Hansard Transcript 1988-Oct-27 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Bill 156 calls for a minimum wage in Ontario based on 65 per cent of the previous year’s industrial average wage for Ontario, Statscan figures. The bill would set a direction for Ontario and would assume the leadership we should be showing in terms of workers and social legislation in this province. It could also give some real meaning to income redistribution or fairness for our people and provide a clear indication that the income and allowances needs so clearly pointed out in the recent study by Judge Thomson will be taken seriously in Ontario.

In my remarks, I will deal with a number of the issues surrounding the need for a decent minimum wage in this province. I hope to reserve a couple of minutes of my time for summation.

As caucus Labour critic for my party and as an elected member from a working-class riding, I hear a lot about the problems facing ordinary working people, men and women. Before I was elected to this place, I spent many years as a trade union organizer and was privileged to work on a day-to-day basis not only in Ontario but also across this country of ours, helping working people to organize and to deal with some of their everyday problems in a collective way at the workplace. I think I understand the problems and I think I understand some of the frustrations that working people face on a day-to-day basis.

My work at the Legislature, the full time I have been here, has been dedicated to trying to find solutions -- not just patchwork or Band-Aid solutions -- for those problems that let people get on with their lives in dignity and according to their hopes and desires. That is why I am proud to tell the members of this House why we need a better decent minimum wage. Let me tell you what I mean.

I have here an article from the Sault Star about the efforts of Genosio Paciocco to make governments aware of the plight of the working poor. Mr. Paciocco says in the article, “I have been working for the same company for 12 years now and still I am paid minimum wage.” Asked about the recent increase in the minimum wage, the last increase of 20 cents an hour, he said, “It is a mere slap in the face.”

He wrote to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) and, on September 6 this year, the minister replied. In that letter the minister says, “Raising the minimum wage in a substantial way may not necessarily be the most effective method of improving the income of the working poor.”

Earlier this year, on August 15, the minister told Mr. Paciocco in another letter: “Unfortunately, the problem of poverty is too complex to be solved simply by increasing the minimum wage. The government of Ontario believes that the problem of poverty must be attacked at the root by providing low-wage workers with the education, training and economic opportunities they need.”

I submit that that sort of condescending paternalism is something we are accustomed to hearing from this minister, as we were from some of the previous Labour ministers. Genosio Paciocco does not need homilies about his employability. He needs a decent wage, and the minister is doing nothing about it. Right now, the minimum wage in Ontario is $4.75 an hour. If you figure it out, that is $192 a week or $9,880 a year, less than $10,000 a year. Frankly, I suspect that is less than many members of this Legislature are paying in income tax.

The National Council of Welfare circulates what it calls a low-income line each year. Most of us call it the poverty level in the province. This year, a family of four, living in a metropolitan area, needs $23,521 to be above that line. if we have two minimum-wage incomes -- and I can tell members, as most of them, I am sure, will attest to, that there are many -- they will earn 84 per cent of the poverty level. Things are obviously more desperate if there are not two income earners in the family or if one of the people is only working part-time.

I would like to have time -- and I do not; I can see it on the time that is going now -- to read the article of David Thornley of the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto, where he deals with just what minimum wage means and the number of people involved, but there are a couple of things I think that are worth saying. He goes into some of the arguments against minimum wage and then says:

“This argument ignores several salient characteristics of low-income households in Canada, namely: (1) households with heads under 25, both families and single persons, are twice as likely to be poor as those headed by someone between the ages of 25 and 44; (2) for families with one income earner, the risk of poverty is more than three times as great as for families with two or more earners; (3) female-headed families are nearly five times more likely to be living in poverty than are male-headed families, and (4) for families supported by a head working part-time, the risk of poverty is five times as great as for families where the head works full-time.”

Here we have today two minimum-wage income earners who would be earning only 84 per cent of what is considered the poverty level in a metropolitan area. Since 1975, according to the Thomson report on social assistance, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has declined by 22 per cent. This means that people like Mr. Paciocco, whom I referred to a moment ago, are much worse off now than when I was first elected to this place in that same year of 1975. That, I say to members, is a disgrace, and we should all consider it a disgrace.

Now it is true that the minimum wage has been maintained at the rate of inflation for the last few years. Unfortunately, this seems to be the key argument of the Minister of Labour. It is an argument of a self-satisfied minister and a self-satisfied majority government. All this government has really done is keep the people in the desperate position that its Tory predecessors allowed them to slide into, and it has not improved that position one iota. They have not improved their purchasing power. They have done nothing to get them off the treadmill.

I recommend to all members of this House that they read George Thomson’s report, as most of the members in my caucus are doing, the report and what it has to say about poverty and the minimum wage. Among other things, it says, “In relation to the average industrial wage, minimum wage has declined steadily in recent years.” In other words, we are creating even more of a group of poor people in this province of ours. “Between 1975 and 1985, it dropped from 47 per cent of the average industrial wage to 38 per cent.” That is to be found on page 289 of Mr. Thomson’s report.

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In 1975, the minimum wage provided income to a two-earner, four-person family that was 106 per cent of -- in other words, just a little bit more than -- the poverty line. As I have just said, it now provides 84 per cent of the poverty line. Once again, we have gone backwards, not forwards.

Thomson has some other interesting things to say about the minimum wage, and one of them is particularly relevant to the comments the Minister of Labour has made recently. Thomson notes as follows, and I will give his direct quote:

“The low value of the minimum wage has had particularly harmful consequences for two groups in particular: women and young people. A recent report of the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto cites Statistics Canada figures that are generally supported by previous surveys undertaken by the Ontario Ministry of Labour. As of December 1984, 62 per cent of minimum-wage workers were women and 60 per cent were under the age of 25.

“Some people will argue that income supplementation is not the best way to help the working poor. They are concerned that such a program would further exacerbate the disparity between the minimum wage and actual living costs, and that it would enable employers to abdicate their responsibility to pay a fair and reasonable wage.... Those who share this view are concerned that income supplementation will serve, in effect, to subsidize employers, not employees; they believe the preferred method of helping the working poor is to significantly increase the minimum wage.

“On the other hand, many people would strenuously oppose any move to increase the minimum wage substantially. They are concerned about a negative impact on overall employment.”

Judge Thomson concludes: “Although a large body of empirical research exists, the evidence of job losses resulting from increased minimum wages is inconclusive.”

If I had time, I would cite a study or questionnaire that was sent out by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business which showed almost the same thing back in 1964, although members will find the arguments on exactly the opposite side of the fence.

This is particularly interesting to me, because in yet a third letter to Mr. Paciocco, the Minister of Labour wrote, on the day of the Thomson report’s release, saying, “Study after study explains that the minimum wage is not an effective means of redistributing income.” I do not know where the Minister of Labour got those figures. They did not agree with what Judge Thomson said the very day he issued the report.

This is an old, pro-business argument. It is an argument that in different forms has been used to argue against the minimum wage, equal pay for work of equal value, equal pay, occupational health and safety laws and even, if we go back a bit, medicare and pensions and many other of the social benefits we have won. Almost anything you can think of that increases the rights and benefits of working people has been opposed as in opposition to the views or the needs and benefits of capital in this province.

We are proud to quote one of the captains of modem capitalism, Henry Ford, who called that argument bunk at the time he brought in the big wage increase in the Ford plants. It goes as follows: If you raise minimum wage rates, then all of the other costs facing people at the low end of the economic spectrum go up as employers pass on their costs. In addition, some marginal employers will be forced out of business by such an increase and such workers will bear the brunt of these job losses.

The minister is convinced, even though Judge Thomson’s review committee, which took more than a year and almost $3 million to look into poverty-related issues, said the evidence is clearly inconclusive. Let me quote once more from the Thomson report, because I think it reveals a lot about the Minister of Labour and his attitudes and orientations. Having said that empirical research is inconclusive, the report continues:

“But even though the research is inconclusive, the business community is convinced that job losses result from increased minimum wages. This argument is advanced, in particular, by advocates of small business like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.” Members can look on page 290 of the report to see that. This tells me a lot about whom the minister and his government are listening to, and it sure is not the poor people in Ontario.

Here are a few other examples of what ordinary Ontarians working at the minimum wage have to say, some of the witnesses before the Thomson commission. A recipient said: “Manpower refuses to send me to any job under $8 per hour because they say a family of six cannot live under it. I have had employers tell me the same thing.”

The Ontario Association of Professional Social Workers said: “Many working women, particularly those attempting to get off social assistance, are paid minimum wage. As one mother expressed it, ‘To receive $4.35 per hour to work and to pay $4 per hour for babysitting for two children is hopeless.’”

An anonymous witness said: “Even though I’m working, I’m making less than if I’d be on mother’s allowance, which is very discouraging to me. I’m trying to raise four teenagers on a very small budget and I feel I’m sinking lower and lower all the time.”

That is on page 291 of the Thomson report.

I want to speak for just a few minutes about Bill 156 and what it would do. The first important thing it would do is increase the minimum wage. Second, it would create a permanent relationship between the minimum wage and the average industrial wage in this province, so that the wages of our lowest-paid workers are no longer a matter of whim or paternalistic beneficence on the part of the minister of the day.

It does these things by proposing to set the minimum wage at 65 per cent of the average industrial wage for Ontario during the previous year. It excludes overtime pay but recognizes that under Ontario labour law the first 44 hours worked in a week are payable at base rates. That figure, calculated on the basis of Statscan figures for September of this year, would result in a wage rate of $6.94 an hour. That is $278 a week or $14,435 a year. That would give a two-income family of four, the example I used before, 123 per cent of the poverty line in a Canadian metropolitan centre.

Let’s be clear. That is hardly a luxury in relation to where those folks were a dozen years ago. It is not a hell of a lot, but it is a basis for some hope, I believe, and it is a basis on which self-reliance of ordinary working people can build. I think all of us agree the real answer is not the variety of welfare programs we have, but work for people at decent wages.

Last year when I asked, via Orders and Notices, for information from the Minister of Labour on those in receipt of the minimum wage in the province of Ontario -- I will not re-read my question; I was going to -- I got back an answer. A couple of things are interesting about the information I received in reply from the ministry.

First, most of this material was produced by Statscan. We do not seem to have a handle on it here in Ontario.

Second, the Ministry of Labour data that were included contained data from 1979, which I guess is the last time there were extensive data and the ministry staff had a burning interest in this particular issue.

Third and most important, things have got much worse in the 1980s and remain worse despite all the efforts and all the public relations work that this government has done. Let me explain. In 1981, 6.5 per cent of Ontario’s paid workers earned the minimum wage. Of those people, the paid workers, who numbered about 125,000, 59 per cent were women; fully 55 per cent of the full-time workers at minimum wage were women.

In 1984, after the recovery from the great recession was well under way, what had happened? Of Ontario’s paid workers, 9.4 per cent are at the minimum wage, an increase in proportion of almost 50 per cent. Of course, it was a bigger economy in 1984 than in 1981, so we are talking about a total of 358,000 workers at the minimum wage.

Of that number, in 1984, 63 per cent of the full-time wage earners were women. In other words, in three years the proportion of the paid labour force earning the minimum wage increased by almost 50 per cent. Because the labour force has grown in the interim, the number of minimum-wage workers increased by 186 per cent and the share of the full-time minimum-wage workers accounted for by women increased by eight percentage points.

It is worth noting as well that this is what the minister provided when I asked for the most complete information to which he has access –- 1984 data from Statistics Canada -- and it does not impress me very much in terms of our being on top of the particular issue.

Let me finish, if I can, with one of the letters I got from Genosio Paciocco. It is a letter I know he sent to all the Liberal members of this House. For reasons he explains -- and I will not be partisan enough to put them down -- he did not send it to the Tory members, although I think he should have. He sent me one too. It is a form letter. He said:

“Bob Mackenzie recently brought in a bill, Bill 156, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act, which said, ‘The minimum hourly wage established under this act shall not be less than 65 per cent of the number obtained by dividing the industrial aggregate average weekly earnings (excluding overtime) for Ontario for the previous year, as published by Statistics Canada, by 44.”

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Just remember what the Bible said in Proverbs 21:13: “Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.” I could not end the comments in this Legislature any better than that particular remark from Genosio Paciocco.

We have an inadequate minimum wage in this province. We are going further behind. It is a disgrace to a province, which is Ontario. The scare stories will not work. The truth of the matter is that we give people some dignity. We have a much larger purchasing base which will offset some of the shortcomings we may have, and nobody in this party, certainly, would be against looking at ways and means of some phase-in or, in smaller communities, a temporary tax assistance for small business. All those things can be looked at, but this kind of direction has got to be taken, and has got to be taken soon, or we have no credibility in Ontario.

Mr. McLean: I am very pleased to have the opportunity of participating in the debate on this private member’s bill, Bill 156, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act. Debate provides an excellent opportunity for the interchange of ideas, and I feel that this one has particular significance for those Ontario residents who are moderate-income earners.

Bill 156 seeks to establish a minimum wage which cannot be less than 65 per cent of the previous year’s industrial aggregate average wage for Ontario, as published by Statistics Canada.

Ontario’s minimum wage is currently $4.75 per hour, based on the available Statistics Canada data for 1987. The formula spelled out in Bill 156 says this wage level would be increased to something in the order of $6.74 per hour under the proposed legislation, an increase of some 41 per cent.

Each province in Canada established its own minimum wage level, and not always for the same reason. While some provinces seek to curb poverty among the working poor, others attempt to prevent unfair low-wage competition. Many attempt to prevent the exploitation of the unorganized nonunion sectors of workers. While the rationale behind minimum wages is very commendable, I caution members that the actual impact of wage legislation often differs from its intended impact, producing many unintended side-effects.

Minimum-wage legislation is social legislation and it is all too often used as a quick-fix solution to a very serious problem in the marketplace. Competitive economic theory predicts that, in the long run, an increase in minimum wage levels will actually harm the employees it was designed to help through an adverse employment effect; that is, employment will be reduced relative to what it would have been in the absence of the minimum-wage increase. Firms will substitute other, relatively cheaper input for higher-priced labour. As well, output will decline due to decreased demand, a direct result of higher cost.

The magnitude of the adverse employment effect depends on the shape of the demand curve for labour. If demand for labour is high, the effect is small. Such might be the case for skilled tradesmen such as carpenters or electricians. These sectors, however, are not the ones most likely to be affected by minimum-wage legislation. Low-wage industries such as tourism and recreation, textiles and retail trade will be the ones where adverse effects are greatest. The demand for labour is low and will be decreased even further in the long run as firms substitute inputs and consumers look for cheaper substitutes.

Coming from a region in the province which relies upon tourism, I can tell members that labour accounts for a large portion of total cost in this industry, and competition is already fierce. Employers will not be able to observe the wage increases. Workers will be made to suffer, particularly the unskilled who are most vulnerable. Younger workers and women who need employment, even at low wages, as a means to acquire on-the-job training and labour market experience in order to move on to higher-paying jobs, will be most affected.

The benefits of wage increases to some workers must be weighed against the cost to reduce employment opportunities to others. The minimum-wage theory works well if all workers have the same levels of skills and productivity. However, this is not the case, and that is where the proposed legislation, I believe, is flawed.

The labour market in Ontario is composed of numerous submarkets for labour of different types, each with its own demand-and-supply curves. Skilled workers have a higher demand curve due to their higher productivity. Minimum-wage legislation has proved to be a useful policy tool in certain key industries, such as the hospitality trade. Here, it has been used to subsidize the earnings of workers who would otherwise rely solely upon tips and gratuities as income.

The wage which equates supply and demand for labour will be greater for the skilled than the unskilled worker. Establishing a minimum wage of approximately $6.74 per hour for skilled workers will have little, if any, effect, because this wage level is lower than the average wage for the industry. Establishing a new minimum wage of approximately $6.74 per hour in the unskilled sectors of the labour market will harm the very workers targeted for assistance, because this wage level will be greater than the industry average.

Two things will happen. Employers will be forced to lay off workers they could have hired at a lower wage level. As well, other workers will be attracted by the above-average wage offering. Supply of labour will greatly exceed demand and the employers will find themselves in a situation where they are able to pick and choose among the most desirable workers where they are in an excessive supply of demand. Employers will naturally single out the most productive workers in the unskilled labour pool.

It is true that these workers who retain their jobs will be better off with the higher wage. However, no recognition is given to those unskilled workers who will lose their jobs when the surplus labour, the least skilled, least productive and least desirable workers in the eyes of the employer, are left out in the cold by Bill 156. These are the very individuals our party is seeking to help and whose interest will not be overlooked.

Supporters of Bill 156 argue that factors exist which might offset the adverse employment effect. They argue that an increase in demand for a product or an increase in the price of substitute products will spur the demand for labour and thus cancel the negative side-effects of this legislation.

However, it is wrong to legislate on expected events. Proponents of Bill 156 argue that employers could utilize cost-saving measures and thereby reduce the need to lay off workers. However, industries such as tourism and recreation have already exhausted all possible efficiencies as a result of extremely high competition in the marketplace. Others argue that employers will be able to absorb wage increases without reducing employment. However, the employers most likely to be affected by Bill 156 are those operating with tight profit margins in a low-wage industry.

Farm workers hired during the harvest season are but a typical example. Produce prices dictate the wage pool, over which a farmer has no control. Driving up the price of seasonal help will force the farmer to cut back on the number of employees he or she hires. I want to elaborate on that, because I own a farm and I have hired summer help at the minimum wage in order to give young children an opportunity to paint a fence or to clean up, just something for them to do. If a minimum wage is not what the farmer can afford to pay, then those people will not get a job.

The same choices will face companies seeking to hire summer students. Numerous studies have been documented that clearly show a substantial adverse employment effect upon teenagers, the residents of this province who want and need valuable work experience. As legislators, we must not discourage these individuals in their formative years.

I urge the members to show appreciation for the harmful side-effects which will result when Bill 156 is made law. Its insensitivity to the levels of supply and demand for labour in each sector of the Ontario economy -- and we cannot ignore the specific needs of each region -- cannot be tolerated. The negative impacts of this proposed legislation will fall, unfortunately, upon unskilled workers, who are most in need of work experience. The strength of Ontario lies in its workers and we cannot enact legislation which ignores the fundamental principle.

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I recall the member who has introduced this bill speaking about $8 an hour. I believe that for anybody who has his own apartment and has to keep his own family, $8 an hour is certainly hard to live on. We on the farm have paid $10 an hour to get summer help -- good help, that is.

The problem I see with this legislation is that in the tourist industry, where one relies on tips and gratuities, there has to be a minimum wage that would be acceptable to that industry. I am well aware of the situation. I have many people who come into my constituency office who are making $5 or $5.75 per hour, which is unacceptable, as far as I am concerned, if somebody has to make a living.

I think what we have got to be doing is educating our industry and saying, “Look, in order to get good help, you’ve got to pay a decent wage.” But I have a problem when we start changing the minimum wage, which may not help those people who really need it, such as those young people I was talking about who nee that summer job, who need a part-time job. I think we have to start there, and I thank members for the opportunity to speak on this private member’s bill.

Mrs. Sullivan: I am pleased that the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) has put forward this bill, Bill 156, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act. There is substance to the bill, and a debate of substance will be a relief after the tactical debates we have been occupied with for the past several days.

I do not concur with the specifics of the member’s recommendations, but I do appreciate that this bill provides an opportunity to review the minimum wage, which impacts on thousands of people in the province.

Women, as you know, Mr. Speaker, have a particular interest in minimum-wage laws. If we can walk back a moment in history, we know that the first minimum wages, in New Zealand, Australia, Western Europe and then finally Canada, applied only to women and children, most of whom were employed in sweat work in unconscionable conditions for salaries that barely provided bread for the table.

Less than 70 years ago, and in many of our parents’ memories, indeed in many of their work experiences, Ontario issued its first minimum-wage order. That order specified that no experienced female over 18 years was to be paid less than $12 a week; inexperienced and younger women were subject to a lesser income formula.

The first minimum-wage orders were industry-specific: laundries, restaurants, hotels and certain jobs in manufacturing. Frankly, when we look at where our minimum-wage earners are today, we see that similar occupations head the list.

In a quite singular reversal of women’s employment equality trends, the move to cover the male gender under minimum-wage laws moved slowly. In Ontario, it was not until the 1960s that men were finally included in minimum-wage legislation.

Let’s took, as the member opposite has, at who receives the minimum wage today. In 1984 a Statistics Canada survey estimated that 62 per cent of general minimum-wage earners were women and 60 per cent were under 25. More than 40 per cent worked full-time and more than 20 per cent were the sole income earners in their family. For the most part, they work in the food and accommodation industries, in the retail trade and in the personal services sector. There has not been much change since the First World War in where these people are employed.

Last year the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto released another study of minimum-wage earners. It reported that fully 15 per cent of Ontario workers, including full-time and part-time workers, students, who can often, but not always, depend on their parents and families as well, and sole-income family heads earn the minimum wage. Judge Thomson’s data, to which the member from Hamilton East has referred, underline the characteristics of the minimum-wage earner. They form a significant part of Ontario’s working poor and their circumstances are distressing to all of us.

The question becomes one of how we tackle the issue, how we as legislators can stop being tolerant of poverty in our midst and what actions we can take not only to minimize poverty but to lead to its elimination.

The member has a proposal that is contained in Bill 156. The bill is remarkably similar in intent to one put forward in 1977 by Stephen Lewis when he was leader of the New Democratic Party and Leader of the Opposition. Mr. Lewis’s bill called for a 51 per cent increase in the minimum wage, and the bill of the member for Hamilton East, when the calculations are done, calls for the same thing.

So that members will fully understand the implications of the bill, I would like to review these calculations. The member has proposed that the minimum wage be indexed to 65 per cent of the average industrial wage. Today in Ontario the average industrial wage is $484.15. Based on a 44-hour work week, this would translate to an average hourly wage of $11. The bill proposes that the minimum wage be pegged at 65 per cent of the average industrial wage or $7.15 an hour.

I would like to go back to when Mr. Lewis proposed his bill in 1977. At that time, the minimum wage in Ontario was $2.65 an hour, lower than in any other jurisdiction in Canada except Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. The government of the day was quite satisfied with holding to that low rung of the pay ladder. Today, bolder steps in the climb up have been taken. Ontario’s minimum wage has been increased to $4.75 an hour and the government has committed to review that every year. The last increase in the minimum wage places Ontario, along with Quebec, with a minimum wage that is the highest of any province in Canada and one of the highest in North America. Those steps were necessary, proper, timely and fair.

The member believes that a larger stride in minimum wage is the answer to the basic problem of having people who work but who are poor. I admire his intent, but I disagree with his strategy. The member is well meaning, but his approach could lead those who are least able to protect themselves into economic oblivion, and this is the ground on which I must disagree with my colleague opposite.

The government is now reviewing the eloquent report of Judge Thomson and is looking at that report as a whole piece. I should remind the member opposite that it is not just the Canadian Federation of Independent Business which has concerns about raising the minimum wage to the extent he has put forward. The social planning council’s report, which I spoke about a moment ago, talked of some of the jeopardy associated with precipitate moves in minimum-wage legislation.

I would like to quote from that report. It says, “Given the concentration of minimum-wage occupations in particular industries, any decision to substantially improve the adequacy of the minimum wage would have to be developed in conjunction with other programs to reduce the impact of such changes in terms of productivity and employment in these industries.”

The Macdonald commission also cited research which suggested that a 10 per cent increase in the minimum wage would result in at least a 0.2 per cent rise in unemployment. I remind the House that the member is calling for a 51 per cent increase in the minimum wage. Based on conclusions from these well-considered studies, in the current economy that means a one per cent increase in unemployment, a loss of 50,000 jobs in Ontario and, once again, women and young people would be disproportionately affected. In a less vibrant economy than we are experiencing today, the effect would be even more devastating and it would be the poor who would be most affected.

It is not only studies that provide the evidence. There are other jurisdictions that have made the experiment the member is calling for and their experience must give us pause. France in the early 1980s comes to mind. In France, between 1981 and 1982, the minimum wage was increased by 29 per cent. This bill calls for an increase of 51 per cent. The evidence shows that business stopped hiring workers, unemployment increased and, as a consequence, the government was forced to introduce tax cuts for business to stimulate hiring. That proved to be such a failure that the government finally had to abandon the experiment.

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Along with my colleagues on this side of the House, I believe we should be fighting the root causes of poverty in our workforce. Improving skills, expanding training opportunities and enabling our workers to participate in a changing economic and industrial environment are priorities which are vital and which are sound economically. That is why we are pursuing them with vigour and determination. The minimum wage must continue to provide a wage floor so that people who are unorganized, unskilled and disadvantaged will not be exploited. The minimum wage is one element of reducing poverty in our workforce, but it is not the only one.

I admire the intent of the bill, but because I do not believe it will work, I regret that I cannot support it.

Mr. Morin-Strom: I am very pleased to be able to speak on this bill from my good colleague the member for Hamilton East, a member who over the years has stood out in this Legislature for his work on behalf of the workers of Ontario, a member who has been willing to take stands that are controversial at times and that the other parties in particular would have nothing to do with, stands that are in the long-run, best interests of our province, of the workers of this province, and certainly in this case, of the working poor of Ontario.

We face a situation in Ontario where the working poor and poverty in general is a growing problem affecting a greater and greater portion of our society. We have a situation where we have an issue that is a controversial issue in terms of the business community, but not a controversial one in terms of people on the street. People know that wages, in terms of those at the bottom end of work opportunities in our society, are heavily impacted by the level of the minimum wage. There is no single initiative that could do more to improve the standard of living of those people than to take action on the minimum wage.

This is an issue where the business sector should be taking responsible action on its own, but in fact, over the years, it has not and we see a growing gap between what average industrial workers are making and what people are making in many of the service sectors, in smaller businesses and in the kinds of work that major corporations have been contracting out to small operations. Those businesses have been taking advantage of people with lower skills and lack of experience, young people, and particularly women in the workforce, and paying what are really unconscionable levels of income, levels which do not even allow families to live at a level we view as a minimum, meagre poverty level in our society today.

We have in this Bill 156 an opportunity to move towards a fair level of income, a minimum wage which has been set in the bill at 65 per cent of the average industrial wage. That is certainly not an unrealistic target, one that has been achievable in other major industrial democracies of the western world, and a target that has been achieved with much lower levels of unemployment than we have here in Canada today. We have a situation that I would compare with, let’s say, a look at Sweden. I was in Sweden just over a year ago and talked with top economists in that country about what is happening in the economy, about the levels of unemployment there and what type of minimum wage they have in Sweden.

In Sweden today, they have a society which is far fairer than ours in terms of wage levels, one in which everyone is given the opportunity to raise his family at a decent level of income. They have, effectively, a minimum wage that is approximately 70 per cent of the average industrial wage in Sweden today. They have managed to do that without the kind of economic scares we get from the Conservatives and from their business friends in the Liberal Party about the disastrous scenario of lost jobs and disastrous consequences for the working poor. They have an unemployment rate in Sweden today of 1.7 per cent, the second lowest in the western world today. The only one that is lower is Norway’s, where there is a Social Democratic government as well and a similar policy of fair and equitable wages for everyone in their society.

The consequences of a move towards this kind of wage level surely has some impact in terms of redistributing the types of jobs that are available, but how do companies adjust to that? They adjust by ensuring that the jobs that are there are good jobs and that the workers there are trained and skilled. Those countries have programs in place to ensure that people have the skills that are needed in the workforce. Everyone is doing productive work and producing much higher value products than we typically are.

They have much less emphasis on the low-wage service sector than we have, but they still have their McDonald’s restaurants. McDonald’s in Sweden can pay a decent wage and still manage to sell hamburgers on the streets. Why do we have to have one of the most wealthy corporations in North America here in Canada paying a wage that is unconscionable and totally inadequate to support any type of family? As a consequence, we see only youth working in McDonald’s. There are very few people trying to support a family in that type of operation, at a corporation that is very successful, very wealthy and could pay those kinds of wages.

That same thing applies to other restaurants, other areas of the service sector and other small businesses in Sweden as well. They know that if they are going to be in business, they have to pay a fair and decent wage.

As a government, we can stipulate what the rules for the operation of business are going to be and people have to follow them. Sure, if one company or one small business today had to increase its wages considerably, it would be put at a tremendous economic disadvantage compared to its competitors. We are not asking for a disadvantage for one of them. We are asking that everyone in that competitive marketplace pay a fair and decent wage.

That does not change the competitive balance between those businesses. What will they have to do? Well, perhaps they may have to increase the prices of their hamburgers a few cents, but the people who can afford to go and buy their meals outside of their homes and go into a restaurant or buy other services, those who are making decent levels of income, should surely be able to pay a few cents additional for the products they buy in order to ensure that those people who are providing the service and delivering those products are able to have a decent standard of living themselves.

I find it quite disturbing that this government has twisted and distorted this particular issue. I would like to quote, in particular, a comment in response to a letter from one of my constituents, Genosio Paciocco, to whom the member for Hamilton East referred several times and who has done tremendous work on this issue. He wrote to the Liberal members and in particular got a response from the Minister of Labour. The Minister of Labour, in his excuse for not taking any action on bringing the minimum wage to a decent level, stated that study after study explains that the minimum wage is not an effective means of redistributing income.

What a totally irresponsible statement by the Minister of Labour, coming out on exactly the same day that we had the issuing of the report of the Social Assistance Review Committee, chaired by Judge Thomson, the most comprehensive, most expensive study ever done by the province of Ontario on the issue of poverty. It was issued on the same day as that statement by the minister. Right in the Thomson report itself, we get the contradictory evidence; in fact, this major study endorses a major increase in the minimum wage in Ontario.

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I read from this study: “To compound the problem” -- of the working poor – “the purchasing power of the minimum wage has decreased by 22 per cent since 1975.” He goes on: “A program of income supplementation is not a substitute for a fair minimum-wage policy. On the contrary, the two are contradictory. The introduction of income supplementation must be accompanied by an increase in the minimum wage.”

The Thomson study is calling for a major increase in the minimum wage. We think it should be one related to the average industrial wage that is paid in this province. We think that as a society we can afford to do that. We believe we owe that to the people of this province.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I had not intended to speak on this resolution. The member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) was slated to speak, but he is tied up on House leaders’ business due to the unforeseen circumstances that happened in the House in the last few days. However, I would like to make a few comments. I certainly concur with the member for Hamilton East in his contention that the minimum wage is very low. Anyone would accept that proposition. It is extremely difficult to understand how anyone could possibly live on those wages.

I do feel that we have to take into consideration some type of a system to make sure that people are not caught at a minimum wage level for many years, as the member has brought to our attention. It is an acceptable level for training inexperienced people as a beginning. It is maybe not too bad for young people who are getting into a trade or something of this nature. But it certainly should not be something that someone has to live with for 10, 20 or 30 years.

However, I would like to take the other side of the coin, as well. I have had over 30 years’ experience in a small business, in the retail sector. I know that it would be next to impossible for the many hundreds of thousands of small businesses that we have in this province to pay the type of minimum wage that members suggest.

Just by way of a personal experience, I had the opportunity yesterday, when I was visiting Welland, to drop in and meet Tony the tailor, Tony has been in business for 25 or 26 years. He brings his lunch to his place of business because he cannot afford to hire someone to help him in his place of business. He cannot afford the minimum wage as it is today because there is not enough profit in the business he is in. There are many retail operations in this province that are suffering the same problem. There are not the big dollars out there that people think there are.

The member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Morin-Strom) made the comment that you simply increase the price a few cents. You cannot pay $8 or $10 an hour on a few cents, so you have to increase it by a few dollars. Then you lose business. In a very short time, that business is out of business. That is the type of problem that many of our small retail businesses would face. If the member for Sault Ste. Marie does not believe that, he should drop in and visit a few of them. There are hundreds of them in the downtown sector of Toronto that are barely existing, and many in the rural parts of this province.

I might also say, as I come from a riding that is basically rural, that there are many of our farmers who are barely existing now. They are financially in trouble. To suggest to them that it would only make a few dollars’ difference if they paid extra to the help that they need -- they cannot afford to pay what they are paying now. They cannot pay anything more. They have financial problems themselves. Many of them are not making the minimum wage. Many of them are losing money. In a matter of years, many of them will not be there. To sit in this assembly and suggest that they spend more money just does not make sense.

I feel it is a difficult problem, one we should work on. We should constantly strive to increase the minimum wage, to increase assistance to the working poor.

At the same time, we have to consider the fact that many people of the likes of my friend Tony the tailor are not receiving any assistance. He mentioned to me the fact that in 26 or 27 years in business, he has never received a single cent of support from any level of government, and he does not look forward through the next three years to receiving very much from this Liberal administration. He was very doubtful how he was going to vote until I convinced him that there is a better way.

I think I will leave it at that and let the Liberal government answer this very important issue that my good friend the member for Hamilton East has raised.

Mr. Kozyra: I am pleased to rise and take part in this debate because I am concerned with the question of poverty in our society of plenty, as are all of my colleagues on this side of the House.

Mr. Dietsch: And over here.

Mr. Kozyra: And over there, lest we forget.

But I am disturbed by those persons who claim to offer a simple fix-all solution with no regard for the consequences of their actions. There are few better examples of this kind of thinking than the bill we are now debating.

It is worth noting that last year in the United States, Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative Augustus Hawkins cosponsored a bill which sought to index the US federal minimum wage at a rate of 50 per cent -- not the 65 per cent being proposed here today, but 50 per cent relative to the average industrial wage. This proposal could not even get the support of Democrats and had to be dropped early in the debate. The US Congress has not only rejected indexation, but the Kennedy-Hawkins bill in total has been withdrawn from the agenda. The result is that the US minimum wage will remain at US$3.35 for at least the near future.

If we look at our main competitors, specifically the US border states, we find that most of them maintain a minimum wage of US$3.35 or about $4.08 in Canadian funds. Ohio, which is a major industrial state not too distant from Ontario, has a minimum wage rate of $2.30 or about $2.80 Canadian. Generally speaking, Ontario’s minimum wage of $4.75 an hour is about 15 per cent higher than that found in the nearby US border states. Our minimum wage is, with Quebec’s, the highest of any province in Canada. Our commitment to an annual review has in fact restored the minimum wage to a level, relative to the average industrial wage, which we have not seen since 1981.

We may not want to make too great an issue out of these differences, but at the same time we cannot ignore them. These are real differences we must consider in developing Ontario’s minimum-wage policy.

At the heart of this bill is a very well-intended objective. The honourable member who introduced this bill genuinely believes his bill will go a long way towards solving the problem of poverty in Ontario. That is indeed a very noble objective and no one on this side of the House stands in opposition to that goal. However, I do believe that while the intent is well meaning, the method proposed could have serious negative effects on the very people it seeks to help. The honourable member opposite must know and understand that addressing the problems of the working poor requires a comprehensive strategy that deals with the question of poverty in its economic and social breadth.

The recent Thomson report, which reviewed the social assistance system and the broader question of income distribution, contains significant recommendations that the government is committed to review. One such proposal contained in the report, a proposal members can be assured we are analysing in every detail, is that dealing with the income supplement for low-wage earners. This supplement would equal $150 per month per person or $300 per month for a couple, providing both of these people are working full-time or part-time at the proposed minimum wage of $5.86 per hour. The income supplement would continue to be paid until an employment income of $945 per month is achieved. At this point, the supplement would be gradually reduced until an income of $1,245 per month was achieved.

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I want to draw the honourable member’s attention to the fact that this report recognizes that the minimum wage itself is but one factor in the equation and is not, should not and, indeed, cannot be the sole instrument, otherwise the employment effects may be significant. More accurately, there would be disemployment effects. Virtually every economist agrees that such substantial increases as being proposed will cost some of the working poor their jobs.

Who would be the people most affected by a dramatic increase in the minimum wage, such as is being proposed today? It will be the young people, young people with little work experience, young people who require on-the-job training before they can move on to command a more effective wage.

The Deputy Speaker: The member’s time is up. I am sorry.

Mr. Mackenzie: As much as I only have a minute and 10 seconds, I will just say, first, with regard to the response from my Tory colleagues, when the member for Simcoe East (Mr. McLean) said that the minimum wage had to be acceptable to the industry involved, he said it all and, as far as I am concerned, has destroyed his position in terms of fighting for people because I have never seen industry yet promote increased minimum wages.

I am surprised at the member for Halton Centre (Ms. Oddie Munro) and more than a little disturbed. Her arguments, and I wish she would go back to some of the previous debates, are almost right out of the Fraser Institute and are the same kind of pro-business arguments we have had on this particular issue since I have been in this Legislature. Her party has been the government now for three years and we have gone backwards, not forwards, in terms of the purchasing power of the minimum wage. We have gone backwards, not forwards, in terms of the percentage of the poverty level these people are at. If we really believe that work at a decent wage, and that has to be part of the equation, is the answer and not the welfare system, then what is the government going to do about it? It has done nothing up until now. I have to say that the answers do not give me much hope even in terms of Judge Thomson’s comments, which were pretty direct in wanting $6, although phased in, as the minimum wage. I do not have any confidence the government will even go that way considering the remarks I have heard from the member for Halton Centre. It is going to be interesting.

GARBAGE RECYCLING PROGRAMS ACT

Mrs. Marland moved second reading of Bill 89, An Act requiring municipalities to establish Programs for the Recycling of Garbage.

The Deputy Speaker: The honourable member has up to 20 minutes to make her presentation, of which she may reserve any portion of it for the windup.

Mrs. Marland: I do indeed count it a real privilege to stand in this House today and present my Bill 89 for second reading. I think that the most exciting part of presenting this bill in the Legislature today is the fact that I know it will have to be unanimously supported by all three parties because it is the direction of the future in terms of waste management.

The purpose of the bill is to require all municipalities to establish and implement programs for the separation at source and recycling of garbage. These programs would be similar to those which we have now had for three years in the city of Mississauga, which involve the education of the public in what the program actually involves and the direction on the use of receptacles and why we should all be interested in recycling.

The most serious part of recycling, of course, is to reduce the volumes of garbage that have to be treated either through landfill or other forms of disposal, but one of the spinoffs we have talked about in my municipality is that the more we recycle, the more we reduce the cost, through our property taxes, of the treatment of garbage and waste.

It is encouraging to know that every day in this Legislature we hear the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) talk about the need to expand the blue box program. The minister says it both in this House and elsewhere. At this point I want to quote from a speech he made only a few days ago. The minister was speaking to the Recycling Council of Ontario, at their annual conference on October 24, 1988. The minister said:

“It is waste, and a waste disposal problem, only when we miss the point that garbage is in fact a valuable resource.

“This lack of understanding is coming back to haunt us with a vengeance. Overflowing landfills. Contaminated groundwaters. Incinerator-generated air pollution. And all in the cause of using limited resources once, and then throwing them out!”

This is a constructive bill which is designed to help municipalities get involved. We must look at the issue of recycling as a province-wide need.

I would like to tell members that in the city of Mississauga, our Laidlaw garbage trucks have a very significant sign on the side of them. The sign says, “We are partners in recycling.”

Some municipalities may worry about being too small to have a recycling program. The point is that, as with other areas of jurisdiction, small municipalities can get together with others.

I could give an example that is existing today in the United States. Apparently in Hamburg, which has a population of 10,500 people and is in New York state, near Buffalo, they began recycling in 1981 in an effort to save money. They saved only US$600 in the first year because of startup costs and because the paper market was worth “diddley,” as the Hamburg public works director, Gerald Knowles, said. But four years later, by 1985, they were saving $30,000 a year, partly because of the dumping fees they no longer had to pay to garbage-collecting companies. So obviously the size of the municipality is not a problem.

The minister, in another one of his speeches, indicated: “The province generates enough municipal garbage to fill trucks stretching from Windsor to Whitehorse. Add the commercial and light industrial waste going to our landfill sites and incinerators and the lineup doubles to occupy both sides of the road.” He continued, saying, “Through recycling we will eliminate 8,000 trucks from this imaginary highway next year.”

What does this actually mean in figures? I would like to tell members. To reduce 8,000 trucks, but from how many? I calculated how many were on his original highway and that figure is 435,468, carrying, according to the minister’s figure, 2,170,340 tons. The minister estimated that reduction through the current recycling effort would be 8,000 trucks. That leaves 427,468 trucks still on that highway, with a reduction in actual figures of only 40,000 tons. A 40,000-ton reduction is only 1.8 per cent.

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So, obviously, while 8,000 is a good start, it is not enough if the minister believes that recycling will solve the waste management crisis. I do believe he is committed on a personal basis, and that is the only answer he is giving. That is why there is all the more reason to adopt my bill. About 1.8 per cent of our garbage is recycled. That leaves 98.2 per cent which still has to go to landfill or incineration.

If we are really concerned about the environment, then sending our garbage to American facilities to be burned is not an environmentally intelligent or responsible solution. We cannot control our immediate environment. What we do, we do for the global effort.

I would like to give members some examples of the success of recycling in other countries. We have an example in Austria, where they have now achieved 65 per cent. In Wilton, New Hampshire, in the United States, they have achieved 45 per cent; in Freiburg, West Germany, they have achieved 35 per cent; and in three short years, my own municipality of Mississauga has already achieved 15 per cent.

We must admit that the waste crisis is one that must be solved by all levels of government. The member for Brampton North (Mr. McClelland), who is the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of the Environment, said in his speech during the emergency debate, “The challenge for all levels of government is to fulfil their responsibilities, to work together to solve” the waste management pressures. This is a departure from the minister’s response that it is purely a municipal problem. Obviously, it is not one level of government’s responsibility.

I think it is interesting when we now see programs starting all around the province with assistance from the government. Some have gone further than the original description of what recycling programs could be and how they could be managed.

I would like to give members an example of what has happened in Midland, Ontario. The 15,000 residents of the Georgian Bay community of Midland must begin recycling household garbage by September 1 or face fines under the first mandatory recycling bylaw passed by an urban centre in Ontario. Is that not interesting? To this point, recycling has been a service provided by some municipalities in Ontario, but not as a mandatory program. It is not mandatory that we use the boxes, that we as individuals be part of this program.

An example was given at a recycling conference that I attended, and it was another municipality in New Hampshire in the United States. They have a very blatant system that inhibits everyone who would try to go against their desire to have successful, complete recycling programs. In that part of that particular state, if you put your garbage out at the end of the driveway and there are obviously recyclable items in it -- hard objects, bottles, cans and so forth -- they simply do not pick it up. They slap a big yellow sticker on the side of the garbage saying: “This contains recyclable materials. If it is not sorted next week, we will not pick it up then either.”

The amazing fact is that the neighbours, of course, are inhibited by the fact that at the end of the day their garbage is still sitting at the end Of the driveway, now with the addition of a bright sticker. So they are not taking part as responsible citizens in reducing the costs of waste management in their municipality, nor are they taking part from the standpoint of protection of the environment.

I am not suggesting in this bill that recycling be mandatory around the province within municipalities yet. I think it is important, first of all, as my bill suggests, that it become mandatory that municipalities give the option to their residents to take part in a recycling program, because the truth of the matter is that once people become familiar with recycling as part of their weekly or twice-weekly garbage pickup, it just becomes a way of life.

Somebody has made a number of comments about the necessity of this bill. I would like, just for a moment, to address that. I feel that this bill is necessary because, at the moment, the current government in Ontario is supporting recycling as a program policy of its ministry. I do not doubt and I have not questioned the thrust of that program currently in the ministry. Obviously, with the cost-sharing of setting up the program, it is well recognized and well established that the current government is supporting recycling.

The only problem I have and why I feel this has to be legislated is that we know, should the Minister of the Environment lose at the poker game for funds at the cabinet table at any time, this program could quickly and easily be replaced in priority at some time in the future.

It requires legislation to guarantee this one aspect to protect our environment and reduce our costs of handling waste in this province. We know that the government does not have a money tree at Queen’s Park, because we are the providers of the funds that any government allocates to programs. We also recognize that priorities of governments can change. We feel, at this time, it is an ideal opportunity for this government to commit to legislation a program which it has demonstrated it obviously believes in.

I would like to reserve the balance of my time.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): Thank you. The member for Brampton North.

Mr. McClelland: Mr. Speaker, might I take this opportunity, on behalf of my colleagues, particularly in private members’ hour, to congratulate you and welcome you to the seat this morning. Congratulations.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you very much.

Mr. McClelland: My colleague from Mississauga South has talked this morning about waste management and garbage. It is very clear to members of this House and the people of this province that we recognize that we cannot treat garbage as waste any more. It is, in fact, a resource, and we have to begin to treat it as such. She talked about our government’s approach to recycling and said that it is the only approach. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, members of this House and the province, that it is not the only way of dealing with garbage; it is a way. It is an important way and one that we are committed to.

More important, we need to change our attitudes. We have to change the way we think about waste and to see it as a resource. Recycling and reuse are two very key elements of our government’s approach to dealing with this problem.

Our primary response must be to reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place. Failure to do so will come back to haunt us. Failure to implement the four Rs of waste management will leave us with a legacy that we have heard about and that, in fact, we are suffering at the present time -- overfill in land sites, polluted air, the problems that are associated with incineration. How do we deal with those?

Recycling in all sectors of society must become the fundamental basis upon which comprehensive waste management is undertaken in Ontario, recognizing, as I said earlier, that we must first reduce the waste that we are producing. We have, as a province and as a society, made a substantial start. The number of municipalities that are now served with blue box curbside service is 92, a remarkable improvement from 1985, and that momentum keeps building. Metropolitan Toronto, with its five cities, is joining the growing number of participants.

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Another useful indicator of what this government is doing in terms of recycling is the commitment of our province’s and the people of this province’s financial resources to waste management and recycling. From $750,000 in 1985 this government has increased the investment tenfold. We have spoken about that in this House before. We have doubled the funds for industrial recycling to $2.5 million.

But funding is not the only indicator. We have other programs that we have heard about and our minister has spoken about to the people of the province and members of this House. Our household waste program has in three years grown to involve 53 municipalities, 12 of which have set up permanent depots for people to bring in their hazardous discards. Permanent depots are the way to go and must be introduced throughout this province.

All of us in this House know that these programs are in fact producing results, and worthwhile results. In early November of this year, the symbolic one-millionth blue box will go into household use in Ontario. A lot has been said in this House by the member opposite, that this represents only one tenth of the waste stream or potentially one tenth of the waste stream. Yet I would say to my friends that this one tenth is a great start, a significant start. That is what we are targeting to in many communities.

It is a first target level. We have set other targets. We have the Recycling Advisory Committee, which we know about, for the soft drink industry. We expect to see the next target level, of 1.2 million boxes, achieved shortly after our one-million level. That will represent 60 per cent of the households in Ontario.

This government has developed successful recycling programs and has actively increased the amount of funding available for recycling; something, I might add, the third party failed to do while it was in power. We are looking at ways to expand that program as well.

This government, though, is looking at ways of moving beyond the blue box program. The minister has announced that he intends to expand the scope of the Recycling Advisory Committee, will broaden its mandate, will study ways to expand the range of materials and packaging beyond those that are now recycled. The ministry waste management staff are working on a long-term waste management strategy. This strategy is directed at diverting 50 per cent of our waste from disposal as well as reducing the environmental impact of garbage and waste disposal.

Our government has a philosophical approach that I would suggest is somewhat different. We believe that if we treat people in other levels of government as if they are what they ought to be and help them become what they ought to be, that in fact will happen. When people are highly motivated, when municipalities and other levels of government are highly motivated, it is easy to accomplish what other people say is impossible. At the same time, when people are not highly motivated, it is impossible to accomplish those things which should be easy. We are committed to motivation and working in harmony and concert with our friends and with the people in municipal governments across this province.

The development of stricter standards, the growth and enhancement of recycling programs and markets and a growing public demand for well-thought-out, sane waste management have established a momentum in this province, and we must see that this momentum continues.

No one can disagree with the member’s basic premise behind the bill and what she wants to accomplish with that bill. It is laudable and it makes sense in terms of its premise that recycling be enhanced and encouraged in our province. The question is, how do we do that? How can that best be achieved?

The bill proposed mandatory recycling for Ontario municipalities. Those members who are interested in athletics will know who the late coach Vince Lombardi was. Vince Lombardi said that anybody could light a fire underneath a player, but it took a truly great leader to light a fire in people’s hearts. That symbolizes and says in many ways what our minister and our government want to do.

We do not want to dictate and tell municipalities that they must do what they already want to do. We want to encourage and foster that momentum that is already under way and light a fire within the hearts of the people of this province: the young children, the parents, the people who have a vested interest in the future of what this province will be.

This government’s approach to date has been voluntary. The variety of positive, successful funding initiatives has been the cold, harsh reality in part of municipalities recognizing that it costs too much not to deal with waste as a resource. Through public pressure for responsible action and through encouraging that the primary -- not purely, as my friend said -- but the primary responsibility rests with the municipalities and will remain so, we will continue to work and see that municipalities continue to respond as they have done to date.

Municipalities know they cannot expect to manage their own waste successfully unless they implement the four Rs of waste management. We have heard that before, but it is a message that has to be heard again until it is understood by all citizens of this province: reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery. Burning and burying are not the answers.

The people of Ontario have valid questions about the environmental soundness, health risks and rapidly escalating costs associated with incinerators and landfills. Municipalities are responding. They are setting higher tipping fees, as much as $65 per ton to reflect the cost of that. Municipalities are actively promoting recycling, not only for their citizens, but also for industry and commercial entities within their communities.

Municipalities currently have the ability to make recycling mandatory. They already have that ability through the passing of municipal bylaws, and my friend has made reference to that. Midland, for example, as she referred to, has passed a bylaw. This has the benefit of solving the real problem, not just to bring new municipalities on stream with recycling, but to ensure that existing programs have and will continue to have a high rate of public participation.

We have provided adequate funding as a government. We are working with municipalities and while public pressure continues to grow, we will see municipalities respond. This government believes in working together with municipalities to promote recycling. It is growing in momentum and it does not require a law to mandate.

Our policy flows from the premise that men and women and boys and girls across this province want to do a good job in waste management, and we will provide them with the proper leadership to do so. We intend to continue to lead and work co-operatively. I find it exciting. If my friend opposite finds it less exciting to be working in a co-operative spirit, I am sorry, but we will continue to work in a co-operative spirit, to work together with municipalities and do what we feel is the appropriate thing: provide the leadership that is required.

We will not be supporting this bill because of the mandatory aspect of it. The late President Eisenhower said that leadership is the art of getting people to do something that they know is right because they want to do it. This is the type of leadership our minister has provided and our government has provided and we will continue to do so. It will not be in the context of this bill, while recognizing that the premise and the objective of the bill are very laudable.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore.

Mrs. Grier: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to congratulate you on your new position.

We in this party support the legislation the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland) has put before the House today. I think that member deserves congratulations not only for having brought forward this legislation, but for also having been part of a municipal council which, in fact, got into a blue box recycling program well ahead of many others in this province. As somebody who was on a municipal council in Metro, I never cease to be ashamed of the fact that Metro did not. I know Mississauga was not the first but it was certainly one of many that were early into the game, which has now become commonplace.

Everybody is saying they have to get blue boxes. We have heard from the member for Brampton North the catalogue of initiatives and encouragement and incentives that have been put forward by the Ministry of the Environment, all very worthwhile, all very laudable and commendable but not enough and not moving fast enough.

We heard in the emergency debate in this House last week that even if blue boxes became common all across the province and the target of 1.6 million was met by the end of 1989, we would only be picking up by that method 7.5 per cent of the households’ solid waste. That is not going to come to grips with the problem we face.

The blue box program and the incentives and initiatives of the ministry as currently proposed are not dealing with the whole question of organic waste. The pilot project in Guelph is very desirable and I am sure will produce some useful results; but I would submit that the results could well have been calculated by looking at similar projects in other jurisdictions and that we did not need to wait for that pilot project to get on with some composting on a larger scale in Ontario.

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We have seen no initiatives from this government with respect to either recycling or reduction of wastes from the commercial sector and nothing to cut down on packaging, which is a major contributor to the solid waste problem that we have. Of the municipally disposed waste, 20 per cent comes from packaging, and we have not seen anything by this government to cut down on that.

We have not seen any broad initiatives to encourage recycling by large apartment buildings or even small apartment buildings, other than, again, some small pilot projects. We see no moves by this government to force all new apartment buildings to be constructed in such a way that they lend themselves to recycling programs.

We see development occurring all across the province, with apartment buildings being engineered exactly as they have been in the past, so that the owners, the tenants and the occupants can then say, “It’s too difficult to recycle and to separate in buildings of this size.” We have to start, as the Brundtland Commission said, as the federal National Task Force on the Environment and Economy said and as this Minister of the Environment has said, to integrate economic and environmental decisions at every level and in every facet of the decisions that we take. We have not seen that happening on the part of this government.

Many of the programs that are in place have in fact been crisis-driven. The mandatory recycling in Midland happened because of the lack of any place to dump its garbage. It is the same, with all due respect to the member for Oxford (Mr. Tatham), in southwest Oxford, where they had a big fight over a landfill and got into mandatory recycling. Here in Metro, in my municipality, we are going to have the unveiling of the blue boxes on October 31. That is the day before the deadline for recycling of soft drink bottles, and it also happens to be two weeks before the municipal election: crises of a different nature, but those are the things that have driven recycling in Metropolitan Toronto.

I think the conclusion we have to draw from all of that is, while voluntary programs are commendable and while I am glad to see them in place, they are in fact not moving fast enough to deal with the problem. That is why we have to go beyond that and, as a provincial government and as a provincial Legislature, say, “There needs to be mandatory recycling.”

We have seen a government, which the member for Brampton North says wants to respect other levels of government, move to tell other levels of government what to do in housing because of the crisis that arose, to threaten municipalities that, if they do not build in some affordable housing, then they will be forced to do so by the provincial government.

I think the crisis in waste management is of sufficient urgency that the province has to move in that direction on this one as well. What is interesting is that the government and the Liberal Party have said they support mandatory recycling. I am sure all members will recall the project for environmental priorities that sent a survey to everybody in the 1985 election campaign and in the 1987 election campaign.

When you look at the question that they circulated prior to the 1987 election campaign, it reads:

“Garbage incineration and recycling: If properly used, the 3 Rs can dramatically reduce waste requiring landfill or incineration. However, many municipalities give the three Rs a low priority and instead focus on landfill and incineration. These approaches may pose a serious environmental threat to ground, water and air quality. Will you support mandatory residential curbside recycling as a component of municipal waste management systems?”

How did the Premier (Mr. Peterson) answer that question? The Premier answered with a yes. How did the current Minister of the Environment answer that question? He answered with a yes. And how did the member for Brampton North answer that question? With a yes. That was in September 1987 and here we are in November 1988, and suddenly mandatory recycling is no longer acceptable, no longer going to be supported, we have to allow the municipalities to do it at their own pace.

We, in this party, have long supported mandatory recycling. It has been part of our program for many years, and at our provincial convention last summer we adopted a resolution that I would like to put before the House because I think it spells out very clearly what a New Democratic Party government will do to implement recycling of solid wastes to reduce garbage.

“An NDP government considers that recycling of residentially generated glass, metal cans and newspaper should be mandatory. Municipalities would be required to refrain from collecting garbage from those residences where the home owner or tenant has not separated out the recyclables listed above. Mandatory recycling as stipulated in the above clause would be carried out by instituting a blue box recycling program in every municipality. Programs would extend to all multiple dwellings, including high-rise apartments, buildings and condominiums. Market development for reclaimed materials would be assisted through research and startup grants for companies seeking to use these materials.

“Mandatory recycling would be established in the commercial and business sectors for the two waste components that are immediately amenable to recycling, fine paper and corrugated cardboard. Freight rates would be set such that recycled and to-be-recycled materials would be moved more cheaply than virgin materials. All provincial government offices would be required to purchase stationery made from wholly or partially recycled paper, whenever feasible. Recycling programs would be expanded to include compostable wastes, and home owners and tenants with yard space for composting would be provided with composting bins.

“Recycling programs would be expanded to include certain household hazardous wastes that can be safely picked up in this way, such as dry cell batteries. An NDP government would also assist the funding of experimental, innovative recycling systems.”

That is the kind of meaningful, active program that will really get this province on the road not only to recycling but also to reduction of waste. It is the kind of program that I think this province needs. I think that Bill 89, which is before us this morning, is the first step going in that direction, and we will be supporting the legislation.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Simcoe East.

Mr. McLean: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me congratulate you on your recent appointment.

I am very pleased to participate in the debate on Bill 89, An Act requiring municipalities to establish Programs for the Recycling of Garbage. I wish to commend the member for Mississauga South for bringing forward such a thoughtful and practical proposal. Mandatory recycling as proposed by the bill will contribute to the solution to Ontario’s waste management and landfill dilemma.

As all members will be aware, the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario has taken a leadership role in pressing the government to tackle this issue. The government must find solutions to what has clearly become a crisis in this province. I realize that “crisis” is a rather harsh word, but I am not alone in making this observation. Ontario Multi-Material Recycling Inc., the Toronto Recycling Action Committee and major newspapers all have termed the challenge of municipal waste disposal in Ontario a crisis. Even the Minister of the Environment, who so rarely says anything comprehensible, has observed that it is time to tackle Ontario’s garbage crisis. I say bravo. Perhaps the minister has come to his senses.

I think the statistics tell the story. Each year Ontario produces over 10 million tons of waste. Every day each individual is responsible for one kilogram of garbage. Over 90 per cent of this garbage goes into landfill sites, but an unprecedented number of these sites are almost full to the brim. We all recognize that something must be done to prevent the breakdown of Ontario’s waste management systems. What action have we seen? Unfortunately, it is rather chaotic.

The municipality of Durham is a good example of the province-wide trend. Durham region currently dumps its garbage in the Metropolitan Toronto Brock West landfill site, which will run out of space in the next two years. The region is not willing to let Metro open another landfill site in its boundaries, and Durham must therefore find its own solutions to the garbage problem. Now, we know that it normally takes at least five years to locate and prepare a new landfill site, so I think it is fair to say that, for the people of Durham region, time has already run out.

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The Minister of the Environment will no doubt recall the actions he took in October 1989 to close down the Pauzé landfill site, which served six municipalities. At present, these municipalities are shipping thousands of tons of garbage to Toronto’s Keele Valley site at an enormous cost to the ratepayers. Is this the solution the minister has to the waste disposal crisis or is he really just playing a game of musical landfill sites with the province’s garbage?

The whole mess brings to mind the garbage fiasco in New York City, when barges full of waste were set adrift on the Atlantic Ocean. One is left wondering whether the Minister of the Environment might some day soon send Ontario’s garbage on a voyage of discovery through the Great Lakes.

Most likely, though, we will see in most instances the Hatton solution to the crisis. In Halton county, the earliest a new dump can be opened is 1992, Halton now has nowhere to put its garbage, so it is paying $1 million a month to haul it to Niagara Falls, New York, where it is burned in an incinerator operated by Occidental Chemical Corp. Potentially, Halton could have to spend close to $50 million for haulage unless other alternatives become available.

If the government keeps this up, we will soon reach the point where garbage will be Ontario’s greatest export to the United States. There will be more garbage than tourists at the border crossing. Ultimately, this whole idea of shipping garbage to the United States is completely unsatisfactory. It only serves to show that the government of Ontario is incapable of solving its own problems.

Interjection.

Mr. McLean: You agree to that.

It demeans this province to export our garbage just so that the Americans can burn it and then send it back to us in the form of pollution.

The list of crisis areas in Ontario is growing every day. It is clear that the government is aware of the severity of the situation. What is not clear is whether there is any leadership at the top. Day after day, the minister stands in this House and refuses to answer questions on the landfill crisis. Instead, he blames the previous government for the problem and calls the opposition pessimistic. Surely, he does not think that laying blame and insulting the members opposite is somehow sufficient to satisfy Ontarians.

We are genuinely troubled by this government’s action. This minister has closed down 100 landfill sites and has not approved one to be opened. The fact is that this crisis has been building since 1985, when the Liberals came to power. As with so many other issues, this Liberal government is unable to provide direction. It is rather odd that while our garbage is criss-crossing the province, the government is sitting idly by. Such inaction increases our confidence that this Liberal government will end up in the trash heap when the electorate is through with it.

There are only three ways to deal with garbage. We can bury it, as the electorate will be doing to this government, we can burn it, as should be done with most of the statements by the Minister of the Environment, or we can make as strong an effort as possible to recycle. Clearly, incineration is unsatisfactory because we should not be exchanging a garbage problem for a pollution problem.

Incinerators and energy-from-waste facilities were once regarded as a solution for the mounting garbage problem. Recently, they have been shown to be harmful to the environment as they release toxic substances into the air, water and food chain. Until technology is available to ensure clean burning of waste, incineration should not even be considered. Up to now, the province has been relying heavily on landfill. As we have seen, there are enormous problems in locating new landfill sites. Local opposition is often understandable. It is now vital that alternative measures be found.

That brings me to recycling. The benefits of recycling are considerable. To begin with, statistics indicate that over 30 per cent of all garbage could soon be recycled. That is 30 per cent less garbage to be landfilled. Pollution Probe, a respected environmental organization, tells us that the city of Ottawa is presently recycling 10 to 13 per cent of its garbage, but has a potential to recycle 34 per cent by the year 2001.

The cities of Guelph, Kitchener and Waterloo have set similar targets. The Ministry of the Environment even makes a bold prediction that 50 per cent of garbage could eventually be recycled. This appears to be backed up by statistics from Europe. Anyone could be impressed by the potential. Recycling is an environmentally sound proposition. Instead of burning garbage or allowing it to decay in a hole in the ground, industry can reuse materials such as glass, metal and paper. I have no doubt that full-scale recycling of plastics will begin in the near future.

Clearly, recycling is a progressive step in protecting the environment. Furthermore, recycling creates jobs. In March 1988, it was announced that a recycling plant employing 350 people would be built in Whitby. It has been called a boon to the environment and the pocket. This plant, which will remove ink from newspaper, could use up much of the surplus 300,000 tons of used newsprint which ends up in our landfill sites every year. Consider how many trees will be saved every year through the operation of this one plant. This is a kind of project Ontario needs: good jobs in an area with enormous potential. Ultimately, recycling makes economic sense.

In the beginning, it requires an investment of effort and money by government and industry. Consumers must be persuaded to make recycling part of their daily activities. However, the reduction in landfill requirements will free tax dollars for other purposes. Recycling can easily be profitable for private enterprise, and this means greater tax revenue for the government and a stronger economy. Consumers will benefit because recycled goods will be cheaper to purchase. Ultimately, everyone benefits: industry, government and private citizens.

We in the Progressive Conservative Party have never been afraid to provide leadership, so one of our members has brought forward a bill that will correct the obvious problems of the municipal recycling support program.

This bill brought forward by the member for Mississauga South ensures that every municipality will implement a recycling program for discarded metal, glass and newspaper. In the future, when new items are found to be recyclable, the bill can be amended accordingly.

Bill 89 makes sense, perfect sense, and that is why I encourage all members of this House to join me in supporting Bill 89.

Mr. Epp: I am in agreement with this bill’s underlying principle of expanding the recycling activity in Ontario. We need to move beyond the blue box program. This year, municipalities expect to recycle 130,000 tonnes of paper, glass, metal and polyethylene tetrathalate soft drink containers. We expect to see more than the projected goal of 170,000 tonnes recycled in 1989.

We have made a good start, but the Minister of the Environment is committed to doing much more. If we are to make a real dent in the production of wastes and to recover significant amounts of discarded material, we must push to extend recycling on a consistent province-wide basis.

As mentioned by my colleague, there are special concerns in northern Ontario which have resulted in slower progress. To address these concerns, a Recycle North Task Force has been formed to review the feasibility of recycling projects for communities such as North Bay, Sudbury, Kirkland Lake, Timmins, Thunder Bay and Kenora. The task force’s feasibility analysis will be reviewed by representatives of major northern municipalities, and we are sure that its practical input will assist in resolving concerns and expediting the development of northern recycling programs.

This government has made this blue box recycling program a success and we have already taken the next step and asked the question, where do we go from here to expand recycling in Ontario? Recently, many apartment tenants expressed their desire to get involved in the recycling effort. By working with municipalities to extend recycling to apartment units, a diversion rate of 20 per cent may well be feasible. Pilot studies under way in Guelph, funded by the Ministry of the Environment, are proving to be successful and provide an example of what can be done in other municipalities in this province.

The Ministry of the Environment and Ontario Multi-Material Recycling Inc. are also now supporting a recycling demonstration project in Guelph to evaluate a mechanical sorting machine --

[Applause]

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Mr. Epp: Let the record show that there is great applause in favour of Guelph -- a mechanical sorting machine that will separate steel and aluminum cans, glass and two-litre PET plastic soft drink containers. The new sorting machine will automatically divide the container recyclables into different material components. The ministry is also supporting Guelph’s pilot waste recovery project to collect domestic and commercial organic waste material and produce a marketable compost. The recovery project will evaluate the feasibility of achieving a diversion of up to 30 per cent of the waste stream and the effectiveness of implementing a full-scale, city-wide organic material recovery and composting system.

These new directions in municipal 4R projects have the potential for making a real dent in Ontario’s garbage production. With one of them, composting, we are going beyond recycling and into recovery. All of the 4R solutions -- reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery -- can be brought to bear on our various garbage crises with considerable impact on waste volumes. If you look at the quantities of waste going to community landfill, you will find that easily half of the load comes from the commercial-industrial material collected by private waste haulers.

The ministry’s industrial 4R program is encouraging initiatives which will ultimately make inroads in this waste load. It is encouraging business and industry to take a closer look at the value of their waste. The current initiatives will help tame waste generation in a variety of industries, including newsprint, wood, food, processing, electroplating, cardboard and steel. We want to nurture -- I want to emphasize that -- the development of new industrial waste management techniques. Good ideas should not gather dust on a shelf because a company cannot manage the cost and risk of pursuing them. Through the industrial 4R program, the government shares the risk and spreads the rewards of industrial 4R research and development.

One of the concerns that has been raised about mandatory recycling is that it is does not recognize that the market development for recycled material also needs to grow. In order to ensure a successful recycling program, there must be a market for the materials. To date, both supply and demand have grown together. The concern raised is that mandatory recycling would flood the existing market and result in recycling failing due to inadequate markets.

We need to work with the municipalities, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and industry in a co-operative program to develop the recycling market. This government is prepared to help in this effort. The Canadian Waste Materials Exchange, which we support along with the federal government and other provinces, offers all industries access to a broad spectrum of useful waste materials. In April 1987, this ministry also joined with the Ontario Waste Management Corp. to provide funding for the activities of the Ontario Waste Exchange. I believe that the increased support has allowed the Ontario Waste Exchange to take a more proactive role in linking companies that have complementary raw material and waste disposal needs.

I predict that significant additional growth should result from efforts of the Ontario Waste Exchange this coming year. Waste exchanges will play a key role in achieving up to 50 per cent diversion of waste from disposal that we are seeking from the commercial-industrial waste streams. Similar diversion levels are expected from the 4R program for industrial waste. With these industrial programs and with our municipal assistance program, our government has put its money where its mouth is. So has OMMRI, through its municipal recycling support program, and the rewards of this investment spread throughout our economy.

These programs now offer a secure supply of post-consumer recycling paper. Taking advantage of this, a private company has announced that it will open Ontario’s second paper mill to use these materials and create 300 jobs east of Toronto. The aluminum industry has developed its own valuable recycling effort based on the economics of energy conservation. We can see that some industries have assumed responsibility for controlling and reducing their wastes, but there is room for more. What we need is net materials accountability.

Packagers and producers will have a role to ensure that their product materials are recovered after use. Producers of small batteries, for example, should help finance and establish battery collection and handling facilities. Newspaper companies should participate in collecting and recycling old newspapers.

The plastics industry’s sophistication in developing and marketing products far outstrips its performance in developing recycling and recovery systems. In the future, publishers, packagers, retailers, the plastics industry and other generators of waste material should join the effort. It is time they assumed a fair share of responsibility for the environmental safety of their products.

This government is eager to join with them in a co-operative effort to address the problem and turn a wasteful situation around. This government believes in a co-operative approach with municipalities.

Mrs. Marland: I want to start very quickly by correcting the record. It is unfortunate that the member for Brampton North, the parliamentary assistant for the Minister of the Environment, does not know what percentage of garbage is being recycled. I did not say one tenth. I did not say 10 per cent. I said 1.8 per cent and that is the figure from the Minister of the Environment’s own speech.

Mr. Ballinger: The department had an adjective in there.

Mrs. Marland: I think it would be great if at some time the government House leader would allow the member for Durham-York (Mr. Ballinger) to speak legitimately in this House. He spends his whole time doing interjections for everybody else, which is perhaps an indication of something on which I would not wish to comment.

This government said this morning, through its parliamentary assistant, the member for Brampton North, that it believes in working with municipalities. We certainly have a wonderful example of that on the subject of Sunday shopping. We have it on the subject of affordable housing. There are many areas in which this Liberal government demonstrates its co-operation and lack of it with municipalities.

I also took exception to the fact that my friend the member for Brampton North said I did not support co-operation. On a personal basis, I want to put on the record that I really took exception to that.

Obviously, this government’s position on this bill, to be opposed to mandatory recycling on the part of municipalities around this province, is only a further example of this government’s lack of leadership.

If there is one area that concerns me the most about the whole process of what I have heard this morning from the Liberal members, it is the fact that we have a whole line of dishonesty in terms of government policy and government direction.

I would be interested to know if the Minister of the Environment would have said on Monday of this week, when he addressed the conference of the Recycling Council of Ontario, that he would have been directing his Liberal government members today, Thursday, in this House to vote against this bill. I just wonder if this Liberal government really understands that the people of Ontario will not stand for or tolerate politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouths.

We have on record in Ontario today the fact that the Minister of the Environment and the member for Brampton North are both opposing mandatory recycling. The public is not naïve and the public will not forget that this Liberal government is opposed to mandatory recycling. It cannot hide behind the fact that, “We are doing it; we are doing it, folks, we have the blue box program.” I addressed that in my earlier comments. Yes, today we have the blue box program. If we so believe that this must be an ongoing program for ever, why would we not legislate it?

The reason is that it is not a priority of the government today and it does not want to guarantee that it will be its priority in years to come. If they are willing to guarantee that their belief is solidly behind a recycling program in this province, then they would work to make sure that every municipality offers it, not on the whim of individual municipalities which have different priorities. This government would show leadership. It would set priorities for the government and for the people of this province.

Obviously, this morning we have had an absolutely perfect example of the credibility of this Liberal government being clearly established at zero. If it were not so serious, it would almost be amusing. In fact, I have found this morning perfectly disgusting because of the fact that the Minister of the Environment misled the people last year when he told them in a questionnaire --

Some hon. members: No way. Shame.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

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Mrs. Marland: Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw that the Minister of the Environment misled the people last year. What he did last year was to sign a questionnaire where he said he believed in and supported mandatory recycling. I will leave the conclusion for the public, when it now knows that this minister is not supporting my private bill which would ensure mandatory recycling to the municipalities around this province.

It is absolutely incredible that this government is not willing to put its commitment where its speakers are, and for the parliamentary assistant, the member for Brampton North, also to complete the same questionnaire and say that he believes in mandatory recycling and then to have to come into the House and follow the change in the thinking on which this government was elected. The whole point here is that the promises this government made in September 1987 are now being totally reversed. We are continually having examples of where they charged around this province making all kinds of promises on all kinds of issues, and now, today, they are taking completely opposite positions.

I am not disappointed on a personal basis; I am disgusted.

Mr. Speaker: That completes the discussion on private members’ public business for this morning.

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EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT

The House divided on Mr. Mackenzie’s motion for second reading of Bill 156, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Grier, Laughren, Mackenzie, Morin-Strom, Polsinelli.

Nays

Adams, Ballinger, Beer, Black, Bossy, Brandt, Callahan, Cleary, Collins, Cooke, D. R., Cousens, Cunningham, Epp, Faubert, Fawcett, Ferraro, Furlong, Harris, Hart, Johnson, J. M., Kanter, Keyes, Kozyra, LeBourdais, Lipsett, MacDonald, Mancini, Marland, McClelland, McGuigan, McLean, Neumann, Nixon, J. B., Owen, Pelissero, Ray, M. C., Roberts, Ruprecht, Smith, D. W., Sola, South, Stoner, Sullivan, Tatham, Villeneuve, Wilson.

Ayes 8; nays 46.

GARBAGE RECYCLING PROGRAMS ACT

The House divided on Mrs. Marland’s motion for second reading of Bill 89, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Brandt, Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Cousens, Cunningham, Eves, Grier, Harris, Johnson, J. M., Laughren, Mackenzie, Marland, McLean, Morin-Strom, Neumann, Ray, M. C., Sullivan, Villeneuve.

Nays

Adams, Ballinger, Beer, Black, Bossy, Callahan, Cleary, Collins, Cooke, D. R., Epp, Faubert, Fawcett, Ferraro, Furlong, Hart, Kanter, Keyes, Kozyra, LeBourdais, Lipsett, MacDonald, Mancini, McClelland, McGuigan, Nixon, J. B., Owen, Pelissero, Polsinelli, Roberts, Ruprecht, Smith, D. W., Sola, South, Stoner, Tatham, Wilson.

Ayes 19; nays 36.

The House recessed at 12:14 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

LANDLORDS’ RESTRICTIONS ON PETS

Ms. Bryden: I would like to draw to the attention of the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens’ affairs (Mrs. Wilson) and the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) the need for an amendment to the Landlord and Tenant Act to stop the growing practice of landlords including a blanket no-pets clause in their leases.

Pets contribute a great deal to the wellbeing of seniors and others who live alone. It is discriminatory to deny tenants the same right to have pets that people who own houses have, provided the pets are not causing any disturbance to others nearby.

The Toronto Humane Society has said that in 1987 it admitted to the society’s shelters 9,900 cats and dogs because of enforcement of no-pet and pet restriction policies of landlords. For many pets, this is a death sentence. The society cannot find new homes for such large numbers.

I cite the case of Mrs. Marian Ryll, who shares apartment 823 with her husband and one 16-year-old cat at 265D Cassandra Boulevard in North York. The cat never goes out, but her landlord, Kirkton Investments Ltd., has issued an eviction notice to the couple because “the cat is offensive to the landlord and other tenants.” He has adduced no evidence to prove this in the notice. The eviction notice was dated October 18, 1988, and is effective November 14, 1988.

METROPOLITAN TORONTO GOVERNMENT

Mr. Cousens: I rise today to express concern over the tremendous surge in salaries that has been taking place in Metropolitan Toronto and local council chambers over the past few months. Metro councillors will now receive $57,500, from $19,800 last year. Toronto school trustees increased their wages by 86.5 per cent to $44,678, Etobicoke city councillors’ pay increased by 94.5 per cent to $44,090. It is estimated that the new directly elected Metro council will cost taxpayers $4.5 million just to start up operations. This is in addition to a new $211-million complex.

Citizens across Metropolitan Toronto are incensed, and rightly so. Yet where has our Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Eakins) been during these events? What is his opinion on these exorbitant salary hikes? The taxpayers of Metropolitan Toronto deserve an answer to these questions, and I, for one, share in their outrage over these pay hikes.

The creation of a separate, directly elected Metro council was necessary to respond to the growing areas of responsibility within Metropolitan Toronto. It was not created to facilitate generous salary increases for councillors and representatives at the local and Metro levels.

HIRING PRACTICES

Mr. Tatham: From Business Week, October 3, 1998:

“How does Japan Inc. pick its American workers?

“Team participation is mandatory. The basic philosophy: Reward is not so much from your personal performance as from your impact on team and company.

“At Diamond-Star, a joint venture between Chrysler Corp. and Mitsubishi Motor Corp., applicants are told they must learn several jobs, change shifts, work overtime, make and take constructive criticism and submit a stream of suggestions for improving efficiency.

“‘It’s not an easy decision,’ warns a blunt video. ‘You’ve got to ask yourself if you are willing to dedicate yourself to the Diamond-Star team.’

“Dedication alone isn’t enough. Diamond-Star says 24 per cent of its applicants wash out during a slew of written, medical and drug tests. About 40 per cent who pass the first stage fail the company’s screening and training process. Still, Diamond-Star ended up with 6,700 qualified candidates for its first 300 jobs. Mazda hired only about 1,300 of nearly 10,000 applicants who passed its five-step screening process.

“Each company says it spent about $40 million, roughly $13,000 per employee, to staff its US plants.

“Overkill? Maybe, but Mazda and Diamond-Star aren’t taking any chances. Neither company spends nearly as much effort finding workers in Japan, where the school system does much of the screening work for them. In the US, the companies believe, they have to start from scratch. With a growing number of American companies coming to the same conclusion, it soon may be tougher to land a job -- whether you wear a white collar or a blue one.”

TRITIUM

Mr. Chariton: The issue of the potential for selling tritium on the international market has been simmering just below the surface for several years now. The present government has never clearly set out its position on that issue.

Ontario Hydro wants to be able to sell tritium in order to start reducing its massive debt. Tritium is worth about $15 million per kilogram. Hydro has repeatedly stated it will not sell any of its tritium to nuclear arms producers. However, the addition of Hydro’s tritium to the international supply will free up other tritium for arms use as the nonmilitary market is fully serviced.

Recently, Hydro and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. have been involved in running courses on the safe handling of tritium through the Canadian fusion fuels technology project. These courses have been attended by a number of nuclear arms manufacturers, including Sandia, the Laurence Livermore National Laboratories, Westinghouse and General Electric.

This calls into question the sincerity of Hydro’s past assurances. It is time this government clearly set out a position in opposition to the export and sale of tritium. This government should put a stop to the attendance at training courses on the safe handling of tritium by nuclear arms producers.

ASSETS DISPOSAL

Mr. McLean: My statement is directed to the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Patten). A recent Globe and Mail story outlined how his ministry held giant garage sales in what bureaucrats call the recycling and disposal of movable public assets, such as typewriters, chairs, desks, pool tables and office equipment, at bargain basement prices. Unfortunately, these sales took place and will take place only in Toronto. Why not hold them at various locations in Ontario so that those living outside the Metropolitan area can take advantage of an opportunity whereby people are given a second chance to pay for something they already own as taxpayers?

I was taken aback when Robert Milne, supervisor of assets disposal for the ministry, was quoted as saying: “A lot of people love shopping, and if they can find good deals, they’re happy. It makes people feel a bit better about government, I hope.” In other words, the minister is buying off the taxpayers of Ontario by offering them the chance to buy something they already own. That is an extremely poor way of doing business. If you ask me, at least he could have donated this furniture and equipment to schools, community organizations or other worthwhile groups, rather than trying to keep taxpayers happy by offering them goods or something they already own.

The previous government arranged that libraries could purchase equipment at cost and many other organizations had the use of this furniture which is now being disposed of only in Metropolitan Toronto.

THOMAS B. MCQUESTEN

Mr. Dietsch: I would like to take this opportunity to remind members of this House of a reception and book launching being held at 6:15 p.m. on Tuesday, November 8, in honour of the biography and the man, Thomas B. McQuesten.

Thomas B. McQuesten was a past member of the Hamilton Board of Parks Management, a past chairman of the Niagara Parks Commission and Minister of Highways, to name a few. He was a man of vision. He was a man who planned and built for the future, a man who made enormous contributions to the building of parks, bridges and highways, the most notable being the Queen Elizabeth Way, which are now an integral part of much of Ontario’s everyday life.

Roland Barnsley, author of this biography, will be in attendance to present autographed copies. I would also like to offer special thanks to Norris and John Walker of Walker Brother Quarries for helping to bring this story of the forgotten builder to the new generations of Canadians through their centennial project.

As a last word, the members of this House will agree that I would not be myself if I did not remind all my colleagues of the excellent quality of wines, fruits, vegetables and peanuts which will be exclusively available at this reception. I look forward to see all members Tuesday, November 8, in the legislative dining room.

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HOSPITAL FUNDING

Mr. McLean: I have a statement I would like to make, directed mainly to the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan).

Save Orillia has had a fantastic fund-raising program to raise $5 million for a new hospital in Orillia. That program has been in the works for some six months. They have now fulfilled over 80 per cent of their goal of $5 million, whereby over $4 million has been donated and put in trust for the new hospital to be built.

I want to know when the minister will approve a new hospital for the city and community around Orillia. I hope that decision will be forthcoming very shortly, as I know the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) is just waiting to get rid of some of those funds he has in that budget.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

WIFE ASSAULT / VIOLENCE AU FOYER

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: Today, I am pleased to announce to this assembly that we are launching a new campaign to prevent wife assault.

This campaign has two objectives: to educate the general public about the criminal nature of domestic assault and to underline the need for public responsibility in its prevention. The campaign takes place throughout November, which has been named Wife Assault Prevention Month.

Cette campagne a deux objectifs: éduquer le grand public sur la nature criminelle de la violence au foyer, et souligner le besoin de responsabiliser le public quant à la prévention de cette forme de violence. La campagne aura lieu durant tout le mois de novembre, qui a été choisi comme Mois de la prévention de la violence faite aux femmes.

The government is committed to reducing the incidence of wife assault. The $600,000 campaign in annual public education funds is part of the provincial government’s ongoing commitment to the prevention of wife assault. The Ontario government’s integrated approach includes a commitment to law enforcement measures and criminalization, family support programs and shelter services, as well as professional and public education.

The Ontario women’s directorate co-ordinates work in these three areas with 15 provincial ministries involving 22 programs and a total commitment of $33.5 million in fiscal 1988-89. That represents a 15 per cent increase over 1987-88. Of this total, more than $27 million is committed to services for the women and children directly affected by wife assault.

La Direction générale de la condition féminine de l’Ontario oeuvre dans ces trois secteurs en collaboration avec quinze ministères provinciaux, ce qui représente 22 programmes et un financement total de 33,5 millions de dollars pour l’exercice financier de 1988-1989, soit une augmentation de 15 pour cent par rapport à l’exercice financier de 1987-1988. Sur ce total, plus de 27 millions de dollars seront consacrés à des services pour les femmes et les enfants directement touchés par la violence au foyer.

“Break the silence” was the message of the initial public education campaign. That campaign, I am pleased to report, went a long way in changing attitudes. Our follow-up studies indicated that it brought the issue of wife assault out into the open.

With that important first step taken, we have moved on to a new phase in our public education program. Our message now is “Wife assault -- it is a crime.”

That is the message we are determined to deliver across Ontario. It is crucial to remind every person in this province that wife assault is not a family affair, is not a private problem, a secret between partners. It is, instead, a problem that demands action from all of us as a responsible society.

We have worked actively with immigrant women’s groups and with the francophone and native communities in our effort to make public education most effective. A community advisory committee provided valuable input to our design of this phase of the public education program, and I thank it for its assistance.

Let me now describe the elements of the campaign I am announcing this afternoon.

First, we are presenting television advertisements that will be aired across the province next month. These two 60-second ads will be broadcast in both French and English.

The ads look at wife assault from two angles: from the battered woman’s and from that of the man who assaults her. They also illustrate the different types of domestic abuse, because wife assault can be not only physical but also psychological, emotional and sexual.

Along with the television ads, a poster is being widely distributed throughout the province. A brochure on wife assault will be available in seven languages. Radio advertisements will target a variety of third-language communities and, most important, communities across Ontario are presenting local initiatives on wife assault prevention.

Some 101 groups in this province receive government funding, totalling $160,000, in order to complete projects tailored to their particular community needs. Included in this effort are immigrant women’s groups, francophone groups, rural and native women’s organizations and northern Ontario communities.

Most of the projects designed by these groups are taking place during wife assault prevention month. They include workshop forums for public discussions, dramatic presentations and educational resources.

Before I close, I would like to say a final word about the issue of wife assault. Too often we jump to conclusions about the victims of these crimes. We blame them for the crime, instead of their abusers, or we tell ourselves it can’t happen here and that it is a problem that happens to other people in other neighbourhoods. But that, quite frankly, is just not so. We have to understand the real nature of wife assault. I am confident the campaign I am launching today will help accomplish that.

Wife assault cuts across all boundaries of class, of geography, of cultures and of incomes. We have to realize that it is not a remote act of violence. It is violence that could be happening right now, right next door.

There is no excuse for the crime of wife assault. We have to deliver that message loudly and clearly, that we will not tolerate such violence and that we will not turn our backs on the urgent need to provide personal safety to each and every woman in this province.

ADVOCACY

Hon. Mr. Scott: I am pleased to table today the report of the Advisory Committee on Substitute Decision-Making for Mentally Incapable Persons.

The committee was composed of government officials, nominees of the legal, health, psychological and social work professions and nominees of various other interest groups.

They have produced an important report on the question of how to provide responsible decision-making for those who are unable to make their own decisions.

The report raises some critical societal concerns and, for that reason, the government will be seeking widespread public comment on the committee’s many recommendations.

As members will know, substitute decision-making is a significant issue in these times. Substitute decision-making involves questions of who should be allowed to make personal care and property administration decisions on behalf of those who, because of mental incapacity, cannot make their own decisions.

Our current laws have not undergone substantial change for a number of years. They, therefore, require updating so as to take account of the competing interests in this area. These issues raise sensitive public policy issues regarding the independence of the individual and civil liberties.

It is for that reason that, along with my colleagues, the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan), the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney), the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens’ affairs (Mrs. Wilson) and the Minister without Portfolio responsible for disabled persons (Mr. Mancini), I want to receive public comments on this report.

We will circulate this report to a large number of groups and individuals concerned throughout the province. We will be asking them to review critically the report’s recommendations and to offer their comment and advice.

We will ask them to comment on these recommendations in light of the proposals advanced in two earlier reports, which the House will have seen. The first of these was the report prepared by Father Sean O’Sullivan on the question of social advocacy for vulnerable adults. The second was the report prepared by Professor Alan Manson of Queen’s University into the operation of the psychiatric patients’ advocacy office. It is clear these three reports are interrelated and need to be considered as a group rather than individually.

After the consultation period, we hope we will be able to consider various options that are presented and return to the House in due course with proposals that will address these serious matters.

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In conclusion, I want particularly to thank all of those who served on what is known as the Fram committee. They have spent literally hundreds of hours struggling with some basic and significant questions and they are to be commended for the thoroughness with which they have recommended answers.

CRIME PREVENTION WEEK

Hon. Mrs. Smith: Next week, October 30 to November 5, is Crime Prevention Week in Ontario. The theme for the week is “Crime prevention -- year ‘round in our community.” All Ontarians should reflect on the fact that they live in one of the safest jurisdictions in the world. This is due in no small part to the exceptional work that our police forces have done over the years and in a way this week is a testimonial to their success.

Crime Prevention Week is also a recognition of the vital involvement by members of the public in police-related projects. We have in Ontario a real team effort of which I am extremely proud. Maintaining the safety of our communities is as much a responsibility of the people who live in them as it is for the police. It is heartening to see that in some cases community initiatives have even preceded police in finding creative ways to keep crime rates down.

Again this year I will have the pleasure of travelling across the province to participate in a number of activities to promote Crime Prevention Week. All across Ontario, a strong rapport has developed between the police and organizations such as Neighbourhood Watch or Students Against Driving Drunk or local television stations that have incorporated a Crime Stoppers show into their regular programming.

As part of Crime Prevention Week, I will have the opportunity to present more than 100 crime prevention awards to police officers, individuals or organizations who have made outstanding contributions to their communities in this area. These awards are this government’s recognition of the great collective and co-operative effort that is being made in the field of crime prevention. I am certain all members will join me in encouraging every Ontarian to participate.

As well, we have produced a very fine crime prevention poster which we will gladly give to any members of this Legislature or organizations in Ontario that wish to help us in our efforts to prevent crime.

RESPONSES

ADVOCACY

Mr. Reville: Mr. Speaker, in response to the statement of the Attorney General (Mr. Scott), you would think I would be very happy today, because it was only yesterday that I asked for some action from the government. Lo and behold, the very next day, we open our Globe and Mail and there it is. It is an amazing thing. However, I am not happy. I am sad and I am angry.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Reville: The reason I am sad and angry -- if the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) will stop acting like a buffoon for a second -- is that the Attorney General is insulting the very people he seeks so graciously to thank, those people who spent literally hundreds of hours developing these recommendations. But far worse than that is that he insults the very vulnerable adults for whom this exercise was intended.

If people will look at the Fram report, they will see in the back of the report there is draft legislation. What we see this government doing is sending these three documents -- the Manson report, the O’Sullivan report and the Fram report -- out for yet another round of public consultation. This is a stall of the most major proportions. My sense is that this legislation has been worked on by all the experts in this field and the best way to get that input is in the committee, where people can come forward and comment on it.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you what the government has in mind, because you will not see it in the Attorney General’s remarks today.

The Health Protection and Promotion Act has had a significant section removed from it, that section that requires a person who would administer a vaccination to an elderly person who is incompetent, that section has been removed until December 31, 1989. That is the kind of pace this government is setting, and I think it is unworthy of the people who have laboured so mightily on all these reports. Shame on you.

Mr. B. Rae: This government is becoming a repository of reports. Let me just say to the Attorney General, he has been sitting on them. Remember Coulter Osbome’s report on insurance? Nothing from the government. Judge Zuber’s report on court organization? Nothing from the government. Mr. Donner’s report on overtime? Nothing from the government. Dr. Ianni’s report on retirement? Nothing from the government. Father O’Sullivan’s report, You’ve Got a Friend? Nothing from the government. Mr. Manson’s report? Nothing from the government. The trinity of Spasoff, Evans and Podborski on health care? Nothing from the government. Professor Friedland on pensions? Nothing from the government. And Majesky-Minna? A step backward from the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara).

It is not simply that these reports are collecting dust. It is that people -- pensioners, people in nursing homes, people who are frail, people who are working far too long and too hard -- are waiting for action from this government and they have had nothing since September 10, 1987. This government has been doing absolutely zilch on every report submitted to it on every matter of major importance, whether it is a nursing home or somebody who is sick or somebody who is on pension. The frail, the elderly and the weak have been waiting since September 1987 for this government to act. It has been sitting on its fanny and doing absolutely nothing on their behalf.

CRIME PREVENTION WEEK

Mr. Runciman: I would like to respond to the statement of the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) with respect to Crime Prevention Week. Our party wants to join in congratulating and thanking our police forces across the province and the community organizations that support them, especially the men and women in our police forces who put their lives on the line every day for the people of this province.

We do indeed live in one of the safest jurisdictions in the world. Some might argue that the situation is changing, especially in our heavily urbanized areas. Our police forces need community support.

They also need and deserve much better support than they currently receive from this government. We can talk about things like drug enforcement, which we brought to the minister’s attention almost half a year ago and she treated it in a cavalier fashion. We can talk about the anti-rackets squad trying to combat white-collar crime in this province, woefully understaffed, and the minister will not address that critical situation.

In my own area of the province, in eastern Ontario, the talk is continuously about reducing the number of Ontario Provincial Police detachments. We have areas of Highway 401 without any police coverage for four or five hours during the evenings. That is the kind of commitment this province is making to policing.

The minister is travelling the province handing out awards in a public relations effort while, at the same time, she is doubling the political staff in her own office. This government is creating another 6,000 civil service jobs in many areas that do not really require them, in our opinion. They have their priorities all off base.

Let’s do something meaningful instead of political posturing with respect to the police forces across this province and ensure that we remain one of the safest jurisdictions in the world.

WIFE ASSAULT

Mr. Jackson: I wish to respond to the announcement of the minister responsible for women’s issues (Mr. Sorbara) on the assault prevention public education campaign.

I know what the minister is trying to do with this campaign, which says, “Wife assault -- it is a crime.” There is an inequity in our criminal justice system as it relates to domestic violence and crimes of violence. That attitude and that distinction permeates our society and, unfortunately, it permeates our criminal justice system.

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If Kirby Inwood had gone next door and assaulted his neighbour’s wife, would he have received a suspended sentence? If Kirby Inwood had gone next door and drunkenly dropped his neighbour’s son on his head, would he have received just 30 days?

This arbitrary double standard has to be removed from our criminal justice system and from our society. I would suggest to this minister that he might achieve these goals of removing that distinction between family violence and crimes of violence a whole lot faster if he himself would stop referring to assault as wife assault.

The minister is a lawyer. He knows full well that in the Criminal Code there is nothing covering the crime of wife assault. The charge is assault, period. Until this distinction is removed from our minds, it will continue to be perpetuated throughout our criminal justice system.

ADVOCACY

Mrs. Cunningham: We are especially pleased today to see the final report of the Advisory Committee on Substitute Decision-Making for Mentally Incapable Persons; i.e., the Fram committee.

We will underline that we think it took a very long period of time and we urge the government to deal with the recommendations in this report as quickly as possible. We are interested in the committee hearings but we would urge that they not take a very long period of time. In our short reading of this report, I can assure members that our party is most interested in co-operating with the government in very quick decision-making.

We are especially interested in advocacy services for seniors. We would like to make note at this time that to make people subject to this legislation without providing advocacy services for them should therefore be avoided and the committee itself recommends, and I underline, that the substitute decisions act not come into force until advocacy services, supported by appropriate legislation, are operational and are available to persons who would be affected by the substitute decisions act.

Mr. Cousens: Would the House give unanimous consent for in memoriam remarks on the death of Bill Hodgson?

Agreed to.

WILLIAM HODGSON

Mr. Cousens: I rise on behalf of our party in a moment of remembering of a friend and the passing of one who has served in this House, one who is going to be long remembered by the people of York region and the people of his communities. It is with deep sadness that today we mark the passing this morning of Bill Hodgson, the former MPP for the riding of York North.

Bill was first elected to this Legislature in 1967 and was subsequently re-elected in 1971, 1975, 1977 and 1981. During these years, Bill held a range of posts, including chairman of the select committee on company law, Deputy Speaker of this assembly and parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Housing. In 1981, he was appointed parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Government Services.

Bill’s dedication to public service dates back to 1936 when he joined the district milk producers’ association. From there he went on to become a trustee and secretary-treasurer of the King township school board and later served as councillor, deputy reeve and reeve of King township council and in 1959 became warden for York county.

These responsibilities are only the tip of the iceberg when one chronicles the distinguished career and service of Bill Hodgson. He sat on numerous committees and associations, the Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, the York County Hospital board, the children’s aid society for what was then York county. His work as a member of the Lions Club was again a signal of his service to his community.

This was a man who was dedicated to serving people, to serving his riding and serving Ontario. He was a builder in the truest sense. There is not a highway in York region that does not have his footprint on it and his care and concern. He was a builder of hospitals. He was concerned about schools. He was instrumental in getting the new courthouse in Newmarket. He was a builder of young people as a coach for intermediate and minor hockey.

He was a great human being, a man who was sincere and honest and good. He visited his mother on a regular basis when she was living, and she lived to over 100 years of age. He was a marvellous family man, highly esteemed by our caucus; we affectionately called him “the senator.”

We will miss Bill Hodgson and so will all the people of York region and the people of Ontario, because he was a man who cared and did his best for his party and his province.

On behalf of our party and this House, may I join in extending our heartfelt sympathy to his wife Eliza, to his children Beth Ann, Robert, Janice and David. He will be sadly missed.

Mr. Laughren: On behalf of my caucus, I want to join the member in expressing our condolences to the Hodgson family. Bill was elected in 1967, four years before I was. During the 14 years we were together in this place, we served on many committees together and got involved in many issues together, very seldom on the same side.

I liked Bill Hodgson. I liked him for a number of reasons. He was quite fiercely independent-minded. I am sure that any of the cabinet ministers of those days would attest to that. There were times when he went his own way. I can recall him being such a fine figure of a man. I often thought he could have had another career, modelling, because he looked so resplendent. It was not all due to his snow-white hair; tall people look better in clothes. I must say I always had a certain amount of envy when I saw Bill come in.

He worked very hard as an MPP. For me, his most endearing quality was the fact that he took his job much more seriously than he took himself. I will miss him, and I know, Mr. Speaker, you will forward the condolences of this caucus to the Hodgson family as well.

Mr. Beer: I would like to join my colleagues in marking this sad occasion, not only for the residents of York region but for all of Ontario, as we have lost a distinguished and long-serving parliamentarian.

Bill Hodgson was a member of this Legislature for 18 years and a municipal politician for more than 17 years before that. He succumbed this morning at two o’clock to his long battle with cancer. Thankfully, Bill was able to go quietly at home with his family around him in the familiar surroundings he had known all of his life.

As has been mentioned, he represented the riding of York North from 1967 until 1985. During that time, Bill became known as a warm and caring individual, one who knew no partisan boundaries in his work for the citizens of the area. Whether you were a Conservative, a Liberal or a New Democrat, he treated everyone the same.

Bill leaves behind him a long and distinguished career of public service. A lifetime resident of King township, he began his life as a farmer’s son and continued in farming until his election to the Legislature. Prior to 1950, he served as a school trustee in what was then York county. From 1950 to 1953, he served as a councillor in King township and then as deputy reeve for that township.

For seven years Bill Hodgson served as the reeve of King township and in 1959 he added the responsibility of warden of York county. He became chairman of the King township planning board from 1963 until Canada’s centennial year, 1967. It was in that year that he first came to this House.

During his lifetime, Bill distinguished himself in charity work as well, acting as chairman of the committee that built York Pines United Church in Kettleby, the church where he will be laid to rest on Saturday. He was an active member of the Pottageville Lions Club and an honorary member of the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 426 in Newmarket.

Bill was also well known for his work with the junior farmers of the area, helping them to understand the importance of farm work and helping them to be successful at it.

He was born in Nobleton in 1912, one of seven children, predeceased by three of his siblings and his mother who, at the age of 102, passed away just five months ago. He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Eliza, and his four children, Beth Ann, Bob, David and Janice.

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As a member, Bill enjoyed working with the government, but for years his family urged him to step back to a less hectic lifestyle. He resisted retirement, saying simply, “Serving government is my life.”

Citizens of Ontario, residents of York region and the many friends and neighbours of Bill and Eliza Hodgson have much to be grateful for from the many years that Bill devoted to public service. He has left an impressive legacy, and it is good to know that two of his children have followed in his footsteps of government service, David for Ontario and Bob for the region of York.

Bill will be missed, but he will be well and fondly remembered. On behalf of my colleagues in the Liberal Party, I extend our deepest sympathies to the Hodgson family.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: Perhaps I can just step a little bit beyond the bounds of normal procedures in these circumstances and say a few words myself about the passing of Bill Hodgson.

Bill Hodgson sat in this House, as the other members have said, for some 17 years. The reason he was not sitting here after May 2, 1985, is that he and I and one other fellow were involved in an election campaign in York North and I succeeded Bill at that time.

I want to just say that Bill Hodgson was a man who was truly committed to his community. I think all the members of this House know about the kind of camaraderie that develops among opposing candidates during an election, and from virtually the first day that we were on the same campaign trail, I developed a respect for Bill.

But what I really found out about during that election campaign was how deeply he was loved by the people of York region, As I went door to door during that campaign, voter after voter told me how much they loved and respected Bill Hodgson and how much he had done for the community, not just in the riding we were fighting in but all across the region. After his retirement as well, as I took on the responsibilities of representing York region, that same theme was repeated over and over again.

York region really has lost a senator. The province has lost a senator, someone who dedicated virtually his entire life to the service of the people of this province. He will be sadly missed by all of us.

Mr. Speaker: Of course, on behalf of all the members, I will send your words of sympathy to the Hodgson family as soon as the official Hansard is printed.

TABLING OF INFORMATION

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, before you call oral questions, I wonder if you will permit me to table some information that the Premier (Mr. Peterson) asked me to table. He himself is at a funeral. This is in response to a question asked yesterday. It is not a statement; it is just being tabled.

ORAL QUESTIONS

CHILD CARE

Mr. B. Rae: I have a question to the Minister of Community and Social Services following the questions that I put to him yesterday about child care.

The minister, just a few short months before the last provincial election in 1987, put out a very glossy document called New Directions for Child Care. It was the Liberal Party platform on child care in the last election. It is supposed to have been the basis for consultation with all those groups providing child care in the province today and it set out the policy of the province for the future. It describes its vision. it says on page 3:

“Ontario’s vision for the future of child care is based on several new policy directions:

“Public service, not welfare: Until now, financial assistance for child care has been directed primarily to low-income families through needs-tested subsidies, where available. Middle-income families receive little or no assistance. The goal of the government is to move child care from its present welfare connotation toward that of a basic public service. This means that support for child care will recognize that services need to be accessible to all families who require them. To achieve this, steps must be taken to ensure that all families who wish it, can have reasonable access to a range of affordable, high-quality services.”

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. B. Rae: Why has the minister now abandoned that objective and demanded that people who are providing child care in this province do it on the basis of welfare and not on the basis of a public service?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: The honourable member is certainly correct in the interpretation of the quote, and that is still the policy position of this government and of this ministry. However, I would also draw the honourable member’s attention to someplace else in that document -- I am sorry I cannot quote the page -- that clearly says that this is a nine-year plan, that there will be three three-year sections.

The first three-year section, the first three-year phase is very clearly identified there. In other words, this is the direction in which we want to move. As I said to the Association for Early Childhood Education, Ontario, meeting last week, we have not changed that, but while we are moving there, while we are moving towards creating more licensed spaces, more subsidies -- and there are timetables for all of those; it was never suggested in that document that it was going to happen in one year or two years or even the first three years -- while we are moving along that direction, we will continue to have to have priorities.

There is no difference between what that statement says, no difference between how the honourable member interprets that statement and what in fact we are doing, but we cannot do it in one year. While we are going down that road, as I responded to him yesterday, there will have to be priorities.

Mr. B. Rae: This is outrageous. The minister has stated that, as far as he is concerned, it is now the government’s policy that in families where, say, the husband is making $10 an hour and the wife is making $10 an hour in Metropolitan Toronto, those people should not be eligible for a subsidy. That is what he is saying. The minister shakes his head. He was on his feet yesterday saying that people who make $40,000 income should not be getting subsidized child care in Toronto -- that was the clear implication of his remarks -- or that they should be giving up the space.

How can the minister justify this complete reversal of policy by his party and by his government? His federal leader is going across the country saying, “We’re going to spend $10 billion on child care,” and the minister is saying in this House today that families that make $10 an hour for the father and $10 an hour for the mother have to give up their subsidized space in Toronto because there is no --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question has been asked.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: If the honourable member were to examine Hansard, I believe that in my response to his question yesterday I did not say that the person or the family earning the kind of income he just quoted should not be eligible. I did not say that. I would ask the honourable member to examine my answer. My recollection of my answer is that while they would continue to be eligible, those who were more needy should be at the top of the list and should get the service first. There is a distinct difference between those two elements.

Mr. B. Rae: What the minister is now saying is that it is okay to be on the waiting list, but you will never get it. It is exactly the same thing. That is what he said. He said you are eligible. We all know there are 2,000 people right now who are eligible and they are not getting the care.

Interjections.

Mr. B. Rae: The Liberal Party does not like to hear the truth. The Liberal Party does not like to hear the truth that its federal leader is going across the country saying one thing and their provincial --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is question period time, not debating time.

Mr. B. Rae: The minister’s figures yesterday were completely false with respect to the number of families that are receiving the kind of child care there.

Hon. Mr. Scott: He said, “False.”

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Mr. B. Rae: I said the figures are false; I said the minister’s figures were wrong yesterday.

What I want to ask the minister is this: Can he explain why the government today, as the price of its child care policy, is asking families -- To go back to the example the minister gave yesterday, he wants to talk about a $40,000 income. Let’s talk about it. That is $10 an hour for the man and that is $10 an hour for the woman if both people are working. Presumably, the minister thinks those families should work. He thinks the wives should be working as well as the men. I presume he does not want the women to have to go back home. I presume that is not what he is saying.

Mr. Speaker: Question?

Mr. B. Rae: Why is the minister insisting that the price of his child care policy is that they should give up their space in order to satisfy the minister’s cheapness and parsimoniousness when it comes to providing for ample child care for all who need it in this province? That is exactly what the minister is doing.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I would once again ask the Leader of the Opposition to examine my answer of yesterday.

I did not say that the families he has just referred to should give up their space. What I did say was that with 18,000 subsidized spaces in Metropolitan Toronto, there is obviously a fairly regular turnover in availability of those spaces. As those spaces become available, those people with the greater need should get them first, not those with the higher income. That is what I said.

PROGRAM FUNDING

Mrs. Grier: My question is also for the Minister of Community and Social Services. It concerns a program in my riding called Access. Access allows parents who do not have custody of their children to meet with those children in neutral and supervised surroundings. Since 1982, with one staff member and dedicated volunteers, Access has allowed 6,500 such visits to occur, 1,000 this year alone.

Access will be closing in mid-December because it has no funding, and the Ministry of Community and Social Services has consistently refused to provide that funding. Can the minister explain that decision to us?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: There are a number of agencies around the province that make a determination to launch, initiate and operate programs on their own. Neither this ministry nor the government as a whole can automatically be responsible for funding such programs where the decision is made by someone else.

I will tell the honourable member, however, that there are two pilot programs in the province that are being funded at the present time to allow that very process to take place. What we are attempting to discover in those two pilot programs, which we did authorize and which we are partially funding, is to determine exactly what is happening, what the success is and the degree to which it meets the needs we have identified.

The particular program she has indicated was not an authorized program by this province. We are not at the moment funding it. We may very well do so once we learn the results of the two pilot programs in two other areas of the province, but at the moment we are not. She is correct.

Mrs. Grier: I find that the most incredible splitting of hairs. This program in Etobicoke began in 1982 with initial funding from the United Church. Over that period it has repeatedly approached the Ministry of Community and Social Services as well as the Ministry of the Attorney General and demonstrated its viability. Ninety per cent of its clients are referred by the family court. The family courts require written assessments from the program on the clients whom they deal with. The children’s aid society refers children to the program.

Can the minister explain why further pilot projects were required when he has received in grant applications the statistics and the demonstrated success of Access, and why he wrote to Access in 1986 turning down their funding? He said: “It is obvious you are meeting a need in the community, and if it were not for your program, children would find it difficult. Your assessments are providing useful information.”

Given that knowledge and background --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The questions have been put.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: As I have just indicated to the honourable member, there are a number of programs operating around the province that we did not authorize and do not fund. That is a fact of life. It is probably true of several other ministries as well, although I cannot particularly point to it.

I did not indicate -- and the member just quoted the section of the letter -- that we were unhappy with what they were doing or that we did not want them to do what they were doing. We indicated that at this particular point in time we were funding two pilot programs of our own to discover how we should go about doing that. If they wished to continue what they were doing, that was a decision they had to make; it was not my decision. We did not tell them to do it; we did not tell them not to do it. But I cannot be responsible for a program that some other agencies -- in this case, the church the member identified -- decide to launch on their own. That is their decision. If they want to do it, they can do it, but I cannot be held responsible for it.

Mrs. Grier: This is an incredible distortion of the traditional role of the voluntary sector in starting good programs which then, when they prove their usefulness, are frequently supported by provincial levels of government. I take it the minister is saying that if it is started by the voluntary sector in future without his permission, forget it, it will never get funding.

Given that the pilot program in Kitchener-Waterloo was given $20,000 by his ministry and has served 20 families since last April, which at the rate that Access is seeing children would be $1 million for a budget for Access -- is the minister going to allow this program in Etobicoke to close down in December for the want of $34,000, which is what it has asked for in its latest application?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I would ask the honourable member to reflect on the immediately previous answer I gave her. I clearly did not say that they would not get funding, ever. I clearly did say that once we know the results of the two pilot programs presently in existence and make a decision as to the extent to which we would expand that particular service, this agency could very well get funding. I did not say they would never get funding.

EXTENDED CARE

Mr. Brandt: My question is for the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens’ affairs. The minister knows there are over 30,000 extended care patients in nursing homes in Ontario and that this 30,000 figure for seniors represents some 70 per cent of the extended care residents in nursing institutions. Yet the minister is also aware that those institutions receive some 33 per cent less in funding than municipal homes for the aged, even though the nursing requirements, the cost of care and the need for improvements in those homes are exactly the same. Will the minister not end the blatant difference in government funding between nursing homes and municipally run homes for the aged?

Hon. Mrs. Wilson: The leader of the third party may well know that the issue of funding of nursing homes is a subject that is before the courts. I am therefore unable to make comment.

Mr. Brandt: I find that response rather interesting, because the minister well knows that back in 1986 her predecessor in office indicated in a white paper that was released for seniors well before there was a court case, and in a document called A New Agenda, that: “The central initiative will be the development of new extended care legislation. The intent is to develop a single, improved act” -- and I ask the minister to listen carefully to this part -- “which will apply to all providers and establish uniform criteria.”

I ask the minister again, irrespective of the fact that this issue is before the court -- and it is before the court because of the delays in response on the part of her government -- will she now look at equalizing the funding between those two institutions so seniors in this province are treated equally right across the province?

Hon. Mrs. Wilson: The goal that the leader of the third party has outlined as part of this government’s new agenda for senior citizens still remains the goal of this government. Because of the case which is before the court, I am unable to move forward and unable to comment at this time.

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Mr. Brandt: I can tell the minister that there is a very simple solution to the dilemma that she has by way of the excuse she is using, indicating that this matter is before the court. Very simply, if she sits down with those nursing home operators and gives them equal funding, they will withdraw the court case which she forced them to bring against the province because of the delay in her program.

In 1986, she promised it. Her government has taken a position consistently indicating that it favours equalized funding, and I think it is a little late to hide behind the skirt of the court and indicate that she cannot make any comment now, simply because the courts are dealing with the issue.

Mr. Speaker: Do you have a supplementary?

Mr. Brandt: Will the minister meet and negotiate an equitable settlement so that seniors are treated fairly and forget the nonsense about the court?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Minister.

Hon. Mrs. Wilson: I must repeat, I am unable to comment on details because the issue is before the court.

RENTERPRISE LOAN

Mr. Pope: I have a question for the Minister of Housing with respect to the events that we discussed yesterday in the Legislature.

The London Free Press in today’s news reports contains an interview with Lionel Bonhomme of Timmins, a former property owner. In it, Mr. Bonhomme confirms that, as far as he was concerned, he sold his land to Joe Fontana, He confirms that he had spoken to Mr. Fontana at least 20 times with respect to this land transaction and the development of that land, and the money was still owing to him from that sale. Mr. Bonhomme confirms that Fontana had mentioned that he was working on the Premier’s (Mr. Peterson) campaign and was his friend. This is in the London Free Press report today.

The Toronto Sun, in today’s early edition, indicates that the Ministry of Housing officials confirmed that under the Renterprise program, an agreement was issued in February, 1987 to Advance Property Management Consultants Inc., of which Fontana was listed as a representative.

My question, because it is not answered in the Premier’s statement, is: What specific role did Mr. Fontana play in the obtaining of this approval? Why was he allowed to market it through two different principal groups? Why will the minister not table all the documents, letters and correspondence and Mr. Sean Goetz-Gadon’s notes with respect to this matter?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is three questions.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: Let me repeat for everyone the chain of events that took place.

On October 17, Antonio Torchia, Vincent Ciccone and Antonio Ciccone applied to Renterprise to build 45 units of housing at $9,500 per unit. That is the support they wanted.

On February 20, 1987, the ministry approved the application for 45 units, as they had asked for, at $7,400 a unit, which turned out to be $333,000.

On July 6, 1987, there was a new owner, Eric Whalley Construction. It advised the ministry that it had bought the land on which this project was supposed to take place. It then applied to Renterprise to build 42 units, not the original 45, at $7,400, and in that month Whalley Construction’s application was approved by the ministry for a total of $310,800.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: You asked a question. I am trying to answer it.

Currently, 50 per cent of that loan --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: I want to answer this question. Fifty per cent of that loan has been advanced. The remaining part of it will be advanced when the construction is complete. I should tell members that Mr. Fontana was an employee of the company which made the original application. That is the story.

Mr. Pope: We have the admission so far from the minister that Mr. Fontana was a paid employee and a friend of the Premier who made the application for the company. We have that so far.

Is the minister aware, in fact, that it was not Eric Whalley Construction that made the application or received the loan, but a numbered company that Eric Whalley was a director of? It was not a construction company at all that made the application, it was a numbered company.

Second, all negotiations with respect to the acquisition of this property were through Advance Property Management Consultants Inc., not through Mr. Whalley, not through any other numbered company, but Advance Property Management Consultants Inc., Vincent Ciccone, vice-president.

Does she know who the other officers of that company are and who stood to benefit from this land flip that she allowed to happen with public money?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: The person whose name the member mentioned, Joe Fontana, was an employee of the company which made the original deal and which made the profit from the project. He did not make any profit. The deal did not involve taxpayers’ money, the deal in which the profit was made.

The member said yesterday that the amount of money we gave to the Renterprise project was associated with the cost of the land. That is not true. The loan is based on the total value of the project, on local market conditions and on the number of units.

Mr. Brandt: You cannot build units without land.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: That is right, but the formula for Renterprise is based --

Interjections.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: Gentlemen, I want to answer the question. Do me the courtesy of listening to the answer.

Interjections.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: The way the Renterprise project worked, the loan is based on the total value of the project, on local market conditions and on the number of units. The ultimate producer of the units received a smaller loan than the commitment given to the original applicants.

Let me just repeat the key points I want to make. The original applicants did not receive any money from the government. As the land escalated in value, as per the member’s description, the government commitment actually declined, and the program is resulting in the construction of 42 units in the town of Timmins.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Pope: I have been quietly listening to the minister’s explanation, and the longer I listened the more it seemed there is something more here than I thought in the first place.

I want to tell the minister that, when she says there is less government assistance in the project the second time around than the first time around, what she really means to say is that the number of units declined, not the assistance per unit. I would have thought she would want to be accurate in that. There was not a decline per unit in government support. There was a reduction of three units in the project. The financial commitment remained the same per unit as it was the first time, so she should not tell the people of this province that the government had less of a financial commitment per unit to this project over the --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Pope: The minister should table all the projects right now and explain how she can justify a paid consultant who is a friend of the Liberals -- the Premier opened his committee room -- being allowed to peddle --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: It is easy for the member opposite to make allegations and dark hints. If he has something specific to say, he should say it.

What I want to say very clearly is that the original plan was to give the original group of people support for 45 units. Indeed, the second application came in for 42 units. We supported the 42 units. I said that very clearly. The total financial commitment did indeed go down. If you multiply $7,400 by 42, you get a smaller number than if you multiply $7,400 by 45. Even I, with my not hugely sophisticated arithmetic, can do that.

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Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Once again, I just have to wait while you are wasting the time for the House.

LABOUR DISPUTE

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. The preamble of the Labour Relations Act says that it is in the interests of the workers of the province to organize and to engage in free collective bargaining. How long will he allow Dr. John Mull and Canadian Medical Laboratories to flout the law of Ontario and deliberately stonewall the efforts of the 60 employees, mostly women, members of Locals 206 and 221 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union who have been locked out since June 3 of this year?

I am sure the minister is aware of the tactics that this owner is using, of the intransigence of his position and that this is the same owner who just some five years ago flatly refused -- it took a couple of years to get the money to pay an order of the Inflation Restraint Board to these employees.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: The member for Hamilton East refers to a lockout which began on June 3 and, as he says, involves some 50 employees who are primarily women.

I should tell him, although I think perhaps he already knows, that mediation assistance has been provided by the Ministry of Labour on a number of occasions. The most recent of those occasions was September 20. The issue of tactics and the issue of the conduct of the parties has been of some moment, particularly in the Hamilton community, although I have heard expressions of concern from elsewhere as well.

In conjunction with those tactics, it is important to point out that there is now before the Ontario Labour Relations Board an application dealing with the issue of unfair labour practices. Obviously it would be inappropriate for me to comment on that matter as it proceeds before the board, other than to say that my own understanding is that the hearing under section 89 of the Labour Relations Act is scheduled for some time in late November or early December.

I should add as well, though, that mediators within the ministry have been in close contact on an ongoing basis with the parties and are in a position to meet with the parties whenever they are ready to proceed.

Mr. Mackenzie: The minister is right. The last session with a mediator, Trevor Stevenson, was on September 20. At that time, the company, as has been its tactic, indicated some interest in the union’s position. The union revised its demands downwards at that particular point in time, and yet nothing has happened. I am also aware that as late as yesterday, before the Ontario Labour Relations Board, the parties were told that this dispute should be settled in collective bargaining and not before the board.

I am wondering if the minister can tell us whether he will take a look at a direct board order because it is the only way he is going to get these people together talking seriously. I think that may be the position of some of the members of his staff as well.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: Obviously, I have to take into consideration the advice of my friend, the member for Hamilton East. At this point, though, I do not think it would be appropriate for me even to comment on the submissions that one party or another made at the mediations. It would obviously be up to the parties to reveal in a public way the quality and the nature of their offer and what took place within the mediation and after that.

I want to tell the member for Hamilton East as sincerely as I can that our mediators within the Ministry of Labour are staying in very close contact. It is a situation that has gone on a very long time. It is one that I do not think any of us can celebrate. I reiterate that it is a lockout, not a strike, and if he has any other suggestions he wants to bring to my attention or to the attention of the people within my ministry to find a way to bring this unfortunate lockout to a resolution, I would be perfectly willing to entertain them.

RENTERPRISE LOAN

Mr. Pope: My question is to the Minister Of Housing. Could the minister indicate if it is normal and if she thinks it is appropriate to issue Renterprise approvals, as her official said yesterday afternoon, to a consulting company without a land site in the community that she issued the certificate of approval for? It did not have any land for a period of six months, until September 3, 1987, while she and her officials claim that the approval was in February 1987.

For six months, there was not even a site for the project that she is giving financial support to, and a principal and officer of the consulting company was allowed to purchase the land in trust for $353,000 at 2:25 p.m. on September 3 and sell it at 2:25 p.m. on September 3 for $420,000 to a numbered company.

Does the minister think it is proper management of provincial government housing programs to allow that kind of flip to take place? Why will she not table the documents on this matter?

An hon. member: Table your own documents.

Mr. Pope: I have.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: What the Renterprise program did was work with people in the private sector who were producing rental housing in markets where we saw that it was necessary. We gave them support on a per-unit basis on a formula depending on the community, the geographic location and the costs associated with that community in order to create rental housing all over the province. The formula was based on the number of units and the market conditions in a local area. It was not based on the cost of any particular piece of land. The Renterprise program functioned that way.

In October, when I came in as minister, we decided not to continue the Renterprise program. The reason we decided to do that was that, in fact, it was not producing as many projects and units as we wanted, and we decided we could spend our resources more effectively in other programs. But during the time of the program, the criteria on which it was based were the number of units -- so it was a per-unit amount -- the market situation in the particular community and the costs in that community. It was not based on the cost of a specific piece of land.

Mr. Pope: Antonio Ciccone and Mr. Torchia know Mr. Bonhomme well. They meet each other every day of the week in Timmins. Virtually every week, they see each other, They do not need someone from London to introduce each other. I want to know why the minister gave Advance Property Management Consultants Inc. an approval under the Renterprise program and allowed it to exchange principals to Eric Whalley and a numbered company.

She knew that the total project cost is involved in the calculation, and the cost of the land is part of the total project cost. We are talking about a $310,000 interest-free loan from this government, secured by a mortgage on title in favour of Ontario Mortgage Corp.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. The question has been asked. The minister.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: At this point, only one half of this loan has been advanced. That is $155,400, not the $310,000 the member is talking about. The rest will be advanced when the construction is completed. The program worked in exactly the way I have described. It looked at the project cost and, in particular, the per-unit amount.

Let me stress again that the per-unit amount that was decided in February 1987 was exactly the same amount that was decided on in July 1987, and the project is now going to result in 42 units of rental housing in Timmins, according to the original plan of the Renterprise program.

COMPUTERIZED AXIAL TOMOGRAPHY

Mr. Owen: I have a question for the Minister of Health. For some time now, the Simcoe District Health Council has indicated that its priority for that county and for the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie is the location and approval of a computerized axial tomography scanner machine. Facts and figures have been given to the ministry indicating the costs that are now involved with transporting patients from the county area down to Toronto, and I have just received the most up-to-date figures from that hospital which show that last fiscal year, the nursing staff cost just for transporting CAT scanner patients was $60,000, ambulance staff $20,000, and the cost of the CAT scan use in Toronto $200,000.

Because of these figures, I ask the minister, where is the ministry now with regard to approval of this particular type of equipment for the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie?

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Hon. Mrs. Caplan: For the information of the member, and I know his interest in this matter, the CAT scanner, as it is known, is an example of a new technology which I believe is one of the important challenges facing health care, and that is the evaluation and deployment of new technology. Technology is approved based on certain criteria; that is, the need that is identified and established, the hospital’s ability and capacity, as well as referral patterns, case load and experience. The CAT scanner for Royal Vic in Barrie was ranked by the Simcoe District Health Council as its priority and it is under active review by the ministry.

Mr. Owen: The hospital has been made aware of the costs that are involved and I can advise the minister that as of now, the entire cost has been raised for this equipment for that hospital. I want to emphasize that I have been talking dollars, but all the time, almost daily, I receive letters and phone calls from families who advise of the problems that are involved in transporting the acutely ill or elderly people down to the Toronto hospitals.

I am also advised of the need for the same equipment by the surrounding areas of Alliston and Orillia, so that they can go to Barrie rather than have to come to the Toronto hospitals. Is there any way in which the minister could look at this again, with the ministry, to sort of expedite or accelerate the program?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: The member raises what I think is a very good point, and that is that the deployment of technology should in fact be on a regional basis and planned regionally, recognizing that not every hospital can or should have every piece of new technology.

As we do regional planning and consider the appropriate requirements for the region, we take into consideration the need to transfer between hospitals so that our vision of equity and access to effective quality health care, as close to home as possible and the very best that we can afford, in fact will become a reality as we look at the stresses and challenges that new technology offers us.

I want to stress to the member that I know the hospital takes every precaution, not only the Royal Vic but other hospitals, when it transfers patients for whatever reason, whether it is for diagnostic testing or other patient needs. I can assure the member that we are very aware of the situation in Barrie and that the CAT scanner at this time is under active review.

NIAGARA REGIONAL POLICE

Mr. B. Rae: I have a question for the Solicitor General about Judge Colter’s public inquiry into the Niagara Regional Police situation. I wonder if the Solicitor General can tell us why the government is refusing to fund properly the work of the commission in the sense that it is not providing sufficient funds for legal representation for all those groups that will be appearing before this commission.

Hon. Mrs. Smith: It is not customary in most inquiries to provide legal costs to all parties having standing. The judge reviewed the groups and individuals who had standing before the hearing and decided, in fact, that three groups should be considered and were considered for funding. He commented, an opinion with which I concur, that the commission itself had its own means of funding. It is an inquiry looking into a Niagara region problem and it was reasonable to expect that since it had means within the region, it should look to its own responsibilities in this matter.

Mr. B. Rae: If this is a provincial inquiry into a problem affecting the Niagara region, I wonder if the minister can tell us why the government and the commission are not in fact properly funding the cost to the region for appearing before the commission. Surely the minister would agree that since it is a provincial inquiry, it is the responsibility of the provincial government to fund the inquiry properly.

Hon. Mrs. Smith: At the request of the police commission in that area, and in fact at its almost insistence that there was a need to look more closely at this by way of a public inquiry, the province called such a public inquiry. However, within this inquiry there is a particular interest in a problem that relates to the Niagara region. It is customary in inquiries that where they relate to a specific area, that area has a special responsibility. The commission is not without means to fund its own legal costs, and for this reason it is seen as appropriate, as has been done in other such inquiries, for it to fund what is a consideration that will relate largely to the good of that area.

YORK REGION LAND DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Harris: In the absence of the Premier (Mr. Peterson), I would like to ask a question to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. The minister will be aware of allegations raised in the Globe and Mail yesterday, which I raised in the House, and then again this morning, about the extent to which land development in the area surrounding Metropolitan Toronto is virtually under the control of a small number of developers. In addition to owning from a half to two thirds of all the developable land in the area, the allegation is that they seem to be able to influence municipal politicians to their advantage in property zoning and development strategy.

Would the minister not agree, as minister responsible for municipal affairs, that these allegations are serious enough to bring into question the integrity of our municipal system and warrant a full investigation by his government?

Hon. Mr. Eakins: The honourable member has just mentioned that they are allegations. If he has specific allegations, I suggest he present them to me in this House. My role is to deal with the structure of municipal government and to ensure that municipalities operate in an open and accountable way. I think my record is that I have had things brought to me by ratepayers’ groups and we have acted on them. If he has something I should be looking into at this time, then he should bring something specific.

Mr. Harris: I am not sure how much more specific the Globe and Mail article could have been. Let me quote from today’s article. “Three months ago, when” -- l do not know how to pronounce the name; I presume I will when he calls me -- ”Mr. De Gasperis objected to a Vaughan council decision that could have delayed construction of one of his large subdivisions, he called an immediate meeting in the mayor’s office.

“‘When they yell jump, council jumps.’ a former Vaughan politician said. In this case, council sheepishly reversed its decision a week later.”

That is a serious allegation. There are more, which I am sure the minister has read, and if he has not, he ought to have and will want to read in the paper.

I ask the minister, does this not interest the minister in any way in the least? Is he not the slightest bit concerned with these allegations that are being made in Canada’s national paper? Is he not the slightest bit concerned with those allegations floating out there? As the minister responsible for municipal affairs, why, if he is the slightest bit concerned, will he not launch a formal investigation into these allegations in order to get to the bottom of this question?

Hon. Mr. Eakins: We assess all applications on the merit of the application and on the merit of the facts. Some people complain that we take too long in processing those applications, but let me tell him that we look at them on those merits and that is the way we deal with it.

Now, if he has something further that he feels we should look into, let me know; but let me tell him this: We moved to give greater accountability and respectability to municipal politics when we brought in the new Municipal Elections Act, when we brought forward the contributions and the accountability, by which if anyone feels there is something wrong in municipal politics, all he has to do is go to the office of the clerk and he can see who has contributed to that particular candidate.

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RACE RELATIONS

Mr. Callahan: I have a question for the Minister of Citizenship with responsibility for race relations. About four or five days ago, I read in the press that he had announced a program of some $500,000 for assisting innovative community-based groups to carry out projects, provided they were nonprofit community organizations, with reference to race relations. I have a constituent who has a particular problem and I would like to find out from him what the parameters of that program are.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I think all of us in this House appreciate that this is a fundamentally important area of creating a positive climate for race relations in this province. Some of the most effective groups in doing this are community groups, school boards, municipalities and our native community, and we felt there was an opportunity to encourage them in the development of positive race relations programs by putting together a program where we would provide financial assistance. That is what we have done. So the groups that are eligible are community groups, school boards, municipalities and the native community.

In terms of the types of projects, we are anxious for public education projects such as conferences on race relations. We would support institutions that want to develop race relations policies and programs. We would also support special projects such as needs assessments, research projects for community groups and those institutions I talked about. That is who is eligible and those are the kinds of projects. As I say, we have allocated about $500,000 per year to this grant program.

Mr. Callahan: I will get more specific. In my community, a month and a half or two months ago, an unfortunate incident occurred where one of the residents of my riding placed on her lawn a sign saying, “No Pakis are welcome.” This was brought to my attention by one of my constituents who is, in fact, Pakistani, a Muslim. We attempted to have the matter dealt with through the Criminal Code. We communicated with the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) and were advised that the present provisions of the Criminal Code do not provide for that type of prosecution.

I was advised by the Attorney General that the federal Minister of Justice, apparently on recommendation of the Ontario Law Reform Commission, is conducting hearings into perhaps changing the legislation to provide for a much broader scope in dealing with issues such as this and other issues.

What I would like to know is whether a nonprofit organization such as the Peel Multicultural Council of my community might he able to secure some of the funds provided in that $500,000 grant for purposes of preparing a brief to make that available to the commission as they travel around the country.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: If I might comment on the incident and then on the suggestion, it is incidents like that which I think all of us find completely unacceptable. In that particular case, our race relations directorate and the local police were both involved in attempting to mediate that situation. Those are situations, as I say, that I find most distressing.

In terms of the member’s specific suggestion, if he will recall the grants I mentioned, there was one grant category called special projects. I think if an organization like the Peel Multicultural Council, which is a nonprofit community group, was involved in it, there is a good chance it could fall into one of those grant categories I talked about. My suggestion to the member would be to have them contact our organization and we would be happy to look at that in terms of the possibility of funding it for that third grant category I talked about.

TRUCKING INDUSTRY

Mr. Morin-Strom: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation regarding Bill 88, the minister’s attempt to deregulate and open up Ontario’s $3-billion trucking industry to a one-way American invasion.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Ontario ruled that the minister has been issuing licences illegally to American and Canadian truckers, sabotaging the legitimate role of the Ontario Highway Transport Board to ensure that licences are issued only in the public interest. Given the Supreme Court decision, is the minister now going to subject our trucking industry to the uncertainty of years of further legal battles over a dangerous, flawed bill; or instead, will the minister now withdraw Bill 88 for complete reconsideration, rather than plowing ahead with the clause-by-clause amendments that are to start this afternoon and Monday?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: The member is, I think, referring to Friday’s split decision by the Divisional Court wherein it ruled on the Motor Vehicle Transport Act, which is the federal transport act, not the acts we are dealing with here in Ontario and in committee yesterday and today.

There are legal implications in the decision because it was split. I am not of a legal background and I will not attempt to comment, but the stated case that was before the court dealt only with the MVTA, which is the federal act -- I have to emphasize that, the federal act -- that came into force early this year.

We are talking about the validating, the signing, frankly, of licences and the manner in which it has been done since 1954, about who signs them. That is what the issue is about.

Mr. Pouliot: The minister knows very well that it was his signature on the document. He also knows very well about the obstruction of the board by a small group in his ministry. Their attempt has been very raw, very direct, and while the members of the board are experts in terms of transportation and have been doing it for over 30 years, they are not very well armed when it comes to a political struggle. They have to go to the minister for an appointment in the first place.

The minister seems to be very determined, no matter what, to push through with Bill 88. Can he give the House the guarantee that with the possible enactment of Bill 88, public hearings still will be guaranteed under Bill 88?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: First, I reject the statement made by my friend the member for Lake Nipigon that there is any kind of obstruction within the ministry or with anyone affected in the employ of the ministry or with the Ontario Highway Transport Board. I repeat that the decision before the court was whether or not a political servant on Bloor Street or a political servant in Downsview physically signs the licence.

DRUGS FOR CYSTIC FIBROSIS

Mr. Villeneuve: My question is for the Minister of Health. The minister will know that last week the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation appeared before her commission looking into prescription drug use and costs. Given the sympathetic response of the commission, will the minister act now to help cystic fibrosis victims, instead of waiting for an interim report and literally discriminating against a group of very needy patients?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: I think the principle everyone in this House would agree upon -- as I have said on numerous occasions, health care is not a partisan issue -- is that no one should go without needed drugs because of inability to pay.

We recognize that there are new drugs being brought on the market. We take a look at the $600 million that the Ontario drug benefit plan is costing now and the results of that. We know from the Goldberg drug utilization review that up to 30 per cent of hospital admissions of the elderly are because of adverse drug reactions.

I was so concerned about this that I established the Lowy drug inquiry, and I met with the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and its people and I said to them that what I have asked Dr. Lowy to do is look at the whole picture of the Ontario drug benefit plan, because I am concerned about it from a quality-of-care point of view.

I asked them to go to Dr. Lowy and I have asked Dr. Lowy to give me recommendations by the end of October. I am hoping to have some interim recommendations from him because I believe that we are all concerned about the Ontario drug benefit plan and the fact that there are people in situations now where, while we are dealing with them on an individual basis, we know that new drugs are coming forward and they are having difficulties.

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Mr. Villeneuve: The minister knows that Ontario is the only province that provides no support at all for cystic fibrosis sufferers unless they are on social assistance or welfare. I would like the minister to realize that it is ironic that at a time when this government is wrestling with health costs, the minister wants to preserve a system which forces these people on to social assistance and to be welfare recipients.

Why is the minister continuing to deny support? I know she is looking for the report from the head of her inquiry, but I think she must move and she must move very soon to support these people in the very real needs they have financially, and to support the use of their medication, which is a must to keep them alive.

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: The member is inaccurate when he says we do not support cystic fibrosis patients. In fact, I believe we do up to the age of 18. The difficulty is that after the age of 18, there is no consistency across the province. Drugs are provided through different hospital-based programs and they vary from region to region.

What I have said in the interim is that we want to make sure that nobody, because of an inability to pay, does without needed drugs, that those individual cases be referred to us in the short term while we look at the whole system to make sure there is equity in access to those drugs across this province for cystic fibrosis patients.

That is just one example of the number of new drugs and the diseases which, in fact, we know are daily putting enormous stresses and strains on our health system and for which we have to find new and appropriate ways of responding. That is the reason I asked Dr. Lowy to bring forward recommendations by the end of this month. Because of the concerns I have about the drug benefit plan, as well as meeting needs on an equitable basis, especially when we are finding new technologies and new drug therapies, I want to make sure that the people of this province get the very best therapeutic results from our drug benefit program.

APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING

Mr. Adams: My question is for the Minister of Skills Development. In the Peterborough area we are trying to deepen and widen the pool of skilled workers and provide people with skills for the future. Concern has been expressed to me about the level of funding of apprenticeship programs. Are such funds at risk and can the minister assure me and my constituents that apprenticeships are still a viable career option?

Hon. Mr. Curling: I want to thank the honourable member for Peterborough for his question. I can understand his concern. We were extremely concerned on this side as the government of Ontario.

I know the member knows, but for those who may not know, the apprenticeship program was funded by the federal government since 1944. It pays for most of the in-school training costs. You must have read, Mr. Speaker, I am quite sure, because you are such a well-read man, as well as the member for Peterborough, that they had cut that funding and that caused what is the concern of the member for Peterborough, that the apprenticeship program is in question to be funded.

This government responded immediately to see that those apprentices out there would not go without training. Lately, just about two or three weeks ago, the government responded with $5 million to come back with the shortfall that the federal government neglected to do. The member can assure his constituents that they can continue to do the good work they are doing, especially the Peterborough Industrial Training Institute and the wonderful work they are doing out there. He can assure them that this government is behind them with the apprenticeship program.

PETITION

NURSING SERVICES

Mrs. Cunningham: I have a petition here from some 5,701 citizens across Ontario:

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“We strongly disagree with the college of nurses’ proposed revised standards and levels in nursing practice. Many questions and concerns have not been addressed following the CNO information sessions.

“We urge the college of nurses to cease and desist promulgating such divisive acts.”

This is dated October 27, 1988, and I have signed it and will hand it over to the House.

MOTION

ESTIMATES

Hon. Mr. Conway moved that, notwithstanding any previous order of the House, the estimates for francophone affairs be considered in the committee of supply following the consideration of the estimates of the Ministry of Revenue.

Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

INTERIM SUPPLY (CONTINUED)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for interim supply for the period commencing November 1, 1988, and ending December 31, 1988.

Mr. Villeneuve: It is a pleasure to resume the adjourned debate of the interim supply motion. I want to place on the record a few concerns that I have, particularly as they involve agriculture and as they involve eastern Ontario.

As the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mt. Riddell) yesterday mentioned, he was not quite sure when his five-year Ontario Farm-Start program ran out of money. It did run out of money a very short seven months after being initiated.

I have to just question the minister as to the wisdom of his terminating the beginning farmer assistance program which was in place prior to the farm-start program. A program that had been initiated by the previous government, a program that had served beginning farmers well, a program that was easy to administer, was replaced by a program very difficult to administer, a program initiated to last five years, a program that lasted a mere six months. I wonder where financial assistance will be coming from, with the farm-start program now terminated some 54 or 55 months prior to the time when it should have gone to.

I am pleased to see the parliamentary assistant to the minister here this afternoon. Possibly he will be able to shed some light, because we had very little light shed on the subject when I questioned the minister last Tuesday.

Another area of concern to me was that $20 million was a so-called within-ministry saving, one that could have very easily been applied to the Ontario farm management safety and repairs program, a very popular program which was also allowed to run out of money and did not go to benefit the people it was initially thought up and brought in for.

The land stewardship program has many, many unanswered questions. Financial problems are plaguing this program. The idea is an excellent one. It has to be put on the rails and it has to be made to work. Right now, it leaves a great deal to be desired.

Last summer we had a rather difficult situation to deal with in that we had severe weed pollution in Lake St. Francis, in the area of Lancaster. I was called by some of my constituents on a Saturday morning, as a matter of fact the Saturday morning on which the Glengarry Highland Games were held, and I went down to Lancaster and viewed a very major problem, a pollution problem which endangered the local residents’ health, a weed accumulation in some of the bays that is difficult to explain.

After repeated presentations and demands to the Ministry of Natural Resources, a week later we did get some $25,000 to provide some relief, some removal of a blanket of weeds, the likes of which many people, people who knew the river well, had never seen before.

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I think we have to initiate an ongoing control program. This is an area that changed very dramatically in 1959 when the St. Lawrence Seaway was initiated, where a large hydroelectric power project was initiated just upstream from where the problem occurred. We had some environmentalists tell us that because of this fact, because of the fact that man had changed the course of this river, changed the natural flow of this river, we ran into major weed problems and are going to continue experiencing these major weed problems in Lake St. Francis.

I am and will be requesting that the Ministry or Natural Resources look at this on an ongoing basis and initiate some preventive medicine, as opposed to effectively trying to manage Lake St. Francis and that problem from crisis to crisis. The Raisin Region Conservation Authority was most helpful and did provide a lot of the manpower needed to correct that problem.

It is also noted that Toronto, one of the most economically vibrant areas anywhere in North America, now has a deputy minister to serve it. We also notice that the northern part of Ontario has a minister, the Minister of Northern Development (Mr. Fontaine), to look after some of its problems.

There was an old saying, prior to this government’s coming to power, that Ontario begins and ends at Kingston, but I must report that Ontario now begins and ends somewhere between Oshawa and Belleville, and it is moving farther west. The eastern section of this great province is almost totally forgotten.

I see the House leader here, and of course he comes from that beautiful area in and around Pembroke. I wonder if the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and the people in power are listening to the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway). I know he made a very interesting statement the other day in the Legislature, trying to defend the position of the government regarding some changes that have occurred in this Legislature.

However, I had some difficulty. Accepting the fact that the member is as articulate as he is -- he speaks very well when he gets on his feet, but we do not hear much of him lately -- I am afraid he does not have a great deal of clout when he sits at the cabinet table.

Mr. Speaker, I know you, coming from a neighbouring riding to the one I come from, will agree with me that the eastern part of Ontario must not continue to be overlooked the way it has been in the last three years. A deputy minister for Toronto may well be needed, and I am not quite sure why, but many times we have situations come up in eastern Ontario where a change of zoning or an approval by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food would bring capital expenditures to the area.

I, as a member, and I am sure you, sir, as a member in a neighbouring riding, are for ever and always fighting the bureaucrats, the bureaucracy which has very little concern about the way people operate. That is a rather sad situation: 8,000 additional civil servants to keep the residents of Ontario whipped into line.

Hon. Mr. Conway: You’re the former bureaucrat.

Mr. Villeneuve: If I was a bureaucrat, I was one who tried to bring a bit of common sense to the area, and we are lacking that right now.

Interjections.

Mr. Villeneuve: Mr. Speaker, I know interjections are not in order and I will continue addressing you, sir, and try to disregard some of the comments being made.

The situation that a minister for Metropolitan Toronto was brought in by this government makes one wonder indeed if Ontario will continue to have a situation where the economically favoured Toronto and environs will continue to be economically favoured and those areas which happen to be beyond the fringe, so to speak, particularly to the east, will continue to be overlooked.

The member for Renfrew North will recall well a promise made by the then Leader of the Opposition in 1985 that the time to repair the Queensway would be shortened by at least two years. The Queensway is still a mess. On the east side of Ottawa it is still a mess -- I use it regularly -- and we are soon to go into 1989.

With respect to the twinning of Highway 16, we are not sure now whether the Premier and the ministers responsible for eastern Ontario even remember that they suggested Highway 16 would be twinned into a four-lane highway, because right now we have just a bit of a cow path leading north from the Johnstown bridge. We need to have that improved.

I have a number of other areas. I will talk about a couple more and then I will relinquish, because I know a number of members want to make presentations as well.

The South Nation River Conservation Authority, one of the oldest conservation authorities in this province, runs through your riding, Mr. Speaker, as it runs through mine and through that of the member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman) to the west. We have a major project which is on hold.

We have discussed it with the parliamentary assistant (Mr. McGuigan) to the Minister of Natural Resources. We had a long meeting and had the full authority down. We have major flooding problems in the south branch of the South Nation River. It is an area that may not be considered threatening to life and limb; however, it is certainly very threatening to the agricultural area that it drains, or fails to drain.

There is a project now which has been fairly well documented and engineered which will cost probably in excess of $10 million by today’s standards, but we are talking about many thousands of acres which flood not only at springtime but during the growing season, which causes an immeasurable amount of damage to the farmers and to the crops that are growing there. It is something that must be corrected and rectified in the not-too-distant future. I fully intend to address that on an ongoing basis with both the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Many areas of eastern Ontario have to be addressed economically. We are the weak sisters, the poor cousins, of the rest of Ontario. Mr. Speaker, I know you will agree with me, as you represent a very similar area to mine, that we must continue to encourage this government to recognize the problems that we face in eastern Ontario. If we do not have a minister or a deputy minister, as seems to be the in thing now for different regions, we will certainly have to be looked at more closely and in a more favourable fashion than we have in the past. I know I have your support for that and I hope I have the support of all the members who represent areas in eastern Ontario.

Thank you very much. It has been a pleasure participating in this interim supply debate.

Mr. Sterling: The Speaker will he glad to know that this is an eastern Ontario day, because we do not hear very much from the government back-benchers from eastern Ontario about the problems we have there. I was happy to hear my colleague the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry talk about some of the concerns that we have in eastern Ontario.

In the Ottawa-Carleton area we have, I believe, seven members from the government. I am the one member of the opposition representing either the New Democratic Party or the Progressive Conservative Party. Therefore, a heavy burden falls upon me, because I do not think eastern Ontario and Ottawa-Carleton have ever been treated in a shabbier manner by any government for a long period of time. Not only has it been treated shabbily, but the fact of the matter is that we have seven Liberal MPPs gathering in eastern Ontario, holding caucuses and patting each other on the back about what wonderful things they are doing for our region. I saw on television not too long ago -- in fact, last week -- the member for Ottawa South (Mr. McGuinty) being interviewed by the television after the Carleton Board of Education had been in front of these seven MPPs.

Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, I am not invited to these particular meetings, as you might imagine. This is a Liberal caucus.

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An hon. member: Don’t be negative.

Mr. Sterling: You know, one of the Liberal backbenchers is saying that I am negative with regard to this government. I am negative with regard to this government because it does not give our area a fair shake. If we got a fair shake in eastern Ontario, I would be happy to give them congratulations.

Dalton McGuinty walked out of that meeting after the Carleton Board of Education had pleaded with them for some capital funding, and I want to put on the record exactly what this government has done for the Carleton Board of Education.

In 1987, in the capital announcements, the Carleton Board of Education requested $35 million. We are in an area that is expanding rapidly. We need school spaces. The number of portables is increasing at an alarming rate. They asked for $35 million and they were given $4.6 million. That was about 13 per cent of what they requested. The former Minister of Education, who is now the House leader, is here. That was in 1987, and I thought during the campaign I heard the Premier come into the Ottawa-Carleton area and say he would not forget about Ottawa-Carleton in the next capital year.

This is what Dalton McGuinty thinks is a fair shake in 1988. In 1988, the Carleton Board of Education, because it was given only $4.6 million of a needed $35 million in 1987, had to go up to $45 million in 1988. The population is expanding rapidly. Since the election last year, as a matter of fact, Kanata, one of the areas I represented, has grown from about 29,000 people to about 34,000 or 35,000 people. That is how fast it is expanding from year to year.

But last week, Dalton approves and says, “The government treated the Carleton Board of Education fairly.” This member speaks not only for himself; he speaks for all seven MPPs in the area: Mr. Daigeler, who represents an area under the Carleton Board of Education, and the former parliamentary assistant, Yvonne O’Neill, who represents the area. They asked for $45 million; they got $6.5 million. That is what they were granted in capital allocations in 1988. They got about 10 per cent of what they asked.

Interjections.

Mr. Sterling: I can tell I am striking a nerve, because we can hear a lot of chirping from the Ottawa-Carleton members here in the background, and they have every reason to be embarrassed. They should be very defensive, as they are.

Now, those are hard, cold facts that the caucus from Ottawa-Carleton approves of. I tell members, I do not approve of them and I do not think the people who have children in the Carleton Board of Education approve of them. They do not approve of them, and those members ought to be ashamed of the position the Liberal caucus took in Ottawa-Carleton with regard to the funding they are giving the Carleton Board of Education.

To even compound the problem of capital grants, not only did they cut back the Carleton Board of Education with regard to giving it money --

Mr. Daigeler: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I was listening to the member for Carleton (Mr. Sterling) on television, and I noticed that the member was referring to other members by name instead of by riding. I would be pleased if you would remind the member that in this House we refer to other members by their ridings.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Carleton will take note?

Mr. Sterling: I will take note. I only say that the public from Ottawa-Carleton does not have an opportunity to come to the Legislature, so when I refer to “the member for Nepean,” they might not in fact know that is Hans Daigeler -- I wanted to be certain -- and that the member for Ottawa South is Dalton McGuinty and the member for Ottawa-Rideau is Yvonne O’Neill, all of whom approve of a grant of $6.5 million for the Carleton Board of Education out of a need of $45 million.

They think that is just great, all of the Liberal members in that area. In fact. the former parliamentary assistant for the Ministry of Education, the member for Ottawa-Rideau -- for the people back home, that is Yvonne O’Neill -- thought $6.5 million was okay as well. Not only were we shortchanged in terms of capital --

Mr. Daigeler: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Perhaps you would point out to the member for Carleton the purpose of the regulation we have in this House, which is to refer to the riding. Unless we all follow the rules, I think all members should be free to refer to members by their names.

Mr. Sterling: I think, quite frankly, that we should consider changing the rules of the Legislature because of the fact that we are dealing with television. At the bottom of the TV screen, they will put “Norman Sterling, PC member for Carleton,” but when I refer to the member for Nepean, Hans Daigeler, they will not know who that would be unless I said it. Anyway, I will continue.

I was saying with regard to the capital that not only was the Carleton Board of Education shortchanged in capital, but was shortchanged in terms of operating funds as well, because this government has failed to live up to its election promises, which were repeated once again in 1985, that it would bring the share of its funding to 60 per cent of the cost of education. What has happened in Ottawa-Carleton, for the Carleton board of Education in particular, is that it dropped the funding by about four per cent or five per cent in one year.

Members know who picks up that cost. It is the taxpayers of Nepean. The member for Nepean, Mr. Daigeler, would know that, of course, that through his government’s efforts in paying less of the provincial share, something it directly promised it would not do in the last election, which will hopefully be remembered in the next provincial election, the member for Nepean’s, Mr. Daigeler’s, constituents, the property taxpayers, have to pick up more of the bill. Their property taxes are a direct result of electing Mr. Daigeler, Yvonne O’Neill and the other members of the Ottawa-Carleton area.

Regarding the Carleton Board of Education, the only thing I can say is that it got shafted in capital grants in 1987 and in 1988, and it got shafted in terms of operating grants as well in those two years. I say it is shameful that the chairman of the Ottawa caucus for the seven Liberal members would take it upon himself and think this was just fine and dandy.

The other thing I want to briefly mention, which was mentioned by my friend the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, was the --

Mr. Daigeler: What is his name?

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Mr. Sterling: Noble Villeneuve. They all know him in eastern Ontario and they know him as the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry because he has been elected three times now, so he is well known in his area, as the honourable government House leader would well know.

At any rate, I want to talk briefly about the Queensway because when we were back in power prior to 1985, we heard the Liberals talk about finishing construction on the Queensway.

I will never forget when the now Premier, the member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson), came to Ottawa-Carleton and said: “This is taking too long. The construction of the Queensway is taking far too long. If we are in power, we will be able to finish that in two years, in 1987.” That was the year, 1987. Then when they got into power, barely a month or two after they got into power, it was back to 1988. That was the year the Tories were promising to finish the Queensway.

Well, guess what, folks? Do members know when the Queensway is going to be finished? In 1993, we are going to have the Queensway completed, a mere six years after the Premier promised it would be finished in his election promises of 1985. That is what he promised. I only say that the commitment of the Liberal government in this area, again in terms of Ottawa-Carleton and eastern Ontario, is shameful.

The other matter that I would like to bring up, which is a very small matter in terms of money but I think is very important to a number of people in the Ottawa-Carleton area, is that this government, through the Ministry of Health, funded -- I lauded them for funding it -- a palliative care program in the Ottawa-Carleton area. That required only a very small amount of money -- I believe it was $60,000 or $65,000 -- in order to get a co-ordinator, which was necessary. It was a $50,000 grant, I believe, to the Elisabeth Bruyère Health Centre. It was a one-year grant and it expired last May.

Mr. Speaker, you know how important a palliative care program is. Palliative care primarily is involved with people who have a shorter time to live, and the palliative care program takes care of methods to make those last months, days or weeks a little easier. It deals with providing counselling and with medicine that will relieve pain.

The program is out of money since May, and now the operation is being provided for by charitable foundations. Dr. John Forster, who is the head of the family medicine department at the University of Ottawa and chairman of the palliative care association, indicated his frustration with regard to this government. He blames this government dead on for not funding this program. They lead them down the garden path. They say, “Here is the money for one year,” and then they cut them off.

He talks about the palliative care program and I think his words are worth repeating: “It’s not glamorous. We’re not doing heart transplants on Third World orphans,” Dr. Forster said, “I’ll be damned if I have to go out and sell chocolate bars to provide for the legitimate health care needs of my community. That really hurts.” Now the United Way could not step in and give him a hand.

I wish the Ottawa caucus of the Liberals would see to the fact that this group gets this kind of funding instead of chortling and having meetings that do not seem to come to any conclusion or do not seem to bring any benefit to our area, and they have a press conference after and talk about how things are rosy and pat each other on the back. Let’s get some help for the Palliative Care Foundation in Ottawa. I care about those people because some of them are my constituents. I care about those people whether they are the constituents of any of the members in this particular riding or in any of the ridings.

The other thing I would like to mention, and it was mentioned briefly by the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve), is the fact that there seems to he a great desire on the part of this government to create deputy ministers of all different areas. We have a deputy minister of Toronto now. We have a deputy minister in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology for the north. We have a ministry for the north.

Where the hell is eastern Ontario in all of this’? Does eastern Ontario not have its own special problems that have to be dealt with? We do not have any representative with regard to the needs of eastern Ontario. In fact, I believe the chairman of the Eastern Ontario Development Corp. lives in the city of Toronto. I would hope that if in fact there is going to be an emphasis on region by region, eastern Ontario will finally be recognized in the manner it deserves and should have.

One last thing I want to bring to the fore was that I was actually amused at the resolution brought forward by the member for Ottawa-Rideau (Mrs. O’Neill). I guess it is a face-saving resolution we have in front of the House. I only hope she carries it forward and debates it. I think it will be quite interesting to debate here in the Legislature, because of the sorry record of this particular Liberal government in this area.

That resolution reads, “That, in the opinion of this House, the issue of the location of the new national space agency has become unnecessarily divisive between provinces; that such initiatives should be founded on existing strengths, recognizing that the aerospace industry in Canada is predominantly shared by Ontario and Quebec and the administrative functions based in Ottawa/Hull; that therefore, the logical location for the space agency is in the national capital region.”

That is pretty good, but it is about two years late, because in January 1987, a year and a half ago, I raised this issue with the Treasurer, who was Deputy Premier. If we go back in terms of the whole national space agency question, it was announced in the throne speech of the federal government in October 1986. I and anybody who was doing his groundwork back home in Ottawa-Carleton had heard that the province of Quebec was lobbying hard and fast for the national space agency.

Mr. Harris: Where was Ontario?

Mr. Sterling: Where was Ontario? I asked the Treasurer on January 15, 1987, what this province was doing to locate the national space agency in Ottawa-Carleton. Nothing. There had not been any communication; there had not been anything done by this government. About six months later, the then Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, the member for Quinte (Mr. O’Neil), mentioned it in his speech. Meanwhile, Quebec was in there lobbying away. They were so good at lobbying that not only did they lobby the government side, but they lobbied the opposition party, the federal Liberal Party.

Mr. Harris: What happened there?

Mr. Sterling: I will you what happened there, just because you are asking that question. Do you know where John Turner wants the national space agency? The leader of the Liberal Party, John Turner, wants the national space agency in Montreal, Quebec. I thought a Liberal was a Liberal was a Liberal. Yvonne, do you not agree with your national leader, John Turner? That is what Sheila Copps used to say.

The Deputy Speaker: The member will address his remarks through the Speaker.

Mr. Sterling: Do you not believe in what the national Liberal leader of our country believes in? This particular resolution is in direct conflict with what the national Liberal leader of this country is saying.

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I have raised this issue on a number of occasions. I want to say that the MPs in Ottawa, the federal members of Parliament, have been active in trying to pursue the location of the national space agency in Ottawa-Carleton. That includes all three parties in that case: the Tories, the Liberals and the New Democrats. But here, there was only one party concerned about the national space agency, and that was represented on this side by me. It was the Progressive Conservatives who were concerned about the national space agency.

I hope the member for Ottawa-Rideau brings this forward so we can really find out what this government has done. I think if she digs deeply enough in her files, she will find they are Johnny-come-latelies in this whole affair, the cart after the --

Mr. Villeneuve: The wrong end of the horse.

Mr. Sterling: The wrong end of the horse, as my friend the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry says. They are really bringing up the tail on this one.

Anyway, I am really quite concerned about this government’s attitude towards Ottawa-Carleton. We had approval for Highway 416.

Mr. Villeneuve: Just before the election.

Mr. Sterling: Yes, just before the election. I believe it was August 31, 1987, for Highway 416, to have a major four-lane highway from Ottawa to Highway 401; August 31, 1987, just before the last election.

What has happened in the last year and a half? I have not seen anything happen. The ground is there. The surveyors are not even on the land yet. Maybe they are waiting for the next election to get the surveyors out. That is what they are waiting for.

Interjections.

Mr. Sterling: They may think it is a joke, but I believe a commitment is necessary so that we can have a proper entrance to the nation’s capital from Highway 401. This not only will benefit the people of Ottawa-Carleton but will benefit the constituents of my good friends the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry and the member for Leeds-Grenville, both of whom have been assisting me in pushing this project forward.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Harris: Why is there no seniors’ conference east of Belleville? We have seniors, conferences all over this province.

Mr. Sterling: I know. I noticed that the other day.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Harris: Do they consider Belleville east? I was in eastern Ontario last night.

Mr. Sterling: My friend the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) was in the riding of the member for Lanark-Renfrew (Mr. Wiseman) last night.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Sterling: I understand that the member for Nipissing gave a very inspirational speech and talked about the lack of commitment of this government to eastern Ontario and the waste of funding we have here.

I would like to digress briefly. I want to talk briefly about a matter that I think is very important, and that is the whole attitude of this government towards the release of information. We are experiencing increasing difficulties with getting information from this government. It was exhibited by the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Grandmaître) not too long ago. In fact, it was in the papers today that, in spite of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario saying he must release pertinent property information, he says: “I am not going to do it. I am not going to release information. It is my information. It is not yours, the public’s information.”

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I would like the member to show me a copy of that statement or the clipping in the newspaper where he has read this. If not, I think the member should apologize.

Mr. Sterling: The reason I might have made that inference is that I was looking through my notes here for the newspaper story, but because of the heckling of the Liberal government backbenchers, I did not go through all of the information. I believe, in fact, that what the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Grandmaître) said was that he was going to appeal the decision of the information commissioner.

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I have never said this. I would like the honourable member to produce those clippings or a memo.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Or resign.

Mr. Sterling: I think resigning might be the easiest of the three. Because I do not have the documents in front of me, I will withdraw that allegation, but there certainly was a resistance on the part of the minister to hand over the information immediately. The fact of the matter is that there is a resistance on the part of this government to give information of all kinds.

Today I got a copy of the letter from the Premier, because I asked in July of this year for any of the polls that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. Kwinter) had in his possession. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology stalled me until October, when he told me he did have a poll that was not published. That poll dated back to January and it was on free trade. The government was hiding this poll. It did not table it even though it had it in its possession.

I was kind of amused. I will read the letter the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt) got from the Premier, because he asked the same question of the Premier: “I am replying to your request. After a thorough search of our files, no records of polls not tabled were found to exist.”

About a week ago, we were informed that, in fact, the poll that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology gave to me was lodged in the Office of the Premier. We do not know, when we ask a question, whether they just shuffle the poll from one office to the other to avoid the request or just what is going on.

Anyway, with regard to the poll that I did receive a copy of, I was told that this was only part of the poll. I invite members to guess what: The other part was pulled from this particular free trade poll because it was political in nature. Of course, my question is, who is paying for what here? Is the Ontario government paying for polling? Is the Liberal Party paying for polling? Who is it being used for? Are they using it, or is it going to their federal brethren with regard to this particular political issue?

We have a poll that was produced in January 1988. If I had not asked for the poll, it would never have been produced. I got only half of the poll. The government failed to produce the other information that I asked for, which was the letter commissioning the poll. I asked them for the costs of the poll. They have not given that to me. They also have not agreed to sit down with me and set out a schedule as to the provision of these kinds of documents in the future, which I am entitled to under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

I bring that to the attention of the Legislature once again and will continue to do so until either I get a favourable ruling from the freedom of information commissioner, who is now looking into the situation, or this government starts to act in an open manner and gives the public information which has been paid for by the public.

With that last remark, I will now sit down, but I only hope that my remarks with regard to eastern Ontario will not fall on deaf cars and that the Treasurer will pay a little more attention to the caucus from eastern Ontario and Ottawa-Carleton, even though I do not sit in it.

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Hon. Mr. Conway: I would like to avail myself of standing order 20(b) just to take a few moments, because my good friend the member for Carleton has said some things that I think should be at least commented upon from this side. I am not going to make a lengthy speech; that is not my way, and I know the member for Wellington (Mr. J. M. Johnson) is going to engage in this debate very shortly.

The member for Carleton was going on some moments ago, much to the excitement of the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay (Mr. Black), about capital funding, particularly as it related to the national capital area and the Carleton Board of Education.

I know my friend from Vanier would want me to reflect upon that occasion four years ago, in another era, with another government, when this very distinguished member, a former member of the Treasury bench in the Davis administration, was part of a fantastic experience. I remember it well because I was then on the other side of the aisle.

There is, in his part of the national capital, something called the Barr Haven community, which is a very vocal and outstanding community group. I can remember when the then Provincial Secretary for Resources Development, as one of the local members, together with the former member for Carleton, Mr. Mitchell, were begging with the then Minister of Education, the Honourable Dr. Bette Stephenson, for some money, any money to quell these people in Barr Haven, because in those bad old days there were about 65 million to 70 million capital dollars, unlike today. Under the Nixon-Peterson era, encouraged by people like the member for Ottawa-Rideau, the member for Nepean (Mr. Daigeler) and others, it is not $65 million but $300 million for each of the following three years.

The poor member for Carleton had to go begging and pleading for a few shekels to the door of the Management Board of Cabinet. I will never forget the meltdown of the then Minister of Education, who treated the honourable member with much more disdain and with far fewer dollars than our generous friend, the now Treasurer. That is the record. That is the reality, and this honourable member ought to remember.

Mrs. O’Neill: The member for Carleton obviously has not been home lately, because the board of trade, the mayors, the chairmen of the school boards and the regional health council have all said they have never seen such a presence of provincial government in Ottawa-Carleton. We have met with these groups consistently. We have taken this year over $40 million in capital into the school system of Ottawa-Carleton, capital funds.

The other thing the member for Carleton was talking about is operating grants. The reason the grants to the Carleton Board of Education went down is that it is the fastest-growing area, both commercially and residentially, which he represents, I represent and the member for Nepean represents; that is why the assessment base has broadened so well, because the economy of this province is so strong. Therefore, the grants can go to boards that are much more in need and are not growing as quickly. Equity in action.

The space agency is another matter altogether. Unfortunately, the member for Carleton does not know the activity of this government in that area. It takes two full pages to tell the interventions of this government, from the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology to the Premier to all of us who represent that area. We have consistently done that. Over the last two years the record is there. We have the correspondence, and through freedom of information he has access to that. That is all I would like to say.

Mr. Daigeler: For the information of Norm -- since we are getting rather friendly in this House, I would like to pursue this tradition -- I would just like to inform him that the province has been very generous towards the Ottawa-Carleton area, and very much so because of the very valiant efforts on behalf of the eight members from eastern Ontario in this House. I would just like to point out to him, for example, some of the headlines that have appeared recently in the newspapers. Perhaps with all his other duties, he does not have time to read them.

For example: “Province Gives $130,000 to Ottawa-Nepean Disabled Games”; “McLeod Announces Grant for Residents’ Beds to Carleton University -- $5.2 million”; “Daigeler Announces Funding for Expansion of Home Support Services for Nepean Seniors -- $55,000”; “Ottawa-Carleton Receives $1,246,000 for Sewage and Waterworks Projects”; “The Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board has received 12-Classroom Portable Complex, Valued at $768,000”; “The Nepean Museum Board Receives $16,000 for a Master Study”; “Daigeler Announces Residential Treatment Homes for Adults with Autism in Nepean.”

I could go on, but I would like to --

Mr. Harris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: The member continually refers to this guy Daigeler instead of by his riding. He himself brought up on a point of order earlier that that was inappropriate, and I would ask you to suggest that it is inappropriate now.

The Deputy Speaker: All members should take note of the rules.

Mr. Daigeler: Mr. Speaker, since you did not intervene after my point of order, I presumed you accepted the new practice and I am simply following what you have --

The Deputy Speaker: I did not accept the new practice. I reminded all members to respect the rules of the House.

Mr. Daigeler: Okay, Mr. Speaker, if this is the rule, then I hope you will remind all members of that. Thank you very much.

I would like to point out on the space agency, however, that the decision --

The Deputy Speaker: I am sorry, but now the member’s time is up.

Mr. Daigeler: I will reserve that for the next time.

Mr. Harris: I would point out -- and I did not want to make a further point of order; I wanted to allow the seven seconds for the member to carry on -- but he alleged that you, Mr. Speaker, did not intervene, and I did distinctly hear you intervene, call the member to order and direct him to bear in mind, and I thought it was only appropriate that --

The Deputy Speaker: A point of order?

Mr. Harris: Well, if it is still a point of order, I am still on it. I would suggest that I thought it was appropriate since it was the member for -- I wish I knew his riding so I would not have to call him Daigeler --

Hon. Mr. Conway: Nepean.

Mr. Harris: -- Nepean who originally interrupted my colleague and brought that to your attention. Surely he ought to have been aware of that.

Hon. Mr. Conway: Well, if I might --

Mr. Harris: Actually, I am not on the point of order; I am in my two minutes. But when I have finished that, you can have a new point if you want.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. One member at a time.

Mr. Harris: I want to comment briefly on the statements the member for Carleton made concerning this polling information, because it was very disconcerting to me when it came to our attention that apparently a poll was commissioned-we do not know when it was commissioned, but delivered last January -- commissioned, presumably, during the great free trade debate in this Legislature last Christmas, because the information was dated January and was not commissioned by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology; in fact, it was commissioned by the Premier’s office, we presume by one Hershell Ezrin.

Second, that information was made available to the cabinet, was made available to the Liberal Party, and when we asked for it, finally, under freedom of information, all the political stuff was pulled out.

We want to know who paid for those polls, under what auspices and under what authority.

The Deputy Speaker: I am sorry, the member’s time is up. Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Conway: I would just like to make the point that when the member for Nepean --

The Deputy Speaker: Is this a point of order?

Hon. Mr. Conway: Yes, I believe it is, Mr. Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: The standing order?

Hon. Mr. Conway: It has to do with the standing order that says that a member ought to address another member by the electoral district, and that is the point that I want to address.

What the member for Nepean was doing was referring to press clippings. He was not referring to himself, he was reading press clippings; and I am sure my friend the member for Nipissing would want me to observe that.

We all recognize that the standing orders are quite clear that an honourable member ought to refer to another as the member for riding X, Y or Z, but next week when I want to introduce the press clippings from the Perth Courier, for example, on the visit of the member for Nipissing to the delegate selection process out of Lanark-Renfrew last night, I am sure he would want me to be able to refer to the headlines of the Courier which report upon his visit.

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Mr. Harris: I give the member permission to quote precisely, not just “the member for Nipissing,” but indeed with my name.

The Deputy Speaker: Before we go to the response of the member for Carleton, may I remind all members that it is the tradition in the standing orders to refer to other members in this House by their riding name and only by their riding name. Therefore, this is addressed to all members and I will expect all members to respect this standing order. Will the member for Carleton wish to respond for two minutes?

Mr. Sterling: I think I might. I want to say to the outburst from the honourable member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) that with regard to the school in Barr Haven he refers to, which I went to bat for and Bob Mitchell went to bat for --

Mr. D. S. Cooke: You mean the former member for --

Mr. Villeneuve: They changed the riding name.

Mr. Harris: He’s not a member any more.

Mr. Sterling: I do not care, When I represent a particular area I go to bat for it. Bob Mitchell did not care. I will tell the members what happened, We got the school in Barr Haven. The member for Renfrew North failed to mention the fact that we did get the school for Barr Haven. I will also say that the requirements of the Carleton Board of Education now are not treble what they were before, they are five times what they were before. They need five times the capital allocation they did back in the days when we were in government. So for this member to stand up and say “We tripled the capital allocation” means nothing, not in this area here, which is expanding rapidly. The population of Nepean at that time was approximately 75,000 people. It is now 100,000. It is growing rapidly, as are the other areas.

I say to the member for Ottawa-Rideau only that I know she feels very strongly. I know this is her first term in this Legislature and her first term in terms of dealing with lobby groups, pressure groups and people with different interests from back home. I ask her only this: does she think those groups are going to say to her --

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member’s time has expired.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: This indeed must be Thursday. I had intended to make a major speech, but since we are running out of time and I do understand that the House leader wants to move to other business, I will deal with just a couple of specific points, partially dealing with my riding, but also partially dealing with the province as a whole. I think one of the major thrusts I would like to develop today is my concern for the care of our senior citizens.

I received a letter today from the Victorian Order of Nurses. They highlight one of the very important concerns I have. They are writing to me asking for my “assistance in finding a solution to a critical financial problem facing our branch.” The VON in Guelph-Wellington-Dufferin provides a home service for the seniors. The problem is that the Treasurer will not provide them with enough money. The Treasurer does have a problem finding enough money for all the requests that he receives, and I quite understand that.

The point I am trying to make is does he not feel that providing money to help to maintain our seniors in their own homes would be a savings? If we can encourage and support our seniors to stay in their own homes by providing the necessary funding and assistance that they need, would it not alleviate the very serious hospital problem that we have and the problem with the nursing home shortage of beds? I think that we are very shortsighted in not supporting the requests such as the Victorian Order of Nurses makes for this service. Also the Canadian Red Cross Society in a letter dated September 23 points out the very same concern.

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They state in their letter addressed to me and signed by Barbara Traham, director, home support services: “Currently a viable visiting homemakers’ service will not only assist the elderly to live independently, but will also save the taxpayers millions of dollars in hospital long-term care.”

Mr. Speaker, since you are the only one who is paying any attention, I would address it to you and encourage you to relay my message to the Treasurer.

Miss Nicholas: I’m paying attention.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I am sorry. There are a couple of others. I would encourage the government, especially the Treasurer, to give consideration to doing the very thing that governments have said they would for many, many years. That is that they want to support the seniors to be able to stay in their own homes. Yet we do not provide the funding or the assistance they need to do so. It is much less costly to help them stay in that environment than to have them forced to move into homes for the aged, into nursing homes or in many cases into the hospitals.

On that very point, I would like to just deal briefly with the very serious problem I have in my riding. It has to do with a nonprofit housing corporation, a senior citizens’ home in the township of Erin, the village of Hillsburgh. It is a two-storey building. There is not any elevator in the building. The bottom floor is filled. The top floor, I think, is filled as well.

The problem is, when persons become disabled, if they break a hip and happen to live on the second floor, then they have no access to their building. They are forced to live away from home. In fact, in some cases, they are forced to move into nursing homes. Really, we are forcing them out of their homes.

We have an access fund that provides elevators for churches, legion halls and things of this nature, but have been advised by the Minister without Portfolio responsible for disabled persons (Mr. Mancini), the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens’ affairs (Mrs. Wilson) and the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek) that there is no funding available to provide elevators for senior citizens’ homes.

In the little village that I speak about, Hillsburgh, there are three people trapped in their apartments. One lady went into the hospital and was not able to return to her home for over a year. Another lady suffered a similar experience and was denied access to her home for some time. Erma Allen could not come home for several months after knee surgery. Claira Thompson broke her hip and could not live at home for a year. Both Erma and Claira are back living now at Meadowview Place, but they still have problems negotiating the steps. The social club lounge and laundry rooms are on the floor inaccessible to the above ladies.

By not providing the service of an elevator to this home at a cost of approximately $100,000, we are forcing some of these people to make the decision to move into nursing homes. It will cost this government many more dollars. It completely refutes the statement that they are constantly making, that they want to keep seniors in their own homes if at all possible. I say to the Treasurer that I have asked for support on this for over a year. I am going to continue until I get some help.

I think one of the problems we have is that there should be one minister responsible for all the services that go to our seniors. We have disabled seniors who seem to fall between two ministries. We have the Ministry of Community and Social Services which becomes involved in some of the services for homes for the aged and the Ministry of Health which becomes involved for the nursing homes. One minister should have the responsibility of dealing with all the problems relating to our seniors.

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I would like to move to one more topic. This is the second last and then I have just one brief one. This concerns the land use policies of this government.

I have 21 municipalities in my riding of Wellington. The township of Puslinch has a very heavy burden of gravel. Maybe it is a burden; maybe it is not a burden. But certainly they have a problem with it. They have many conflicting needs for their land use. They have requests from three major companies to extract their gravel, including the University of Guelph.

They are being forced into an Ontario Municipal Board hearing that will cost them many thousands of dollars, and the biggest single problem is the conflicting land use policies of the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

The township requested meetings with these four ministers. One minister agreed to meet with them, two ministers said they did not think it would serve any purpose, and I will quote from the third minister’s response. This is from the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio). It is signed by the minister, and he states: “We maintain that policies should be incorporated in the plan to consider extraction below the water table subject to site-specific study. We are prepared to present our arguments on this matter before the Ontario Municipal Board if necessary.”

The Minister of Agriculture and Food says, on one hand, to preserve agricultural land and he is rather supportive of the Puslinch problem. The Minister of Natural Resources, on the other hand, says the very opposite. Why does the township have to fight this battle in the OMB court? Why can it not be resolved in cabinet? Why can the ministries not make the determination as to what policies they are going to impose upon the townships and not go through this charade that every time this question of land use or the opening of a new gravel quarry pit comes up, the municipality involved has to fight at the OMB level? It does not make sense. It is costing the municipalities money and it is extremely aggravating.

On the matter of land use and control, I will mention the problem we are having in obtaining affordable housing. The city of Toronto is certainly a prime example, but we have a similar problem in our small municipalities. One reason is the extremely stringent controls placed on land use.

In the township of Arthur, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food encouraged the township to build its small housing developments in an urban setting around a small hamlet and said that would be acceptable to it. An individual tried this process, a 32-unit housing development, and has been denied approval for the last two and a half years. Every time he requires another hearing, a lawyer, another study, the costs escalate and we are adding to the cost of housing, not decreasing it. It happens right across this province.

I might just mention that one of the problems we have in Toronto is housing, another is transportation or lack of same and another is the garbage crisis. These are three major problems because the city has grown too large and cannot control these very serious problems. If the government would give consideration to encouraging industry to locate in rural Ontario, it could provide many jobs and it could provide the necessary support services that municipalities in the east, the north and the west need and require.

We do not have to use up all the agricultural land by any means, but there is all kind of land that could be used for that purpose, and I am sure the member for Lincoln (Mr. Pelissero) would concur with that, as long as we do not use prime A1 or A2 land. He is nodding his head, either at you, Mr. Speaker, or me.

I would encourage the government to support the principle of encouraging industry to locate in rural Ontario rather than in a city that is so congested that it cannot take any more growth.

I happened to be down in Welland yesterday on a very important errand and, on the way back, I ran into two traffic jams that took one hour to get through because the roads were completely impassable.

Mr. Villeneuve: And it was 11 o’clock at night.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: At 11 o’clock at night, as my good friend the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry who was with me will vouch for.

I will move on to my last point as I am sure my House leader wants to make a few comments. That has to do with municipal councils. As I mentioned earlier, I have 21 municipal councils that I deal with and the vast majority of them are completely frustrated with this government’s support for the problems that they encounter.

The Ministry of the Environment, in half a dozen cases in four or five municipalities that I represent, has practically demanded that municipalities build new sewage plants. He said they would have no more growth if they will not build plants. They agreed to this. The village of Arthur is one example. Then the municipalities met with years of red tape trying to get approvals through. The sites were not acceptable. There were only a few sites to begin with, but it was one problem after another.

It is great for the ministry to tell the municipalities there is something wrong, but surely, the responsibility is to help them to locate the best site possible and to help them to go through the process of red tape and bureaucratic delay.

The town of Fergus requested permission to extend a water line into their industrial basin. It was told it would be four months before the ministry could get around to looking at its application -- not approving it, just looking at it. Four months just to look at an application is absolute insanity.

The mayor is running for another term and one of the reasons he is running is because of the frustration he has had with the government and to indicate to the electors his problem.

I will just quote one section from an article of October 6. It is Mayor Bill Beirnes of Fergus. “‘The Minister of the Environment has placed a moratorium on development in the town until that sewage plant is expanded, but it could be several years before the town has cleared the study process and waded through public hearings and an environmental assessment.’ That frustrates the mayor. He says, ‘The more I think about it, the more I realize there is just too much red tape.’”

I agree completely with the mayor and the other municipalities in my riding that have expressed the same concerns. I am sure, sir, that you must encounter some of these problems in our neighbouring county of Perth. Thank you very kindly.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I am always glad to hear the honourable member contribute to these debates, but he made one specific matter of major importance. It was an elevator in a senior citizens’ apartment building.

I think he is correct that there is not a provision for that to be included in approved plans because I remember having the same discussion when one in our local village of St. George was approved under a previous administration. It is now built, called Russell Heights. I think I have a corner suite reserved for the year after next, but there was no elevator, and just like the honourable member, I was trying to persuade the government to assist in that. I was not successful. But there is an elevator in it and that is because the local Lions Club and a number of groups simply got together, paid for it and installed it, and it is working.

So, I recommend that course of action to the honourable member. It is a place where the community can come in with something that they feel especially necessary under their requirements. Perhaps the honourable member could lead that up and start it with maybe a $5,000 donation.

Mr. Speaker: Any other members wishing to make any comments?

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Mr. Harris: I was not going to, but I am reminded in the member’s comments of a project in Sturgeon Falls called Résidences Mutuelles. This is a project that has been promoted by the Royal Canadian Legion and a group of dedicated citizens of Sturgeon Falls. They came to me recently with a problem.

They have a number of elderly residents in this nonprofit housing development they have put forward. The individual who came to me for assistance was Bruno Vannier. Lo and behold, it was a similar problem. They have a second floor, the residents are becoming more and more elderly and they wanted to put in an elevator so these residents could stay in this facility. They found out and I found out, as the Treasurer did, in exhausting all the possibilities through provincial funding, that in none of the programs the province had could we find any way to wedge this project in to qualify.

While the Treasurer points out today that there are other avenues -- i.e., charity and going after service clubs for it -- perhaps my blending of the Sturgeon Falls project of Résidences Mutuelles into the mix along with the honourable member will prompt other members in this Legislature who, I am sure, will have similar problems, to come forward with those problems. Perhaps we can prick the curiosity of the Treasurer and of the government to say: “Gosh, Don, there is a need for this. There is a need for this and perhaps we should be involved in a program of this type.”

Mr. J. M. Johnson: To the Treasurer, I would like to comment on the charitable suggestion he made or at least the suggestion to having charity pick up the costs for the government. This is exactly what they are trying to do in the little village of Hillsburgh. There is a Lions Club. They are trying to raise money, but they are raising money just for a chair-lift. The chair-lift will suffice to bring the people up to the second floor, but it is not the same as being able to get into an elevator -- if you are in a wheelchair, you can bring your parcels and everything -- you still depend on extra help. They have not the resources in Hillsburgh to come up with $100,000.

I did not want to mention it because it is not my nature, but I would like to make reference to a $400,000 loan or grant or whatever that is going into Hamilton to restore an old building. Surely there would be more sense in putting four elevators in four senior citizens’ homes that need it. Surely the government has more interest in preserving the lifestyle of our seniors than in preserving old buildings. Are buildings more important to the government than people? I am sure the member for Renfrew North will not agree with that.

I tell the minister it is not a costly item. All the homes are built, if they are two storeys or higher, with elevators. It was a mistake in the past to build any without them. We should recognize that we have a problem and try, over a period of time, to put elevators into the homes that need them and try to keep our people in those homes. The costs would be much less than having them stay, as in this one example, in the hospital for six or eight months. It just makes sense. Please respect it.

Mr. Harris: I do not want to be very long because I want to inform the House that I think it is important that we get on with supply.

I think it is important that general legislative grants to school boards are due November 2, $40 million; November 3, $39 million; November 4, $48 million. The banks need to be notified of that by October 27, so let’s get on with this. As well, due to the banks on October 26, to meet the November 1 deadline for mental health facilities, is $22 million. General welfare for municipalities must be in the hands of the banks on October 27 to meet the deadline of November 2; that is for $27 million. Nursing homes, to the banks -- it has to be there by October 28 to meet the payment date of November 3 -- $38 million.

With supply now being debated at this late time in October, I think criticism is fair, and we should take some time for that, but I urge all members of the House, from all parties and all sides, to consider it appropriate that we pass this today.

Having said that, I want to ask the Treasurer a couple of questions first. Then, when I make my other remarks, he might be able to have the answers ready for me when he responds, well before six o’clock today, when it is his turn.

I would be interested in knowing the status of the employee share ownership plan, what is happening with it, how much money it looks like it is costing and where it is at. I would also be very interested, throughout this debate, in the cost and status and what is happening with the new home ownership plan. Both of these plans would be covered by the supply budget we are going to pass today. I mention those two specifically because it may take a few minutes for the Treasurer or the Minister of Revenue, who is here today, to come up with that information.

I am glad the member for Wellington is here. On this problem with elevators in senior citizens’ homes, he is quite right. There were some built, with the best of intentions, by volunteer, nonprofit groups, where elevators were not supplied to the second floor. I know that the Résidences Mutuelles in Sturgeon Falls has applied for and received approval under the residential rehabilitation assistance program for 75 per cent of the cost. I think that program has to be repaid. It is not quite as lucrative as what we are asking the Treasurer for, but for those members who will be lobbying intensely for a new provincial program, it may be at least an interim route that they may wish to go.

In the process of my comments, I want to talk about a few of the ministries we are voting supply for today. I think it is very regrettable that we are into a pattern of bringing in a budget, announcing that budget and then ignoring debate on the budgetary bills that come with the budget until very late in the year in which we are spending the money.

That is not what has happened historically, in the past. Normally, even when treasurers, for whatever reasons, have had to bring in tax increases, treasurers of the past -- certainly treasurers of my party when they were there -- brought those bills forward in a timely and orderly fashion, shortly after the budget. Indeed, my recollection is that they tried to have them all passed in the spring session so that it was close to the time the budget was brought in. Whether there was good news or bad news, I think the treasurers owned up to that responsibility.

That is something this Treasurer has not done. This is not the first time -- I believe it is the second time -- he has held back debate on the bills that actually increase the taxes. I find it very ironic. We are in the middle of a federal election. Were we not in the middle of this federal election, I think all objective observers would conclude that the first item of business this fall would have been to deal with those tax bills.

Given the fact that the tax bills lead to an increase in taxation of some $1.3 billion annualized, given the fact that they are a constant reminder to the people of this province of double-digit spending, which is the requirement for these tax bills that were brought in by the budget, and given the fact that would remind people that the former Liberal federal government was spending at double the rate of inflation to get us into the mess, I can understand politically why the Treasurer is embarrassed and wants to avoid discussion of those tax bills while the federal election is on.

None the less, this is a provincial Legislature and I believe the Treasurer is ducking his responsibility to the people of Ontario.

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Second, I want to talk about a few ministries. I want to talk a little bit about the Ministry of Natural Resources. I mention the Ministry of Natural Resources because many of those who are concerned with areas of jurisdiction that fall under that ministry are becoming concerned, indeed alarmed, at what is going on in that ministry.

I want to talk, first, about the fishing licence program that was brought in. Commitments were made by the Treasurer and by the Minister of Natural Resources: “When we bring in this program, the funds will be spent on top of what would normally be spent under fisheries budgets in fisheries projects.” That was the commitment made to the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, which indeed lobbied on behalf of the program.

They lobbied for a separate program, a trust fund, if you like, so it could be identified and so there could be no fudging of the books or fudging of what exactly has happened. They said, “If you put it into a separate fund, then we can track that money and can be guaranteed that you cannot play games with it.” That did not occur, and the federation of anglers and hunters reluctantly supported the second-best option, which was to proceed with a resident angling licence of $10, as I recall, on the understanding --

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Did you buy one?

Mr. Harris: -- I have one in my pocket -- and assurances from the Treasurer and the minister that indeed those funds would in no way affect the regular funding.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: All the funding went to fisheries.

Mr. Harris: All the money from that licence did go to fishing, but what happened was exactly as we predicted when we debated this issue, what happened was exactly what the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters feared. Indeed, now they are condemning the government because the regular fisheries budget appears to be not keeping pace with inflation; it in fact appears to be flat-lined. The government can stand up and say more money is going into fisheries. It is, because of the fishing licence.

But what has happened is that when it goes into the general revenue fund, the expectation was that the money would carry on, inflation-indexed, so the government could do the same amount of work year after year, according to some index. In other ministry programs, on average, as we know, spending is up double the rate of inflation, but the fisheries program appears flat-lined. Clearly, what we now have is an additional tax of $10 with no additional money appearing to be going into fishing. That is a betrayal of trust and I think the Treasurer should be embarrassed by that.

It may indeed be that he intended to keep his word and intended for these things to happen and the Premier overrode him and said, “No, you’re not going to be able to do that.” I know that can happen, although now that Hershell Ezrin is gone, I do not know who it is who gives the orders. Maybe now it is the Premier himself. I wanted to get that on the record.

Second is forest management. Every objective observer of the forest industry would say that significantly more money must be going into forest management. When the previous government unceremoniously left office, there was a history of substantial increases going in. Members can debate if they like that it was for the neglect of the past, as some will say, but I do not think it helps to go back in history save and except to say, “What was the pattern when these rogues took office?”

The pattern at that time was for significant increases going into forest management. There in fact were increases more than double the rate of inflation. It was going up in leaps and bounds. There was a recognition that we had fallen behind, there was a recognition that indeed we had ground to make up in the forest management of this province. It started with the tremendous acceleration of the number of seedlings being grown through the private nursery program introduced by my colleague the member for Cochrane South. Then it began with the massive planting programs of these seedlings, and it was accelerated with the signing of forest management agreements.

If the members of all parties would care to recall, the former Minister of Natural Resources, the member for Nipissing, in the 1985 campaign, immediately announced that when he took office his priorities were to continue that growth in the tree-planting portion of the ministry and indeed announced significantly more funds for what now would have to follow. As more and more seedlings were planted, more and more money then would have to follow a few years later in what we call tending or managing those seedlings.

Clearly, the forest industry had an expectation, and clearly the record of the three or four years before the demise of the previous government was that indeed forest management was a priority.

What happened when this government took office? What happened can be epitomized by some of the things that were said this year. In fact, was more money put into tending? No, it was not. The government has fallen three years behind that. Was more money put into planting? No, it was not. In fact, for the first time, we had private growers this year with surplus seedlings. We had companies crying for funding and assistance from the government through its program to make sure those seedlings were planted. And what happened? The seedlings were turfed in the garbage. They were not even planted.

The only responsible management reason I can think of is, “The Treasurer will not give me enough money to manage and tend these seedlings after they are planted, so I will not waste the money planting them.” I accept that argument. I doubt that it is one that will be put forth, but it may likely be the only logical argument.

All three parties have supported forest management agreements as being a step forward. The New Democratic Party, I think, has questioned whether the government should be involved in it, as it is. The companies should pay more: I accept that argument from their philosophic base. None the less, they want more forest management done. They want a better inventory of the trees, which forest management agreements force companies and the government to do. They want more land prepared for regeneration. They want more seedlings planted. They want more tending of those seedlings, as does this party and this member.

The forest industry and indeed environmentalists are shocked that while, on average, we are seeing double the increase of inflation in spending, we are seeing what appears to be a flat line of spending in that area.

I want to mention conservation authorities. Right now, the Minister of Natural Resources has a major review out over the mandate of conservation authorities. The North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority has indicated that if this mandate goes through, it will be the end of its authority, as we know it. It will be substantially reduced in dollars. It will be substantially reduced in mandate. As we know it, it will be the end of the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Why?

Mr. Harris: Why? Does the Treasurer want me to take all day to go into all the reasons?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: You are.

Mr. Harris: The Treasurer did not listen. He was yickety-yacking. I said there are two main reasons. First, under the new funding formula being proposed, the funding would be substantially less to the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority. Second, the mandate would be less and, as we know it, it would disappear.

I want to mention the Ministry of the Environment, and the Ministry of Natural Resources comes into this through the conservation authorities. I want to talk about something specifically in my riding and I am sure it applies around the province. That has to do with a lake called Trout Lake.

Trout Lake is a class 1 lake. That means the water is deemed to be of the highest quality. It is the lake from which all of the water supply for the city of North Bay is drawn. It is also a lake which is heavily populated. It is a lake that is heavily used both recreationally and by full-time residents.

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The Ministry of the Environment has refused to come up with its share of the funding to ensure the water quality of Trout Lake in North Bay. Second, the Ministry of the Environment says, “Well, we commissioned this study,” which many people dispute, “which says the lake is okay and we don’t see any future problems.”

Fortunately, the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority said: “We’re not sure this study has been as extensive as it should have been. We’re not sure that everything was looked at as it should have been. We think it was a little too cursory and didn’t get to the bottom, if you like, of everything that is going on in the Trout Lake basin.”

They commissioned their own study. Maybe that is why the government wants to cut their funding back, because they are embarrassing the Minister of the Environment in its own field. They commissioned their own independent study, a more exhaustive study, I would suggest perhaps a more independent study, and this study says: “Yes, there is a problem and it has to do with environment. It has to do with septic systems on that lake. It has to do with the lack of enforcement by the Ministry of the Environment. It has to do with the lack of controls. It has to do with a lack of follow-up.”

I mention it in the same context as I follow along with the potential cutbacks of funding. I hope that is not the reason they are being cut back, but I applaud the conservation authority for its efforts on behalf of Trout Lake water quality and I condemn the Ontario Ministry of the Environment for not being more vigilant, for not being more forceful, for not putting more resources into identifying the problems and particularly for not being part of the solution instead of apparently being part of the problem.

I want to comment briefly on the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, just in one aspect. I recall when I was first elected in 1981 -- and there were not many lots being developed in 1981, if members will recall the economic situation of this province in 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Tory times are hard times.

Mr. Harris: They were difficult times. They were brought on by Pierre Trudeau and the Liberals in Ottawa. Liberal times are tough times. They were tough times all across this country, and indeed Ontario, in spite of the excellent government it had, was no exception. They were difficult times.

In the areas of federal responsibility, interest rates were over 20 per cent. In the other area of federal responsibility, inflation was running in double digits. The federal government was spending at twice the rate of inflation. Those early 1980s were tough Liberal times across this country, and indeed, Ontario had its share of problems.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: You and Bill Davis ran us right into the ground.

Mr. Harris: Thank goodness we had the management in place at that particular time to enable us to survive, to enable us to be ready for a better day; but that indeed is another question, and I have strayed from my original train of thought. Perhaps the Treasurer can bring me back to it: agriculture.

There were not many subdivisions being approved. Nobody could afford to go out and develop land at that interest rate, and the housing market was much softer, as members will recall. Mortgage rates were 18 or 19 per cent. But there was the odd lot being developed, and I heard time and time again from members of the Liberal Party and in the media, from environmentalists and from those interested in the preservation of farm land, what a shame it was when this half acre of class 1 farm land was being put into housing or into industrial, taken out of agricultural production.

I want to tell members something: It had an impact on me. I said, “You know, that is something we really ought to be very concerned about.” It certainly was not significant in those days, but, by golly, we ought to be concerned about our agricultural land.

Has anybody today driven north of Toronto and seen what is happening to our agricultural land? I really do not want to get into some of the discussions we have been having the last couple of days in question period, but that has been the focus of what is the burgeoning paving over of agricultural lands. Now, it is not a lot here and there; now it is 100 acres here and there, 1,000 acres here and there, and thousands of acres here and there. Where are the Liberal critics who were so concerned about the odd half acre? I do not understand that.

I do not understand the Minister of Agriculture and Food, whom I heard get up in his place in this House many times bemoaning the loss of agricultural land to housing and industrial concerns. I mention that. I would appreciate perhaps a statement from the Minister of Agriculture and Food at some time as to what he feels about that.

Certainly if we can ever get to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food estimates -- in fact, I guess this may be the last day that I can say I still do not think we have done one single minute of estimates in this chamber. It is unfortunate and something that I hope is delved into when we get to the Agriculture estimates.

I want to read a few quotes.

Mr. Furlong: Who wrote them?

Mr. Harris: I will give the members the authors.

What we are dealing with here is the Liberal financial record. We are dealing with the estimates of supply. We are dealing with voting supply to pay the bills that this Treasurer and this free-spending Premier want to foist on the public of Ontario.

A Globe and Mail editorial on April 5, 1988, said: “Ontario’s economy is more stable than most, but an economic boom should not sow the seeds of a fiscal crisis in tougher times.” That is what it thinks the budgetary policy is doing.

Dominion Bond Rating Service, rating alert, Globe and Mail, April 5, 1988: “‘The present provincial government has introduced three straight budgets of high expenditure growth... It has the benefit of top-of-the-cycle conditions, which has helped control its deficits, but it has never had to govern through a recession or economic slowdown’....‘If the province must raise taxes at present to contain its deficit, with the economy booming, what will it do when the economy slows and revenue growth drops, raise taxes further?’”

The Sault Ste. Marie Star, March 22, 1988: “With Ontario currently riding a wave of prosperity, now is the time to tackle the deficit, removing this burdensome drain on public money. But the Liberals have chosen not to do this. Refusing to restrain spending until this is accomplished points to a lack of good fiscal sense and it is this inadequacy on the part of the Liberals, and not Ottawa’s tax reform, that is in large measure to blame for any increase by Ontario of its taxes.”

The old, independent Sault Ste. Marie Star -- that was the editorial there. The Premier likes to quote Sault Ste. Marie when we are dealing with the Sunday shopping bill.

“Shame on Ontario Treasurer Robert Nixon. Short memories are often the best ally of politicians, but surely the Treasurer knew his musings over the possibility of raising the provincial sales tax eventually would leave a few people scratching their heads in disbelief.... Nixon and the Ontario Liberals once had a more cryptic view of any increase in the sales tax. In fact, the last time the sales tax was raised to seven from five per cent in 1973, the Liberals railed at the regressive nature of the tax because it would unfairly hit the poor harder than those with high incomes. Nixon, who happened to be leader of the opposition Liberals at the time, challenged the Conservative government to put its sales tax increase before the electorate because it was such an extremely serious matter. ‘We should go to the people to decide in fact whether they are satisfied with the care, or lack of care, that has been lavished on their financial affairs,’ said Nixon.”

That was the editorial of March 14, 1988, in the Windsor Star.

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I notice the Windsor Star did not say that we should go to the people over this current budget. I am not sure we should, either. I think we might have to see one or two more before the people are quite ready.

This is the Financial Post editorial of March 26, 1998: “In the middle of an economic boom, flattered by a sycophantic local media and infatuated public opinion, the Premier oversees perhaps the smuggest government in the land. Not only is it blind to any need of saving for rainier days to come, it is cheerfully punching holes in the roof via a massive spend-and-fiddle assault on the province’s economy. For now, growth is strong enough to absorb this abuse, but disaster is in the offing when the boom fades.”

Here is the Toronto Sun; this is April 5, 1988: “Why the incredible turnaround in Tory fortunes in London North? Easy. Voters were disgusted because a by-election was unnecessary. They are noisily unhappy with the way extension of aid to separate schools is perceived” -- I was not going to read all that -- “and they are uneasy with uncontrolled Liberal spending.” That is the part I want. “Treasurer Bob Nixon hints his budget later this month will sock it to us. If he soaks us in the name of overspending, it will be a far greater boost to Tory fortunes than any by-election. We hope so.”

The Hamilton Spectator, March 5, 1988: “It took Ontario Tories 40 years to get as lazy as David Peterson’s Liberals are today.” I would say 42 years. “Sluggish, unresponsive, the Liberals behave as though the whopping majority they won last September stunned them. Solid, sensible Bob Nixon, a man who knows the value of a dollar and a gifted politician” -- why am I reading all this? –“obviously has the stuff to be one of the outstanding treasurers of Ontario history.”

I am reminded of the story of the speechwriter who quit and then gave his last speech to the politician, who got up there and read it. Of course, he had not read it before he gave the speech and he came to the point where at the bottom of the page it said, “And now I will outline 20 elaborate tax proposal schemes to save this country.” He turned the page and it said, “Now you’re on your own, big shot.”

I do not know why I read all that, but I want to be fair and read the whole schmear that is here: “...obviously has the stuff to be one of the outstanding treasurers of Ontario history, but at the peak of a booming economy sizzle, Mr. Nixon hasn’t been able to bring the deficit much below $1 billion a year, and now the Premier is talking about even higher taxes.”

Orland French, the Globe and Mail, March 7, 1988: “Premier Peterson is fiscally prudent. The reduction of class sizes he promised during the election is so expensive, he isn’t going to do it all at once. A lot of other promises are expensive too, and Mr. Peterson realizes the value of a dollar. Since it isn’t worth as much as it used to be, he says he will raise taxes. Raising taxes with a smile on his face will always make him popular.”

The St. Catharines Standard, March 4: “Increasing the sales tax may seem a simple way out for the government, but it could have serious repercussions. The government would be well advised to seek other means of matching revenues to demands or curbing its spending appetite.”

North Bay Nugget, February 20, 1988: “Ontario is the richest of all provinces and enjoying a boom. If it can’t balance its books in good times, what will happen in the bad? Mr. Nixon is not offering any effective alternative to the feds’ slow attempts at deficit reduction. He certainly doesn’t offer much hope for a debt-free Ontario, with or without federal assistance.”

The Peterborough Examiner: “Those good times may nudge the Treasurer into spending even more to make things right, but sooner or later, some government is going to have to stand back, get the big picture and start settling a few bills.” Better sooner.

I do not want to read them all, but I want to mention which papers they are, because I do not want any of these papers to feel they were slighted by the member for Nipissing.

I will simply say: the Toronto Star, similar types of comments; the London Free Press, similar comments, editorial of March 2; Peter Cook, Globe and Mail, March 4, similar comments; Eric Dowd, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, June 5, 1987; Peter Cook again, August 5, 1988, in the Globe and Mail; Rosemary Speirs, the Toronto Star, again on October 14, 1987; and Lorrie Goldstein, November 6, 1987, the Toronto Sun.

I say to those papers, those reporters and those editorial boards that I will give their complete quotes when we get to the tax bills, but I wanted to mention them and get them on the record now. From all across this province they are sending the same warning signals to this government, to this Treasurer. They cannot spend at double the rate of inflation for the fourth year in a row without its catching up to them -- massive increases in spending by this government.

We saw what happened when Trudeau did it in Ottawa. We saw the disaster it brought on this country. It was coupled with significant increases in the civil service. It was coupled with massive increases in the budgets, particularly the administrative budgets. History is there. We saw what happened. Surely they are not so crass as to say: “Well, Trudeau stayed in power 13 or 14 years. It takes the people that long before they realize how stupid we were.” Surely the Treasurer does not want power that badly, to bankrupt this province as we saw Trudeau bankrupt this country.

There is an 80 per cent increase in the main office costs of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food since this government has taken office; the Ministry of the Attorney General, 50 per cent; 191 per cent, Ministry of Government Services; 144 per cent, Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs. In native affairs -- that free-spending socialist, the Attorney General (Mr. Scott); is he also the minister responsible for native affairs? -- there is a 470 per cent increase in the main office budget.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: They did not have one before 1985.

Mr. Harris: No, that is from 1985-86 to 1988-89. I expect that from the Attorney General, because he is a free spender. I just do not know how it got through the Treasurer.

Those figures, I believe, have been put on the record before, and we see it happening here, I sound the alert to all members of this House. I sound the alert that we ought to heed the financial reporters from all across this province and, indeed, Rosemary Speirs, whom not everybody would consider a financial reporter but who has considerable expertise, obviously, in financial areas as well. I ask the minister to heed the warnings of what is happening.

I indicate that we will have much more to say when the Treasurer finally has enough nerve -- I guess it will be November 22 -- finally to bring forward the tax bills so we can get on with approving those, with the estimates, of which we have not done an hour, get the budget passed and get the estimates approval through. Then we will not have to keep having interim supply.

I close by once again indicating that we do not want to hold up grants to school boards, mental health facilities, general welfare to municipalities and nursing homes. I indicate that we will support the supply being voted and I want it clear that that in no way indicates one iota of support for the budgetary policy of this government.

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Hon. R. F. Nixon: I appreciate the comments made by a number of honourable members, I believe all in the opposition parties. I have made notes of a number of comments made and made a few short comments at the end of two or three of the speeches. I appreciate also the fact that the member for York East (Ms. Hart), my parliamentary assistant, was here for the times that I could not be in attendance.

It is probably a suitable time for me, on behalf of all members present, to welcome Christine into the Treasury. I know we will work very effectively and closely together during the months that lie ahead. The honourable members will know that --

Mr. Speaker: The member for York East?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: York East, right. The member for Yorkview (Mr. Polsinelli), who has had the responsibility as parliamentary assistant for the last year, has assisted me in the Legislature on a number of occasions such as this and in the carriage of legislation. I do appreciate both these people and the service they are rendering for the greater good of the taxpayers of the province.

I was interested in the reference by the budget critic of the Conservative Party to change in the pattern of the presentation of the budget, the estimates and interim supply. It is not many years ago when the Progressive Conservative government of the day, at the presentation of the budget, would at the same time bring in a motion that permitted interim supply for the whole year. I can assure members that under those circumstances there was not any kind of lengthy debate, because we in the opposition realized that the important thing was to get at the discussion of the estimates, where I believe the honourable members on all sides, as individuals, have an opportunity to review the spending program of the government of the day in detail. It is also a good chance for members to bring forward specific needs in their own constituencies or areas of the province to the attention of the respective ministers who are there defending the allocation that is made to them by the Treasurer of the day.

I think one of the things that is regrettable about the pattern of dealing with the financial business of the province is the recent custom of opposition parties to delay and impede, distort and inhibit. Perhaps “distort” is not a word you prefer to hear, Mr. Speaker, and I do not want to use that if you find it offensive.

In the last two years as Treasurer, I have had great difficulty in being permitted to present the budget to the House in the first instance. You will know, Mr. Speaker, that this year the official opposition simply refused to allow the budget to be presented and I had to resort simply to tabling it so that there really was not a reading of the budget to the honourable members, as has been a long-standing custom in British parliamentary practice. I regret that; but now that we have done it once, the precedent is not one I find terribly offensive, and some honourable members have told me they thought it was probably one of my best presentations.

But the custom of allowing the budget debate to continue for most of the sessional year is not a bad one, because in fact, although it indicates the spending plan of the government, its approval is not necessary to permit the discussion of the estimates to go forward; and as long as the House permits interim supply, as I am glad to note the honourable members in all parties have said they will permit today, then the review of the estimates can continue.

Frankly, the system has not worked badly in the past, and without being too provocative, as long as the honourable members on all sides realize that the democratic process works only if the government of the day has the opportunity to put forward its legislative program, its taxation program and its spending program, that it is only if the government has an opportunity to have it brought forward, debated and voted upon, under those circumstances, then, the business of the province can be carried out in an orderly and democratic way.

In my view, if the business is seriously held up to the point where no honourable members, let alone the government itself, can bring forward bills for debate and disposition, then I think that the very foundation of democracy begins to crack and fall away and honourable members, particularly on the government side, look at their alternatives, because the business must be tended to, the taxes must be raised and the bills must be paid.

I want to refer to two or three specific questions that have come from the member for Nipissing. I am pleased to tell the honourable member that as far as the employee share ownership plan is concerned, which was announced two budgets ago and was introduced and passed at the recent session, there are 10 programs under review. Three are approved, involving 343 workers. I do not find that a devastating report of success, but it does mean that the efforts of the Ministry of Revenue, which will be reported on in more detail in the next few minutes, I trust, have been to make this known among the working people and businesses of the province. We think it is a good program and one that should be given very careful consideration.

At the same time, the Ontario home ownership savings plan, which was announced in the most recent budget and which went into effect only on September 1 1988, not quite two months ago, has already registered 1,435 plans. The Minister of Revenue and I are both very pleased about that and he will have an opportunity to report on that in more detail in his estimates, which we hope will be discussed in the House immediately.

The honourable member also spoke about the fishing licences. He would be interested to know that $9.2 million was raised in the $10 fishing licences that both he and I purchase, plus, I believe -- was it the $4, five-day licences? Yes. It turned out that is what I should have bought, but I, like the honourable member, got a $10 licence.

All of this money was spent in fisheries, and as a result of that and the major support of the program, the fisheries program increased by nine per cent this year over the expenditures last year. The honourable member may feel that is inadequate. I think the commitment has been fulfilled and the fishing prospects for anglers continue to expand dramatically, although I cannot report to you, Mr. Speaker, that I caught a single blooming fish on my $10 licence.

He also has been quite critical of the fact that the expenditures in the resource products program of the Ministry of Natural Resources are winding down and that we are not having an opportunity to grow and nurture as many seedlings as was the case during the brief few days when he had the responsibility as minister.

In fact, there are a number of things associated with this. One of the most interesting ones, I think, is that the infestation by spruce budworms but also gypsy moths is cyclical. The honourable member may recall that in recent years we have had to spend millions of dollars in spraying to control these forest pests.

The expense of this has been amplified by the fact that the government, at the urging of the opposition parties, particularly the former minister, decided not to use the normal control poisons and in fact sprayed the forests with a kind of sugar and water mixture that was supposed to kill the bugs by kindness, something like that, but it was extremely expensive, and however successful it was, the good Lord has changed the cycle, as He always does, and those insects are passing away. So the application of money for the control of those insects was, thank God -- and that is exactly where the thanks should go -- reduced this year.

That accounts for a very slight reduction in the actual expenditure, because the numbers of trees planted and nurtured have, if anything, increased, and the people in the ministry are very proud of the fact that they are able to do -- and this is a good political explanation -- more with less. Perhaps that will last me at least until the end of this debate.

I have a number of points here, because I was struck by one of the words used by the member for Nipissing in talking about the fishing licences, and even though I have been able to show you, Mr. Speaker, with the actual statistics that all of the money and more went into the support of the anglers’ opportunities, still the expectations are raised and increasing.

This whole concept of expectations is what must concern us in the Legislature as people require more and more service, very properly so, and it is up to us to provide it as best we can and also see that it is adequately paid for.

1720

I was quite struck by the fact that the honourable member is concerned about pollution in Trout Lake, because I would say the honourable member would know a good deal about that. The first time I ever went to Trout Lake, there was, I believe, only one cottage on it.

Mr. Harris: Mine.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: No.

Mr. Harris: Before mine.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: That was before the member was a twinkle in his father’s eye.

There was one cottage. I remember swimming in Trout Lake and there was nobody out there. In the last few years, of course, it has been heavily populated by some of the well-to-do residents of that booming part of the northern economy. North Bay probably has a higher proportion of judges and successful lawyers, well-to-do MPPs and other people who are successful in the community than most communities in the province. They have all bought lots around Trout Lake and erected some of the very finest homes -- not summer homes; I would say mansions. If it were not for them, our revenues in the land transfer tax would have been sagging this year, but such is not the case.

So, all of this pollution tends to come from people like the honourable member and his buddies who have located around the lake. Now they expect us to send all the money that is needed to maintain it in its pristine glory.

The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley), who, as the honourable members would recognize, is the best Minister of the Environment that Ontario has ever had and who is presently the best in all of Canada, perhaps North America, is doing an excellent job in this connection.

The honourable member has been worrying about the fact that the tax bills have not been coming forward for debate. I know the honourable member, working closely with my good friend and colleague to my left, the government House leader, is earnestly working for the allocation of time so that we can do the government business and approve these tax bills -- let’s say review them, and the House, I hope, will approve them -- before the end of the calendar year.

If that does not happen, we will have to look and see what the precedents are, because there are many federal precedents where taxes have been levied and not supported by legislation while the House prorogued or went on to another session or even an election intervened. We hope that sort of thing could not possibly happen here and we do not intend it to happen, but there are precedents we find, when we look to Ottawa, for almost every sort of activity one could think of.

The honourable member referred to the sales tax and quoted extensively from newspapers about taxes in general. When it comes to spending programs out of control and the imposition of new taxes, the honourable member might very well hope that the discussion takes place well before the government at the federal level, which he supports, might, God forbid, be re-elected, because its spending program is unbelievably rich.

I just cannot believe that Michael Wilson would ever even want to be associated with the spending program which I am reliably informed by the metropolitan press is now approaching something between $12 billion and $15 billion. This does not even include the promise made by the Minister of National Defence and backed up by his colleagues to purchase nuclear submarines at an additional cost of $15 billion.

While this government is doing its best to promote the resources of our forests and to assist the good burghers of North Bay to keep Trout Lake clean so that the MPP can swim without his hair going grey, while we are building roads and hospitals in almost every community, except North Bay for the present time, his friends in Ottawa are planning to buy nuclear submarines.

Mr. Cureatz: They want to sink all these backbenchers.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: What they have in mind is they want to be able to count the whales around Baffin Island, something like that.

To tell members the truth, the other side of the thing that must worry the budget critic for the Progressive Conservatives is that his cousins in Ottawa, who may, God forbid, form the government after the election --

Mr. Harris: He is the critic.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: -- well, spokesperson -- are planning huge tax increases. I would say Michael Wilson has in no way misled the people in this. He has said that phase 2, after the election, will involve substantial renovation of the present federal sales tax.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: With the agreement of the provincial government.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: There is no agreement whatsoever. I can assure the member that we are not participating. We are seeing what they have to offer. What they have to offer is the removal of the present 12 per cent tax, which returns $14 billion in revenue to the federal coffers, plus another $3 billion in gasoline tax and tobacco tax -- do not forget that -- in which the feds did not even involve themselves until Michael Wilson needed some additional revenue. They want to replace that by some sort of business transfer tax between eight per cent and 10 per cent.

Let’s say it is nine per cent, just for fairness’ sake; it is not the highest, it is not the lowest. They intend to tax everything except groceries, pharmaceuticals, wooden legs and things like that. It is estimated by, I believe none other than Don Blenkarn -- and everybody pays a lot of attention to him -- that the revenue from such a tax would not be neutral. In fact, it would be as much as $28 billion. If anything, Don Blenkarn was a little conservative in his rather liberal estimate.

The Minister of Finance for Canada has never denied that those revenues would be very large indeed. This does not involve the province in any way. If it does, we will have another set of numbers which, I am sure, if that were to occur, we will be discussing here. I would just think that the honourable member who has the temerity, as he launches his leadership campaign, to stand --

Interjections.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Actually, when you look at the range of alternatives, you can see why the members of this caucus are looking outside the caucus. That is actually unkind. What I really intended to say is that I want to know where I can send my contribution for the Mike Harris Now leadership campaign. He is going to write it down and send it over.

It is true that the honourable member, in making his remarks, said something I fully agreed with. Back in the early 1980s, the times in this province were tough. I interjected that Tory times were hard times. There is a ring of truth to that up in our area when they remember the Depression days and the difficulties that were experienced over those years.

It may be an oversimplification to say that Tory times are hard times, although I like it, but think of this: There has never been a time when there have been more politicians claiming more credit for more economic buoyancy than now. Brian Mulroney, in his new persona, which has been established by our good friend Senator Norman Atkins, in which he sounds so much like Bill Davis it makes my skin crawl, is in a very moderate way saying he is responsible for the development of the economy of Canada, even though it is largely centred in this jurisdiction.

Mrs. Thatcher, at the same time, is pointing out to the politicians in the United Kingdom the buoyant economy there. When you look at her budget, they practically have no debt at all. The people downtown, for example, and other Conservatives, are so impressed with this that they overlooked the line that she is selling the family silver, year by year, turning all the crown assets into cash, taking them into her budget as if it were revenue and saying, “Look at my accomplishments.” That does not mean the economy of the United Kingdom is growing tremendously, and she is taking credit for it.

Helmut Kohl, the Chancellor of West Germany, points with pride to the strength and growth of that great nation. Ronald Reagan, whom we all love, has indicated that with his great leadership in the economy of the United States, they have never had greater job growth.

If you really want to know where the economic leadership is that has sparked this, you do not have to go any further than this very chamber because the confidence that the business community has in the initiatives taken by this government, the fact that we have been able in moderate tax changes to pay for social programs long needed and that we have made up for the starvation of our post-secondary system, our roads, our hospitals and so many of these services under the previous administration, and have been able to do so in an atmosphere of fiscal responsibility, has really amazed anybody who has taken the chance to examine it in an objective way.

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The honourable member who was decrying the inadequate leadership from this side just a moment ago is aware that as recently as, I guess, four or five months ago, Standard and Poor’s in New York, completely independent and often looking at Ontario with a jaundiced eye in the dying months of the previous administration, was quick to enthusiastically reinstate our triple A credit rating, the best that there is. I am very proud of the fact that we have been able to do this and, at the same time, expand our programs in what I consider to be a responsible way.

Far from spending too much, as the honourable member would say, he need only look at the statistics to see that on a per capita basis, our programs are financed at a level where at least six other provinces, almost every one of them headed by a Progressive Conservative government, have a much higher per capita expenditure. Whether it is health, whether it is policing or whether it is a wide variety of services, our services are presented in an effective and orderly way.

I want to thank the honourable members for their indication that while they are critical, they are simply supporting the government in this. As the computers start spinning the discs and the tapes which will spend $5 billion over the next two months, I will give all the credit that is due to the honourable members of the opposition.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Mr. Nixon moved the motion for interim supply for the period commencing November 1, 1988 and ending December 31, 1988.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

VISITOR

Hon. Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, before I call the next order, which will be the 56th order, I am sure my colleagues would want me to welcome on our collective behalf our good friend and former colleague, the former member for Brantford, Phil Gillies, who appears, by the way, to be prospering as he engages in business beyond this assembly.

I want to call the 56th order.

House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF REVENUE / CREDITS, MINISTÈRE DU REVENU

Ms. Bryden: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I would like to suggest before we start these estimates and this vote that we agree on a time allocation among the parties because there are only five hours allowed for these estimates and we have not really dealt with them for more than a year. I think since that time is very precious, we should limit ourselves to, say, 30 minutes for each of the party leadoffs and the minister’s leadoff and that, from then on, the opposition parties get equal time for questioning because it is their opportunity to ask the minister questions; and that we also be able to deal with all items together when we get to the general questioning because we are not going to have time to go through it vote by vote; and that we deal with all the votes at the end, we vote yes or no on all of the votes. If that is acceptable to the other parties, I would like to recommend that.

Hon. Mr. Conway: Mr. Chairman, just to indicate that, certainly a time-sharing agreement is entirely satisfactory from our point of view. We would certainly recognize that, as the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) points out, this is an opportunity for the opposition, especially, to hear from the minister and for the minister to put the departmental case.

I would hope, in whatever might be arranged -- we do not have to settle it right now -- that some opportunity be provided for a great number of the private members who belong to the government in the case that they might wish to raise a question.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I thought these were opposition days.

Hon. Mr. Conway: I just make the point that we can consider that.

Mr. Harris: Certainly we would concur: Not more than 30 minutes. I noticed the minister nodded his head. I think that part is very acceptable to our party. I would also concur with the government House leader that we would generally try to give you, Mr. Chairman, direction that we would like to divide the time that way, without getting into any specifics of detail at this time. If we appear to be getting out of whack, we will call that to your attention and count on your good judgement.

I also would like to say at this time that this is an historic event. This is October 27, the latest day in the history of the parliament of Ontario, indeed probably of any parliament anywhere in the world, given the normal calendar year for that parliament, that one has started to provide time by the government to examine the estimates of the budgetary policy of the government.

Mr. Chairman: In front of me I have this request from Ms. Bryden on two points. Do I have some more comments on these two points?

Is that the consensus of the committee, then, that we shall proceed in this fashion? We shall take the votes at the end, so we shall discuss all globally, 30-minute leadoff times and then the rest of the time is divided equally between all three parties? Is that correct? Did I hear you right?

Ms. Bryden: I would just ask for some restraint by the backbenchers of all parties, in order to ensure that the opposition does have an opportunity to question the minister on government policies. The members of the Liberal Party do have their own caucus to question the minister in, and therefore I think we have to have some, not necessarily equal, time between the three parties.

Mr. Chairman: Agreed?

Hon. Mr. Conway: Agreed.

Mr. Chairman: Okay, fair enough. Does the minister wish to lead off and come to the front?

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: Mr. Chairman, with your permission, could I move to a closer desk?

Mr. Chairman: Please go ahead.

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: Also, could I invite two of my people to sit at the front desk?

Mr. Chairman: Please come forward.

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: I will try to be very brief. I will try to respect the 30-minute limit, but I did have a lot of good things to tell you. We will start, anyway.

Hon. Mr. Conway: Self-editing, I find, is a great virtue.

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: Yes, exactly.

Ms. Bryden: Could I have a copy of his prepared speech?

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: The members were supposed to be given copies.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: No copies? How come?

Ms. Bryden: It has been done in the past.

Hon. Mr. Conway: We will get copies to them.

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: I am going, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Get going.

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: I am pleased to present the 1988-89 estimates of the Ministry of Revenue for consideration by this committee. In the limited time available to me, I shall confine my opening remarks to the main features of the estimates. I would like to note, however, that I have provided the members with comprehensive briefing material which fully explains the estimates in detail on a vote-by-vote basis.

I shall begin by summarizing the changes in me expenditure and staffing levels shown in the printed estimates for the ministry as a whole. First, I wish to draw the members’ attention to the summary of human resources, which is the second table in the briefing material entitled “1988/89 Estimates Compared to 1987/88 Estimates.” This table describes total ministry employment in terms of planned or maximum staff in 1988-89. As the table indicates, staffing is projected to increase by 252 person-years over 1987-88 levels. It should be noted, however, that most of this staff increase is for a onetime allocation for temporary enumerators, equivalent to 240 person-years. It is also the case that planned staffing levels will not be achieved in practice due to in-year cutbacks and vacancies. In fact, the Treasurer’s government-wide constraint requires that we take a further 89 person-years out of our current staffing plans.

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Second, I refer members to the first table in their briefing material. This table shows an increase in total ministry funding of $82.3 million, which includes a net increase of $72.3 million in transfer payments and only $10 million for all internal operating purposes. However, the increase of $10 million in our operating budget is offset by $7 million for the onetime cost of the enumeration exercise, as well as $7 million for negotiated salary awards. This means that our operating funds have actually been reduced by $4 million, even without considering the erosive effects of inflation at around four per cent.

In addition, subsequent to the preparation of these estimates, the Treasurer’s government-wide constraint has reduced the ministry’s estimates by $6.1 million. However, I can assure members that we are determined to meet this challenge by exploiting new opportunities to increase productivity throughout the ministry. I shall say more about this later in my presentation.

Monsieur le Président, je désire maintenant passer brièvement en revue quelques-unes des réalisations et des priorités les plus importantes dans le cadre des principaux programmes du Ministère, lesquelles figurent dans les documents imprimés.

The tax revenue and grants program is responsible for the administration of 16 statutes which cover 11 provincial taxes, including retail sales tax and corporations tax; Ontario’s guaranteed income and tax grants programs for seniors; the small business development corporations programs; as well as the new employee share ownership plan, ESOP, and the Ontario home ownership savings plan, OHOSP. As shown in the briefing material, the program will be expected to work within very tight expenditure and staffing limits in 1988-89.

For example, while total funding is increased by $71 million, transfer payments primarily to senior citizens and the new ESOP and OHOSP programs will be increased by $72.3 million. This means that the funds available for operating purposes will actually be reduced by $1.3 million. Indeed, the program will have to absorb a further reduction of $2 million in operating funds under the Treasurer’s in-year budget constraints. I shall now discuss some of the more important challenges facing this program in 1988-89.

Revenue and workload growth: First, in contrast to reduced resources, the program will have to deal with considerable increases in workload volumes and complexity, as well as the new programs I mentioned earlier. This fiscal year, the ministry expects to collect about $15 billion from provincial taxes. This represents 43 per cent of budgetary revenues, with the other main sources being personal income tax collected by Ottawa, and federal shared-cost payments for such programs as health services and post-secondary education. To achieve the potential revenue increases generated by Ontario’s healthy economy, however, the ministry will have to manage significant increases in tax rolls and require transactions and customer services.

For example, the corporations tax roll is expected to increase by seven per cent, or 25,000 corporations, while the number of retail sales tax vendors will increase by 11 per cent, or 28,000.

Deuxièmement, outre les charges de travail accrues engendrées par la croissance économique, le Régime devra incorporer un certain nombre de nouveaux programmes et de modifications à la politique fiscale.

Dans cet ordre d’idées, j’ai déjà parlé du nouveau Régime actionnariat des employés, ou RADE, et du nouveau Régime d’épargne-logement de l’Ontario, ou RELO. Ces deux initiatives sous-tendent l’établissement de nouvelles structures administratives, d’un nouveau programme complet de formation du personnel, de systèmes informatiques et de méthodes de communication et services spécialement conçus pour aider les clients potentiels.

Le budget de 1988 comprenait également une série de mesures nécessitant des changements dans notre organisation. Parmi ces mesures, la principale demeure la « superdéduction » de l’impôt sur le revenu des compagnies, afférente à la recherche et au développement scientifiques, dans le but d’accroître le caractère concurrentiel de l’Ontario.

Monsieur le Président, j’ai eu le plaisir de vous informer que les programmes RADE et RELO connaissaient un bon départ. Malgré tout cela, trois régimes ont déjà été établis, et nous savons qu’un nombre encore plus élevé de régimes sont actuellement en cours de planification.

I shall now turn to my ministry’s property assessment program. By way of introduction, the members might note that this is the largest property assessment program in North America in terms of territory and the number of municipal and school board clients, as well as the number of properties managed.

The purpose of the program is threefold: First, we seek to maximize municipal and school board property tax revenues by providing them with consistent and defensible tax bases; our second objective is to ensure that individual properties are assessed in a fair and equitable manner; third, we work to provide ratepayers with all the assistance they need to understand how they are assessed.

The assessment program is responsible for $425 billion in current assessment, which in turn generates over $8 billion in municipal and school revenues. As well, the program enumerates over three million households for municipal and school board elections and maintains computerized information on five million property owners and occupants.

Turning to the program’s estimates, the members will note an increase in total expenditures of $98.9 million or 10.7 per cent over last year. However, this increase is attributable to the one-time expense associated with the recent enumeration of voters for the November municipal elections. These costs will not be repeated next year. No allowance has been made for workload and cost increases elsewhere in the program. Similarly, increased staffing levels are entirely for temporary staff for the enumeration exercise.

I shall now deal briefly with three noteworthy developments in the assessment program for the year 1988-89.

I believe the members are very familiar with the ministry’s section 63 and section 70 programs, by which municipalities may voluntarily request reassessments to achieve greater consistency and equity in property taxation. Since 1979, these programs have received widespread support from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and from all levels of municipal government. This is demonstrated by three basic facts.

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First, to date, 655 or 78 per cent of all Ontario municipalities have requested and received section 63 or section 70 reassessments. Indeed, 302 have received updates. Second, every year the number of requests for first-time reassessments or updates exceeds our capacity. Third, on the basis of the program’s success with local municipalities, it is being accepted by increasing numbers of counties and regions as the basis for achieving wider equity in taxation and sharing upper-tier cost.

To date, the regions of Sudbury, Haldimand-Norfolk and Waterloo, comprising 20 area municipalities, have been reassessed, along with the counties of Brant and Huron, comprising 33 municipalities. In addition, we have already received requests from another 15 counties and regions for early implementation.

Finally, I am hopeful that after the November elections, the new Metropolitan Toronto council will turn to the question of reassessment as a means of replacing Metro’s seriously flawed and antiquated property tax base.

Another important responsibility of this program is to ensure that new construction and major changes to existing properties are quickly brought on to the municipal rolls. This is particularly important to their ability to contain tax increases and to finance expenditures associated with economic growth.

On this front, the members will be aware of the massive growth in industrial, commercial and residential construction across Ontario, particularly in southern regions. As a result, the ministry has had to significantly redeploy resources to fulfil its commitment to municipalities.

I would like to put this into perspective.

First, last year we delivered supplementary assessments generating extra revenues of $209 million province-wide. By contrast, in 1988, supplementaries have already generated $230 million. I expect the year-end total to be in the order of $340 million or 63 per cent over 1987.

Second, the numbers for the greater Toronto area are even more staggering. Compared to $137 million in extra revenue generated by supplementaries in 1987, to date, we have already delivered supplementaries worth $130 million in extra revenues. The expected year-end total is $212 million, representing an increase of 55 per cent over 1987.

Finally, let me turn to the enumeration exercise for the November 14 municipal elections, including the identification of French-language school trustee electors.

In the past, enumerations were conducted using the traditional method of door-to-door canvassing. Under Bill 77, the Municipal Elections Statute Law Amendment Act, 1987, the method of enumeration was changed. Municipal enumeration notices were mailed to all property owners. Subsequently, enumerators went door to door to collect information where forms were not returned. Finally, voter identification notices were mailed between August 26 and August 31, 1988.

This new method of enumeration was a major undertaking, requiring a number of significant actions, including a comprehensive multimedia and bilingual communications campaign to inform all Ontario residents of the importance of completing and returning their enumeration forms.

The end results have fully demonstrated the effectiveness of the new method of enumeration. For example, 76 per cent of the forms were returned completed, which together with followup visits achieved a province-wide coverage of over 90 per cent of Ontario residents. This success story is further demonstrated by a coverage rate of up to 98 per cent in various locations across the province.

The enumeration process included a rigorous quality assurance program. Statistical sampling procedures conducted by regional office staff indicated a maximum error rate slightly in excess of two per cent in the target group with lows of 0.5 per cent.

This response allowed the ministry to deliver 1,000 preliminary voters’ lists to municipalities and school boards before the July 29 deadline. Also, to verify the accuracy of information received, the ministry for the first time mailed voter identification notices to 3.7 million households.

Bien que la nouvelle méthode servant à déterminer le nombre de conseillers scolaires de langue française dans certaines régions ait soulevé quelques controverses, je suis sûr que le nouveau processus de recensement a permis d’atteindre des résultats bien supérieurs à ceux de l’an dernier.

Maintenant, passons à la Caisse d’épargne de l’Ontario. Comme l’indique la dernière section du résumé que les députés ont reçu, le financement de ce programme est également maintenu au même niveau. La Caisse d’épargne de l’Ontario doit remplir deux objectifs commerciaux: tout d’abord, assurer une source de financement au Trésor à des taux inférieurs à ceux qui sont accordés par des institutions externes; et ensuite, offrir à ses clients un service à la clientèle à des taux d’intérêt concurrentiels.

Au cours des dernières années, la Caisse d’épargne de l’Ontario a souffert de son incapacité de concurrencer les autres institutions financières en offrant une gamme plus vaste de comptes répondant aux exigences et aux préférences individuelles des clients. Toutefois, le leadership du Trésorier (M. R. F. Nixon) a entraîné d’importants changements a cet égard.

En premier lieu, depuis le lancement de « Trillium », notre compte-chèques à intérêt quotidien, il y a au moins trois ans, les dépôts à la Caisse d’épargne de l’Ontario ont pratiquement doublé, passant de 650 millions de dollars à près de 1,1 milliard de dollars.

Deuxièmement, la Caisse d’épargne de l’Ontario a lancé, ii y a trois ans cette année, les certificats de placement garanti de l’Ontario, dont les ventes se chiffrent déjà à 71 millions de dollars.

Mr. Chairman, I believe you will agree that these results provide strong evidence that the Province of Ontario Savings Office is working to the mutual benefit of both the province and its customers.

As the briefing material and my remarks demonstrate, the ministry must continually deal with the steady increases in business workloads and new responsibilities in the face of severely restricted funding and staffing levels.

I believe the ministry has a proven track record of using every opportunity and every means to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its program. However, I would like to report on some recent successes involving the exploitation of new information technology.

A new Revenue computing centre: While my ministry has invested heavily in computer systems and end-user technology in all programs, we have traditionally used programs and private-sector service bureaus for basic data processing. In 1987, however, Management Board of Cabinet approved the purchase of a mainframe processor to be dedicated to Revenue business and installed in our Oshawa head office.

I am pleased to report that this was accomplished on time and within budget and all database programs were successfully transferred without any disruptions to our operations, revenue flows and public services.

As well, a detailed post-implementation report to Management Board has demonstrated that we have met or exceeded every commitment in our original business case. Most particularly, the new facility will allow us to deal with workload increases over the next four years within fixed limits and will generate total savings to the government of $51 million by avoiding cost increases which would occur if we continued to use external processing bureaus.

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Let us pass on to the Ontario assessment system, or Oasys. In 1986 we completed our largest investment in computer systems. It is Oasys which provides a full range of on-line data services to our 41 assessment offices -- is it not 31? -- across the province.

Mr. Chairman: Because of the time of the clock, do you want to stop there?

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: Yes, I could go on for another 15 or 20 minutes, but I want to respect the time allocation. I hope that on Monday, I will be able to give more good news from this ministry.

On motion by Hon. Mr. Grandmaître, the committee of supply reported progress.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Conway: Pursuant to standing order 13, I would like to indicate the business of this House for the week upcoming.

On Monday, October 31, we will continue the consideration of the estimates of the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Grandmaître) in the committee of supply.

On Tuesday, November 1, we will deal with second reading of Bill 180, the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment Act, and then resume the adjourned debate on Bill 162, the Workers’ Compensation Amendment Act.

On Wednesday, November 2, we will continue the debate on Bill 162, the Workers’ Compensation Amendment Act.

On Thursday, November 3, in the morning, we will consider the private members’ business standing in the names of Mrs. O’Neill and Mr. Philip. In the afternoon we will deal with the estimates of the office of francophone affairs in the committee of supply.

The House adjourned at 6:02 p.m.