kind of description in
southern Ontario. But when you refer to it as the Trans-Canada
Highway, that's where you really step off and say, "Just how much
money does the federal government actually put into the highway
system in Ontario?" It's surprising. We've committed, as you
probably know, in the budget numbers about $1 billion in that.
Arguably there's never enough of anything, but do you have any
idea how much the federal government contributes, both in its own
revenue sense from fuel tax and GST-a tax on a tax-to the
infrastructure in Ontario, which is about 50% of the Canadian
economy, of which you're an important part with the resource
sector up here? Do you have any idea at all how much they
actually contribute to the provincial highway system? Harold, any
idea?
Mr Wilson:
No, I really don't. I think it's zero.
Mr
O'Toole: I think it's zero too.
Mr
Pretchuk: I can answer that, actually. The Ontario
trucking industry currently pays the same amount that the federal
government puts into the entire Canadian infrastructure.
Mr
O'Toole: I'm glad there has been a letter, as I see in
your thing, to David Collenette and Paul Martin, and certainly
you would be encouraged to pressure that. I certainly agree with
you, the way you've described it, for safety and a whole bunch of
other reasons, and the economy. It may answer the question that
David Christopherson mentioned with respect to strengthening the
economy. We heard that in Jim's presentation, the importance of
having the right infrastructure to support the resource-based
industries, because that's basically the economy up here really.
So we accomplish a number of outcomes.
I know the health care
issue is a huge one. The theory there of course is to educate
them closer to home. Hopefully they'll be indigenous people,
people related to the area, and they would hopefully stay here. I
support that. Some of the larger medical centres may not. They
have their own personal reasons to keep everybody in Toronto.
We're fighting the same
issue here. There was a report issued today by the physicians.
There's going to be a shortage of 1,300 family physicians in very
short order. So just a couple of comments.
The Chair:
You've got two minutes.
Mr Galt:
I'm kind of curious on this promise that you have from the
federal government that it would come through and assist the
province to build that. I interpreted you to say a promise, or a
good reason to believe they would, particularly when I see
recently where they made a commitment in their red book back in
1993. When that commitment, word for word, was introduced by the
opposition, they collectively voted against their own commitment,
their own platform back in 1993. I wonder what kind of commitment
you have if the province comes in to help, how you're assured
that the feds are going to join in, especially when they'd vote
against their own resolution.
Mr
Slobojan: I guess we're never really assured of
anything, but it's our hope that they would certainly step up and
help out with a situation like that.
Mr Galt:
But I got from you the feeling that you had assurance they would
come through.
Mr
Slobojan: I don't think we have-
Mr Galt:
You don't have assurance. It's just that they have suggested they
might have $600 million set aside for transportation-
Mr
Slobojan: We were led to believe that's what the case
was.
Mr Galt:
-when they collect $2 billion taxes from Ontario drivers.
Mr
Slobojan: We were led to believe that's the amount of
money that was set aside for the different projects in the
province.
Mr Galt:
In the province or across Canada?
Mr
Slobojan: Across Canada, I think. Pardon me, yes.
Mr Galt:
When they collect $2 billion in Ontario a year?
Mr
Slobojan: Right.
Mr Galt:
It's good that you have that kind of assurance. It may give our
Minister of Finance a little bit of comfort to look at doing
something like that, because obviously on the Trans-Canada
Highway, the federal government should be involved.
Mr
Slobojan: There's no question in our mind about
that.
The Chair:
Mr Phillips.
Mr Phillips: Firstly, just on
the tax policy issue, this is going to be a huge issue of debate
over the next little while.
Mr
Slobojan: Excellent.
Mr
Phillips: Yes, I think it is. I might add, I wish this
committee could have a debate on it. We asked the minister to
come and have a debate on tax policy and he wouldn't. I really
felt that's something we should be debating here. As Mr Beaubien
will know, he wouldn't come to debate it.
But in any event, yesterday
or the day before we had one of the senior bank economists in
talking to us. We were talking about how in Ontario the average
employee has health benefits that are worth the equivalent of
$2,500, health benefits that they don't get in the US. The
government tells us in its documents-I think it says that US
manufacturers pay on average more than $3,100 per employee for
the kind of health care coverage provided by Canada's publicly
supported system, whereas Ontario employers pay about $540 per
employee in employer health tax. So there's about a $2,500 cost
advantage to companies in Ontario versus companies in
neighbouring US states-quite substantial. The issue then is, how
do we fund that? That comes from taxpayers. We have funded our
health system in a different way than neighbouring US states.
He was also saying to us
that, in his opinion, corporate taxes are going to continue to
drop. In fact, the government's announced that taxes in Ontario
will be 25% lower than in neighbouring US states. So it won't
come, vis-à-vis neighbouring US states, from corporate
taxes.
Then on the income tax
side, they're saying we have to match the bordering US
states.
I gather your
recommendation here on tax policy is that we'd be better off, in
the Thunder Bay chamber's view, reducing sales tax than in
reducing income tax. I guess I have two questions. Does the
chamber discount significantly the arguments of someone like the
bank economist who said that we need income tax rates equal to
bordering US states or people will move there? Secondly, I see a
huge challenge in maintaining our health care system and, I might
add, our education system in an economic slowdown and having
taxes lower than the neighbouring US states. So I gather the
chamber's advice to us is sales tax over income tax how does the
chamber view advice to us in terms of how we fund our unique
health care system?
1520
Mr
Slobojan: I think we would really like to see a study on
it, to take a look at those proposals. I don't have the answer
for you right off the top of my head.
Mr
Phillips: That's fair.
Mr
Slobojan: We're bringing it to the government's
attention to review it. That's part of the key.
Mr Wilson:
If I can just relate the difference with Minnesota, one of the
issues that's taking place right now in the northwest is that you
have still a very strong and heated economy in Minnesota, and
they're actually drawing some of our best people from the
northwest. We have an unemployment rate that's much higher. In
the United States in a lot of those areas it's 2% or lower, and
2% means even people who don't want to work are working. So you
have this situation down there. They are attracting some of our
people. So this issue of income tax is a consideration. Health
care, though, that kind of investment, has some very great value,
and to the companies as well as to why they would locate. Again,
it's an issue. You're trying to take a look at two jurisdictions.
There are lots of things in that mix.
The only other comment I
would make, and this is a personal one, is that if someone from
one of the national banks or wherever was making a statement
about what would be best for Ontario's economy, again, from my
presentation previously, that's not necessarily what might be
best for the regions.
The Chair:
With that, we've run out of time, gentlemen. On behalf of the
committee, thank you very much for your presentation this
afternoon.
Mr
Slobojan: Thank you very much. We wish you well.
NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO ASSOCIATED CHAMBERS OF
COMMERCE
The Chair:
Our next presentation is from the Northwestern Ontario Associated
Chambers of Commerce. I think we have two presenters. Could you
please come forward and state your names for the record. On
behalf of the committee, welcome. You have 30 minutes for your
presentation this afternoon.
Mr
Phillips: Mr Chair, before we begin, Ms Molinari is back
now.
You mentioned in a previous
presentation that Ontario social assistance rates were 34%
higher, I think, or 37% higher, than the average. I hadn't seen
that before, and I just wonder if you might provide the committee
with that. I'd find that useful.
The Chair:
Perhaps you could submit it to the clerk or the researcher.
Go ahead.
Ms Tannis
Drysdale: I'm Tannis Drysdale, and I'm president-elect
of the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce.
Mr Tony
Beyak: I'm Tony Beyak. I reside in Dryden, Ontario. I'm
what's termed, on NOACC, a senior adviser.
Ms
Drysdale: The Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers
of Commerce is the largest business group in northern Ontario. We
represent the interests of over 2,000 businesses throughout the
area. We are the voice of business for a geographic territory
stretching from Marathon to the Manitoba border. We are proud
that our membership also includes 14 of the largest corporations
active in our region.
Annually, since 1931, when
our association was formed, we have reviewed government policy
and lobbied for progressive solutions that best fit with the
needs of our communities. On behalf of our membership, I thank you very much for
travelling to Thunder Bay today and allowing us to have the
opportunity to have some input into the 2001 budget.
Over the past few weeks,
Premier Harris began to lay out this government's renewed vision
for continued growth in Ontario, smart growth. In the Premier's
recent address to the Toronto Real Estate Board, this vision was
structured primarily around the needs of our larger urban
neighbours in the south of Ontario. It should be clear, though,
that the concepts of smart growth-focusing on development that
will create a strong, efficient economy; building strong
communities; and preserving and protecting the environment-will
be equally important in defining the framework for prosperity
here in the north.
As you've probably heard a
lot of today, we northerners like to spend a lot of time
explaining how the many challenges of our businesses, communities
and lifestyles differ dramatically from those of you who live on
the other side of the map. At our core, however, we share the
same vision of prosperity for our communities, region and
province.
Mr Beyak:
Focusing on development that will create a strong, efficient
economy: It is the role of government to facilitate the
environment in which our northern businesses can flourish. A
strong, efficient economy and job growth in the north translates
into infrastructure support, a well-trained workforce and
continued attention to and support for a competitive business
environment.
We believe that investments
in quality highways will provide for economic growth by enabling
cost reductions, improving the quality of goods and services, and
allowing for expanded production and access to wider markets.
The improvements to the
maintenance of our highway system throughout the northwest have
not gone unnoticed by our membership. Given that in 1991 only 40%
of this province's highways were rated in good condition, the
goal of bringing that figure to 85% by the end of 2001 is to be
applauded. Soon, maintaining the current highway system will not
be enough to facilitate economic growth in our region. As we
increase the use of highway systems for the purpose of trade and
tourism, our systems must grow with us.
We recommend that the
government of Ontario commit long-term funding to upgrade
highways and work in co-operation with the federal government to
develop multi-lane routes at key tourism and trade corridors. On
the map attached to the back page of this presentation, you will
see that Highways 11 and 17 meet west of Thunder Bay at Shabaqua
and continue through to Nipigon as the same road. They are then
from Shabaqua to Thunder Bay and from Nipigon to Thunder Bay the
only east-west route through Canada. Closures on these stretches
of highway cannot be avoided by traffic.
Given the importance of
maintaining the free movement of materials and travellers across
the province of Ontario, we would request that the twinning of
this highway section be assigned priority in future planning.
Making investments in infrastructure throughout northern Ontario
that meet local demands and priorities through programs such as
the SuperBuild Corp and the northern Ontario heritage fund will
continue to be important to the development of our
communities.
Heritage fund projects
ranging from increasing our agricultural capacities to waterfront
development have provided northern communities with the
assistance they need to increase tourism, commerce and improve
the quality of life. We eagerly await the announcement of the
reopening of this fund to new applications.
The Northwestern Ontario
Associated Chambers of Commerce has taken a leading role in
promoting the development of tools and skills required by our
membership to maintain their presence in the new economy. We
anticipate government programs such as Connect Ontario will
further serve to assist in overcoming the geographical barriers
of our region.
As the lead agent
representing most provincial ministries throughout our territory,
the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines plays a critical
role in our ability to access and communicate with the
government. Therefore, we have been encouraged by the
government's continued support for this ministry.
While job growth in Ontario
has soared over the past few years, northwestern Ontario has only
been able to grasp a small percentage of the dividends of the
boom. Despite our limited growth relative to Ontario as a whole
and continued higher than average rates of unemployment,
investment in training or retraining has been and will continue
to be a priority.
Commitments made by this
government to bring business needs and the education system
together are being well responded to by programs such as Passport
to Prosperity and the Ontario youth apprenticeship program. The
flexibility and responsiveness of Ontario's education system to
the changing needs of our business communities will become more
and more important as we in the north develop diversity in our
economy.
1530
Ms
Drysdale: We believe to this end that a
provincial-federal labour market training agreement should
continue to be pursued by the province of Ontario.
Maintenance of a strong,
efficient economy must provide for continued attention to and
support for a competitive business environment. This government
has not only listened to the needs of the business community but
has begun to make the changes necessary so that the business
community feels confident about the future of this province.
A strong regulatory
environment is not only necessary to provide equity for private
citizens but it also assists our business community by creating
universal rules of responsibility. In many cases in the past,
regulations and restrictions on commercial activity have appeared
without thoughtful consultation and remained there past their
usefulness, hampering commercial growth in the province.
Entrenching the Red Tape Commission and providing a mechanism for
the review of the implications of government change is a
progressive step.
Providing a competitive environment also
requires that governments continue to recognize the importance of
reducing the tax burden faced by businesses. The business
community continues to report to government that the major
obstacle retarding their ability to expand, create employment and
contribute to economic growth are the various taxes present in
Ontario.
We recognize the efforts
this government's contribution in reducing taxes already, and
encourage it to continue. Legislation such as Bill 140 and the
Fairness for Property Taxpayers Act that preceded it work toward
our mutual goal of allowing businesses to invest in expansion and
jobs and not increased government.
Building on the successful
fiscal management of this government in translating tax savings
into jobs, the government may wish to consider a universal review
of the various provincial sales taxes.
Providing for the basic
medical needs of citizens is critical in developing strong
communities. Many of the communities that we represent the
interests of through our member chambers of commerce today are
unable to provide this to their residents. We have the hospitals,
we have the beds, the labs and in many cases the technology; what
we lack is the physicians. Recruitment and retention of medical
professionals has become an area of concern and thus activity for
both NOACC and our member chambers. As we work to create
diversity and growth in our local economies, we must include
access to medical care as one of our primary infrastructure
needs.
We believe the proposal to
create a Northern Ontario Rural Medical School put forward by
Laurentian and Lakehead universities will provide the north with
the opportunity to attract and retain the medical professionals
we require.
In the analysis of
physician supply, mix and distribution conducted in 1999, the
McKendry report details that Ontario must make a commitment to
attracting students who are likely to choose rural practice and
to providing the rural medical education they need to prepare
them for such practice. And finally, Ontario should consider
creating a new medical school in rural medicine, with a specific
mission to attract students who are interested in working in the
province's small rural and remote communities.
There has been extensive
research conducted supporting these findings as a realistic
long-term strategy to alleviate the chronic physician
distribution problems in the north. This research further
demonstrates that medical students with a rural background are
more likely to choose a rural practice, and rural-based medical
education produces more graduates who choose rural practice. This
is best illustrated by the fact that less than 10% of all the
medical schools in the United States produce over 25% of rural
physicians. These 12 schools, located in rural areas, provide a
rural-oriented curriculum and experience.
We know that this
government, a government committed to not making convenient
decisions for today at the cost of the right decision for
tomorrow, will recognize this opportunity and make the necessary
budgetary allocations for a Northern Ontario Rural Medical
School.
In the short term, we have
two further recommendations to the government related to
increasing the quality of health care in the north. The first
relates to the northern Ontario health travel grant system. The
system currently is failing to meet the needs of our citizens.
Traditionally, northern Ontario residents have had to travel
great distances to see specialists. We now have communities in
northwestern Ontario where such acute physician shortages exist
that travel is required for primary care. Under the current
system, only a small portion of the real costs of accessing this
basic health care is covered. Thus, for many families in the
north the concept of universal health care does not exist and
they are forced to make health care decisions based on personal
finances and not medical need.
As I mentioned earlier,
physician shortages are so serious that even in the city of
Thunder Bay 30% of residents do not have a family doctor. In this
climate, it remains increasingly difficult to attract people to
live in our towns and cities. We are, therefore, requesting that
the government review the current designations under the
underserviced area program.
Mr Beyak:
Protecting and preserving the environment: Perhaps there may be
no greater challenge in northwestern Ontario than in providing
balanced and responsible usage of the vast natural resources we
have in the region. The effective use of the natural resource
base and the level of support for our industries that rely on
these resources will dictate the future of our region.
We have been pleased to see
the government's continued support of mining and adoption of our
recommendation to reinstate flow-through shares. Throughout the
north, exploration has increased, and we expect to see
considerable job growth in this industry in the coming years.
While technological
advances have allowed the pulp and paper industry to slowly
downsize its workforce, the use of alternative wood has
encouraged new industries to form and increased development in
value-added products.
The traditional industries
of northwestern Ontario will continue to be our major sources of
employment and revenue generation. The government of Ontario
should be mindful that it is Ontario's resource-based industries
that will continue to, by and large, fuel the economy of our
province.
We again thank this
committee for travelling to the northwest and giving us the
opportunity to share our vision of the needs of the north and its
role in the future prosperity of this province.
I'll just add a couple of
comments about the mining industry, for instance. It is
absolutely crucial to continue to improve how this government
treats mining companies. I had the opportunity to spend some time
with a mining executive one afternoon in November. He said that
Ontario is fast becoming the place to do your mining business.
They have mines in Chile, in Indonesia and in the United States. They've
just opened another mine here and they're looking at two more
because of the way they're being treated in the province of
Ontario; this, in contrast to the exodus eight to 10 years ago
that was going on.
When you hear that mines
are opening, you have visions of the land being ripped up and
torn apart. These stats are a little dated, but we should know
that the total disturbed surface in the province of Ontario,
including quarries-that's gravel pits-is 130 square miles. What
do we have? I think it's about three million square miles of
surface in this province.
Everybody touts the
automobile industry as a revenue generator, and obviously, by the
dollar volume, it is, but for every dollar the auto industry
generates, there is $177 spinoff, whereas with the mining
industry, for every dollar they pull out of the ground, there is
$262 generated. It is certainly a thought to keep in mind, when
we have environmentalists or whoever saying that perhaps this
mine shouldn't go forth.
One last comment: in the
previous 10 years, the federal government has pulled out $2
billion a year in fuel taxes, $20 billion total. That's 20
thousand million dollars out of the province of Ontario, and they
have contributed back $87 million-out of $20 billion-into the
highways of Ontario. That's out of Minister Clement's mouth, a
year and a half ago or two years ago, when he was minister.
The Chair:
Thank you. I'll start with the government side. We have four
minutes per caucus.
1540
Mr
O'Toole: Very quickly; I might share, if someone else is
concerned. I appreciate your presentation. Thank you very much.
Between the three presentations, it was a pretty broad overview
of the economic priorities within this region. It looks like
transportation is a significant piece, besides the health issues,
the shortage of physicians.
I want to focus on one
piece here; it's on page 3. It says, "We believe that developing
a common provincial-federal strategy through a labour market
training agreement should ... be pursued." In fact, it is a very
important issue, as you probably know. I think Quebec and Ontario
are the only two signatories that haven't agreed, and it really
has to do with the formula. My numbers probably aren't that
accurate-I'm sure Mr Phillips will correct me if I'm overstating
or understating-but I think we contribute about 40%, potentially
more, to the EI fund, given that there's 11-point-something
million people in Ontario sustaining a strong economy, probably
50% of the total economy.
Our argument is that we're
only getting back a fraction of the-while believing that this is
a nation and we should all contribute. I guess my point to you is
to ask, is there any way we can pressure the federal government
to make sure that Ontario-it's very important for Canada that
it's strong and it remains strong. With the challenges, whether
it's in medical school or whatever, the training dollar
adjustment thing we're looking at is absolutely needed to support
that intellectual infrastructure we need for jobs and future
growth. Don't you think there should be a better formula, which
recognizes a per capita formula? There are about 30 million in
Canada, and about a third of them are in Ontario. We should get a
third of the money, basically. Would you agree with that?
You're also affected, I'm
sure, by seasonal conditions up here. The EI payout funds have
been chopped.
Mr Beyak:
That certainly has affected us. Where do you find a fair formula
for funding? This country, federally, we seem to have an
imbalance. I don't know how you correct it, other than through
political means.
Ms
Drysdale: The federal government has continued to
provide for training for EI recipients in the traditional
reach-back plans that we've seen in the past, but there are still
some individuals who don't have access. I know that in your
previous hearings, you've been talking about apprenticeships-
Mr
O'Toole: Yes.
Ms
Drysdale: -which have grown throughout our region. These
are going to start to become critical issues. Even if we talk
about an economic slowdown, it's a slowdown of growth; that
growth is going to continue and we have to have the labour force.
Whether or not the federal government gives us the exact formula
we want, we as citizens need this training and we as businesses
require the labour force, so something should be done.
Mr
O'Toole: Are there other questions? I just wouldn't go
on, other than just to make sure we use all the time.
Interjection.
Mr
O'Toole: I guess that is the case: it's the share
formula of the federal repatriation.
You mentioned a couple of
programs which I want to commend you for: the OYAP, the Ontario
youth apprenticeship program-excellent, very important. It should
be supported, it should be talked about. It should be partnered
with the colleges, and I'm sure it probably is here. That's the
kind of infrastructure that will sustain growth. What I'd
consider to be the real growth in the economy isn't really the
GDP measurement; it's the value-added part, where you're actually
adding productivity through knowledge.
Mr Beyak:
It's appreciated.
Mr
Kwinter: Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm
really pleased that you've raised a particular issue, and it's an
issue that I thought would be raised more often during our stay
here in Thunder Bay. It's an issue that has really been given a
lot of prominence, certainly in the Legislature by two of your
local members, Lyn McLeod and Mike Gravelle, and that is the
northern Ontario health travel grant. It's an issue where we've
had delegations from this part of northwestern Ontario come to
the Legislature to talk to us about the inequity of having
patients in Ontario who require cancer care and have to go to a
mid-north location having all of their expenses paid for by the
government, whereas patients from the north coming the other way
don't have that.
Notwithstanding the arguments that have been
made and notwithstanding the presentations by people who have
actually been disadvantaged by this, the Minister of Health
consistently stands in her place and says that isn't true, it
just isn't happening, that there is no discrimination, and the
people in the north are treated exactly the same way as the
people in the south. Could you just elaborate on that for me? Do
you have any first-hand-
Mr
Gilchrist: That's not what she said.
Mr
Kwinter: That's exactly what she has said. She has said
that on many occasions.
Interjection.
The Chair:
We can have only one conversation at a time. I think the question
has been put.
Ms
Drysdale: I understand there are two different programs
that we're talking about here. At the core of it, if there are
people in southern Ontario making medical decisions based on
financials, that's not correct anywhere in Ontario. What we're
asking for is a review of the system, to look at the real costs
for northerners to access the medical care we require, not only
specialist care but, until we get this doctor thing fixed up,
sometimes primary care. That has to happen in Ontario. As we
invest in medical care, that has to be one of the priorities.
Mr
Kwinter: Another thing I'd like to talk about is support
for the Northern Ontario Rural Medical School, which I think is a
great idea as long as it works. It's going to address sort of a
subspecialty in medicine, which is to provide doctors who
specialize in rural medicine. How are you going to make sure that
is what the students who go there are going to do? Are you going
to screen them so that only students who have a commitment to
rural medicine get in? What happens if a student in southern
Ontario decides, "I can't get into any other medical school in
Ontario. I'm going to go there. I'm going to tell them I'm going
to be a rural medical practitioner, and once I get my medical
degree, goodbye, I'm going somewhere else"? Has anything been
done to try to ensure that the facility that's going to be
established is going to serve the purpose it's intended for?
Mr Beyak:
The feeling in the northwest is, anything's better than what
we've got. In my community, for instance-I moved there six or
seven months ago from Fort Frances-I do not have a family doctor.
If my wife broke her finger, she'd have to go to the emergency
any time of the day or night. There are no doctors available. I
think this is a problem throughout not only the province but the
country.
Our hope is that coming to
these northern communities, seeing the lifestyle, living with the
people-I'm one who spent 25 years next door to Mr Phillips in
Agincourt. I migrated down there from the north and then back out
here again. Our hope is that once they experience the lifestyle
and become part of the community, they will stay. If I'm not
mistaken, this has been proven in Australia, the United States
and several other countries that have tried this program.
Certainly it's worth looking at. I also believe that, if
possible, whether provincially and/or federally, there should be
some incentive to practise in the north. We have to talk to the
Canadian and Ontario medical associations about opening the
doors-it's my understanding that's the roadblock here-to let more
doctors in if they don't want to practise in these underserviced
areas. You can't have your cake and eat it too. We're getting to
the point that it's-"desperate" is the word I'd like to use. It's
not a crisis yet, but it's desperate in northwestern Ontario and
in many other communities throughout the north.
The Chair:
That pretty well uses all the time. Mr Christopherson.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you for your presentation. It
certainly is abundantly clear that you are big fans of this
government. You say things as straight out as-and I'm quoting-"We
know that this government, a government committed to not making
convenient decisions for today at the cost of the right decision
for tomorrow will recognize this opportunity" and on and on, and
then on the next page you talk about "protecting and preserving
the environment." But the track record of this government in
terms of what they've done to the Ministry of the
Environment-they've gutted the funding and gutted the staffing.
The Ministry of Natural Resources, which I understand is really
like the government for many people up north, has been
devastated.
1550
Further to that, we've had
people come in this morning and talk about the fact that your
education system is in serious trouble, just like it is across
the province. They're attributing much of that to underfunding.
We had two mayors come in this morning and say that because of
cuts by this government, they're going to have to look at either
cutting services or putting in user fees. From where I sit, and
how I look at the province-and I don't pretend to be an expert on
the north-I've got to tell you that that's the last thing this
government deserves credit for. You can give them credit for
making a short-term decision-quite the opposite-and making sure
they took care of their friends. That's fine. But to come in and
make the argument that they've made the tough decisions and that
they're going to-
Interjection.
Mr
Christopherson: Do you mind? I listened to you.
Interjection.
The Chair:
Order, please.
Mr
Christopherson: But to say they've made the long-term
decision-the next group is a group that represents people who are
in poverty. They've been pushed further into poverty by the
actions of this government. We've got the United Nations
condemning Canada-and in large part that's Ontario, because
that's where the large population is-for the way we're allowing
more people to go into poverty during a time of expansion.
Absolutely true.
Further to that, if you
take a look, the only two provinces in Canada where there's an
increase in poverty rates is us and Newfoundland. If you say
something like that, you leave yourself open to at least a
counter-thought. It's fine to come in and praise them, but I
thought that was a bit
over the top. The one thing they haven't done, in my opinion, is
take steps that put us on a stronger course for the vast majority
of people and certainly not for our communities, and that's where
our sustainability is.
Now you can take your shot
at me.
Mr Beyak:
My only comment is that over the last five or six years we have
seen increased economic activity. You can argue till the cows
come home about whether lowering taxes is better or worse, but I
know of no jurisdiction that has lowered taxes and not increased
revenues. It's a science; it works. Any country or province that
has done it has prospered. Again, it's hard for me to relate. In
Dryden, Ontario, we have approximately 8,000 people and service
an area of 38,000 people. We have one homeless person, and he
doesn't want to get help. He just wants to do his thing, so we as
a community kind of look after him.
I grew up and have invested
in this province. I now have 47 employees. One of the major
reasons I went through the expansion I did was that this
government shows me where they're going. You may agree or not,
but I personally agree with them.
Mr
Christopherson: That's obvious.
Mr Beyak:
I chose to invest a fair amount of money to make it better for
myself but certainly the people around me as well. That's how it
works in this North American economy. That's how it works. If you
tax-look at BC and the other places; they're just bailing. Read
Maclean's magazine, "Alberta Bound." It's there that people are
going. They won't put up with it when a government starts taking
more than 50%. I think we reached the point in this province.
When combined taxes of 66% of my total income are going to
various levels of government, people like myself say,
"Enough."
The Chair:
With that, I have to bring it to an end, because we've run out of
time. On behalf of the committee, thank you very much for your
presentation this afternoon.
Mr Beyak:
Thank you. You can have close to half, but that's it.
THUNDER BAY COALITION AGAINST POVERTY
The Chair:
Our next presentation is from the Thunder Bay Coalition Against
Poverty. On behalf of the committee, welcome. You have 30 minutes
for your presentation. Could you state your name for the record,
please?
Ms Chris
Mather: My name is Chris Mather, and I'm the coordinator
for the Thunder Bay Coalition Against Poverty and also for the
Lakehead Coalition Food Bank. I have been a social worker in
Thunder Bay for 18 years. I've worked in the areas of health
care, child welfare, psychiatric care, children's mental health.
I set up the first child sexual abuse treatment unit in the
north. I set up a wife assault unit in the north. I set up an
elder-abuse unit in the north. I've given parenting courses to
single parents. I've conducted marital and family counselling.
For the last six years, I've worked in the area of alleviation of
poverty. I've taught in three programs at our local community
college. I'm on the board of directors of the Ontario Association
of Food Banks and was invited to address the United Nations in
Geneva on the issue of how well Ontario was meeting its
commitment to look after the welfare of people in this province.
Those are my credentials.
The coalition, which is
known locally as T-CAP, has been in existence for about six
years. We're an incorporated body headed by a volunteer board of
directors elected by our membership-you know the way that works
with community non-profits. At the last count we had about 80
members. The majority of our members and also of our board of
directors are people who live on low incomes. That includes
people on social assistance, people with disabilities, people who
are aboriginals, students, people who are employed part-time and
also the elderly. I'm just trying to give you some background as
to who we are.
We have three primary
goals. The first is to undertake non-partisan political activity
to bring the concerns of low-income people to the attention of
all levels of government. So the jargon for what I'm engaged in
now is "non-partisan political activity," in case you didn't
know. Our second goal is to provide public education about the
reality of poverty. That's kind of going to the college and the
university and teaching students there what it's like to live in
poverty. Our third goal is to engage in co-operative projects
with low-income people designed to ameliorate their
circumstances.
The main example of
co-operative projects is the operation of a food bank. Our food
bank has been running for six years. We provide food to between
1,000 and 1,500 people per month. We also operate the Thunder Bay
branch of the National Food Sharing System. Through this system
we've provided over 59,000 kilograms of free food over the last
six months to 13 other food banks, breakfast programs and soup
kitchens in Thunder Bay and the surrounding areas. Just to put
perhaps a less-than-rosy tint on the community of Dryden, I'll
let people know that they've just opened their first food bank
and we're soon going to be supplying them with food. I think
there's more than one homeless person there.
Because of the nature of
our membership and of the extensive contact with people we have
who use emergency food suppliers, and because of my background
and the background of the other social workers who work with us,
we feel well able to comment on the living situations of
low-income people in our community. I can tell you that those
living situations are abysmal.
It's commonplace to hear
talk about how Canada consists of two solitudes: Quebec and the
rest of the country. It's commonplace, but perhaps it's true.
Unfortunately, it is definitely true that the economic policies
of this government have transformed Ontario into a province of
two solitudes. I want you to take this very seriously; I mean
this from my heart. I'm an immigrant to Canada. When I came to
Canada in 1975, Ontario was not a province of two solitudes. There was not
a big gap between the poorest and the rest of the province, and
now there is. I mean this sincerely. Please take this
seriously.
There are those who prosper
and those who face poverty to a depth and extent that I, a social
worker in this community for 18 years, have never seen before.
Please take this seriously. You are people of power, people of
influence. I'm an expert in this field. Perhaps that's being
big-headed, but I am. Please take this seriously; it's very, very
bad.
I'd like the members of
this committee to reflect on the statistic I gave you a moment
ago. At our food bank we provide food to between 1,000 and 1,500
people per month. Think about that. Now think that 40% of those
people are kids. Now think that there are 29 other emergency food
programs in this town. Six years ago, when you guys assumed
power, there were four food programs, and now there are 29. You
don't open an emergency food program for fun. It's very hard
work. It's soul-destroying work. You go home at night crying
because of the situations you hear of. People have opened those
other food programs because people in this community are going
hungry.
I've spoken to the federal
government. No federal government department is willing to take
responsibility for hunger in this province. They are signatories
to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which
guarantees, under section 25, that people in this country will
not go hungry. I've spoken to eight other provincial standing
committees. Nobody in this provincial government is willing to
take responsibility for making sure that people in this province
do not go hungry. Your government is also a signatory to the
United Nations declaration.
1600
Certainly our city council
so far does not seem willing to take that responsibility either.
Please listen this time. This is my eighth presentation. Please
listen. People are desperately hungry in this community. I feel
guilty if I go to McDonald's. That's what my life is like. That's
what our social workers' lives are like. We feel guilty if we
take our kids to McDonald's because we know there are kids in our
community who are hungry. I hope you feel guilty the next time
you take your kids to McDonald's.
Lest you think that I'm
being alarmist here because I'm speaking very strongly, I have
included a clipping from a local newspaper. It's talking about
how a local soup kitchen run by a Roman Catholic church has been
in existence for 20 years. The article states that the priest in
charge says that over the last four years he has noticed a steady
increase in people using the soup kitchen. He continues to say
the reason is simple: cutbacks. With the provincial government
cutting back on social services and welfare spending, more people
are relying on organizations like the Dew Drop. It's called the
Dew Drop and it's kind of a hokey name, but they give great
service. They're one of the people that we send free food to.
I talked about this being a
province of two solitudes and, believe me, I chose that word with
care and I believe it's absolutely apposite. We say "solitude"
because we do not believe that this government is listening to
the concerns of low-income people. The low-income people we serve
do not believe that the government is listening to their
concerns. We try to be a great organization, so we do these
consumer satisfaction surveys at our food bank, you know, to see
how well we're doing. Sometimes we ask them how well they think
the government's doing, and the last time we did that 85% of them
said the federal government didn't care that they were hungry;
63% of the people said they didn't think city council cared that
they were hungry. Now get this, guys: 92% of the people who
answered our survey said the provincial government did not care
that they were hungry. Some 92% of the people who come to our
food bank don't think that their provincial government cares that
they're hungry.
Certainly in six years of
making similar presentations to other provincial standing
committees and seeing the briefs presented by other groups, I
have noticed no attempt to address these concerns, unless you
call a more stringent welfare regime, self-congratulatory
government publications mailed to private households, downloading
onto municipalities and what can only be a blatant campaign of
scapegoating of people on social assistance addressing the cries
for help from the poor. That's what it is: it's cries for help;
it's real.
I know it's not easy to
think of our province becoming divided along economic lines. I
know it's not easy to speak harshly to government members. I know
it's probably not easy to listen politely to me criticizing your
party's policies. But I can tell you it's immeasurably harder to
watch a senior citizen walk 12 blocks in -30˚ weather to
come to our food bank and get a tiny amount of food and watch the
icicles that have formed on their eyebrows start to melt as they
come into the warmth of the church basement. It's sickeningly
harder to listen to a single-parent mother tell me how she's
meeting her food budget by prostituting herself with her former
abusive partner. This very civilized ex-partner of hers worked
out a sliding scale for her; you know, so much if she gave him
oral sex, so much if it was straight sex, so much if she spent
the night with him.
It's devastatingly harder
to turn these people away empty-handed, because we're running out
of food in this community. More and more food banks are turning
people away because we just don't have enough food. It's a harder
task than I'm capable of fulfilling, despite all my experience,
to provide any real measure of comfort to the staff and
volunteers, who are crying because they don't have enough food to
give to people.
There, that was the
emotional part. We can all breathe again.
I'd like the members of
this standing committee to listen to the following five measures,
which, if they were part of the next budget, would begin to
address the concerns of low-income people:
(1) Food bank use has
doubled over the last 10 years. There are now 270 food banks in
Ontario. People are using them because they don't have enough
money. One of the
first actions the government took was to cut social assistance
payments by 22%, and at that time the amount left over was
inadequate. It was already said today but it bears repetition: in
real dollars, welfare benefits are close to the lowest they've
been in 35 years. You've achieved a budget surplus, and it's now
time to address the concerns of low-income people by spending
some of the budget surplus on an increase in welfare
payments.
(2) Five years ago the
government stopped building social housing. Thunder Bay lost 13
social housing projects at that time. When heating costs are
factored in, we have the second highest shelter costs in the
province. We've just found out we're having a 6% property tax
increase, and that will be passed on to tenants by landlords.
I remember very clearly
being told at a government hearing that it was time for the
government to get out of the business of building homes and let
the private sector take care of things. There was no doubt in my
mind then that the private sector was not going to build
low-rental housing, and it turned out I was right. It's now
harder than ever for poor people in Thunder Bay to find safe and
affordable housing. A recent report said that there are now 3,300
homeless people in our community. It is time now to address the
concerns of low-income people by spending some of the budget
surplus on building social housing.
(3) In July of last year, I
and representatives of five other food banks from across Ontario
met with the Minister of Community and Social Services, and we
told him that the shelter allowance portion of social assistance
was inadequate. I won't give you the statistics; Sarah Colquhoun
already gave them to you.
We told him that people
were regularly going without food in order to pay their rent
and/or their heating bills. He expressed great concern. We sat
there in his fancy office and we all had coffee and we were all
very polite, but I genuinely believed that he was concerned. Now
I would say it's time to translate your minister's concern into
spending some of the budget surplus on increasing the shelter
portion of social assistance payments.
(4) This government has
given large tax cuts to the wealthy and smaller tax cuts to
average-income families and it's clawed back the federal child
tax benefit from people living on social assistance, which means
that the poorest families in Ontario have not received a federal
benefit intended to fight poverty. Sometimes I do public
presentations and when I tell ordinary citizens, ordinary
taxpayers, that the federal tax benefit is clawed back from
people on social assistance, they're horrified. I tell them what
Ms Molinari related about the programs that's being spent on, and
the people I present to think that the people should be getting
the money. We have a big sign in our office. It says, "I don't
need therapy, I need money."
It's time for the
provincial government to stop clawing back this money and thereby
address the concerns of low-income people.
(5) There has not been an
increase in the minimum wage since 1995. It's time now to address
the concerns of low-income people by increasing the minimum
wage.
I thought I'd tell you what
you'd get if you took these five measures that we're
suggesting.
First of all, you'd get a
lot more money going into local economies. People on low income
spend their money in their local communities. They don't take
trips to Florida in the winter.
You'd get a good saving in
long-term costs, because it's well established that people who
grow up in poverty cost the health and education systems a great
deal. So you'd get a good, long-term saving there. Mr
Christopherson was saying that this is a government that hasn't
looked ahead. You could look ahead and make some savings in the
long term for health and education.
You could say, "Yes, we
listened. We took some action to alleviate poverty. We listened
to the concerns of low-income people. We stopped our province
being split into a place of two solitudes."
I'm an immigrant, but I
love Canada. You can tell I'm from England, right? It's three
thousand times a better country than England. Let's keep it that
way. Let's not let it split along class lines the way England is.
If you've ever lived in England, you'll know it's very much a
place of us and them. Let's not let our country become us and
them.
In summation, we believe
that the gap between the rich and the poor in this province is
growing ever wider. We believe that it's time to start decreasing
that gap by increasing welfare payments, increasing the minimum
wage, investing-and it is an investment-in social housing, and by
stopping the clawback of the federal child benefit.
Thank you for your
attention to this presentation.
1610
The Chair:
Thank you very much. We have four minutes per caucus, and I'll
start with the official opposition.
Mr
Phillips: Thank you very much. I appreciate all you've
done personally and your presentation. I wish I could be very
optimistic. In the month of December we tried to get the Premier
to act on the social assistance rates and were unsuccessful. It
doesn't mean we'll stop trying.
I want to focus a little
bit on the housing side of it. In Ontario I think we need between
15,000 and 20,000 rental units built per year. We've seen maybe
1,500 built per year in the last five years. There's a huge
backlog building up. There are some condos being built that are
being rented out, but that's short term for investors' purposes,
I think.
The reason that I'm
focusing on housing is just because it gives us a chance to
understand the situation here in Thunder Bay. You point out that
you feel there may be as many as 3,300 homeless people in Thunder
Bay.
I think the government at
the time said, "The private sector will build rental units and
we'll give some shelter allowances and it will all be kind of fixed."
We had the homebuilders in, the people who build these things,
and they essentially told us that they're not going to build them
because of the fear of rent control. They get a bigger return on
their investment elsewhere.
My question on the housing
side is, of the 3,300 homeless people in the community, where are
they? Are they living with relatives? How are they actually
spending tonight?
Ms Mather:
There are a percentage of people who during the summer and the
spring and fall actually live outside. Sometimes you go down to
the overpasses over the railway line and you see these pathetic
little communes where they've even tacked up pictures out of
magazines to make it seem like a home. Come winter in Thunder Bay
that's not possible. We've had some people freeze to death in
Toronto. We've had people freeze to death up here, but it's much
rarer for people to freeze to death up here because it just isn't
possible to live outside up here in the winter. So they're at the
shelters, which are overflowing. People are living with
relatives. People are for part of the time living in scuzzy
motels. They're living in battered women's shelters. Sometimes
the Salvation Army will pay for a couple of nights in a hotel for
a woman with kids.
Mr
Phillips: Certainly in my community, of the issues that
I get, this is a growing issue of desperate people with literally
nowhere to go. What is the situation in terms of the building of
rental accommodation in Thunder Bay?
Ms Mather:
From my awareness, it's at a standstill. The housing that's being
built are really nice, fully detached homes in very nice
subdivisions. We have a vacancy rate. We do have rental
properties here in town, but they're well above the rent that
people on social assistance can pay. We need more low-income
housing. I guess we could ask the government to subsidize units
in for-profit buildings. That used to happen.
Mr
Phillips: Have you raised that issue with the ministry
at all?
Ms Mather:
I raised that issue with the Minister of Community and Social
Services, yes.
The Chair:
With that, we've run out of time, Mr Phillips.
Ms Mather:
Thank you for your question.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you for your presentation. I wish
the previous presenters could have stayed just so they could hear
the other side of the discussion. I thought it was interesting,
because the government members are next and I have had on
occasion, both formally and informally, different members of the
government caucus-I won't mention any names; that's not the
point-who will argue that there aren't that many poor people. I
think an earlier presenter talked about one in Dryden, and then
you came in and said, "I'm not sure what that means. They've just
opened up the first food bank and we're going to be helping
them." I would just say to the government members, if there's
anybody who wants to argue that it's a growing problem, that they
be the first ones to line up and take on a Roman Catholic priest
who says he's noticing a steady increase, and then he's saying,
from where he sits, it's directly attributable to cutbacks. Again
I say to the government members, when you hear the United Nations
condemn us for allowing poverty, especially child poverty, to
continue to grow, at some point you've got to ask yourself, "How
much longer can I live with the fact that our government policies
are contributing to this, especially since we just went through
the boom?"
You know what's going to
happen now. Now every time anybody comes in, if the downturn
continues, it's going to be, "We can't do that now; there's not
enough money. We can't. Things are bad. We've got to cut back.
We've got to do this and that." That was our fear all along: if
we couldn't get them to spend the money in the good times when it
was there, we're never going to convince them to spend it in the
bad times.
Two questions, really. I
wanted to ask you about the experience here in the north to see
if it's the same as it is in the south in terms of the
relationship of the lack of adequate shelter allowance for those
who are on assistance, the reduced availability of affordable
housing and the increase in food banks. Down south there's an
equation there. You can see it; it works. I just wonder if it's
the same here.
My other question would be,
in terms of the people visiting the food banks, is it only those
who are on social assistance? Are there the working poor, are
there seniors, or is it primarily those who are on
assistance?
Ms Mather:
Your first question was, are people using food banks because of
the cuts?
Mr
Christopherson: Yes. Is there a relationship?
Ms Mather:
Yes, there is. When we ask people that, they say they are coming
to the food bank so they can pay their rent. Everybody takes care
of their shelter costs first. It doesn't matter how rich or how
poor you are: you take care of your shelter costs first. When
you're on social assistance, the only disposable income you've
got is your food budget. So that's exactly right. On average,
we're thinking that about $150 from the basic allowance is added
to the shelter costs. That's $150 a month for a single mom. For a
single person, the amount that's transferred from budget to
budget is considerably higher. I'm sorry. I'm desperately trying
to remember that stat, but I'm nervous and I can't.
The second question I think
was-
Mr
Christopherson: Who is visiting you? Well, not
visiting-using.
Ms Mather:
Using the food bank, yes. The highest percentage of people who
visit are people who are aboriginal. It used to be only people on
social assistance, but now we find that we're also seeing a great
many seniors and people who are living on the Ontario disability
support plan. We're lucky in that the church that lets us use
their basement free has one of those disability lifts so that
people in wheelchairs can get up and down.
What's most distressing is
that we see a lot of kids coming to the food banks with their
parents. What that means is that that kid isn't going to school
that day because the
parents didn't have lunch to send with the kid. What I really
hate, which we see more and more of, is people come in and they
open their package of food immediately and they start to eat it
there and then. You know that people are hungry right there and
then because they're opening their package and eating it.
I'm sorry, Mr
Christopherson. I don't say "the working poor"; I say "poor
people who have a job," because all people work. If you work in
the home, you work. I don't like the term "working poor."
Mrs
Molinari: Thank you very much for your presentation, and
congratulations on all your credentials that you stated at the
beginning of your presentation. It certainly sounds like, with
everything you've done and all the work, you have a lot to say
for the work that you do and the people you serve and
represent.
Just some brief comments on
some of the points you've made. On the national child benefit, as
I indicated in a former presentation, the provincial government
has reinvested into the Ontario child care supplement for working
families. Out of the $100 million in 1998-99, the Ontario child
care supplement for working families is bringing it up to the
total value of $200 million annually. That means, to
single-parent families with young children, up to $1,310, and for
dual-parent working families the annual benefit is $1,100 per
child under age seven. So it is being reinvested. I know you've
indicated, as did the previous presenter, you would like that to
be given differently.
1620
Ms Mather:
Can I respond to that? It is given to working families. By
definition, people who are on social assistance are not employed
or are underemployed. So the money that citizens and taxpayers
think is going to help the very poorest children-everybody is
concerned about child poverty, and I'm sure you are. The money
that's supposed to go to the very poorest children whose parents
don't have a job, whose parents are living on the rock bottom of
the social safety network, aren't getting it because they don't
have jobs. Do you understand my point better now?
Mrs
Molinari: Yes, most certainly. The article you've given
us is interesting. A lot of work is done by the Catholic Church,
and certainly it's part of their mandate to reach out to families
and to the needy. The soup kitchen, by way of the headline, has
been in operation for 20 years. It's 20 years old, so it's not
something recent. It's interesting that some are regulars who
have been going, I guess, for the last 20 years.
Certainly there is a
concern whenever there is an increase in the need for something
like food banks or soup kitchens. As a government we have made a
number of initiatives in the area to serve, and certainly there
is a lot more to be done. It's a systemic issue, a problem not
only in Ontario but I'm sure in a lot of other countries. It's a
challenge for any government to address some of the issues.
I do believe, though, and I
would ask your opinion, that it's not just a provincial
government problem to be addressed. It's something that needs to
be addressed by all levels of government. I appreciate your
making presentations to other levels of government, trying to get
the message across to them as well that we need to work in
co-operation in order to address some of the systemic problems
that exist in society. Certainly poverty and homelessness are
some of the issues we need to address and work together on.
Ms Mather:
It's great that you appreciate my presenting to other levels of
government, because they don't seem to appreciate it at all.
What I would say is, yes,
you're right. Because of the religious philosophy of the Roman
Catholic Church, they have always reached out to the hungry,
through things like St Vincent de Paul. But I would say that your
government also has a responsibility actually and is not doing
enough.
I would also say that, yes,
some of the responsibility for the increasing levels of hunger
and poverty in our community most definitely falls on the federal
Liberals, because they got rid of CAP, the Canada assistance
program, which allowed your government to do away with some of
the standards for social services that were there.
I kind of see what your
government has done and what the federal Liberal government has
done have kind of worked in tandem to create this situation. So I
don't think we can really say the province is let off the hook by
saying, "The big old feds did it first."
The Chair:
With that, we are out of time. On behalf of the committee, thank
you very much for your presentation this afternoon.
Ms Mather:
I just want to say I'm glad you guys are back in Thunder Bay. It
seems like over the last three years we've had no provincial
hearings up here. We thought you'd forgotten us.
ANNE SCHEFFEE
The Chair:
Our last presenter this afternoon is Anne Scheffee. Could you
please come forward and state your name for the record. On behalf
of the committee, welcome. You have 15 minutes for your
presentation. Please make yourself at home.
Mr
Phillips: On another matter, I asked a question earlier.
Mrs Molinari-
The Chair:
I have it. I'll read it into the record after.
Mr
Phillips: That's fine, thank you.
Ms Anne
Scheffee: I want to thank you for having me here. It
means a lot to me.
My name is Anne Scheffee,
and I'm here today to leave an impression of how I feel improved
financing to the Thunder Bay Regional Hospital maternity ward
could impact the mothers of our city and their families. I will
do this by reading a letter I wrote to Nancy Persichino, the
director of maternal services here in Thunder Bay. Following
this, I will prove that I have taken an active role in initiating
immediate improvements for our mothers of the city. Those mothers
come from all walks of
life, working and non-working. Of all the ones I've talked to,
many don't want the things I've asked for today, but the majority
do, so everyone is going to be different. If it's available,
they've got options, and that's how I will start this. It will
hopefully be clear now how any increase in cash flow to the
hospital will greatly provide the difference in the overall
health of our families.
I'll go to the letter now,
which everyone should have a copy of.
"Dear Nancy:
"As per our telephone
conversation, I am writing with details of my personal
experiences throughout my two-and-a-half-day stay on the
maternity ward. I was offered a visit from the Thunder Bay health
unit"-after the baby was born-"and I used my time with them to
voice my opinions on some of the issues.... They requested that I
write these concerns/suggestions to you. They valued what I was
saying and suggested I could help improve the existing system by
taking the time to write. I will compare my second experience in
childbirth to that of the first"-three years ago-"at the birthing
centre. Please feel free to use only what you want from these
lists to make the maternity ward experience as comforting as the
birthing centre one was."
If I'm talking too fast,
please let me know. I'm a little nervous.
Mr
Phillips: You're doing great.
Ms
Scheffee: "I am a large advocate of breast-feeding and I
feel that any modifications made in that area of concern would
increase the chances that more mothers will make the commitment
to breast-feed and will have the confidence to endure. In
addition to that, most mothers will focus on the true blessing of
childbirth instead of focusing on negative memories and on their
own insecurities."
I am currently a member of
Our Kids Count, the federal government initiative. I can see that
from birth to the older child, it's really important that we do
what we can, as the government and as people, to make it better
for those children. I've seen people who have no money, and just
from talking to this other lady, some of that welfare, some of
them could use their money a little bit more wisely, but other
ones are really in desperate need, so it's very interesting how
this all goes together. Anyway, back to my point.
(1) In the birthing centre,
I had a one-on-one nurse at all times and a 24-hour stay only, so
I was more comfortable in my own home, faster.
(2) I had a home visit
prior to labour by a nurse. I had a chance then to air concerns
and I was reminded to bring lots of underwear to the hospital.
That's going to be important later in my letter.
(3) The birthing centre
allowed me to come in and learn how to use the gas mask prior to
labor to reduce anxieties.
(4) A nurse checked labour
progress at the house, instilling my confidence and getting me in
on time. There was a little problem with blood pressure and it
was caught right away.
(5) The quality of care was
astronomical.
(6) I had friendly, caring
nurses who took special time with me. This is in February 1998,
by the way, that I was in a birthing centre.
(7) Nurses really listened
to me during labour. They gave options and suggestions as we went
along.
(8) There was a Jacuzzi
right in my room.
(9) There was a home
environment, which was less stress for me.
(10) I was given
explanation of what next to expect during my labour stages.
(11) The nurses displayed
optimism and happiness for me throughout labour.
(12) I was never left to
feel overwhelmed. I was provided a rundown of each progression,
given in an environment that was very warm and kind.
(13) I was given warm
blankets by the nurse upon entering hospital.
(14) I was given the
opportunity to walk the halls during the labour.
(15) I was given support to
ensure my comfort during breast-feeding, ie, pillows, extra
feeding options; all the information I needed about expressing
the first six weeks.
(16) I was helped out of
bed and to the washroom when necessary, the first night of
birth.
(17) I was offered a snack
right away.
(18) I was helped through
mental anguish of hearing another labouring woman.
(19) I was given
explanations of what to expect while back at home.
(20) I was shown how to
bath the baby and what different cries meant.
It seems pretty down to
earth, but the thing is, if you've never had a baby or you've
forgotten from the first childbirth, it's almost like starting
again and you need those extra nurses to help you through
that.
(21) I was given home care
for one week after my daughter was born. The baby and I were
checked regularly during that time; great mental relief at
postpartum period.
Back in the earlier days
they used to keep you in the hospital for a week, so any problems
would have been picked up. Now, obviously, we can't afford to
keep moms in hospital for a week, so you go home and you take
your chances with infection.
(22) Nurses are great as
midwives but in the birthing centre the doctor still delivered
baby, which to some women is the greatest of peace of mind,
including myself.
(23) I was helped several
times during breast-feeding to ensure confidence.
I wasn't just checked once
to see if baby was latched on. I was checked almost every hour in
a 24-hour period, and I kept track of that.
(24) I was checked at home
for engorgement and encouragement to breast-feed was
continued.
(25) I was helped with my concerns about my
child's jaundice. I could see it going away, with the nurse's
help.
(26) I became very close to
nurses very quickly.
(27) I instantly was
overjoyed by baby and stopped focusing on my labour.
(28) I was given a hospital
book and pamphlets to take home, and I reviewed with the nurse
different sections of the book and different breast-feeding ideas
and concerns.
This is the maternity ward
experience that I experienced three months ago. I wrote this
while I was in postpartum but the letter, I feel, is still very
important to point out the differences. Now I'm not in
postpartum, so I hope it's taken seriously.
1630
The nurse listened to me
about induction concerns. Number one, induction is a whole
different experience from the birthing centre right there, but
just the coldness of the environment compared to the birthing
centre was unacceptable. Induction is bad enough without
everybody rushing around and not with you because they don't have
the money to provide a nurse to be there the whole time. So the
nurse did listen to my concerns but told me I shouldn't
concentrate on machines, only labour. I needed to know I was
going to be informed as my labour progressed. The nurse was very,
"OK, are you ready? Can I put this in now?" It was very like
this: knocks twice on table.
Preparation for induction
only came because I phoned Nancy. No counselling was given to me
on what to expect. I phoned her because I knew her from the
birthing centre. She happens to now be the director, so I was
very lucky to feel free to phone her.
The nurse I had was a good
listener and very professional. That's the point. Some people
don't need that. I needed a more friendly, comforting approach
throughout my labour experience. Again, that's my preference.
Maybe someone wouldn't have minded her going in and out and
rushing me, but in my case this was a very hard thing to deal
with, not having a nurse the whole time, a good nurse who could
sit there and hold my hand.
The nurse came in only when
the bell went off. There was a bell and it made me feel like a
number; because I didn't know what that sound was I was extremely
nervous. You're already being induced at two minutes apart; you
don't need a bell going off, and this had been discussed with
Nancy. But part of the point of this is that they don't have the
staff to be there, so they're using a bell; they're using a
computer for the safety of the child and the mother. They're not
looking at the mental health of the mother at all.
Ice chips were offered
during labour, no warm blankets. I don't know if they would have
been appropriate in an induction, but it's something I remembered
from the first time that I didn't get the second time. The ice
was offered by my aunt, who was my support person. I didn't hear
from the nurse. I had to ask her for that. Labour was very quick,
so there were no relaxing techniques. There was never a shower
offered. No one even thought of that. The nurse finally did allow
my coaches to read the monitors, because I was getting so nervous
about them. That gave me back some control. I asked for gas at
some time into labour. I was an hour and a half total and I think
at one hour I asked for the gas, and at that point I was given
it. But I think at two minutes apart, when that machine went from
the five minutes that they initiate down to two instantly, I
should have been offered the gas right there. But the nurse again
was gone. She had to do whatever she was doing. I have talked to
Nancy about that and I was told that I did have a one-on-one
nurse. My aunt and my husband couldn't believe it when they heard
that, because we never saw her except for when that bell went
off.
I was surprised there was
no chair right in the room, with holes in it for the
contractions, no birthing ball, no squatting bars for easier
pushing, although I never had a problem with that part,
obviously, for an hour and a half; it was that quick. It's
something I didn't see in the room. My aunt is a nurse from many
years ago and she didn't see anything like this either.
Unlike the birthing centre,
there are no home visits after a maternity ward labour; there's
no after-care. You go home and you're alone. That's it. You're up
to yourself. It's up to you to do the things you need to do. You
can go with the midwife if you want, and we'll talk about that in
a minute.
There are no walk-through
appointments offered to meet the nurses before your induction
and, again, no relationship is formed.
The doctor told me I had
clearance to request an IV for the prevention of strep B going to
the baby since I felt nervous about having strep B, as my
daughter had it. At the time that the induction was beginning, I
argued with the nurse; I asked her to please put it in. She
didn't go get the doctor. She was in a hurry to put it in. She
stood there and said, "You're not a high risk. You're not early;
you're late. It's not necessary." She and I argued back and forth
and I never did get my way. I never got the needle in my arm-so
of course, mental anguish for a mother just about to be
induced.
No real encouragement from
the nurse or doctor during labour; I never saw my doctor, and
that could be because he thought I would be worried about seeing
him. But the nurse-never any real encouragement. The only thing,
at one point I pushed against her just before the baby came out
and that's all I can remember about her ever being near, other
than checking, and that was about it. Again, no relationship. I
don't even know my nurses' names. That's how terrible-I remember
every single one from the birthing centre and I was only in there
for 24 hours.
I was left on my own to get
out of bed the first night. I did plan a private room, thinking I
was going to have the kind of care I had at the birthing centre
as far as nurses coming in and talking or something, but I was
completely alone except when they checked my temperature and to
take the baby away to get checked.
There were no chairs with
holes in them in my room either for the painful stitches. I was
not told about anybody
coming in at 6 o'clock in the morning for breakfast. They were
there very early. I can't remember what time, but there should
have been time when a nurse could have talked to me, "This is
what's going to happen while you're in hospital. You've never had
this experience. The birthing centre is different." No one ever
talked to me about anything. It was very cold.
My panties had soaked
through at 8 o'clock the night my son was born because nobody
told me there were adhesives on the pads, and when I did find out
I'd already lost two pairs of underwear. The third one, even with
the adhesives, wasn't enough because I was in such pain with my
back, from the induction, that I was getting up and down just to
walk, trying to avoid the pain. The result was that I ended up
bedridden for 16 hours.
There's a letter that I'm
not going to read, but I will explain what I've done about that
situation because I thought that was completely unacceptable. I
will explain what initiative I took, as I said, at the
beginning.
I felt cheated from induced
labour but no one had the time to talk about the disappointment I
was feeling. No counsellor was offered, and my comments were
taken lightly. I was told, "You'll be fine. Aren't you happy to
have a nice, healthy baby?" I felt almost guilty for mentioning
it in the first place. No one had time to talk; they were in and
out and that was it.
I was told by a nurse that
she was surprised that I didn't know about some baby care. She
didn't take the time to tell me. She basically said that and then
walked away. It was in regard to bathing a baby, as my son was
getting circumcised, and I wanted to know about that. They ended
up taking heat and helping me with that. The comment that I got,
because they were so busy they had no time to listen to me, was
just devastating. I was only reminded on how to bathe a baby
because I asked permission to look over at another mother in the
nursery.
I was not given any sitz
bath information. In the birthing centre they have a toilet, it's
called a bidet, I guess, that sits on the ground. In this
particular situation it was a portable one, and I'd never seen
one before. I didn't think to ask about it until I was about to
leave the hospital and phoned the nurse, and she said, "Oh,
that's a bidet. You'd know that from the other place." No, I'd
never seen anything like it, so I didn't get any sitz baths the
whole time I was there because no one noticed that I hadn't had
one. That was pretty frustrating.
I was having trouble with
the baby eating more than my daughter did, and when I showed some
discouragement the nurse at the front desk said, "Well, this is
where we offer supplementation." That was it. She never said
anything about, "Can we help? Is there something we can do to
help you through this so that you can keep breastfeeding?" There
was absolutely no help there, and I was surprised that they
suggested that. I walked away and I kept persevering and I am
still breastfeeding and it's been 17 weeks. I definitely believe
in it, as I said. If there was a little bit more money for the
care, I think the nurses would be listening more to their
patients.
I was not given anything
except the Caring for Mother and Baby book when I left the
hospital. A breastfeeding pamphlet for support had not been given
to me, and I became engorged two days later. I was misdiagnosed
with mastitis. I had no nurse coming back to the house so I got
very sick before I realized I was sick. One week later I went to
emergency and got diagnosed with mastitis. There was a hard lump
and I could hardly get the milk out of it. I was very sick. I had
a temperature and everything. I was given drugs for mastitis but
I was told to go see my specialist. The next day I went and he
took me off them, but by then my son had a rash. So I was
misdiagnosed there. There was just milk fever, a backup of milk
because I expressed too early and I expressed too much and I
expressed incorrectly. There were three reasons why it happened.
Had a nurse been there to help me with that, like they were in
the birthing centre, I would have been fine.
I didn't have mastitis with
my first and I was just as big and I had just as much milk. The
book from the hospital didn't show the difference between the two
conditions. I did use the book that I got, and the book mentioned
mastitis treatments on page 57-I didn't bring a book and I
apologize for that-but point 65(a) said that with mastitis you
should let the baby drink for shorter, more frequent feedings,
while point 65(f) said that the baby should feed from the
infected breast as long as he or she wants. So there was a
contradiction there.
Between the doctors having
different opinions, the nurses sending me away when I approached
them, not only during the beginning of the breastfeeding but also
when I had the lump-I went up there first and they sent me away
again to go to emergency-and the third, the book having
contradictory points, I was ready to give up breastfeeding.
Thank you for your time
hearing me comparing these important points from the experiences
of my labor and delivery. I hope you can take some of this and
help better merge the birthing centre experience with that of the
maternity ward. I think people will walk away from the hospital
feeling confident and happy in their new role as parents.
The second letter I'm not
going to read, but I'll tell you what it was. I guess I was a
little bit too thorough here in this letter and I don't want to
go there. Anyway, I basically wanted to say that because I had
done wrong on my protection pad, I lost two pairs, and on the
third time around I was really bleeding a lot and I couldn't
walk. With an induction of two hours it's like getting hit by a
truck. I've been hit by a truck, and the pain was comparable.
1640
The induction itself was
just terrible, but I breathed through the whole thing and I did
what I had to do to get through that, but even the after-effect
is like you've been hit by a truck. You're sitting by yourself
trying to get to the baby, you're trying to get to the washroom,
and you're in terrible agony. All that felt better was to walk.
Because this happened with the Depends, with no extra underwear
at that point, I had to be bedridden for 16 hours. I did call the
nurse and I asked for a pair of underwear, knowing that mine had been soiled. I had
called my husband, who was just putting our two-year-old to bed
so he couldn't come down. In the end I asked for a Depends
product, some kind of a panty that I could put the white pads
into-because the hospital does supply the pads, but these things
are actual underwear-and they said there was none available for
moms, "Sorry, you're lucky to get what you have because in the
States they pay for everything."
So I said, "Could I have a
Depends product from the senior citizens' ward?" She said, "I'll
do what I can." This was at 8 o'clock at night and by noon the
next day I had a Depends diaper. I was bedridden for 16 hours
because they didn't have the staff to run upstairs two floors for
me. That's a pretty horrifying experience for someone who has
just been induced, as far as I'm concerned. I have talked about
it.
Of course I took the
initiative, because that's who I am, and I wrote Kimberly-Clark,
because I just happened to get a Depends thing in the mail for
the senior diapers. I wrote to them and I asked for 1,700, which
is approximately the number of births that Dr Holloway said we
have in Thunder Bay a year. I don't know if that's regular
doctors, but specialist deliveries for sure are included in
there. Kimberly-Clark has provided-and I gave them to Nancy at my
meeting last Friday-300 Depends products for moms so that they
can put the white pads in if they run out of their underwear;
they have a backup.
In summary, I feel I've
worked hard to make a difference for new mothers. I feel the
little red wagon program the provincial government is initiating
should begin by taking care of our mothers. I ask that you take a
moment before the budget of 2001 is established to consider what
a significant difference your role can make. A mother who is
healthy and satisfied brings joy, love and warmth to her newborn
and radiates that same warmth to the family waiting at home.
Sometime following his
election of 1935, Tommy Douglas, the father of medicare, said,
"It's not too late to make a better world." It is my belief,
therefore, that if we use the same energy as Tommy did to create
change, have the same integrity as he did and are as committed to
the cause, we together can make our families healthier and
happier.
Going along with the
children, just from having a newborn and my husband working till
midnight, there are days when you feel like shaking that newborn.
If you've got that support from the hospital and the nurses, you
won't get to that stage where you feel like that.
Going forward, I ask that
you focus on mothers, the reason we all are here today.
The Chair:
On behalf of the committee, thank you very much for a very
interesting and somewhat unique presentation of those that we've
had over the past four days. Good luck.
Ms
Scheffee: Thank you very much. Do we have any questions
or anything?
The Chair:
Does anyone have any questions? We had 15 minutes allocated.
Ms
Scheffee: Has it been 15? I apologize.
The Chair:
No, it's OK.
Mr
O'Toole: Just for the record, actually, as a father with
five children, I appreciate the desperation you must sometimes
feel when these things don't happen the way you planned.
Ms
Scheffee: I never shook him, by the way. I walked away
and read my book from the hospital. So thank God for it.
Mr
O'Toole: That's good. It's certainly a lot of pressure
in families in that sense.
I was just wondering,
though. I thought the province had the initiative of actually
increasing the stay in hospitals for newborns and they've
increased the home visits. Now maybe it's just the firstborn, I'm
not sure. But there has been a significant amount of emphasis on
the whole process of birth and mothering, and not just Ontario's
Promise. You mentioned the red wagon thing, which is part of it.
So I'm sort of disappointed. It sounds like a delivery problem in
a way, not delivery of the baby but a site problem.
Ms
Scheffee: I think it's the big picture of the lower
staff. I have talked to Nancy and she said that some issues were
financial, but many of them are using the money that you've
already given them and changing it around. She's going to take my
letter, by the way, and move it into many of their nurses'
meetings. They're going to be doing some extra training. But that
takes extra time, which again is pressure on the budget.
I guess I don't have a lot
more to say except that if there's any room for improvement,
you'll see how important it is to mothers and the kids. Being in
Our Kids Count through the federal government, I see those moms.
A lot of them are single moms out there and when they have two, I
can see that's where child abuse comes from, right there, because
you don't have any support. You have no husband. You have no one
coming home at midnight. You're done. So if you don't have that
nurse coming home for a week after-maybe they could have offered
a counsellor. That alone, if they'd taken 20 more minutes, if
they'd had the time to offer one more nurse that night, because I
think there were 17 babies-but don't quote me-if they'd had the
extra time just to talk to me, maybe there would have been more
help there.
Just one last thing: in the
birthing centre I had a nurse for nine hours at a time going
through all this. In the induction, the nurse wasn't there a
whole hour and a half. I asked an hour and a half with her. I got
eight hours at the birthing centre and I only got an hour and a
half this time, because they had a whole bunch of other mothers
who were getting induced at the same time. She needs to be there;
she needs to do her thing with the doctors. She may be just my
nurse but she's got other work she has to do because the other
nurses are being called to the other rooms. So if we could just
get funding for one more nurse per day, or whatever, that could
be all it would take, or a little bit of money for education,
something, just something extra.
The Chair: Again, on behalf of
the committee, thank you very much.
Mr Phillips, you had
requested from Ms Molinari some information after a presentation
that was made this afternoon. Here's the information that was
given. I'll read it into the record. It says, "Ontario's welfare
rate for a single employable person is 34.7% higher than the
average of the other nine provinces, according to the National
Council of Welfare, an arm's-length agency of the federal
government." That's for the record.
With this, I think that
concludes our presentations today. This committee will adjourn
until 9 o'clock on February 19 in Ottawa.
