The House met at 1330.
Prayers.
MEMBERS' STATEMENTS
ALCOHOL ABUSE
Mr McClelland: Members of the Legislature are aware that alcohol is a drug and that it can be lethal. We have all heard and read in the news about the tragic death of young Jimmy Whiffen, a grade 9 student who had the equivalent of a 26-ounce bottle of alcohol in his system at the time of his death.
The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations has stated that he will meet with Liquor Licence Board of Ontario officials to consider the jury's recommendations. Though we are pleased to see that an initiative has been taken in this regard, we urge prompt attention to greater awareness and education initiatives.
We believe that the minister should act immediately to implement warning labels such as those currently mandatory in the United States. Clearly, research has been done in this area to warrant the use of warning labels as an effective way to educate people about the potential hazards of excess drinking. As the minister has stated, this could be put into effect without a great deal of difficulty, so we urge the minister to do so quickly in the hope that we may be able to delay another tragic death.
As I am sure all members are aware, some distilleries and breweries have implemented advertisements promoting responsible drinking. We would encourage all distillers to take up the responsibility of promoting responsible drinking habits.
As the coroner's inquest recommended, the government should look to amending the existing Liquor Licence Act to impose stiffer penalties on those who supply alcohol to minors. We would also encourage the Attorney General to meet with his colleagues and the Minister of Justice to consider criminalization.
In closing, I am sure the government will make these recommendations a subject of further discussion, and we hope it can get started and implement them quickly. Let's get started now.
COUPURES BUDGÉTAIRES A RADIO-CANADA
M. Villeneuve: L'annonce de la Société Radio-Canada de ses coupures budgétaires pour la programmation française ici à Toronto prive de nombreux téléspectateurs francophones de leur seule source d'information aux affaires publiques et aux événements politiques ici en Ontario.
La programmation d'Ottawa et de Montréal ne pourra jamais compenser cette perte. Quoique l'on dise, si ces compressions budgétaires étaient justifiées ou même si toutes les compressions budgétaires étaient justifiées, il ne demeure pas moins qu'elles ont été faites et que la diffusion de la politique provinciale de l'Ontario en souffrira énormément.
Bien qui la continuité de la programmation par la privatisation soit la meilleure solution, je ne crois pas que ce soit possible en ce moment. La seule façon de laquelle une diffusion provinciale suffisante peut être restituée est que le réseau de la chaîne française de TVOntario prenne en main les programmes auparavant diffusés par CBLFT de Toronto.
J'exige au ministre de la Culture et des Communications de diriger la chaîne française de TVOntario vers la relève des programmes que la population d'expression française a perdus, et d'assurer que la Chaîne française puisse accomplir le même degré de reportage partout dans la province tel que réalisé auparavant par CBLFT de Toronto.
MARGUERITE D'YOUVLLLE
Mr Martin: I am honoured today to be able to stand in the House and pay tribute to a Canadian woman who will be recognized on a worldwide scale on 9 December as the first Canadian-born saint.
It is significant, I think, that I stand on a day when we focus so sharply on women's issues in response to the tragic events of Montreal of last year. Marguerite d'Youville was a woman married and then widowed, a single mother who established a community of women to set up hospitals in the Montreal area. She was born in 1701 and died in 1771.
In Sault Ste Marie, we have a hospital established by the Grey Nuns, which is the order she established. She was a wife, a mother, founder of a community of religious women, a social activist, an administrator, a person of prayer and, of course, a miracle worker.
Today we in the New Democratic Party who espouse these same principles and work towards the same ends as Marguerite are greatly honoured to recognize her and give her the respect due on this important date in the life of her community.
SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION
Mr Beer: As everyone is aware, the greater Toronto area is growing at a very rapid rate. In 1989 the school boards representing York, Durham, Peel and Halton regions asked the then Liberal government to introduce special measures to provide additional financial support for school construction.
The government then brought in a bill to permit school boards to set out a lot levy for education purposes on all new housing developments. After debate in this House, the bill became law and school boards may now develop a lot levy bylaw which, once approved by the Ministry of Education, can then be put in place.
The York region public school board and the York region Roman Catholic separate school board have developed a common bylaw and are ready to implement it, but they are still awaiting approval from the ministry.
In the fall of 1989, the York region separate school board had over 350 portables and the public board over 650 portables. Today, the two boards combined have over 1,000 portables. Clearly, new schools and additions are needed. The York region public board estimates that it needs one high school and six elementary schools a year to keep pace with growth. The separate board is in a similar situation.
The fast-growth boards need help. The previous Legislature voted to give them the extra help they asked for. Those of us living in York region asked the minister to expedite the approval of the two York region boards' bylaw so we can get kids out of portables and into real schools.
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PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS
Mr Sterling: Later this afternoon I will introduce a private member's bill entitled An Act to amend the Professional Engineers Act. As the only professional engineer sitting in this Legislature, I want to make certain the public is aware that the Association of Professional Engineers of the Province of Ontario has through its actions, particularly over the past year, indicated that it will not tolerate sexism within the engineering profession.
Under subsection 14(2) of the present act, the registrar of the association can refuse a licence to an applicant where the past conduct of the individual affords grounds for the belief that the applicant will not engage in the practice of engineering in accordance with the law and with honesty and integrity. However, it is not clear that the registrar could refuse an applicant if his actions exhibited sexism.
This act will give the registrar, without question, the discretion to refuse a licence to an applicant who had been convicted of sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault under the Criminal Code or if there are reasonable and probable grounds that the applicant has harassed another person because of the sex of that person.
Ninety-seven per cent of the professional engineers of Ontario are male. As a result of the past attitudes and the tragedy of last 6 December, I do not believe that giving these added powers to those who are responsible for licensing our engineers is unreasonable.
CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORP CUTBACKS
Mr Malkowski: Last night I was watching CBC's The Journal and, having taken a look at the newspapers, I was certainly very moved by the stories I have heard from people who have worked at CBC, the loss of jobs that are affecting people in Ontario and the disastrous effect that has on family life, the cultural aspects of Canada that will be lost.
If we look at cities such as Windsor, I do not know why we are not seeing the Conservative government change the map of Canada and have Windsor become part of Michigan. We are seeing a lack of cultural information. We are going to see an effect on the lives of people and their families because of this loss of jobs.
If, as we have heard, it might be possible there will be a cut in the broadcast of the House of Commons which would mean that we will not have the interpreter who has made this broadcast accessible also to deaf Canadians, I do not know what will happen to the deaf community, which includes people such as myself. What will we do if we do not have these types of programs accessible to us?
This has shown that there is no sensitivity by the Canadian government in relation to the culture of this country. I think that what we are seeing with the cut to CBLFT is obviously a lack of sensitivity to the French speaking people in this country. I think that what CBC has now become is the Conservative Broadcast Catastrophe.
RENT REVIEW
Ms Poole: I would like to bring to the attention of the House the concerns of the Bretton Place Tenants' Association. The president of the tenants' association is concerned that the government's proposed rent control legislation has no provision for major repairs and capital improvements. In the case of Bretton Place, the tenants and owners agreed on which major repairs were necessary -- things such as plumbing, a new roof, drywalling and recarpeting. The owners also kept to an agreement that the rent increase would be under 10%.
At the very least, we would have expected that the Minister of Housing, in his legislation, would provide an option for tenants who want work done on their buildings. We agree that 195% rent increases are unacceptable; they are reprehensible and must be stopped. We also agree that the tenants should not be forced to carry the burden of luxury renovations. But while we agree with the intent of the legislation of the Minister of Housing, where we diverge is on how we should accomplish that goal.
The minister may say this is only interim legislation, but surely even interim legislation must be both effective and fair. If the price we have to pay is the erosion of our housing stock, in the final analysis it will be the tenants who are the losers.
The minister must address the capital repair problem in the interim legislation and ensure that what tenants gain today in affordable rents will not be lost tomorrow in the deterioration of their buildings.
ECONOMIC POLICY
Mr Sterling: Yesterday, our leader was in Kitchener Waterloo to discuss the effects of the recession and the current provincial government policy on the economic opportunities in that area. Our leader heard at first hand of the hardships facing Kitchener-Waterloo, the same hardships that face nearly every corner of this province today. Community leaders told him that more than 1,700 jobs have been lost in the last year through consolidation or company movement to the United States.
There is a profound uncertainty in this province over what action, if any, this government plans to take to promote job creation and economic opportunity in this province. There is uncertainty over how the government perceives the employers of Ontario, whether it sees them as creators of jobs, of economic stability and the engine that will lift this province out of the recession or as a cash cow, a bottomless pit of tax revenue.
This government must send a clear message, a message that says jobs count, people count and the communities of this province are not being left to wither away as political ideology is placed before common business sense.
ANNIVERSARY OF BIRCHALL-BENWELL AFFAIR
Mr Sutherland: I rise to make a statement today in appreciation of the work done by the Princeton Historical Society and the Oxford Historical Society on their celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Birchall-Benwell affair.
The Birchall-Benwell affair has strong historical significance, not only for the county of Oxford but also for the province of Ontario. As a little background to that, Reginald Birchall was the son of an English nobleman who came to Canada on a program to enhance and develop farming in Ontario. As part of that, he was able to entice Frederick C. Benwell to come to Oxford as well and to entice Frederick Benwell's father to give money to Mr Birchall. However, Mr Birchall was not one of most honest means and it ended up that Mr Benwell was found in the Blenheim swamp in Oxford county.
The trial that occurred afterwards had great significance, was covered all over England because it included English nobility as well and is most noted for the fact that it was one of the first times forensic science was used in a trial in Ontario and also the first time meteorological conditions were used as evidence.
I want to congratulate the Princeton Historical Society and the Oxford Historical Society for commemorating this significant event in Ontario's history.
STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Hon Mrs Boyd: I wish to inform members about this government's policy on education about religion in public schools, an issue that has preoccupied parents, educators and legislators in this province for a very long time.
The policy I am announcing today will permit education about religion in Ontario public schools that is not indoctrinational. I am also pleased to release the Report on Religious Education in Ontario Public Elementary Schools, which was submitted to the previous minister by Dr Glenn A. Watson.
I would like now to inform members of some of the events which led up to the development of the policy I am announcing today. On 30 January 1990 the Ontario Court of Appeal found that subsection 28(4) of Ontario regulation 262 was inconsistent with the freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed by section 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court made it clear that the regulation was invalid because it permitted the teaching of a single religious tradition as if it were the exclusive means of developing moral thinking and behaviour. The court also stated that programs designed to teach about religion and to foster moral values -- without indoctrination in a particular religious faith -- would not contravene the charter. An interim policy on this matter has been in effect since 28 February 1990.
The policy I am announcing today is in keeping with the interim policy and will permit boards of education to offer programs of education about religion in grades 1 to 8 during the school day for up to 60 minutes per week. Local communities will have the right to decide through their local school boards whether or not such programs are desired in their schools and parents may choose not to enrol their children in any program so offered by a board.
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Our policy is to promote the widest possible choices for communities and for families with respect to education about religion. The purpose of these programs is educational; they must not indoctrinate in or give primacy to any particular religious faith.
The court offered eight tests to distinguish between religious indoctrination and education about religion. These tests were outlined in the interim policy, and boards opting to offer programs of education about religion must ensure that programs delivered in their schools meet the court standards.
In order to assist boards in implementing this new policy, my ministry will develop a resource document on programs of education about religion for grades 1 to 8. This document will be developed in both English and French. A draft copy will be circulated to educators and other interested groups for comment within 18 months.
In addition, school boards can continue to provide space in school buildings, as they do for various community-related activities, for indoctrinational religious classes before the opening or after the close of the instructional program of the school day.
However, the charter requires equality of treatment, and boards that exercise this option must make space available to religious groups on an equitable basis.
As members know, the Court of Appeal ruled on religious education in public elementary schools. While section 29 of regulation 262, which governs religious education in public secondary schools, was not before the court, it is the opinion of legal counsel to the government that this section promotes religious indoctrination and is therefore inappropriate.
Consequently, both section 28 and section 29 will be revoked and amended to reflect the permanent policy which will become effective 1 January 1991.
Members may be aware that secondary schools currently offer an optional credit course in world religions at the grade 11 and 12 levels. The amended regulation will permit boards to continue to offer this course.
I wish to state that the policy on education about religion I have outlined does not affect schools operated by the Roman Catholic separate school boards, which are guaranteed under section 92 of the Constitution.
At this time, I would like to turn to the Watson report. Dr Watson was asked to recommend curriculum options for an appropriate religious education policy for public elementary schools. His recommendations were made without benefit of the court decision, which was announced just one day before Dr Watson submitted his report.
While Dr Watson recognized the necessity of a multi-faith approach to education about religion, one of his major recommendations is at variance with the court decision. Legal counsel to the government points out that to devote between one third and two thirds of a program to the study of one particular religion, as suggested by Dr Watson, would give primacy to that faith and would contravene the charter as interpreted by the Court of Appeal.
I believe that the policy I am announcing today can be seen within the context of the long-established vision of the public elementary and secondary schools as open and accessible to all on an equal basis.
Public schools are places where students of diverse backgrounds can grow together. It is our intent that programs of education about religion enable students of all faiths to learn about one another and to enjoy the richness of our collective and individual heritage.
Hon Miss Martel: Mr Speaker, if I might before I begin, I would ask the permission of the House to continue with the statements and the responses and then move to a request for unanimous consent for a special statement.
The Speaker: Agreed?
Agreed to.
NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT / DÉVELOPPEMENT DU NORD
Hon Miss Martel: Two days ago my colleague the Treasurer announced in this House that $41 million worth of government renovation and maintenance projects would be made public very soon. These projects are part of the government's commitment of $700 million in capital works projects to fight the recession. They have been fast-tracked so that the government can provide needed jobs as quickly as possible.
As the Minister of Northern Development, I am pleased to confirm today that half of those projects will go to the hard-hit communities in northern Ontario. The decision to spend $20 million of the $41 million worth of fast-track proposals in the north demonstrates clearly this government's strong commitment to northerners.
Developing these northern projects has been a cooperative effort by a number of ministries, including Natural Resources, Transportation, Colleges and Universities, Culture and Communications, the Office for Disabled Persons and Tourism and Recreation. I want to thank my fellow cabinet members for recognizing the needs of northern Ontario, especially at this time.
The list of these initiatives includes:
The Ministry of Natural Resources will be undertaking almost 200 projects, mainly forestry-related, throughout the north.
The Ministry of Transportation will be upgrading driver and vehicle centres, rehabilitating municipal airports and doing highway-related work.
The Ministry of Culture and Communications will have telephone and cable projects in 24 communities.
The Ministry of Colleges and Universities will renovate Commerce Court in North Bay.
The Office for Disabled Persons will be making a number of facilities more accessible to people with disabilities.
The Ministry of Tourism and Recreation will make improvements to Old Fort William near Thunder Bay.
All of these projects, which have been selected for the north, are designed with the northern climate in mind. Winter conditions will not hold up our plans.
I want to emphasize that these fast-tracked projects are only the beginning. Our government is currently reviewing more than 3,000 projects that will form the basis for our $700-million, recession-fighting capital works program. I hope to follow this good news for the north with more of the same.
Further, as the Premier indicated on Tuesday in question period, this government is looking at other measures to deal with the economic problems facing us in northern Ontario.
Le Nord de l'Ontario est durement touché par la récession. Les politiques du gouvernement fédéral, comme par exemple les taux d'intérêt élevés, la valeur élevée du dollar, l'imposition d'une taxe de 15 % sur le bois d'oeuvre exporté aux États-Unis et l'accord de libre-échange, ne font qu'aggraver les problèmes existants.
De plus, la taxe sur les produits et services proposée aura elle aussi des retombées négatives, comme l'indique un rapport interprovincial que j'ai rendu public lundi dernier, intitulé Rapport sur les inquiétudes concernant les répercussions des récentes mesures fiscales sur les économies du Nord.
We want to do what we can for those people who are being hurt by these federal policies. We want to do it as soon as possible. That is our immediate goal. Our long term goal is to keep building, in big ways and small, the economy of this province, in spite of the recession and federal policies. We will quietly but steadily lay the foundation for a strong recovery in the north and across the province.
These initiatives will stimulate local economies in which projects are undertaken by creating much-needed jobs and encouraging the purchase of goods and services from those communities.
These funds will also help address the problem of inadequate financing of public infrastructure. Our government inherited this problem and we hope to deal with it in a positive way. This funding is one step towards resolving the problem.
These worthwhile projects will have a positive impact on northern Ontario over the coming months. Again. they are but a first step. They do, however, reflect this government's commitment to the many people who inhabit the largest geographical area in Ontario.
RESPONSES
NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT
Mr Brown: I am pleased to rise today to respond to the statement by the Minister of Northern Development. As the minister well knows, we have unparalleled unemployment in certain areas of the north. It is not homogeneous. Some areas are not doing badly; others are doing very, very badly. They are in fact in depression, whether the cause is mining layoffs, whether the cause is a lack of exploration or whether the cause is a loss of forest-related jobs.
We appreciate today that the minister has reacted to what we have said and moved forward with these initiatives. I find it rather interesting that this is the third time this week the minister has made the same announcement. We really think, though, that it is inadequate. We are looking for some dent in the 3,000 lost jobs in the forest industry. We are looking for some dent in the 4,000 to 5,000 layoffs in the mining industry. We are looking for some dent.
We want to know how the government chooses where these projects go. We want to know if they go to the areas that need them the most. We want to know what the government's criteria are. We want to know those things and we want the minister and the ministry to show some leadership, to show us some of their ideas, to tell us where the $200-million economic development fund is and to tell us where the hundreds of millions of dollars of roadwork that the government promised in the famous Agenda for People is. We want to know these things. While this is nice, it is just that: nice.
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RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Mr Beer: I want to respond to the statement made by the Minister of Education. I would say that we recognize that, given the charter and given the court's decision, following the interim policy that was set out by the previous government, it is in accordance with the advice we had at that time, and I am not surprised that advice has remained the same.
I think the decision as well that this must also deal with the secondary level follows from that. There is no point in getting into a series of court cases where clearly, the court having spoken with respect to the elementary level and knowing the interpretation of the charter, this is the route that would have to be followed.
We are also pleased today to see that the report by Dr Watson has been released and we look forward to looking at that particular report in terms of some of the other recommendations that are made there.
The point I would like to raise with the minister in a sense is not so much what is in here, but to recognize, as I think all of us do, that there are other parents and other families in Ontario who seek very genuinely to have some greater recognition of their religion within the educational system.
I think it is fair to say that neither we nor the Conservatives have been able to come to grips with the question of how we can relate religion in a more specific sense to the educational programs that we have in this province. Clearly, we have to have an acceptance of tolerance and, within the public system, we cannot be giving a priority to one system or another.
But we also recognize that, for historical and constitutional reasons, we have developed one system, or part of a system, in terms of the separate school system, which has permitted a particular group within our society to have religious education in the schools.
I know the minister is going to be meeting with a number of groups on this specific issue. Those of us in the opposition are meeting as well. The minister spoke the other day about perhaps an advisory committee or some mechanism where I think we can give expression to those people for whom the statement today will not really respond to their needs.
I do not think any of us has a nice, neat, simple answer to how we can more easily include them within the broader educational framework, but with our emphasis -- I think it is the government's and that of the opposition -- on really looking at what parents would like to see within the school system, the kind of ethical and moral values they would like to see as part of the total program, I do believe that we owe it to those other people in our society to sit down and try to see if there is some way we can more adequately meet their needs.
But in terms of the statement made today by the minister, I believe, as I say, that it flows from the actions of the previous government and we support them.
Mrs Cunningham: I would like to take the opportunity to respond to the Minister of Education's statement on religious education and let her know that I think the various school boards across the province of Ontario will be most pleased with the document before us today.
Those school boards individually, I think, and as groups submitted their concerns to Dr Watson, and their concerns were that school boards be given the option to provide religious education and that knowledge about religion through the provision of opening exercises and religious education has an appropriate and beneficial function in Ontario's public schools.
They added that individual school boards and their communities must work out for themselves whether or not religious education is appropriate and how it should be implemented. I think their final point was to make young people familiar with various views to foster an understanding and appreciation of others and develop genuine tolerance.
I would like to say to the minister, our only concern is the 18 months. As she knows, some boards are already trying to foster this kind of programming. Some have never given it up; some are more silent than others. I would like to encourage the minister to come forth with her document as quickly as possible and ask the boards to respond as quickly as possible. I do not think we want to lose programs that are there, that are working efficiently and that the minister would support.
I would also like to say that with this statement, all of us, I think, in our caucus recognize the needs for support for families these days and always as we talk about morals and values in our homes. We would underline that this is a support to the home, this document, and we thank the minister for her response. We are anxious to see the Watson report, which we have been waiting for for some amount of time.
NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT
Mr Eves: In response to the statement made today by the Minister of Northern Development, it seems that we must have struck a chord in our questioning yesterday and on previous days with respect to spending money in northern Ontario.
If we are going to have a five-page statement for $20 million of the $300 million the Premier promised would be spent during the fiscal year 1990-91 in his Agenda for People, then we are going to get a 70-page statement when the other $280 million is announced before 20 December. I presume that announcement is forthcoming.
The minister on page 3 refers to the fact that she is reviewing more than 3,000 projects that will form the basis of the capital works program. If she is in fact reviewing those 3,000 projects, could she kindly table those projects so that all members of the Legislature and the public of Ontario can see the 3,000 projects that she has under active consideration at this time.
I just want to remind the minister again that her Premier, her leader, says in his Agenda for People on pages 10 and 11 that this $300 million will be spent in northern Ontario during the fiscal year 1990-91, which she knows expires on 31 March next, and her Treasurer stood in this House a couple of days ago and said everybody who knew anything knew that we were in recession in April.
I presume the Premier made that commitment on 19 August of this year, knowing what his Treasurer knows, that we are in a recession, and knowing we are in a recession, he still made the commitment to spend the $300 million by 31 March 1991.
Mr Sterling: I hope we can expect a statement tomorrow from the newly created minister of eastern Ontario -- as promised by this government in the past election -- about initiatives in an area of the province that needs desperate help. I only hope that this government does not forget about eastern Ontario as the last government did.
The Speaker: A little late now, but the member is out of order obviously. We are responding to statements made, not ones we think will be made.
Hon Miss Martel: If I might, I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House for statements to be made with respect to the massacre last year.
The Speaker: Agreed?
Agreed to.
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ANNIVERSARY OF SHOOTING IN MONTREAL / ANNIVERSAIRE DE LA FUSILLADE À MONTRÉAL
Hon Mr Rae: Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maude Haviernick, Barbara Maria Klueznick, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Ameault and Annie Turcotte. These are the names of the women who were killed last year in Montreal.
Naturellement, nos premières pensées ne sont pas des pensées politiques; ce sont des sentiments que nous voulons partager avec les familles de ces jeunes femmes. C'est peut-être un moment important pour nous, en tant que Canadiens, de dire que nous avons tous beaucoup perdu dans l'événement que nous appelons maintenant le massacre de Montréal. Mais il faut avant tout se souvenir et se rappeler que ce sont les familles et les amis de ces jeunes femmes qui d'abord ont perdu tant de choses.
All of us in Canada and around the world were shocked and devastated by the news of the brutal killing of 14 young women in Montreal on 6 December 1989. Since that time, I think we have all had many moments when we have reflected on what took place and its meaning. Our first thoughts are with the families of those who died so tragically and so brutally. No words of ours can possibly assuage the grief and sense of loss of those who lost their loved ones, and I think before we talk of anything else we should think of the families.
But one must also say something else. I know that there has been some controversy over exactly how we should respond and interpret the events, but it is not good enough to say that it was simply a random act of mindless violence because that is not, it seems to me, an adequate reflection on what took place. Women were singled out. Women were separated from men and were brutally shot down.
Shortly after the events, an article appeared in the Globe and Mail that I thought was quite an extraordinary evocation of the emotion that I know is shared by millions of Canadians. It was an article written by Stevie Cameron. I was planning to read it in preparation for these remarks -- I read it again yesterday -- and I noted with interest that it was reproduced in today's paper. I want to read a couple of paragraphs from it because there are times when all of us grope for words, and I think we are grateful to those who have been able to find ways of expressing what is on all our minds.
She says at the end of the article:
"Now our daughters have been shocked to the core, as we all have, by the violence in Montreal. They hear the women were separated from the men and meticulously slaughtered by a man who blamed feminists for his troubles. They ask themselves why nobody was able to help the terrified women, to somehow stop the hunter as he roamed the engineering building.
"So now our daughters are truly frightened and it makes their mothers furious that they are frightened. They survived all the childhood dangers, they were careful as we trained them to be, they worked hard. Anything was possible and our daughters proved it. And now they are more scared than they were when they were little girls."
It is entirely appropriate that we in this Legislature should take a moment to reflect on the extent of this violence, to pay tribute to these women, to remember them and also to pledge ourselves, as we from time to time abandon our partisan personalities, to simply realize that violence against women is a horrendous affront, that it is pervasive and that it must be stopped.
Ten years ago when someone in the House of Commons asked a question about wife battering there were titters of laughter around the assembly. I think it fair to say that would not happen anywhere in a Canadian political forum today, but even that is inadequate progress. Far too many examples are before us of women who have been beaten and battered and assaulted and killed. We must again pledge ourselves to see that this stops, that we put the resources and the energies and the efforts of all of us into the attempt to end this violence.
This is what our government has pledged to do. We are building on work that has been done by previous governments, Conservative and Liberal, and now New Democrat. We can surely join together and recognize that what has happened was not simply a random act. It was a tragic and terrible reflection of one of the greatest social problems we face together as a community, and we must do everything we can to see not only that something like this could never happen again but that all examples of prejudice or violence against women are brought to an end.
Mrs Fawcett: On this, the anniversary of the horrific tragedy at l'École Polytechnique, I wish to express our party's very real and deep concern in the aftermath of the Montreal massacre.
The hopes, dreams and ambitions of the 14 young women came to a terrifying end from the senseless actions of the psychotic sociopath, Marc Lépine. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the remaining family members at this time. If any good can come from reflecting on such evil, it comes from the realization that the gender prejudice so graphically illustrated by this insane killer is shared by many in today's society.
Lépine was insane; on this we can all agree. However, the underlying gender discrimination that pushed him to blame all women for his failures and individual conflicts continues, sadly, to permeate and affect the attitudes and actions of our society.
We are often guilty of assigning individual human traits and characteristics to a gender group. For example, aggression and logic are considered masculine characteristics; sensitivity and passivity are thought to be feminine. Anyone outside these restrictive gender parameters runs into discrimination and even castigation.
I wish to remind everyone that the women's movement during this century has fought hard for legislation to battle such inequalities. Women have won the right to vote, have gained acceptance in the workplace and are battling for acceptance in the boardroom. We have even broken the all male bastion of political representation. Unfortunately, though, we cannot legislate a change in attitudes.
We in government must ensure that our in-House actions do not encourage society to further entrench gender discrimination. In checking our bias at the door, perhaps the public will not pick up on remarks like, "Bring me another tequila, Sheila," or, "We'll have that cute blond guy in the front row walk across the floor." Flippant remarks like these by legislators only serve to justify the demeaning views towards gender groups held by some of the public.
If we allow such gender discrimination to affect the public psyche, hatred through stereotypes and restriction of freedom result. Extreme hatred through prejudice produces violence. Extreme hatred through prejudice channelled by sociopathic psychosis spawns the evil of a Marc Lépine and the horror and tragedy of l'École Polytechnique.
We must provide legislation that disallows discrimination on the basis of gender. It is time that this Parliament embraced the ideal that in a democracy it is wrong to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, colour or gender.
I call upon my colleagues in this House to make that commitment and to lead by example in order that we send a clear and concise message to society, a message that will reinforce that this type of discrimination towards women -- in fact, any type of discrimination -- is no longer socially acceptable and will not be tolerated.
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Mrs Witmer: I would like to join my honourable colleagues from the other two parties in expressing my sympathy to the families of the 14 young women in Montreal who were brutally slaughtered one year ago today. Fourteen young women were killed in a senseless act of violence, 14 young women who were full of promise and idealism.
However, we must remember that this massacre of one year ago was not an isolated incident of violence. Every day in this province women flee violent and abusive situations. As well, the number of sexual assaults reported to crisis centres in Ontario is increasing.
It is not enough today to remember. We must first mourn; then we must begin to work for change. We must all dedicate ourselves to the task of eradicating violence against women. We must act to eliminate those dehumanizing events and the headlines that we see with such sickening regularity.
As a parent, as a mother and as a member of this House, I believe that the best tribute we can pay to the 14 students and the best monument we can build to their memory is to change our society's attitudes about violence against women.
All women must be able to live without fear. We need to educate people in this province. We need to sensitize them to recognize that there are certain attitudes, that there are certain behaviours, no matter how casual or how seemingly innocent, that do contribute to the continuation of violent and abusive behaviour.
We all need to break the silence and we need to stand up and call for an end to violence against women. We need to build a world where people care for and respect each other regardless of our gender, our race or our religion.
As we observe today a moment's silence, let each one of us consider what we personally can do to ensure that this tragedy is never repeated.
The Speaker: With your consent, I invite all members, visitors and guests alike, to stand and bow your heads in a moment of silent reflection.
The House observed one minute's silence.
ADVERTISING BY MEMBERS
Hon Mrs Carter: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of personal privilege. Yesterday the member for Mississauga West implied that I had misspent taxpayers' money on an advertisement that mentioned the name of my party. The Peterborough Examiner yesterday faxed to my riding office a letter that I would like to read to the House:
"Dear Mrs Hicks:
"This will confirm your instruction of October 31, 1990, to place a Remembrance Day announcement in our publication, Kawartha Senior, November 2, 1990, to read in part, 'Jenny Carter, MPP, Peterborough.' Inadvertently, an error appeared in your announcement due to a production error and appeared in print, 'Jenny Carter, NDP, Peterborough.'
"The Peterborough Examiner sincerely regrets any inconvenience or confusion that this may have caused Mrs Carter or our readers."
An advertising representative signed it.
Mr Mahoney: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I referred the matter to you, as a matter of fact. There were two items. One of them was the photograph I presented to you outlining a constituency office sign in Kitchener-Wilmot with the New Democratic Party logo.
I was not looking for a response, although I am delighted to see that it was simply an error and to understand that the minister has recognized that it was an error. However, the taxpayers, I presume, did pay for, initially, and certainly paid for that sign. I expected a report from you, Mr Speaker, with respect, not from --
The Speaker: To the member for Mississauga West, your point of order was taken yesterday. There will be a response to you. The member rose quite properly, as all members are entitled to do as a point of personal explanation.
Interjections.
The Speaker: We have not started question period. Now that we have captured everyone's interest, we can begin oral questions.
ORAL QUESTIONS
CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
Mr Nixon: In the gracious speech read to the House by His Honour, he said the "government will soon discuss with the Legislature our suggestions for future action" on the breakdown of Canadian federalism. Shortly after the House began its sessions, I asked the Premier when he would bring forward his proposals. The date was 26 November, and I quote his answer: "Very shortly indeed."
I understand that Mr Parizeau will be in Toronto early next week to speak to an august gathering. I hope many people will be there to hear what he has to say. Surely the Premier would feel that there has been enough delay in this important matter and that the House should be informed, preferably before Mr Parizeau's visit, what action is going to be taken in this House to see what the views of the people of the province of Ontario will be and how this province can take its accustomed position along with the other provinces in looking after our movement towards improving our constitutional arrangements.
Hon Mr Rae: I want to say first of all to the Leader of the Opposition that I am going to be discussing this matter with him and with the leader of the Conservative Party very shortly.
Mr Elston: Very soon again.
Hon Mr Rae: No, I will say to him next week, if he likes. I hope to be able to make an announcement to the House, certainly before we adjourn. I would make this point to the Leader of the Opposition. I hope he would not suggest that somehow our timetable for discussion of this matter should be affected in any way by when Mr Parizeau happens to be here or anywhere else giving a speech. It does not seem to me that is the criterion one establishes.
We are obviously having discussions within the government, as I think we are entitled to do. We are having discussions within the cabinet, as I think we are entitled to do. I then intend to have a very full discussion with the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the third party.
I have said to him and I will say to him again that I do not see this as an issue which needs to divide us in a partisan way. I appreciate his concern that we move ahead. I want to move ahead as well and we are going to move ahead. There will be an announcement before we break for Christmas.
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Mr Nixon: I think the honourable Premier is aware that Mr Parizeau, as Leader of the Opposition, in conjunction with the Premier of Quebec, has established a commission that is commanding substantial attention in that province and right across the country. It is interesting that a senior cabinet minister in Quebec has been critical of their deliberations since they seem to be so focused on separatism or sovereignty-association. It seems to me that these matters are moving rather rapidly in Quebec and to some extent in Ottawa, where the citizens' forum has been holding some private meetings before it goes out into the country to hear the views on a national basis.
The clock is ticking. There are people in this jurisdiction, and I am sure in this chamber, who are deeply concerned at the momentum sovereignty, if not separatism, is gaining in the province of Quebec. Ontario, and I do not want to put this stronger than it is, has historically had a position of leadership in this regard. I say in response to the Premier's comment that we should not be driven by Mr Parizeau's visit, I would agree with that. I mentioned it only to indicate that the rest of the world is moving and we are simply gazing at our polished spectacles.
Surely it is time that there be a statement from the Premier of some action in this regard. I welcome his comments that he will be meeting with the two opposition leaders. Can he give us any more details as to his views, so that everybody in the House who is deeply concerned about this might get their thinking caps on in some sort of orderly way?
Hon Mr Rae: Perhaps my approach is different in style from some others, I do not know, though I notice that even he has taken to borrowing some phrases which I have used on other occasions in putting the question. I think that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and it is flattery that I accept from the Leader of the Opposition.
But let me say this quite sincerely. The leadership that the Leader of the Opposition can provide, that the former Attorney General can provide, that other senior members of the previous government can provide, that the leader of the Conservative Party and members of his caucus can provide, if I may say so, the leadership that can be provided on that basis is every bit as important as what we are all going to be doing together in this Legislature.
I do not claim any monopoly of wisdom in this regard. I can assure the member that this is my approach with respect to constitutional issues. I said when I first came here nearly 10 years ago, when I met with the then Premier, Mr Davis, that there were some issues on which I parked my partisan credentials at the door. That was one of them. The question of the Constitution of Canada, the question of the future of the country and the need for Ontario to play a role is one where I see a need for us to build a consensus within the Legislature and to work together. That was my position 10 years ago and that is my position today.
If the Leader of the Opposition thinks this issue is going to be settled in a month or two, or if he thinks it is going to be driven by a headline on a day or two, I do not share that perspective. This issue is one to which we are going to have to take a practical, intelligent, measured approach. That is the way I am going to try to deal with it. I not only look forward to his counsel and advice, I look forward to his participation, because if anybody can play a constructive role in this regard, it is the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr Scott: The Premier in, if I may say so, a very aggressive way today, as on 26 November, tries to deflect a concern about the constitutional position of the government by emphasizing that he wants a bipartisan constitutional policy. I am committed to that. Our party and our interim leader are committed to that, as the Premier is. Our problem is that until we get some inkling about what the program or the proposals of the government are, we cannot support them. We do not know where this government stands on this critical constitutional issue, except that it is in favour of Canada and, its second observation, that the confederacy is not working.
This government has been in office two months, with a one-month period before that preparing itself for office, and we have not had any observations about objectives or process from any member of the government. We want to support legitimate government initiatives, but we have to know what those are. It is getting so serious now that the press is saying -- and I am sure this is not justified -- that the government is divided and cannot act on the question.
The question for the Premier is this: In light of the timetables that have been set by the hearings in Quebec, which will be reporting within months, can he not regard this as a critical issue that must be addressed almost in priority to any other issue if the unity of the country is to survive?
Hon Mr Rae: I respect the views of the member for St George-St David in this particular area, though I must say I was rather surprised that the last time he was asking questions on this subject he quoted from a document in which his quotations and assertions with respect to that document were not accurate. So I listened very carefully to the member, and he asked what priority it has. I guess that was the question, or is it whether I see this as the number one priority?
I have to say that our ability to provide work, jobs and economic leadership for the people of the province is my first concern. Obviously, as a Canadian and as leader of this province, I share a profound concern with respect to what is taking place in the country, in Quebec in particular but not only that. It is the sense, if I may say so, that the federal government is choosing to see this as a partisan issue. The Prime Minister gave a speech last week in which he said the Conservative Party gave birth to Canada and the Conservative Party is going to be the party that is going to save Canada.
That is the approach I do not want to take. I do not want to take a partisan approach. We are going to be addressing this issue on a non-partisan basis. That is the approach we should take. I think it is the intelligent, measured approach, and I think it is the right approach for us to take.
SOCIAL SERVICES CASE LOAD
Mr Nixon: I have a question for the honourable Minister of Community and Social Services dealing with the explosive growth of case load and the concomitant costs reflected once again in the report in the media today that the case load in Metropolitan Toronto is up 75% year over year. The Treasurer, in his statement earlier in the week, referred to the additional costs somewhat obliquely, but it is a matter of grave concern.
Can the minister, who I understand has been talking with Metro politicians on this matter, report to the House what the expectations are for this year, what additional expenditure will be needed on a province-wide basis? I would like to know, and perhaps the House would as well, what her views are on just what is going on there, as it has become apparent that it is not merely the recession that is causing this explosive growth.
Hon Mrs Akande: Yes, we are very concerned about the growth in the number of social service recipients; we are also very aware of it. The projections we had were that the numbers would be doubled. We have very quickly recognized that there is more than that taking place. We have in fact consulted municipalities other than just the one to which the member has referred about the needs they have and are moving towards looking at measures in which we can support them.
I will remind the member that just last week, was it, or the week before, when we did announce the social assistance increases we did also announce that we would be supporting moving money to the municipalities in order to assist them in providing these funds for the social assistance groups.
Mr Nixon: I made reference to some of the causes, and asked the minister to comment on those, because certainly there has been comment about the continuing refugee situation with people not being granted working permits and a number of other alternatives. But also I was struck that the Treasurer indicated outside the House that the last budget had underestimated the revenue from personal income tax by an amount that would approach and perhaps surpass $500 million. So there is some considerable leeway in this matter.
Can the minister indicate what the additional costs are expected to be that will flow through her ministry in support of these programs that are allocated directly through the ministry and also in conjunction with the municipalities?
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Hon Mrs Akande: I can indicate to the member, as I have done just previously, that these are things we are looking at and studying and consulting on with the other municipalities. I will say, though, we are concerned that there is additional growth other than just what we would anticipate from the recession and from the fact that many have lost their jobs. We are of course looking at the costs that come to us through other sources and for other reasons, and I will report that information here in this House as soon as I have it.
Mrs McLeod: We are anxious to address a clearly growing problem which has crisis proportions. We are anxious to have the minister identify the causes of the problem so we can talk about solutions and costs.
It is our understanding that in August 1990, staff of the Ministry of Community and Social Services conducted a review with the regional municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto, York, Durham and Waterloo to identify the factors associated with the case load increase. We further understand that the results of that review indicated that people who receive assistance have lower education levels and have had previous employment experience. I think this helps to further confirm the findings of the Social Assistance Review Committee that dispelled the myth that people on welfare do not want to work. Clearly there are barriers to people becoming independent. We hope the minister would agree that one of the first focuses of the SARC report that was implemented, the supports to employment program, is critical in encouraging people to move from dependence to independence.
But that program cannot be successful if the minister's case workers are spending all their time managing case loads in excess of 350, a number that we confirmed today with various area ministry offices. Can the minister tell the House when she will invest the proper resources to her front-line income maintenance staff to enable them to provide the necessary counselling, training and work placements to social assistance recipients?
Hon Mrs Akande: I thank the member for her interest and her concern, which I share. We have already begun discussions and plans to do just that, to look at where that addition to staff may be effected in order to more efficiently and effectively move people off social assistance into skills training programs, into the supports to employment program -- those moves and initiatives that will effectively remove them from the social assistance rolls.
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE FRANCHISE
Mr Sterling: On a question of privilege, Mr Speaker: I would like to congratulate Terrace Investments in obtaining a National Hockey League franchise for Ottawa. Thank God, Ontario will finally have a hockey team in the NHL.
The Speaker: It is certainly a point of some passing interest but not one of privilege.
CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
Mrs Witmer: My question is to the Minister without Portfolio responsible for women's issues. Today, all parties have expressed their concern about violence against women. A recent US study found that sons who witnessed their fathers' violence are 10 times as likely to abuse their wives as boys of non-violent parents. Mass murderer Marc Lépine witnessed his father's violence. The minister should be aware of the fact that many young boys who have witnessed violence against their mothers are among the 10,000 children waiting for treatment at children's mental health centres. I would like to ask the minister how we can possibly expect to break this vicious cycle when children do not have access to mental health services in this province.
Hon Ms Swarbrick: That is one of the grave concerns of this government. It is one of the areas being very seriously dealt with and considered in the co-ordinated initiatives against wife assault, which do include attention to the children in those families. I will be pursuing that further in our co-ordinated fashion and with my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services as well.
Mrs Witmer: I would like to be more specific. I would like to share a few case examples with the minister. One three-year-old boy who is waiting for mental health services in Ontario, who has witnessed family violence, now attacks his parents, uses excessive profanity, has violent tantrums and urinates in opposition to parental demands. A 10-year-old boy, who has also witnessed physical abuse at home, is aggressive with his peers and has burned himself. What is this government prepared to do to ensure that these children are not the Mark Lépines of the future?
Hon Ms Swarbrick: We share the member's extremely grave concern. I will refer the question to my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services to see if she would like to add further specifics, as it is concretely her area there.
The Speaker: No, no.
Hon Ms Swarbrick: No?
The Speaker: At the original question you would have had to have referred it to someone else. You must answer if you choose to answer.
Hon Ms Swarbrick: We do share the member's grave concern and we will pursue it and sit down and talk concretely about it.
Mrs Witmer: I appreciate the minister's concerns. However, I would like to share with her today a letter addressed to Dr Peter Lang, who is a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Kitchener, from the Premier dated 21 May 1990 in his capacity as leader of the official opposition. The Premier stated at that time in response to Dr Lang:
"To have 10,000 children on the waiting list for access to mental health services in Ontario is certainly shameful, and you can rest assured that New Democrats will continue to press this government until it gives our health care system and the health of our children the priority they so rightly deserve."
Although I appreciate the minister's concerns, I would like to know what immediate plans this government has to reduce the waiting list for those 10,000 children who are in desperate need.
Hon Ms Swarbrick: We inherited a number of deficits when we took over this government. That is one we will concretely work on, and I will be pleased to get back to the member as soon as we have got something more specific.
COURT SYSTEM
Mr Harnick: My question is for the Attorney General. Over the past year, the people of this province have been repeatedly shocked and horrified by violent crimes against women. In the past week and a half alone, two men have been charged with particularly brutal crimes against a six-year-old girl. We have seen women brutalized jogging in parks; we have seen them brutalized driving to school.
According to the Ontario women's directorate, one in four women can expect to be sexually assaulted. In 1987 there were over 16,000 reported incidents of spousal assault. Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg. The truly shocking statistic is that, depending on the nature of the crime, up to 90% of victims do not report the crimes to the police. They do not trust the justice system. Now they see 1,500 sexual assault and related offences out the window in our provincial courts. What is the Attorney General prepared to do to help restore faith in the justice system in Ontario?
Hon Mr Hampton: I would like to thank the member for the question because this is indeed an important issue. I want to say first to the member that earlier this week the Chief Justice of Ontario said in a speech that while we have problems in terms of the justice system in Ontario, problems that have been growing over a number of years, by and large we still have a very good justice system in the province and a justice system that is striving to be even better. I would ask the member to remember that.
The member asks specifically what we are doing in the sense of trying to ensure that crimes of violence against women are receiving some priority. I would point out to him the following: First of all, in the midst of those problems that have happened as a result of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision, crown attorneys across the province are making every effort to ensure that charges of sexual assault, spousal assault or assaults against women should receive priority and that in all cases we should attempt to preserve those charges by bringing them forward in the court schedule as much as possible.
I want to say to the member, however, that he must surely realize that on the day when the Askov decision came down, there were already charges of that kind that were out of date and that, with our best efforts, we cannot save those charges; they were simply out of date on the day that the Askov came down. However, with any other charges, we will try to bring them forward as much as we can. We are trying to create holes within the court schedule that we can bring them forward and try them as soon as possible.
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Mr Harnick: A spokesman for Victims of Violence says people are mystified and frustrated by the province's justice system. In fact, it has been called the criminals' justice system. Ontario has no systematic, province-wide program to inform and support victims. Our party has a strong and consistent record of support for victims in this province and on more than one occasion has introduced legislation establishing a victims' bill of rights, which I have recently succeeded in having the standing committee on administration of justice consider.
Since taking office, unlike in his time in opposition, the Attorney General has been disturbingly silent on the issue of victims. He spent $40 million on our justice system without a single mention of the rights of victims. I ask the Attorney General to justify this.
Hon Mr Hampton: I am somewhat surprised that the member opposite would say that we have not referred at all to the problems of victims. He attended the press conference that was held two weeks ago where I noted that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board in Ontario not only has been directed to look at its own procedures and its own legislation to determine how victims are being treated and if they are being treated appropriately and how that may be made better, but it has also been instructed to look outside the jurisdiction of Ontario to inquire as to what may be done.
I also want him to note that all crown attorneys across the province, where they feel victims have been prejudiced as a result of the Askov decision, have been directed to make themselves available to victims' groups and to individual victims to explain as best they can why the situation has occurred. how serious the Askov problem is and how long it has been there. I have also indicated to victims' groups that I will meet with them personally where they desire to review the situation. I should add that I have met with some victims' groups already and they are appreciative of our efforts. They have indicated that they are willing to co-operate with us and are looking forward to co-operating with us in building a better justice system from here on.
Mr Harnick: Yesterday the Toronto Star reported that the child victim witness support program will be forced to fold by the end of this month if it does not receive $120,000 in funding from the provincial government. In July, the now Premier issued a letter of support for that program. Now the New Democratic government says it will not be forced into making a quick decision. What kind of message is this government sending to the victims of Ontario?
Hon Mr Hampton: I note that while the member asked the question, he neglected to mention that this is a project which the federal government, the government of Canada, is abandoning and leaving without funds. The federal government creates a pilot project, creates expectations and then walks away from the program as if the victims do not exist and have never existed.
In answer to the member's question, I am very privileged today to say on behalf of the government of Ontario, on behalf of my colleagues the Minister of Community and Social Services and the Solicitor General, that we have found the funding to enable the program to carry on and we will make the official announcement very soon.
POLICE INVESTIGATION
Mr Curling: The former Liberal government had a Police Services Act that created a special investigations unit; it was to investigate serious injuries and death that may have resulted from criminal of fences committed by police officers. I am sure the Solicitor General would be aware of the incident that took place last night in which a member of the public, an individual, was shot by a Metro Toronto police officer.
Earlier today my office contacted both the Metro Toronto Police Force and the Ontario Provincial Police regarding the investigation. We were told that the OPP was investigating this case.
Can the Solicitor General please tell the Legislature exactly who is investigating the incident, and if it is not the special investigations unit, why not?
Hon Mr Farnan: The investigation is taking place under the direction of Judge John Osler, who is the head of the special investigations unit. He has requested Detective Inspector Ryder and Detective Inspector Brennan from the OPP criminal investigation branch and they have been assigned to the case. The investigation is very clearly under the leadership and direction of Judge John Osler, the head of the special investigations unit.
Mr Curling: I am sure the Solicitor General is quite familiar with the legislation, but just for the members of the Legislature, let me read a portion of subsection 112(2a) of the act, which provides and states that "persons who are police officers shall not be appointed as investigators."
The minister is aware of this provision, I am sure. Why has he allowed the OPP or the detectives, as he mentioned here, along with the others, to investigate this matter? Is he not aware that the present investigation contravenes the Police Services Act? Will the minister ensure that his ministry complies with his own legislation? Will the minister ensure that independent investigators review this case?
Hon Mr Farnan: The office of the SIU was set up under Judge John Osler. There were advertisements made for investigators to join this branch. There were 2,500 applications. The decision has been made and the director of the SIU is rapidly bringing that up to operational capability.
Nevertheless, there are instances which must be addressed. As the member asking the question will realize, there have probably been some four cases that have been addressed to the SIU at this stage. We are very appreciative of the good work done by the previous government in bringing forward legislation that set up the SIU. We are using the SIU to the maximum of its potential, and indeed as soon as the investigators are hired, and when they are in place, they will be used. At this particular stage, the director of the SIU has seen fit to invite the OPP to direct this investigation.
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PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS
Mrs Cunningham: I have a question for the Minister of Colleges and Universities.
We have a shortage of engineers in this province and, more specifically, we have a serious shortage of female engineers. In fact, women make up only 12% of our current engineering enrolment at Ontario universities. Whether we like it or not, there are some very serious barriers to women entering non-traditional occupations in this province. What is the government going to do about this?
Hon Mr Allen: I am happy to address that question. As the member will know, not only the university administrations where there are engineering schools but also the professional bodies themselves have for some time now, and increasingly, been addressing this question. We are encouraging them to extend their work into the secondary school system and abroad to popularize non-traditional occupations for women and in particular those which remain some of the major bastions of male occupation.
With respect to the issue at hand, I would be happy to take it under advisement, and I certainly will be discussing with my ministry further measures in that regard in terms of ways in which we can expedite those existing programs and add to them in the future.
Mrs Cunningham: As usual, the minister and I are on the same wavelength and so we have a partial solution for him today. During the election our leader unveiled the women in science and engineering scholarship fund to encourage women to study science and technology, and today I have tabled that resolution providing a blueprint for the startup of such a fund.
Today, of all days, we need to send a message that we encourage women to enter non-traditional occupations. We want them to know that our government will support them as they break down the barriers on our behalf and on behalf of our sons and daughters as well. Will the minister support this initiative and work with the professional engineering community, which he has already mentioned in his former response? Will the minister work with them in this province to set up what we think is a partial solution, which I believe is this necessary scholarship fund?
Hon Mr Allen: I compliment the member on her initiative. I wish that more members in this House would take that kind of initiative in advancing important issues of this kind.
May I simply add that my own office is looking very closely at an award that may be offered to Ontario universities for significant contributions to all ways in which access may be broken for women into all of the barriers that still exist in those institutions and in particular with respect to educational options.
CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORP CUTBACKS
Mr Dadamo: I spoke with the mayor of Windsor, John Millson, this morning and he, along with city councillors, the labour community, business and very concerned citizens in Windsor, is showing disgust and disapproval over the actions of the federal government in the dismantling of the CBC yesterday. They are launching a massive petition drive at a press conference being held this afternoon in Windsor. Windsor is being left with little or nothing at all for news and local programming. I am asking the Premier to join in this petition drive and call on all Ontarians to send their disapproval over this tearing apart of a coast-to-coast broadcast network.
Can the Premier assure this province that the fight is not over, and will he detail any action this government will take, starting today?
Hon Mr Rae: I appreciate the question. I want to assure the member that I am sure I share with most members of the House a sense of outrage, not simply a sense of regret, that the Conservative government of Canada would have taken this decision and would have cut off funds for a very necessary service for the people of this province as well as for the people of the rest of the country.
I regret it. I think it is a very sad day for Canada. The same week that the Prime Minister is talking about how important national unity is, he is allowing the CBC to cut back on an essential institution that has done a great deal for the whole country, and in particular for the citizens of Windsor.
I want to say to the member, first, that we are prepared to sit down with all the people in Windsor to talk about what alternatives are available. It is very difficult for us in this circumstance. We understand the CBC is not even willing to sit down with private investors at this point and talk about alternatives. I regret that approach. It seems to me that if you are going to cut off the service, the least you could do is be willing to sit down with others and discuss what the alternatives might be.
I hear from members of the Conservative Party that they want to know the difference between the Conservatives and the NDP. Yesterday they cut 1,200 jobs, the same week that the Treasurer is announcing that we are prepared to put money into the economy and create jobs. That is the difference between our approaches on this matter.
LUMBER INDUSTRY
Mr Conway: I would like to pick up on the theme of jobs, and my question is to the Minister of Natural Resources. As he will know, the current recession is ravaging the forestry sector. In my county of Renfrew, my calculation would suggest some 500 jobs have been lost within the past six months in the sawmill and related industries.
I am interested to know, and my question to the minister is simply this: What can the sawmill and forestry workers in communities like Pembroke, Barry's Bay, Braeside, Denbigh and Bancroft expect as the winter approaches and as the recession deepens and as unemployment rises?
Hon Mr Wildman: There is no question there is a very serious problem in the sawmill industry in eastern Ontario and northern Ontario. As my friend will know, there are approximately 6,300 employees currently laid off in the forestry industry. Of those, only about 3,700 are eligible for unemployment insurance.
It is a very serious problem, and as the member will also know, in the announcement made by the Treasurer just this week and the subsequent announcements, there are a number of forestry-related jobs that are being provided through projects for improvements to forest stands to assist with silviculture in the future. A significant number of those jobs will be in the Algonquin region. To ensure that they will continue to have employment over the winter, we hope to employ cutters to cull poor-quality stands. The details of the actual numbers of jobs will be available in the next couple of days and I will be happy to share them with the member.
There is no question it is a very serious problem. In the immediate future, we are attempting to resolve it by providing short-term winter employment. In the longer term, we are having to look at how we can address the overall structural problems that appear to be developing in the sawmill industry.
Mr Conway: I appreciate the honourable member's response, and I do observe that in her statement to the House today, the Minister of Northern Development indicated that this winter this government will commit funds for 200 MNR jobs across all of northern Ontario, and certainly that is appreciated.
I repeat, however, in my county of Renfrew, in the heart of eastern Ontario, by my reckoning some 500 jobs have been lost within the past six to eight months in the forestry sector in that eastern county alone. What I want to know is what I can tell the unemployed and out-of-work sawmill and forestry workers in communities like Barry's Bay, Braeside and Pembroke, who are facing one of the worst winters in recent memory, and it is approaching very rapidly.
Two hundred jobs for all of northern Ontario is certainly appreciated, but for the 500 out-of-work forestry workers in my eastern county alone, the minister can appreciate the need that this announcement will not even begin to meet.
Hon Mr Wildman: I acknowledge the serious problems that we face in the sawmill industry. They relate to a number of things that are happening. In the paper industry, of course, a number of industrial disputes have made it difficult for the sawmills to market their chips, and that has led to layoffs. Overall, we are facing high interest rate policies from the federal government that have led to a downturn in the economy generally and to a decrease in the number of housing starts. In addition to that, we are facing the very difficult problem resulting from the 15% export tax which was imposed by the federal government as part of the free trade deal negotiations with the United States.
The member will know that the Premier has just written to the Prime Minister of Canada indicating that this province is supporting all other provinces, and I would hope all members of this House would join together in the effort to persuade the US government to agree to remove the 15% tax resulting from the memorandum of understanding.
Other than that, in terms of our efforts, I said we will be moving to assist the sawmill industry in restructuring and I would be happy to accept any suggestions the member has for assistance to the sawmill industry in his area.
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AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE
Mr Runciman: My question is for the Minister of Financial Institutions. On 20 December the House will vote on a private member's bill that I will be introducing later today. The bill would return the right to sue to all innocent accident victims of automobile accidents.
When the bill is debated, this government will have the chance to quickly rectify the injustice it fought so hard against last spring. Will the minister demonstrate today to the people of Ontario that he and his party meant what they said last spring and support this bill on 20 December?
Hon Mr Kormos: I can tell the member that I appreciate that he has every intention of presenting a bill. So do we. That is going to be done in the spring of next year, the spring of 1991. We began working on that almost immediately after acquiring the government on 1 October. If the member is proud of the bill he is going to table, wait until he sees the one we have got.
Mr Runciman: There is one person in this province injured every five minutes. This minister is telling us today and he has told us in the past in response to questions that we are simply going to have to wait. If we look back to last spring, he and his party, along with our party, were very actively and vigorously opposing this legislation. Now he is saying, "Wait and see, wait and see," while one person is being injured every five minutes in this province.
The minister asked during that debate, "Where is the compassion for innocent accident victims?" The compassion is encompassed in this bill. Will he give us any solid or compelling reason today why he and his party cannot or will not support my legislation on 20 December?
Hon Mr Kormos: As members know, we are working very hard talking to people across the province, including the auto insurance industry, to make sure that the legislation that we present to this assembly in a few months, in the spring of 1991, is legislation that is going to address the crisis that was created by the last government. I look forward to carrying on with that consultation because that is the way to do it.
Quite frankly, I am a little surprised that the member has not accepted my invitation to sit down and talk with me so that he can participate in that consultative process himself. We are doing it. We are going to keep on doing it. The legislation is going to be presented just as the throne speech promised.
ACCESSIBILITY FOR THE ELDERLY AND DISABLED
Ms Haslam: In contrast to many of the other questions, I will keep my comments brief and my question succinct. In my riding of Perth, 20% to 25% of the population experiences some difficulty with access to facilities because of age or disabilities. Could the Minister of Citizenship advise the House of details, in particular of her participation in the recently announced antirecession program?
Hon Ms Ziemba: I too will make my answer very short. As the government, we are very pleased to announce that we are adding $1.13 million to our access fund. This will enable 39 more projects to have accessibility for both seniors and persons with disabilities. It is our commitment to make sure that all facilities in Ontario are accessible to all people.
PLANT CLOSURES
Mr Offer: I have a question to the Minister of Labour. As the minister is well aware, as everyone is well aware, we are in the midst of a recession. Thousands of jobs are being lost. In An Agenda for People it was stated quite clearly that they would establish a job protection board to establish whether plant closures are justified. Those promises were premised on the fact of a recession.
Again, I believe that this type of question is important not only to the employees and employers, but also to potential investors in this province. My question is, will the minister, as was specifically stated in An Agenda for People, bring forward legislation which demands plant closure justification?
Hon Mr Mackenzie: Plant closure justification is but one of a number of suggestions, that one specifically and others, that we will be bringing in when we bring in the labour adjustment programs and the amendments to the Employment Standards Act. It is because of the seriousness of the situation that we are taking a very close look at the legislation and what can be done with that legislation.
Mr Offer: I believe the minister in his response, if I heard correctly, said they would be looking very closely at the issue of plant closure justification.
It is interesting that he was able to bring forward to this House Bill 31, which specifically called for plant closure justification. At that point in time, as a member of the opposition, there was no question that he was specifically in favour of plant closure justification, that his party was specifically in favour of plant closure justification and it was found in An Agenda for People.
As a result of that particular answer, can we take it that it is now the minister's policy that he will not be bringing forward legislation which calls for plant closure justification?
Hon Mr Mackenzie: If the member is asking if I can assure him that it is now not our policy, that is incorrect. I can tell him that.
ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE CLINIC
Mr Sterling: Mr Speaker, I intend being in order this time.
I have a question for the Minister of Health. The Memory Disorder Clinic of Ottawa-Carleton gave official word yesterday that it was closing down because of a lack of funding. This community-based clinic has provided service to over 5,000 Alzheimer patients in the Ottawa-Carleton area. I understand the minister was unaware yesterday that this was taking place, but I am sure that she has found out about it. I was just wondering whether she will be able to provide this very important clinic with the funding that is needed.
Hon Mrs Gigantes: The member may be unaware that this is not the only clinic that provides service for Alzheimer patients and families at the Ottawa General Hospital. In fact. it was the decision of the Alzheimer Society that it was going to fold down the services of this particular clinic. They asked the Ottawa General to pick up the funding for the service. In fact, they suggested that a program to which the Alzheimer Society had contributed $75,000, I believe it was, over a period of about four years be reinstituted with startup funds at around the level of $340,000. The hospital declined to pick up that request.
The district health council has not given it priority and it really looks to me as if the service that is being provided through the other services at the clinic in the Ottawa General is meeting the needs that are identified both by the hospital and by the district health council and in the past by the Alzheimer Society.
Mr Sterling: I take it that the minister's answer is no, that this very important service to Alzheimer patients will not be available for the Ottawa-Carleton area.
Hon Mrs Gigantes: Perhaps the member is trying to substitute his judgement for what is the most important service in place of that of the district health council. If that is the case, maybe he would like to fund it himself.
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PLANT CLOSURE
Mr Mills: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. As the minister will no doubt be aware, the Delta Faucet plant in Bowmanville has announced it will be closing, and this closure will result in the layoff of 77 workers. Is there any assistance that the minister can offer to these employees in this very difficult time?
Hon Mr Mackenzie: I want to thank the member for his question and tell him that I am aware of the situation at Delta Faucet. I understand the union and the company are working together to resolve some of the problems on the closure issue, and my ministry will be involved to see that the workers get everything they are entitled to under employment standards in the province of Ontario.
Mr Mills: This closure has affected both the workers and their families. This is just one example of the many closures we are seeing all across Ontario. Can the minister tell me what he is doing to ensure that workers are, as much as possible, protected in this unfortunately all-too-frequent situation?
Hon Mr Mackenzie: I can tell the member that the notices of plant closures coming across my desk are coming at a disturbing rate these days, and certainly every closure affects the community at large. It is for that reason, as I answered to one of the opposition members earlier, that we are taking a very careful and detailed look at the Employment Standards Act in the province and will be bringing in recommendations as soon as we have them prepared.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Perhaps the member for York Centre would allow his own colleague the member for Kenora to place a question before the time expires.
GASOLINE PRICES
Mr Miclash: My question is to the Minister of Energy. I would like to begin the question by quoting from the Thunder Bay Times of 17 August 1990, where his Premier said -- I would like to quote:
"He restated a campaign promise made last week that the NDP government would empower the provincial energy commission to bring in a one-price system for gasoline in the province. 'I really think consumers are being ripped off by gas companies.' "
That was stated by the now Premier in Thunder Bay on 17 August 1990. We asked the minister twice yesterday, and she failed to give us a clear response. What we want to know today in this House is whether she is committed to meeting her party's promise to equalize gas prices across this province. We would like a straight answer from the minister.
Hon Mrs Carter: We are very concerned about gasoline prices in the north and we do feel for the people there. On the other hand, as I have mentioned, some of that discrepancy is local and is due to the retail situation in those places. A member of my staff is going to travel to that area within the next week or two and is going to personally investigate what the real situation is and where the problem is originating.
Mr McGuinty: It is unfortunate the Premier has left the House, because I am sure he would have some interest in this question. I am concerned with some conflicting information that has been coming from the ministry. In particular, it is prompted by an article which appeared in this morning's Globe and Mail. That article indicated Imperial Oil is contemplating leaving Ontario. That is based on a fear of some form of gas price controls, and that in turn is based on a fear of the implementation of an NDP campaign promise.
The conflicting information is as follows: On the one hand, we have the campaign promise to implement gas price controls and, in the same article, we have the deputy minister saying that Imperial Oil has nothing to worry about, that there is no legislation now or in the works for the regulation of gasoline prices, or even for the establishment of a regulatory board such as is in place in Nova Scotia; on the other hand, yesterday in this House the minister indicated that she was considering the possibility of alternative suppliers.
What I am doing is trying to clarify what the actual position of this government is. Could the minister please tell us simply whether she intends to honour her campaign promise to regulate gas price controls in the province?
Hon Mrs Carter: There seems to be two questions here. First of all, regarding Imperial Oil, we are advised by Imperial Oil itself that there is no plan to move its head office. Its chairman's comments were misinterpreted and the company would prefer to remain in Ontario. We have official correspondence to that effect.
Regarding regulating gasoline prices, as I said before, we are monitoring prices. We have no reason to believe that things have gone beyond what is reasonable at this point in time. We do have emergency plans; so does the federal government. At the moment, reserves of oil in the world are at a very high level, higher than is normal. There is no immediate prospects of any shortage, but if a shortage should occur, we are ready to deal with it.
MOTION
PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS
Miss Martel moved that Mrs Cunningham and Mr Runciman exchange places in the order of precedence for private members' public business.
Motion agreed to.
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INTRODUCTION OF BILLS
CITY OF LONDON ACT, 1990
Mr Winninger moved first reading of Bill 18, An act respecting the City of London.
Motion agreed to.
Mr Winninger: The city of London has buildings of great architectural significance and our city council has recognized that fact by designating some buildings under the Ontario Heritage Act. Unfortunately, under the current Ontario Heritage Act, buildings can only be designated for a period of up to 180 days, at which time the city has to issue a demolition permit.
This legislation would ensure, as do acts currently in place for the city of Toronto and for Markham, that owners of buildings designated under the Ontario Heritage Act can only demolish or remove a building after obtaining a building permit to erect a new building on the site of the building or structure sought to be demolished.
This legislation will serve to protect the Talbot Street block in London, the most extensive Victorian streetscape in southwestern Ontario, but also other residences such as the Thornwood estate, the second-oldest residence in London, where I am advised Winston Churchill slept. A developer has just applied for a demolition permit for the site.
PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS AMENDMENT ACT, 1990
Mr Sterling moved first reading of Bill 19, An act to amend the Professional Engineers Act, 1984.
Motion agreed to.
Mr Sterling: The purpose of this bill is to enable the registrar of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario to refuse to issue a licence to practise engineering to an applicant who has been convicted of sexual assault under the Criminal Code or who has engaged in sexual harassment.
INSURANCE AMENDMENT ACT, 1990
Mr Runciman moved first reading of Bill 20, An act to amend the Insurance Act.
Motion agreed to.
Mr Runciman: The bill I have just introduced will return to innocent victims of automobile accidents the right to sue, which the previous Liberal government callously removed last June.
As this House is well aware, the member for Welland-Thorold and I fought long and hard against the introduction of no-fault insurance. His party, led by the member for York South and Mr Swart, told Justice Osborne, "New Democrats want greatly improved benefits for accident victims, no matter who caused the accident. We also believe just as strongly that people must retain their right to sue."
This past spring --
The Speaker: It should not be necessary to remind an experienced member about the procedure in introducing bills: read the principle of the bill only.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
ESTIMATES
Miss Martel moved resolution 6:
That, notwithstanding any standing order, the estimates transmitted to the House on Thursday 29 November 1990 be referred to the standing committee on estimates; that the estimates of not more than six ministries and offices be considered by the committee and be selected in one round by members of the committee as provided in standing order 57(b) (i), (ii), (c) and (d) with necessary modifications; that all other estimates not selected for consideration by the committee be deemed to be passed by the committee and be reported back to the House; that the report of the committee be deemed to be received and the estimates of the ministries and offices named in the report be deemed to be concurred in; that the committee present a report to the House on 18 March 1991 with respect to all of the estimates considered pursuant to this order; that in the event the committee fails to report the said estimates on 18 March 1991 the estimates be deemed to be passed by the committee and be deemed to be reported to and received by the House; and that a maximum of six hours be allocated for a debate on the orders for concurrence.
Mr Nixon: I wonder if the honourable member would clarify the purpose of this motion before we go into debate.
Hon Miss Martel: If I might, there was agreement among the House leaders that the standing committee on estimates would sit in --
Mr Nixon: That is okay. I was thinking of another one. Thank you very much.
Motion agreed to.
RETAIL SALES TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1990 (CONTINUED)
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 1, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act.
Mr Nixon: The reason I asked for some clarification on the government notice of motion is that one of them has to do with the approval of the House of certain regulations. I just thought perhaps the honourable House leader was proposing that the one dealing with regulations be brought forward. I noticed that on the order paper and did not understand its purpose; I did not want it carried without at least having some clarification, and I know that there will be.
I want to speak briefly on Bill 1, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act. I just thought that it might be interesting to note that the bill was introduced --
Hon Miss Martel: I am sorry to interrupt, but it seems to me that in the rotation, we were last and my colleague adjourned the debate, so I am just wondering if we can revert back to him after the Leader of the Opposition has completed. He will not be long.
The Speaker: I thought the Leader of the Opposition was rising to discuss motion 6, and I realize that by rotation, I believe it is the member for Hamilton Centre.
Mr Christopherson: My thanks to the Leader of the Opposition for his co-operation. I will be very brief in wrapping up my remarks on Bill 1.
I want to talk about two things today. First of all, I want to talk about the tax revolt issue that seems to be of particular concern to the opposition members, and rightly so; it is an important issue. But the opposition members have been attempting to make the case that there really has not been any kind of tax revolt and that there is very little happening. I would like to refute that, because on the contrary, I believe that there is an awful lot happening.
On the first point, I think it needs to be stated again that my colleague the member for Oxford talked about the court challenge and how much that means in Canadian law, how much impact that could have and what that means in terms of our role in leading a tax revolt.
Second, I get the impression from listening to the opposition members that they really would not be happy until we came marching into the House here with banners and trumpets going off, with T-shirts on and buttons, and completely brought the business of the House to a halt. I think that stereotypical caricature does an injustice to my party, as we are in government. The opposition parties have to do what is necessary and have to act accordingly. Labour leaders have to do what is necessary and act accordingly. Business people have to do what is necessary and act accordingly. As the government, we must do what is necessary and act accordingly.
In my book, $500 million is an awful lot of leadership by any account. As the largest, most populous province with the strongest economy, with the leadership economy, if you will, in many ways, we have said we will not participate in the goods and services tax. It is going to cost us $500 million, but it is that important to us that we are not going to allow the GST to come in in the way the previous government wanted to.
To me that is leadership, excellent leadership, and I hope the opposition parties urge their counterparts who are also the governments in other provinces across the country to follow the kind of leadership we have shown. I think we are meeting the commitment we made in An Agenda for People in terms of leading a tax revolt.
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My last point, very briefly, is that one of the earlier members spoke of tax laws being introduced without any discussion and with very little deliberation. I think it needs to be said here that what is contained in Bill 1, except for all references to the GST where we threw out the bad ideas, is exactly, as I understand it from officials, what Bill 158 was that was introduced to first reading by the previous government and died on the order paper. I think it leaves hollow the argument that there has been very little discussion, in light of the fact that it was the official opposition that introduced that bill.
I think also that the issue of the vendor compensation. the increase there, which is going to cost this government about $22 million a year, is also an excellent move, because as much as the opposition has problems with some of the paralleling of the legislation here with the GST legislation, it prevents, not causes -- which I am interpreting from listening to the opposition -- the fight against the GST from being fought on the backs of small business. Indeed, it recognizes that we need to be helping small business as much as we can.
All in all, I think we are providing exactly the kind of leadership Ontarians were looking for in tax changes and, in particular, in fighting the GST. I am pleased to be standing here in my place today supporting Bill 1.
Mr Ruprecht: I listened to the member for Hamilton Centre, and no matter how eloquent he thinks he might be on this item, the point is that I want to find out if he really understands what will happen when this kicks in. On 1 January it is going to affect every person in Ontario and, as I indicated before, what will happen almost immediately is that there will be, I would predict, massive unemployment and the effects that will reverberate through the whole economy are going to affect every one of us.
We did not expect the government to come into this Legislature and introduce some measures that will mitigate these circumstances only to a minor degree. We expected it to maintain and keep the promise it made. As a government, it made a promise to the people of Ontario and the promise was not that its members would come in with T-shirts or chain themselves to fences or do a circus act. The promise was that the government would do some fundamental changes, that it would stop the GST and that it would lead a tax revolt.
A tax revolt is not led by Bill 1. I think the government is seriously misunderstanding and underestimating what will take place on 1 January. I only wish that members of the government collectively would have enough guts and get together and do some act that is of significance to the people of Ontario. This is not good enough.
Mr White: I rise to speak to the issue the opposition has brought up, both in response to my friend here and at other times. I am concerned that while members of the opposition take great delight in bringing up our Agenda for People -- I am sure they have studied each and every article of it and I hope they will find it as convincing as did the people of Ontario -- I seem to recall an election campaign not so terribly long ago, wherein the third party opposite was abandoning its traditional links with another party by the same name that holds office in Ottawa and was saying that the GST was not a fair tax, just as we had said.
The Liberal Party was of course attempting to add the provincial sales tax on top of the GST, and now it is exhorting us to lead a national crusade. Well, certainly a strong part of our fight against the GST is this bill. Certainly it does not piggyback a tax upon a tax.
Where is the consistency when the official opposition was speaking in favour of this taxing a tax, and now it is speaking against it, something that it had as part of its policy, and the third party was attacking the GST and now it is attacking our attack upon it? Surely we should have consistency for all three parties, not simply upon ourselves, where we do in fact hold to our platform.
Mr O'Connor: I would like to support this bill, but just speak on comments that I have been hearing about the lack of a tax revolt.
As far as a tax revolt is concerned, there are a lot of members on this side of the House who were very active and worked very actively in a campaign for fair taxation last April. In fact, from my union Local 222 out of Oshawa, which I am a member of, we sent 6,000 ballots cast to Ottawa saying that no, we did not like the GST, that it was an unfair tax. As a matter of fact, the whole Canadian Auto Workers national union sent 98,000 ballots to Ottawa. The Canadian Union of Public Employees in Oshawa sent another 4,000.
There are an awful lot of people out there and people on this side of the House who led an active revolt against the GST. To further that revolt, it was carried forward on 6 September when the people of Ontario said: "No, we do not want the tax. Maybe we might just change the sales tax and maybe we might not change the sales tax."
We told them we were not going to tax a tax and that is what has happened: We are not taxing a tax. Bill 1 completely reiterates what has been said in An Agenda for People and during the campaign, that we are not going to tax a tax. The people of Ontario sent a message that they did not want to have that tax on the tax, and that is exactly what is being presented in Bill 1.
I rise in support of it and in support of the speaker on this, because I do believe that we have led a revolt and are continuing to lead this revolt and continuing to lead the province, the province of Ontario won on 6 September when they put us here to govern. What they expected from us was the answer they are getting right now, that no, we will not tax that tax.
Mr Sola: I find the definition of tax revolt in this House a little bit strange. It seems more like a tax whimper. In opposition, the present government lectured us, when they sat on this side of the House, about our approach to the GST. Now they change their side of the House and it seems they change the side of their mouth they are speaking from.
By the member's own admission, their approach or their tax revolt is taking a Liberal measure, recycling it and tinkering with it a little bit. Now, if that is a revolt, why did they lecture us continuously in the last session about our approach to the thing? This is not a tax revolt. This is hopping on the bandwagon and trying to hide behind the fact that they are not taxing on tax.
They are actually taking very few measures that would be considered anything close to a revolt, close to any sort of objection to what the federal government is doing. They are just hiding behind the federal government and trying to escape from the notice of the public with this measure.
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Mr Christopherson: So many things to comment on and such little time. The member for Parkdale said that what people were looking for was fundamental changes. Then the previous speaker, I believe the member for Mississauga East, said that this is just mere tinkering. I do not believe that for a minute, and neither do I think the Ontario public is going to buy that this is just tinkering or that there are not fundamental changes between Bill 158 and Bill 1.
The fact of the matter is that $500 million is a major effort on the part of any government. What we have done is shown leadership. We are out in front of this issue and we are saying here is where we stand on the issue of a sales tax on the GST.
There are limited things we can do as a provincial government, and everybody in this House knows that, but I think we are doing everything that could possibly be done. If every province in this country passed a measure similar to ours -- where it is appropriate, understanding Alberta's situation, etc -- and if, when we got into the next federal election, those positions were unanimous across the country and the GST was kept alive as a political issue and that was something the federal Tories were still standing behind, I dare say that the Tories would be lucky if they still had party status in the House by the time that election was done.
That is leadership. That is the kind of role Ontario has played in the past on issues. The leader of the official opposition called for leadership earlier on the constitutional matters. I think this is the kind of leadership that Ontario can show and is showing, and I am pleased that the first bill in this House is an anti-GST measure.
Mr Nixon: I am interested in reading this bill, as I had quite a bit to do with its preparation. Most of its provisions are similar to legislation that was introduced by the previous government, with the exception, of course, of the first section, which is an important principle. I hope to deal with that to some extent in a few moments.
The idea of a tax revolt is interesting and probably a little irrelevant. Everybody knows there is nothing that either this House or even the Premier and his majority can do to stop the tax. The valiant Liberal senators, in their all-night efforts in discussing the tax, may be able to stop it indefinitely; my own suspicion is that they will not be able to do that and that the Progressive Conservative government of Canada will in fact give final legislative and parliamentary approval to impose the GST as originally planned.
We can say that we regret this and that it is a very serious matter and it will have effects on the economy of the province that have already been discussed by people more knowledgeable than I. I thought I would just speak briefly about the bill itself, however, and point out two or three of its provisions that I find particularly interesting.
One of them deals with the compensation for vendors which was established when sales taxes first came into the province in 1961. It is interesting to note that the federal bill does not provide any compensation for those people who will be collecting the 7% goods and services tax if in fact it becomes the law on 1 January.
There was some considerable thought given as to why the compensation should be increased. It certainly had been seen by the vendors as inadequate, but naturally it was not the aim of the government or the previous government, the Conservatives who started the compensation program, to really pay for it but simply to recognize the fact that the vendors do work very hard as tax collectors on our behalf. Most days, particularly at this time of year, the revenue from sales tax comes in at approximately $30 million a day. It is an interesting aspect to bear in mind.
I suppose I am not revealing any particular secrets when I tell the members that in my own mind there is the feeling that as the vendors have to take on the payment of the 7% GST on 1 January. we would like them to be thinking positively and well of their provincial tax masters, and the fact that we would be improving that compensation was one of the ways we intended to do that. All of these vendors, of course, understand clearly that the tax they collect is not their own money but in fact public money and must be returned in the appropriate time.
The vendors who collect the sales tax and who will be collecting the federal sales tax after 1 January, sometimes illegally and inappropriately start spending the people's money. We know that that has to be inveighed against in every possible way and that there are severe penalties for anyone who does that and fails to reimburse the crown appropriately. We just thought that in case there was a choice the vendor had to make at the end of the month, by improving this compensation we might not be the ones who would be found wanting in this regard.
It was even suggested at one stage that the reporting date might be changed so that the province gets its money ahead of the federal government. I hope the minister would continue to think of that, because in most respects I believe that the ministry over the years, going back to 1961, has had about as good a relationship with the vendors as is possible. Certainly the vendors objected substantially when sales taxes began in Ontario. I was just newly in opposition at that time, and in those days the Liberal opposition was leading the revolt against the provincial sales tax at the unheard-of level of 3%, which we felt was going to dislocate the economy of the province. Circumstances have proved us correct in that regard; the economy of the province has never been the same. Also, the revenues of the province have never been the same; they have been substantially improved.
This now is considered a reasonable way for the province to gain a substantial amount of its revenue. I believe the sales tax is maybe the second largest source of revenue after personal income tax, and the third is direct transfers from the government of Canada, which we all know in this House are seriously inadequate; we will talk about that on another occasion.
The bill also deals with confidentiality, which I believe is important, the keeping of records and certain areas where our requirements are brought into relevancy, if not precise equality, with the provisions of the GST as they come forward.
I can recall in my previous responsibilities as Treasurer having discussions about the goods and services tax when it was still just a mild thought in the minds of Mr Wilson and Mr Mulroney. I think it should, however, be said in all fairness that this matter was before the public, at least in some minor way, at the last federal election. The only time it got on the front pages, as I recall, was when Mr Mulroney, seeking re-election, had indicated that part of their program would be tax reform and that they began the tax reform by lowering income tax and certain other taxes, and indicated that after the election the second stage of reform would be the imposition of a new federal sales tax. I think at that time they called it the national sales tax instead of the goods and services tax.
A lot of people did not seem to understand what had clearly been stated, that federal tax reform would be in two phases: one, a reduction in taxes, which everybody thought was great; and two, the imposition of a new tax, and everybody voted for them anyway. So there is a certain irrationality when you look at the situation.
I made a projection then which got on the front page of the Globe and Mail on a Saturday during the federal campaign. I refuted the contention of the Minister of Finance, Mr Wilson then as he is now, that it would not be revenue-neutral, that in fact our calculations indicated there would be a $5-billion to $7-billion gain on the tax as it then was proposed at 9%.
There was a great deal of furore. As a matter of fact, I was contacted directly by a senior elected person in the federal government objecting to the views I had expressed, since the Minister of Finance had indicated clearly that this tax would be revenue-neutral because there would be monthly payments to all of the people in the country whose incomes were less than about $30,000 and that all of that extra money would be used up in making these payments and certain other matters so that the tax would go in raising no net dollars whatsoever compared with the present manufacturers' sales tax.
It is interesting now to hear the Minister of Finance for Canada say the tax makes sense because we need the extra money to pay down the deficit. They spent a lot of money in an advertising campaign to indicate that this deficit was out of control -- that is perhaps my description, not theirs -- that the tax was needed to bring this matter under control, so that at various times in the campaign it has been described as revenue-neutral, which I never believed it was, and now is referred to as something that is needed for the good of the country, which I do not believe it is.
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But the tax, we expect, is going to be enacted, and there is no sense fooling ourselves. There is no revolt here or in any other province that is going to be of any significance. The placard-carrying citizenry expressing the 80% objection to the tax has faded to some extent, and even the reports of the Liberal Senate filibuster are now relegated to the pages where the advertisements for medical supplies and things are normally placed. So the people have sort of lost interest in this, and I regret that. In spite of the contention from the NDP when it was seeking election that it would lead a revolt against this, the significance of that is of course now seen to be irrelevant and simply political posturing.
I recall, frankly, something I said in an earlier debate, that there were people in the province, not including myself, who indicated that they thought the Liberal Party in the election of 1987, when it indicated it was going to veto the free trade agreement, was taking a certain political posture there. Of course I reject that, but in the same way the government that was then elected did everything it could not only to stop the free trade agreement but to mitigate its effects on the community, to the positive results that everybody here is aware of.
There is a certain parallel there that I think should embarrass the supporters of the New Democratic Party when they think of how irrational they were in their comments about the very responsible and deliberate approach taken by the Liberal government in those days.
What all this means is that there are several black pots in this particular argument. Whatever we think is going to happen, we might as well assume that the Goods and Services Tax Act will be enacted, God forbid, and that it is time the government of the day thought about what it is going to do about that tax.
That brings me to section 1. I will deal with that briefly, because it is obvious that while my colleagues and I are not going to vote against any tax reduction, this is not the way to reduce taxes. The New Democratic Party, as somebody just mentioned a few minutes ago, makes a virtue of consistency. Some people think that is the hobgoblin of modern thought, but they make a virtue of consistency and therefore we must presume the officials in the Ministry of Revenue will be removing the sales tax from the tire tax, they will be removing the sales tax from the cigarette tax and they will be removing the sales tax from the federal tax on telephone bills -- and those are just three instances where for consistency they are going to have to have a number of amendments to various tax acts and the Treasurer is going to have to make do with substantially reduced revenue.
Surely, instead of trotting out this sort of hobgoblin known as tax on tax, which registers with people as unacceptable in spite of the fact that we have had it here since before Confederation, it would be better for the government to level with the people and say, "We believe taxes are too high and therefore the sales tax will be reduced."
Without making a particularly political presentation at this time, I simply have to say that of course the Liberal Party indicated during the election that if the goods and services tax were to proceed, we would mitigate the effects on our economy by reducing the sales tax in the province from 8% to 7%. That would forgo $1.1 billion in revenue for a full year and would put it in the hands of the consumers. They could then save it or they could go and buy a new car or refrigerator or whatever they wanted to do in order to provide for their own requirements and also stimulate the economy.
I would just say to members, and that is not what we are voting on now, that it makes eminent good sense to put the tax on the tax. If the members opposite are going to be consistent they are going to have to bring in all sorts of changes, because the basis of the sales tax in this province and most other provinces, particularly those with significant revenues from this source, is that the sales tax at the provincial level is a retail sales tax and it is payable on whatever the cost of the good or service would otherwise be.
We believe in the reduction of taxes. The honourable Treasurer has indicated in the policy of the government that he expects over the next four and a half years or however long the government survives, assuming it goes past Christmas, that he will raise taxes by $2.4 billion. The implication in the election campaign was that only rich people would pay that -- rich people and Inco. I am not sure if that was a direct quote, but that was the implication.
We know that when the Treasurer starts paying the bills around here it is going to be all of us overworked and underpaid people, and the honourable members in the New Democratic Party would agree that it is all of us, that we will be paying the taxes along with the other nine million people in this province. I think a time of recession is not the time to raise taxes; it is the time to reduce taxes.
It is interesting to note that there is going to be the involvement of totally unnecessary additional complexity by the passage of section 1, which parallels the provincial sales tax with the goods and services tax as it becomes payable. It assumes that in each instance the vendor is going to apply the goods and services tax separately and on the basis of the purchase. I would predict to members that within a very few months indeed most vendors will simply hang a plaque up on the wall saying that the federal goods and services tax at 7% is applicable to all goods and services in this particular establishment.
Any members who have travelled in Europe, such as the Minister of Agriculture and Food, who is occupying a comer suite in the Hotel Par Excellence in Brussels at the present moment, would know that whenever you pay a bill in Europe, whatever it costs it says VAT included, value added tax included; it is not separately calculated.
It is my understanding that it is the aim of the revenue officials in the government of Canada, the Progressive Conservative government of Canada, that as soon as possible the goods and services tax would disappear into the actual purchase price of the good or service. There will be some people who will want to charge it separately for a long time simply to prove the point that they are totally opposed to the tax, and I certainly hope they continue to do so. I would think that when our barber downstairs, who does such a good job in making all of us presentable from time to time, applies the goods and services tax he is going to make some comment that "There's 7% for Brian," and that sort of stuff. Great politics; should be kept up as long as possible.
But before long, in most of the business we do -- certainly it has been found in all other jurisdictions -- the goods and services tax will disappear other than as an argument in the House of Commons and in the barbershop and probably in this chamber here. The particular vendor would otherwise have embedded the tax in it, however appropriate that might be, but for everybody's convenience he/she may very well do this: reduce that purchase price by 7% then enlarge it again by 8%. If there is enough money in the world to provide cash registers that are going to do that, I would be very much surprised.
I would predict that even before this Legislature goes back to the people for their review of our stewardship of their affairs, this will be changed so that the tax will be levied on tax, and the vendors and others will ask for that purpose. This does not mean that we are in favour of higher taxes. I simply reiterate that the way to approach this is up front, not with political posturing and related baloney. It is to reduce the sales tax. It is clear, and economists and clear thinkers like the former Treasurer of Ontario are telling you clearly, that the way to put money back in the pockets of people is to bring in an act reducing the provincial sales tax from 8% to 7%. That makes sense, it is appropriate and it is the course that should be taken. I would say that regarding Bill 1, however enthusiastic the NDP members may be -- "We are relieving the people of paying tax on tax" -- they are misleading those people, because they continue to have laws that have tax on tax. Unless they are going to clean that up with all of the elaborate amendments and confusion that that will cause, then surely Bill 1 should be replaced by a section that reduces the sales tax in the province of Ontario from 8% to 7%.
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Mr Mills: I am privileged to stand here today in this House. I have listened to the Leader of the Opposition with some interest. In the past I had the dubious honour of working for the Ministry of Revenue, and I understand all its tax ploys very well and ably. I must say I do not agree with his position as stated on Bill 1.
Mr Hope: The Leader of the Opposition states he is an intelligent man, I guess he is. I have heard him speak quite a bit. And he is a financial whiz, as we have all been quoted and are hearing many times. What I would like to ask him is, is it not true that the calculated figure the federal government has put forward is more than a negotiated figure? We have been seeing consistency in advertising that the deficit is larger than predicted. Is that not a clear signal to those who are catching on to the political system that this is only a way to increase the 7% to maybe 9%, 10%, 11% or 12%? Who knows where Brian will stop.
The thing is, there has been a revolt going on, and I think the people of the labour movement and other small business groups have been in the forefront of the fight. The fight is still there, and I do not think anybody will die from the fight. But the member's suggestion is that we lower it to 7%, that we piggyback it on top of the federal. Would it not be, in a sense, taking advantage of people? When the goods and services tax increases, his level then increases also.
Mr Bisson: I just rise to ask a couple of questions in regard to what the honourable Leader of the Opposition was mentioning. I think when we talk about the whole question of the tax revolt, the revolt does not stop here. I am sure members are aware of that. This government has announced that it is not only the question of Bill 1, that it is not going to, how do you say, cure all the ills in regard to the taxation problem that we have in this province. This government has clearly demonstrated from the beginning that we want a Fair Tax Commission on the whole question of taxation in this province.
I am sure the members of the opposition, the same as the members from this side, are going to give input in regard to how the taxation system in this province has to be set up so that it is fair not just to workers or families or businesses but a system that maybe is not perfect for everybody but that everybody can live with and that is, at least, fair. I think that is what the heart of this whole thing is.
I am quite happy with what this government has done in regard to the whole question of Bill 1. I think Bill 1 states clearly to the people of this province up front that what we are interested in doing is saying: "Whoa, stop. Let's put the brakes on. We will not collect a tax on top of a tax." Clearly, the Leader of the Opposition, I think, has to agree with us. He is saying that what we should be doing is collecting our provincial tax on top of the GST; then after that what we should be doing is reducing the provincial sales tax by 1%.
A couple of points, I think, have to be made. First of all, when the member's party came to power, one of the things it did in its term of office was to raise the tax by 1%. Okay? Let's be clear. I do not mean to be malicious about that, but let's be clear about this whole issue.
I think what this government has said is, "Let's put the brakes on this whole issue, let's not put ourselves in line with the federal government, let's say we will not collect our provincial sales tax on top of the GST and let's make sure that we make the system of collection much easier for the merchants," because really that is what the legislation in that bill is saying. It is setting up a system that is paralleling the collection system, not the tax itself.
Mr Nixon: I am concerned that the member for Durham East considered it a dubious honour to work in the Ministry of Revenue. I hope he was not serious about that adjective, because that particular ministry has a nationwide reputation of service. If I had known when I was minister that he was worried about working there, I might have been able to assist him in terminating. As a matter of fact, the last time I think I saw the honourable member was in a parking lot of a legion. I was making an excellent speech. He and his followers were hitting me over the head with a sign or something like that. I found that meeting with the honourable member somewhat dubious.
Certainly I want to make this abundantly clear: It is not that we are considering doing what Quebec has announced and piggybacking on the federal tax. I believe that would be a mistake. This might be a shock to some people listening to me, but I would never approve, as far as I am concerned, a kind of a piggyback approach that the member, I think, for Chatham-Kent may have mentioned. It could very well be that the federal goods and services tax, starting at 7%, will end at 10%. With our 7% or 8%, that would be an overall tax of 18%. The member for Cochrane South, who is good at these things. could tell members exactly what the percentage would be if it were compounded.
You need only go to all the other countries in the world where there is a value added tax and it extends from about 14% to 22% or 23%. God forbid. The way the federal government is spending money, if Mr Wilson hangs around here for very long and if he is serious about reducing his deficit, we may end up with a 30% tax. I do not know what he intends to do, because the second Minister of Finance for Canada, the Prime Minister. is never going to let him do anything to these costs.
Mr Mills: I am honoured and I am privileged to stand here today in this House as the member for Durham East and to take part in this debate on Bill 1.
This is the first time I have had the opportunity to speak here. I would like to offer my congratulations to you, Deputy Speaker, on your appointment, and to the Speaker, who is not here, but it is customary to thank him. At the same time. I would like to thank the members of the official opposition for their kindness, their gestures, their words of welcome, and also I would like to include in that group the members of the third party, who have been very kind to me over the two weeks that we have been sitting here in this House. It is indeed very refreshing to me to know that friendship in this House extends across the floor and goes beyond party lines. I appreciate that.
I would be remiss today if I did not pay my respects to the former member for Durham East, Sam Cureatz. Sam served as the member for Durham East for 13 years. He served the region very well and very ably, and he was well liked. He was well liked not only in this House: he was very well liked in Durham East by the constituents. I have no doubt that I have a serious job to fill Sam's shoes here. I intend. however. to try to serve all the people in Durham East with zeal, with compassion, with humility and, above all, with honesty. I intend to do my best for everyone, every day, no matter what his station in life is.
As a young man growing up in England, I would often go up to London and sit in the House of Commons during those heady days of the first Labour government that was elected after the Second World War. These debates had a profound effect on me and the life I followed. I was so moved by the concern shown by those members of that Labour government over the injustices of the time in the United Kingdom that I became a member of the Labour Party. I am very proud to say that I did that.
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In 1957, I came to Canada to compete here on the basis of what I could do rather than that of having my abilities judged on the people whom I knew. My election to this Legislature as a member of the New Democratic Party is a dream that really did come true for me. I will be honest in saying that it will take me a while to feel and be comfortable here. The shock to my system has been traumatic.
The people who call Durham East their community want what most people strive for. They need reassurance and support, and they ask for stability which they can plan a life around. They share these simple values with the other man and they expect him to reflect that. They gain strength in building a community on the integrity of the government that they chose to elect.
Durham East has factory workers who proudly assemble automobiles, and small businessmen who still greet their trade by their first names. There are urban city workers who commute for several hours each day to the towers of Toronto and home to their sprawling subdivisions. We have some farmers who walk no further than the short distance to the milking stalls and whose twice-daily responsibility is to the black-and-white simplicity of the cows that too come to and fro the meadows.
Mr Speaker, like you and me, no matter where we live and what trade we practise, we seek fairness in the taxation. We in Durham East are encouraged by the government's decision not to piggyback the Ontario retail sales tax on the GST.
My constituents and I applaud the Minister of Revenue for putting $500 million back into the pockets of the people. A number of members in the opposition have said in the debate that we are not keeping our election promise of stopping the GST. They claim we are not fighting hard enough, and the honourable member for Mississauga West, who is not here at this moment, but I wish he had been, said we should go --
Mrs Marland: He's here.
Mr Mills: I beg your pardon, Mr Speaker, the honourable member is here. He suggested yesterday that we should chain ourselves to the Peace Tower in Ottawa. I would like to suggest to the honourable member that perhaps he would like to go this weekend to Ottawa to chain himself to the Peace Tower and thereby give some solidarity to those Liberal senators who seem very discordant.
The people in Durham East are, for the most part, outraged at the GST, and they have not paid a penny on it yet.
The consequences of the GST are frightening, and I shudder to think of the months ahead.
This government is fighting the GST with the best weapon we know -- through the judicial system of the Canadian courts. I am very pleased to know that despite their colleagues in Ottawa being the author of the GST, the members of the third party indeed is going to support Bill 1, and I thank them for that.
I have a great interest in small business in Durham East, and a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak at Durham College at the commencement of Small Business Week. From my discussions with the owners of small businesses, they are delighted with the decision not to piggyback the retail sales tax on the GST.
This government is not one-dimensional. It has the concerns of all in its Agenda for People.
In closing, I would like to say that at every turn during the past election campaign, the question uppermost in the minds of people from Durham East was the GST. I said then that this government, if elected, would never piggyback retail sales tax on top of the GST. I am pleased to stand here today knowing this government kept its promise.
I am an eternal optimist, and despite the gloom of the members of the opposition and the members of the third party, I really believe that there is hope yet at this very late hour that the GST will not become a fait accompli.
Mr Mahoney: I think speeches like that could get that guy in the Senate one day. I would not be at all surprised. He could be the first NDP member in there, even though he probably thinks it should be abolished. I am sure, just like his federal counterparts, he says: "On one hand, we should abolish the Senate; and on the other hand, aren't they doing wonderful things stalling the GST? Keep up the fight."
There is nothing like the party of the left for consistency. It constantly amazes me -- as the Minister of Labour sits there throwing barbs across that I cannot hear over my eloquence and do not wish to. What the member has done is simply continue that fine tradition of his federal counterparts. Before they were government, when they were over here, they were going lead a revolt.
We were pointing out yesterday that the member for Victoria-Haliburton was proud of the fact that he got arrested leading a revolt before. Fine. It was my suggestion that he do the same thing here. He is in the House now with us; it is nice to see him today. It was my suggestion that he chain himself to the Peace Tower, that he indeed send out the message that the NDP is not going to take this from Mr Mulroney and his counterparts. But that is not what he has done.
What the honourable minister has done is that he has brought in a bill that just sort of pulls back the sheets and says, "Move over, Brian, I'm coming in." It is amazing. Here was Brian all by himself lying in the centre of the bed. The members all jumped in on the left-hand side, and what are they doing? They are propping him up. I do not know how they live with themselves. I do not know how they look in the mirror at night.
Mr Ruprecht: I listened to the remarks from the member for Durham East quite attentively and I would like to ask him just two questions. Before I do, I was surprised to hear that when he was elected, he was shellshocked, so shocked in fact that he remembered what happened in the Parliament in Britain. I kind of thought that he would not try to tell us about the experiences there, because I hope what has recently happened in Britain is not going to happen to the leader of the NDP.
The Deputy Speaker: Back to the topic.
Mr Ruprecht: I hope that he is not going to impose these kinds of conditions on us.
I was going to ask the member for Durham East what he and his party are going to do with the tire tax. Is their exemption going to decrease the tire tax? What will he do with the tobacco tax, which is already being imposed? Will this legislation, Bill 1, affect the tobacco tax? What I would like to know are the specifics of Bill 1. How will the specifics in Bill 1 affect these kinds of taxes? I would request that the member for Durham East, or whoever over there is going to be an expert on this legislation, stand up and explain to us this specific situation.
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Mr Villeneuve: May I first of all congratulate the member for Durham East for making a very good speech. As he mentioned, he does have a large pair of boots to fill because his predecessor was a very colourful member of this assembly. Actually, he sat in the chair you sit in, Mr Speaker, and had very good control of this Legislature while he was in the chair. He would now and again come in with seagulls and things like that, but that was quite understandable and acceptable. He always got his message across for the people he represented and they always came first.
I also want to say to the member for Durham East that I was most pleased to see him in my riding very shortly after he was elected in his position as, I believe, parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Correctional Services. He certainly did a good job in Kemptville, as he represented the minister well, and I was pleased to see him join the great people of eastern Ontario.
I say to the member, he should make sure that his colleagues do not forget us in eastern Ontario. We do have some economic problems there and we do need some assistance, not only the north and the city of Toronto. We do need help down there. Again, to the minister, to the member for Durham East -- he may be a minister some day, but right now he is, as we are, a simple backbencher. I say that not facetiously, but with a degree of understanding, because I have been there too. He is welcome to the club and he will enjoy it.
Mr Callahan: I just wanted to rise too -- a bit of the thunder was stolen by the former speaker -- to speak about the member who preceded the member for Durham East in this House. He was in fact extremely colourful. When he got in full flight, you were not sure if he was going to take off or land. He in fact occupied, I think, the seat I am sitting in right now and the seat is still moving.
But I really wanted to rise and say to the member that I wish him good luck, good luck, good luck. If he ever gets depressed over there, we would be happy to have him move over here. That is what Sam always used to say in fact. Sam was always working underground. He would be trying to get people over here. In those days, it was necessary because the Conservative Party of the day, if it got one more member, I think it was --
The Deputy Speaker: The issue is Bill 1.
Mr Callahan: I am sorry. If it got one more member, then it could have debated Bill 1 a little longer and it would have become the official opposition and its members might be sitting over there instead of those people and those people would be over here as the third party, but that is not the case.
But I would like to say in closing that I would appreciate it if the member would pass on my sincere hello to the former member and tell him we are debating Bill 1 today in the House.
Mr Mills: I would like to thank, really from the bottom of my heart, the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry and the member for Brampton South for the comments I have heard from them. I have not become familiar with all the ridings yet, and I thank the member for Parkdale.
I included my background in my speech -- for the benefit of the members -- because I have followed the political scene both in England and here and I must confess that I was a constant watcher of this channel and of the people in this House before my election. I always thought the member for Mississauga West was lively on television, but I have come to understand that, when I see him in the flesh, it is like watching a hockey game. When you see it on TV and you go there and watch it, it is an entirely different thing, and this is what I found out with the honourable member for Mississauga West.
I thank them all for their comments and their welcome and I will pass on to Sam, who constantly calls me and drops into the office to see how I am doing, all the members' good wishes and messages. I am a little bit subdued here, but hopefully, by the time the five years are up that we sit here, I shall indeed be remembered as much as my friend Sam Cureatz.
Mrs McLeod: I can assure members I do want to engage in the debate about Bill 1. In fact, I welcome the opportunity to join my colleagues in expressing some of the surprise, if not indeed a degree of shock, that the first bill of this new government would in fact be a bill that prepares the ground for the successful implementation of the GST.
There are some who might suggest that this implies acquiescence with the GST. I know in fact that is not true so I will not make that suggestion. As our leader and former Treasurer suggested earlier, I really do not think there is room for political posturing on something that we all take quite as seriously as this.
It is nevertheless, I think, an implied, resigned acceptance of the tax that this government was committed to fight. There are times when surprise kind of leaves one searching for words to catch a sense of what has happened, and I must confess that the day that this Legislature resumed, with all the significance of a new government taking office and reading its first speech from the throne and presenting its first piece of legislation, was a day of surprise for me, a day of surprise and indeed really a day of shock. The only words that came to my mind as I tried to think about how I could express my feelings of the day were snatches of an old poem by T. S. Eliot that has a refrain that goes: This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
Bill 1 certainly is not a revolt. It is not even a so-called revolt, whatever the revolt was expected to look like, and indeed it is not even a whimper of resistance. I think my colleague the member for Mississauga East used the same kind of term in saying this was not even a whimper of a revolt.
I guess I was a little bit surprised that the statement that was made in presenting Bill 1 just simply talked about the necessity of avoiding confusion with the GST. There was no ringing statement of repugnance about this federal tax that certainly this new government and I think most Liberals and a majority of Canadians feel really is the wrong tax at the wrong time.
There was no clear indication of continued opposition. There was not even a hint of defiance. I would have thought that the new government, if it believed, as well it might, that the legislative position on the GST had to be in place before 1 January, might have wanted to slip this in rather quietly, that it would not have wanted to draw attention to it on the grand opening day as if it were something to set forward with pride as the first major step in meeting its new commitments. I think that the new government might at least have said, "We don't like this any better than you do but they made us do it."
Perhaps they thought that the decision not to tax the tax would seem like a ringing message to consumers about the government's concern; but nothing is really very simple, least of all managing the economy of the province.
A number of my colleagues, most recently our leader and former Treasurer, pointed out that the decision not to tax the tax means forfeiting some $530 million of potential revenue and provides no replacement for revenue loss when the existing federal sales taxes are removed.
My friend and colleague our leader and former Treasurer did teach me one thing that was very simple about managing the economy of the province. He used to say there are only three ways to find the money that will be needed for escalating costs, for new programs, for expanded programs. Those three ways are to cut existing programs, to borrow money to increase the deficit or to create new revenue.
Let us look at the options that this government has if it finds that money indeed must be found and it gets past the point where it can simply blame the federal government for its failure to increase the transfer payments.
Obviously they cannot cut programs. They have promised $2 billion in new programs, and that is not even counting the additional costs that are being incurred as our welfare rolls increase and the costs of meeting those needs get greater and greater, or the declining revenues that may come from the recession. They clearly cannot become involved in cutting programs and, quite frankly. we would not want to see them cut programs.
We would not want to see this government reduce the job creation programs that are going to be so necessary to help people deal with the impact of the recession. We would not want to seem them cut any of the economic initiative programs that are going to help us recover from a recession. We certainly would not want to see them cut programs of support for people who are on welfare, people for whom this new federal GST is going to be most difficult of all.
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There may be some thought that they can cut expenditures by finding ways to cut waste from existing government programs, but I can assure the members opposite, as my colleague the member for Renfrew North did yesterday, that that is not a simple route, not an easy route, but one that is fraught with considerable challenge and a great deal of anguish and pain.
The second option I think we have to look at is the option of further increasing the deficit. That one seems to be no longer open. I know that the new government is not reluctant to see the deficit increase. During the campaign they indicated that they would expect to see a deficit in the order of some $2 billion. But the Treasurer seems to have indicated in his statement on Tuesday that the anticipated deficit would be held -- if we can use a figure of holding a deficit -- at $2.5 billion. That is clearly the reality he speaks of. He seems to be saying now that the deficit will be held at that figure.
I do not know all that he takes into account in that figure of $2.5 billion and I think we will look forward to examining that in some future budget presentations and debates. I suspect that with a deepening recession and with the likelihood of further decreasing revenues, it is going to be difficult enough to hold the deficit even at that very high level, especially if the new government intends to keep the commitments that it has made to any degree at all.
If the promises are to be kept, if the expectations are to be met, there seems to be really only one alternative left, and that is to create new revenues by raising new taxes. I know that when the members of this new government were campaigning, they talked not about new taxes but about fairer taxes. The members will forgive me if I am a little sceptical about that at the moment since I have no idea what was intended by fairer taxation. I do not know what it will look like, I do not know when we will see it and I do not know what impact it will have. So I have to find myself wondering what new taxes might be looked at to make up for the lost revenue.
During the campaign we also made some statements about the GST and its impact and about taxation policy. One of the things we said very clearly was that we would not tax any goods or services not currently taxed in the province of Ontario. I would have wanted to hear that kind of statement from this new government as it introduced Bill 1. I would have wanted to hear them make a statement that they will absolutely not extend the provincial sales tax to any goods or services not currently taxed, because I think the extension of the GST to that full range of services is one of the most repugnant aspects of the new goods and services tax proposed.
I do not know where the new needed revenue might come from. We cannot be sure now, but one thing that I think we can be sure of now is that without the tax on tax, there is not likely to be a reduction in the overall sales tax. As our leader and former Treasurer pointed out, that was the alternative that we put forward during the campaign. We were prepared to tax the tax, not to extend the tax to the full range of goods and services taxed by the GST, but to continue to tax the areas that we currently tax.
But we were also going to reduce the sales tax by a full percentage point, and that would have put more than $1 billion into the pockets of Ontario's consumers. This government has made different choices, but I happen to prefer ours.
The real concern I want to speak to today is the impact of the goods and services tax on the northern part of this province and this government's seeming lack of response to this impact. Even with the introduction of Bill 1, it is clearly understood that the GST is likely to become a reality.
The Minister of Northern Development earlier this week presented an interprovincial report which states the very serious problems that the GST creates for the north. But Bill 1 does nothing to address these problems and it seems that there are no other proposals forthcoming or even promised to accompany Bill 1's recognition that the GST will be a reality.
Let me just mention two or three of the areas that the minister mentioned earlier this week. First, there is a tax on transportation costs for manufacturers, which is going to create significant additional costs for northern businesses. I do not think I need to tell any members present who are from northern Ontario the struggles that businesses in northern Ontario now have to deal with the added costs of communication and transportation.
If this GST is to be a reality, as Bill 1 suggests, something must be done to offset the new barriers to sustaining business in the north. It is so easy for us to talk about the importance of diversification in northern Ontario, how we are going to be able to balance the dependence on resource-based industries with new businesses, new industries. But unless we can find some way to deal with the very real barriers, barriers that are going to be increased with the imposition of the GST, then all we are talking about when we talk of diversification are really words and vague hopes.
The interprovincial report that the Minister of Northern Development presented earlier also acknowledges that there is a serious impact of the GST on northern tourism in a whole host of ways. There will be taxes now on bus, rail and water travel, and people will be even further discouraged by the sheer cost from travelling through the distances of northern Ontario.
It is also shocking, if I understand the GST proposals correctly, that the GST seems to apply to air travel within Canada but not to air travel outside Canada. So what happens to northern tourism, not to mention national understanding, when people are encouraged not to travel in Canada, when there are extra costs on the already prohibitive charges just to reach the northern part of our province or our country? Incidentally, I think that the Speaker should recognize that there will also be significant increases in transportation costs for the Legislative Assembly when the GST is imposed on air fares.
I would like to ask the government: If the GST is indeed then to be a reality, what can be done immediately to make travel in northern Ontario more reasonable so that tourism in the northern part of our province can become viable? Perhaps as a start I might suggest to the Minister of Revenue and to her colleague the Minister of Energy that they might look at how they think they could equalize gas prices across the province.
All of us know it is a reality that people in northern Ontario pay on average four cents a litre more for their gasoline. People also happen to travel much greater distances by the very fact of the geography of northern Ontario. So they are travelling greater distances, they are spending more as a result of their distances, and it costs them more per kilometre to do it.
The report that was presented also says that the impact of the GST is going to be significant on the provision of health care and education in our northern communities. The reason for this is because the rebate that is going to be given to education and health institutions and municipalities is going to be based on a national average, and that average is not going to take into account the original additional costs of providing services in northern communities.
I have to tell the members of this House, as a northerner, that this kind of additional cost comes at a time when we are finally beginning to make some slow but steady progress in providing increased access to health and to educational services in the northern parts of this province. So I have to ask again: If the GST is to be a reality, if we are going to face these increased charges, if we are going to experience this kind of setback, what can the government do to offset that further disadvantage for the north?
Let me ask whether or not they would consider looking at increases in the operating costs, the northern operating grants that are paid to school boards, municipalities, universities and colleges, so that they can begin to deal with this increased cost that the GST will mean.
Finally, there is a differential impact of the GST, the first ever tax on electricity. Again, it hurts most in the north where electricity use is inevitably higher. So again, if the GST is to be real, may I ask the government what it can do about this added burden. I suggest to the Minister of Revenue, and again through her to the Minister of Energy, that one of the things in this regard that they might do, and how they might be able to give the north a break, is to look very closely at something called time-of-use rates. Please do not continue to penalize northern Ontario in the name of conservation, when it is in fact impossible for northern Ontarians to reduce their energy use past the essential level in wintertime when they are paying higher rates.
I would just like to conclude by referring directly to the statement that was made by the Minister of Northern Development earlier this week. If I may quote her citing the report, she says:
"The report further states that the impact of the GST on the costs of transportation, energy and housing in the north will be felt by every northern resident. The expenditures for transportation and energy are higher in the north and they will become more costly as a result of the GST.
"The report recommends that GST credits for institutions, new home buyers and low-income families in the north be adjusted to reflect the higher northern costs. It also suggests reducing excise and transportation related taxes in order to offset higher heating and transportation costs in the north."
We appreciate the report, which recognizes the pending reality of the impact of the GST, but the government should please not just tell us what the problems are; the government should look at what it can do directly to offset some of these problems.
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The report goes on to state that communities which are very isolated lack essential services and have difficulty recruiting labour, especially teachers and health care professionals, and would lose approximately $20 million annually. This suggests that the provinces should be further consulted in order to establish more equitable boundaries and that those communities losing tax credits be compensated with more economic development assistance.
Again, we could not agree more in northern Ontario. May I please ask the government to look again at the hardships that are to be created, as we recognize the reality of the pending GST, and take those steps to provide the economic development assistance.
The minister's statement concluded by saying:
"I want to emphasize that the GST on its own is the wrong tax at the wrong time for northern Ontarians and that the GST, combined with other insensitive federal measures, is absolutely unacceptable to this government.
"This federal tax grab is being imposed on a region whose residents can least afford a reduction in their take-home income. We will continue to voice our opposition to this destructive federal initiative."
We agree wholeheartedly with those comments. We only ask that some very specific actions be taken. The government should do something about it.
Mr Callahan: I rise to speak to this issue because, when I was listening to the minister responsible explaining in the House how simple it was, I did not understand a word he was saying. We could attribute that to one of two things: Either I am simple, and I would not take a vote on that at the moment, or in the alternative the legislation or the change in the taxation that is being suggested is not going to be quite as simple as he thinks it is going to be.
If members look at the act itself, section 2 is really the nuts and bolts of it. It says that every person shall pay tax on the fair market value of goods and the consumption of goods. But when you go into the definition area of that I challenge a retailer, who will probably pull his hair out when he is trying to do this, to try to put value on things like the transfer of shares from an individual or a corporation to an individual. How do you arrive at a value? How do you determine how you are going to deal with that from a taxation standpoint?
That is just one example, but I think that if any person goes through the act in a meaningful way, he is going to find that this particular piece of legislation, which is heralded in An Agenda for People and is being heralded today by the government as a tax saving for the taxpayer, either does not understand -- I would like to be charitable and say they do not understand what they are saying -- or in the alternative it is the usual order of the day, smoke and mirrors. Instead of being up front with taxpayers and saying, "We're going to save you money in some of the things that I'll suggest to you," what they do is try to give them some idea that they are going to save the people money by creating this parallel system.
Let's face it: When a retailer has to add expense to his business because of getting a computer or a new cash register or whatever, another accountant, another set of books, whatever it is, or even his time, that in fact is reflected in the price of the product. Members can be sure that what will happen is that the retailers will include this in the additional cost of their product. We all saw this when we went metric. The price of things went up when we went metric because people found they had to convert to the metric measurements, the metric rules. These were all costs that were involved.
Let me say to members what I think might have been done in a better way and not be smoke and mirrors. We all know that the recession we are in is not a recession, that it is a depression and is probably going to be with us -- the Conference Board of Canada last night reported 18 months. The president of the National Bank of Canada said it was going to be 18 months. I would suggest it is probably going to be more in the range of twice that. If that is the case, then what we should be doing as politicians, if we are truly representing the people of this province, is ensuring that we find areas where we can save them money.
I raised the most significant aspect of that as the subject matter of one of my questions in the House: the price of gasoline. The Premier's promise of 10 August, during the election, in the heat of the election, was that he was going to champion the cause to make certain that the oil companies were not taking undue advantage of the Kuwait crisis to secure profits in excess of what they were entitled to.
We have heard question after question in this House to the Minister of Energy and she seems to indicate that there is no problem. We have not heard one thing about how this is going to be monitored. We have not heard of one mechanism or technique that this government is going to use to try to ensure that the oil companies are not gouging.
Let me say this: It does not take a great deal of talent or ingenuity, as you drive around the province, to realize that everybody is up on their ladders at the same time changing the price. The prices have escalated. The price of oil has come down by $3, as reported on CFTO last night.
Mr Bradley: We're still paying more for gas, though.
Mr Callahan: That is right, yes.
Mr Bradley: Still paying more.
Mr Callahan: Sure you are; of course.
Mr Bradley: I thought Bob was going stop the gouging.
Mr Callahan: The Premier has not found the white horse to ride on to lead the charge against either that or the GST. But I suggest to members that is a real, honest approach to helping people who are going to be or right now are in significant difficulty. I think the time and the place and the nature of the recession we are in does not allow us to stand in this House and do the traditional things of the past, the political magic, the political smoke and mirrors. That is all it is, really, political smoke and mirrors.
Why does the government not have the guts to do one of two things? The gas thing: Get at it. Find out whether they are gouging people. I was interested in the Minister of Energy's answer to my question, or perhaps it was one of the other members. She said: "Well, just turn down the thermostat. Turn down the thermostat and don't drive as often, and put on a sweater." That is reminiscent of something I recall about 15 years ago from the third party, by a minister of the crown for the Conservatives. I cannot remember his name. I think it was -- help me out. What was his name? In any event, that was the type of answer we got from the Conservative Minister of Energy.
Mr Bradley: It was the former Treasurer of Ontario, John White.
Mr Callahan: John White; that is right.
Let's look at it this way as well. I have run in a number of elections, some successful, some unsuccessful, and I always recall that the NDP had a slogan which was catchy. It was really catchy. It was: "Let the rich pay. Make the rich pay."
Mr Bradley: Make the rich pay. That was Marxist-Leninist, not the NDP.
Mr Callahan: Right.
Recognize this fact, and I would like to take the members through this: They are not going to make the rich pay here. Think about it. With this double taxation or this parallel accord that they are using in terms of the taxation, they are going to reward the people who buy the big ticket items. They are the people who will be rewarded. They will be rewarded at the detriment of the people who need the money the most, the programs, the benefits, the government looking after their interests.
They have taken $500 million out of the provincial coffers at a time when that is unacceptable, when people are losing their homes, when people are losing their jobs. They have done it because in their Agenda for People they considered that is what won them the election, so it is a pure political ploy.
If it was not a pure political ploy, then they would have ventured into the field of tobacco. I know that is a dirty word these days, but there are still some of us smokers around. There still are agricultural people who make their livings out of raising tobacco, and yet if you look at the act, the value for tobacco includes the tax. So even if they have this parallel system, they are differentiating between tobacco and the other services.
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I suggest that some bright person who likes to smoke and perhaps feels that this is inequitable is going to take this piece of legislation probably as far as the Supreme Court of Canada, and members will find that it is contrary to the Charter of Rights. I would suggest that if they are going to make one rule, it had better be for everybody or their legislation will have no effect and will be declared unconstitutional. I suggest that there are areas in this province where moneys can be obtained -- I should not give them these ideas, because they will probably try to use them. But I feel so concerned about the constituents in my riding, as I think every one of the members is duty-bound to think about the constituents in his or her riding, that in this particular recession we should be sharing these ideas.
Take lotteries. In the United States, when a lottery is won by a lottery holder, that person does not get the money. First of all. the government takes 30% of that lottery winning, which goes back into the coffers. The second thing they do is they buy an annuity for that person, and that is all that person gets. All the capital goes into the coffers. Now, you would not believe it in the United States, because I do not know what they have been doing with all that extra money they rip off in this way.
I think that in this province, perhaps at the unhappiness of one person who was the recipient of that $4-million, $12-million or $15-million windfall, the government could have relieved him of some of that by way of tax and affected only one person to the benefit of the balance of the 8 million or 9 million Ontarians who would benefit from that. Some people may say that would interfere with lottery sales. I suggest to members it does not interfere with lottery sales in the United States. They are just as effective and just as successful in terms of dealing with the lottery.
Instead of doing that, what does this government do? It ignores looking into the question of whether or not the oil companies are gouging constituents.
Mr Bradley: They must be looking into it because Bob Rae said they were going to.
Mr Callahan: Oh, is that right? Well, he did on 10 August.
Mr Bradley: He said, "I will not allow anyone to gouge."
Mr Callahan: Well, he has not looked into it thus far. What he does is he resorts to the alternative in Bill 1. I am back on track. He resorts to the effort of Bill 1, which I suggest to members is a very sneaky way to try to gain political points, but at the same time empty the coffers of the Treasurer so that he will have to cut back on some programs.
One of my colleagues here said that the former Treasurer told her there are three ways you deal with taxes: You either raise them, find other sources of revenue or cut programs. That is the reality of government; that is the reality of the members' responsibility over there. They are governing at a very serious time in the history of this province, a very serious time in the history of this country.
I always thought the New Democratic Party, and I believe this, cared about people. Yet those guys over there, and gals, are doing exactly what Brian Mulroney is doing in Ottawa, at the wrong time. He is bringing in the GST, and they are embracing his GST. They have to be embracing it because they are bringing in legislation to parallel it. They would not bring in legislation to parallel something that they did not embrace. So their government in fact embraces the GST. Let's come clean now. They embrace the GST. They are in favour of it. They are really federal Conservatives in orange ties or whatever. So, fess up. The people out there know that this is the situation. Okay?
The thing that frightens me about this whole issue is that as members know, Mr Mulroney has decided to tax everything that walks, moves, breathes or whatever. Right now this bill, if you look at it in terms of the existing Retail Sales Tax Act, only taxes certain things -- candy bars and so on. It does not tax the full gamut.
But this is the question I have to ask myself, particularly in light of the three ways of raising money to run this province that were related by my colleague, that you either raise taxes, cut programs or find other sources of revenue: Is the secret agenda for people the one that the government did not advertise during the election? Is the secret agenda for people to parallel the GST now, and then to expand the retail sales tax to cover all the items the GST covers so that what you now have is a 15%, across-the-board tax on everything that moves, walks, breathes, talks, is edible, is tasty and is nice, and brings great revenue into the coffers of the provincial Legislature?
Backbenchers opposite may not know about this yet, because this is what happens in the bowels of cabinet. How would they like to be a fly on the wall as they are discussing enlarging the taxation field to cover all of the items that Brian Mulroney is about to cover -- and is about to destroy this country, I would say as well -- and perhaps to join in with that raid on the money that is left in the hands of these people?
It is hard to tell whether it is or is not the plan. We have asked questions about the government's Agenda for People, which it used to seduce the electorate into a sense of false security to get elected. Now, every day when it is asked about the Agenda for People in the House, it is: "Well, we're not going to do it now. We're going to do it later." It is reminiscent of statements that were made in this House about, "When will it be done?" The word was, "In the fullness of time."
Hon Mr Cooke: Early fall.
Mr Callahan: Yes, early fall. So in fact is that the plan of the new NDP government? Is that what they are going to do? Is the tax grab on? Are they going to start taxing everything that moves? I suggest that is a real possibility. Even if my good friend the Treasurer has not thought about it yet, he will be required to do that, because this recession is going to create demands beyond his wildest dreams. We are already seeing it. He has things such as the refugees, who are looked after under general welfare and municipalities, particularly in my riding where we are close to the airport. Staggering amounts. There has to be a rethinking and a renegotiation of the arrangement of who pays what. Those will be demands.
The government's leader, the Premier, was out in my riding in Huttonville. Very dramatic: While he was there, a portable happened to arrive on the scene. I do not whether it got there by mistake, good luck or good planning. For the years that the third party, the Conservatives, were in office out in my riding, as in other ridings, they never built anything. They always put it off, put it aside. As a result of that, the school situation in my riding, as in other ridings, has become absolutely horrendous. In fact, we used to say that PC stood for either "portable classroom" or Progressive Conservative.
In any event, I want to get back to the Premier, who came out to Huttonville and went through this extremely dramatic event -- there happened to be a television camera there too, which was amazing -- where the portable was taken off the truck. He made this tremendous speech. I even applauded it. I thought it was excellent that we are going to get rid of the portables. Well, well, well. Will the government tell me what plans are in the hopper to get rid of the portables, or even to look down the line towards dealing with the portables? Nothing. In fact, that is an absolutely critical issue, which is going to require money.
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I am back to Bill 1. If they give up the money under this Bill 1, they have in fact depleted the Treasury by $500 million. Think what they could do with $500 million. They could perhaps eliminate a great number of these portables; they could do a number of other things that would help people. Instead, they are giving it away.
I recognize that the alternative I suggested in terms of lotteries or looking into the question of whether our gas prices are being gouged, and also one that was suggested by my leader now and the then Premier of the province in terms of reducing the retail sales tax by one percentage point --
Mr Christopherson: Are you for it or against it?
Mr Callahan: Haven't you caught on yet? I will talk slowly so you do catch on.
If they want to be honest with the electorate and avoid the smoke-and-mirror junk -- really, during the last election I think in a real sense people were trying to say: "We don't like the politics of the past. We want people to be up front with us." If that is the case, rather than doing this underhanded approach of paralleling the tax, why not be up front? Why not say, "We'll reduce the sales tax by 1%, from 8% to 7%"?
They might say, "Well, if we do that, we are losing more than $500 million in taxes." At the outset, yes, but what that is doing is stimulating the economy, putting more money back into the hands of consumers to buy products and therefore increasing jobs, and we need those things.
I see some smiles on faces over there. This is not a smiling matter, because we are in the midst of probably the most significant depression short of what took place back in the days when I was just knee-high to a grasshopper. But the thing that saves us, and the reason it does not look that bad, is that we do have safety nets in place, we do have things we can fall back on, but you cannot fall back on those things unless you have the money to support them.
The $500 million would help significantly, although it might be just a drop in the bucket in the health expenditures of this province. I suspect that maybe the way they are going to eliminate this is that there will be some sort of deductible or a charge. I will go back to Bill 1, because in essence that is what happens when you reduce the income of the province. To the average person out there watching this -- assuming there are any people watching it; they are probably into the Young and the Restless by now -- $500 million is a lot of money. I think the problem we have down here is that because we have heard figures of billions, we fail to recognize that in fact $500 million is an awful lot of money and could do an awful lot of good in this province if it were in the coffers of the province.
I suppose by my speaking this way I am taking the chance that people out there who think they are going to get a tax break are going to be upset because I am arguing against their getting the tax break, but in fact what I am trying to do is say to my constituents and to other people who might be interested that the old game of politics is over. It has to be over: You cannot fool the people any more, you have to be up front with them. I think it is very important that they recognize that this so-called paralleling is only a precursor to what is going to happen down the line, as I suggested. Perhaps all of the products, just as under the GST, are going to be taxed totally.
That being the case, the government would not want to do that right away because it recognizes that the federal Conservative Party is going to go down the sluice over this GST. So they do not want to do that right now. What they are going to do is bring this bill in and pass it; that will be the first one. Then somewhere down the line, after the Prime Minister and his party have gone to the polls and been decimated, then the Treasurer will rub his hands together and say: "Well, we're into a deeper recession. We need money." He has a couple of options.
I see, my time is up. In any event, I want to give other people an opportunity to participate in this debate. The Conservatives, the third party, will definitely want to participate, because then we can ask them questions about what is happening in Ottawa.
I want to say in closing, in all seriousness, to keep in mind the very fact that that $500 million the government is losing has to be recouped somehow. I suppose the Treasurer could take up a collection of his -- how many members does the government have over there, 85? Work that out, how much they would have to pay.
An hon member: Whoa, whoa, whoa: 74.
Mr Callahan: There are 74? Figure out how much it is going to cost the members if he puts the tap on them. Or if they are sensible and really care about the people they represent in a very trying time -- I am sure there are even some of us in this House who can remember the Great Depression -- they recognize that that money has to be recouped and recognize that they are taking programs away from people or taking money out of their pockets if they have to increase taxes, and they can get the Minister of Energy on to her white horse and get her to look into the question of whether we are being gouged by the oil companies. That affects the working man who has to drive a truck, has to drive his car from employment to home. It affects the housewife who has to shop. It has an impact on everything. I surely expect that will be looked at. If it is not, if that issue is not looked at, I pledge to the members that at least once a week I am going to ask the Minister of Energy and the Premier what they have done about it, particularly if the price rises.
Mr White: The member for Brampton South made a point about --
Mr Stockwell: Well, an hour ago.
Mr White: I did hear it; it was earlier on. He was asking about what the secret Agenda for People was. The members in the official opposition have been waving that particular agenda about, and it struck me that there was nothing particularly secret about it. It was certainly open for public consumption, for the members opposite to read, share, become convinced by. Obviously, they have been. The only thing perhaps secret about it is that this government has every intention of fulfilling its obligations that it made to the people of Ontario. The only thing that is secret about it is the divergence between that and what the member opposite has had as his experience. I know he has ably represented the constituents of his riding for many years, not always to the favour of the government he was representing; I know he has struggled to do so because of the government he was representing. The secret here, the only secret, is that there is no secret, that this bill represents this agenda and we will stick to it.
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Ms Churley: I will be very brief. I just wanted to point out to the member for Brampton South, who made a comment, "What about the working man?" and then, "What about the working man who has a wife and family to support at home?" that I take great exception to that. Earlier today we had a conversation in this House about equality between men and women and that the answer is in changing our attitudes. I am sure the member did not mean to imply that he does not know there are working women, but one of the ways we are going to be able to do that is by starting in this House and being very careful that we treat women and men equally and recognize that there are working women as well who are out there struggling to supply an income for their families.
Mr Callahan: I would like to deal with the last issue first. I was getting a note from my whip that he had turned into a hook. I recognize that there are women out there who are working, and many of them single parents that we should be supporting in terms of providing housing for them, particularly young single parents so they have a real choice in terms of keeping their child or not; the member might pass that on to her Minister of Health. But I do recognize the fact that there are both men and women out there who are earning the bread for their children. Anything else was not intended. I would not intend that.
Mr Stockwell: What about the secret?
Mr Callahan: The secret? I suppose the secret will become a non-secret when in fact it happens, but I still suggest the government has to --
Mr Charlton: Does that mean if it never happens it will be a secret for ever?
Mr Callahan: It will be like the Agenda for People if it never happens, which it probably will not. The secret, I suspect, may be a very large possibility, and I think the people out there today have heard it first in the Legislature on 6 December and may hear about it on 6 December 1991 or 1992, but it is going to happen, because we are in a serious recession. It is getting worse every day and the government is going to need all those safety nets to look after the people who are less advantaged in this province.
In closing, I suggest that what the government has done by this parallel taxation is reward the people who buy the big-ticket items; they are the people who are going to get the benefit from this, not the poor people, the people we should all care about, the people who cannot look after themselves. I suggest that before government members vote on this bill they think about that.
Mr Sola: I am glad to participate in this debate on Bill 1. I think most of the critical items have been expressed time and again, but it grates on my nerves when the party in power still keeps insisting that Bill 1 is a tax revolt. A revolt is something that takes violent action. Some of the government members have claimed they are taking an action through the courts. Very few revolts that I can recall can be classified as legal revolts.
I want to go back to the Agenda for People, which was created during the election and which acknowledged the existence of a recession. Yet now, every measure the government takes or attempts to take it explains away with the fact that we are in the throes of a recession. They have to study and re-study the instant solutions they themselves came up with. They are not studying measures that either the Conservative Party initiated or the Liberal Party initiated. They are studying solutions proposed by themselves during the election, in acknowledgement of the existence of a recession.
Interestingly, when they studied measures the Liberal Party, the previous government, had introduced in the previous session, the studies were quite short and legislation was reintroduced in a short time. Yet the measures they had proposed are taking so much longer to study. What was it about those measures that takes so long? Were those solutions instant solutions with no fact behind them? Were they solutions that were like a balloon, all full of hot air and one little pinprick and they explode into nothing? When I look at it, their credibility is really suffering.
I just want to hark back to some of the other promises they had made or criticisms they had made of the previous government.
I have here a headline from the Toronto Star which says, "Rae Lets British Gas Buy Company," and then the first statement says, "in a policy flip-flop." Somewhere later on in the article it says: "When he was leader of the opposition, Rae indicated he would kill the deal if he were Premier. 'We think it should be a public utility, publicly owned.'" He comes into power and he makes a good deal; flip-flops.
The Toronto Sun, on the same thing, said, "Rae's election challenge to then Premier David Peterson was to put his money where his mouth was." Yet when Premier Rae is in Premier Peterson's shoes, his mouth was certainly not where his money was.
Take a look at some of the other things they had promised previously. For instance, on waste management, they dumped on the previous government for going to a lax environmental review process, according to them. Then in comes their former critic, who must be green with envy at the previous minister's actions in that portfolio, and what does she do? She removes any criteria whatsoever. She brings in policy by decree: It will be her opinion that counts and nothing else. The timetable for implementing any of her policy is so short that it is obvious to everyone she will have to circumvent all of the protections we have for the public. There is yet another flip-flop.
During the election they also promised to do much more for the poor. I think a figure of $300 million was proposed, and this is in the Agenda for People during the election acknowledging a recession. The minister comes in here and gives $91 million. We applaud that, we recommend that, we agree with that, but again it is not fulfilling the expectations raised before the election and during the election. I am saying their credibility is dropping with every step they take back from the promises they had made, from the guarantees they had made to the people.
We hear consistently that they represent the common people, the average people, the people who have never been in power. Well, if they do represent them, they certainly will not represent them very much longer, because the people are starting to lose faith because they are stepping back from the promises made.
They keep throwing back at the Liberal Party the challenge or promise the previous Premier had made about fighting free trade. Yet when I take a look at this tax revolt, I can see quite a few similarities. I would like to say as well that I hope the results are the same, because the impression, according to them, was that we as a province were going to destroy free trade. They promised to destroy the GST if they came to power.
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Mr Bradley: And free trade.
Mr Sola: And free trade and everything else.
The impression was in the minds of the people, and we know the results. On 6 September we went from 93 seats to 36 seats. I hope that with the measures they are taking with the retreat from all their promises, the people will judge them with their own criteria and judge them just as harshly as they have judged us and that after the next election the results will be the same. Where we went from 93 to 36, proportionately they should go from 74 to about 26.
That is something they should keep in mind, because I think the people are very much aware of what is going on now. They will no longer take unfulfilled promises and return the same government. They expect that promises made during the election will be kept. This may sound like sour grapes, but the problem is they got to that side of the House because they made the promises during the election, fully aware that we were in the throes of a recession. Therefore, they cannot use the recession as an excuse that they cannot fulfil those commitments.
Those were instant solutions for problems during the election. They were not five-year solutions as they are today, and not only five-year solutions today, but five-year potential solutions, because the Premier is waffling even more in saying they may not even be able to do it during their first term in office, which I hope will be their last.
I would like to check with my whip if --
Mr Mahoney: It is a hook.
Mr Sola: It is a hook? Okay. I will not take as long as the previous speaker.
I would like to thank the members for putting up with my five minutes, but I would like to leave with this: The government made the promises. They were their words, they were not our words. Therefore, it is up to them to keep the commitment.
Mr Kwinter: I was waiting for some comments from the government side. I am delighted to participate in the debate. Over the last two days, I have been listening to it with great interest and I noticed an attitude that seems to permeate the debate. I just want to throw out a gratuitous comment initially, and that is that everybody in this House is really a relatively ordinary person put into a rather extraordinary situation.
There was nothing magical about 6 September, other than the placing of the chairs. There are some people on that side and some people on this side, and there is not automatically instant wisdom that descended on one side and total ignorance that descended on another on that date. It did not happen. If the members think that, because they are there, suddenly they have this great, omnipotent kind of vision of what should be happening, they are really living in a dream world. The wisdom does not rest there, it does not necessarily rest here; it rests wherever we can find it.
It is interesting; years ago, before I got elected, I was talking to a rather prominent politician and he said to me, "Monte, remember one thing: The other side has generals and they have people just like you do, and don't ever get sucked into the situation where you think that you have all of the answers."
I want to talk about parallelism, not so much what is in Bill 1, but the parallel between the free trade debate and the debate that we have now on the GST. At the time, the then Leader of the Opposition, now Premier, would stand up almost daily and really berate the government for its lack of activity, its lack of action in doing something about free trade. It was very much like a person who says: "You go out and fight them and I will hold your coat. I'm not going to do anything about it, but you go out and do it." Every day, we would get that. We now are in a position with the GST where not only is the Premier not holding anyone's coat, he has not even taken off his jacket.
I want to tell members that we have been alluding to the promise, but to my knowledge, and I have not heard every single part of the debate, I do not think anyone has quoted verbatim what the Premier said. I want to put that into the record.
This was on 17 August and it was quoted in the Thunder Bay Times-News. This is a quote from the Premier: "'An Ontario NDP government would lead a country-wide revolt against Ottawa's proposed goods and services tax,' leader Bob Rae said Thursday." I think the operative word is "lead." He would lead a country-wide revolt. "'Ontario should be leading a national revolt against the GST,' he said outside a downtown railway station. 'Ontario should be the one taking the lead in terms of fighting the GST.'" He also went on to say that he would rally the premiers of the other nine provinces to join him in making the GST the shortest-lived tax in Canadian history.
Yesterday the member for Oxford stood up and defended the position of his party and his government, saying: "We have taken a great step in this revolt. We have joined in a legal challenge." Now I suggest to members that --
Mr Sutherland: It was more of a start than you guys.
Mr Kwinter: Well, let me say that I would suggest that any fair-minded person looking at the situation would have a very difficult time trying to equate the joining of a legal challenge with the rhetoric of the then Leader of the Opposition, and now Premier, that was made on 17 August.
I want to talk briefly about the GST and the problem that we have. The GST has another parallel. When I was debating against free trade -- and I did this on a regular basis across this province and in fact in other jurisdictions -- I had a saying that I started out with at every meeting. I did a paraphrase of a statement that Winston Churchill made. At one time he had said -- my paraphrase of it and why I want to relate it to both free trade and the GST -- that never in the history of human endeavour had so little been known by so many about so much.
What is happening is that when you are out there talking to people, 80% of the people indicate that they are opposed to the GST. I say that I think that they should be. But the problem that we have is that it is another policy that had as its genesis a good idea. I think economists will look at the GST in its pure sense and say the idea of distributing tax across a broader base is a good idea.
We had a situation where the Minister of Finance stated at the time that he was going to bring this forward. It was going to make us more competitive. It was going to do all kinds of wonderful things for this country, and in his opinion, he was going to bring forward a GST of 9%. Economists across this country looked at his proposal, took a look at the 9% and said, "This is nothing but a tax grab."
As part of the selling of this particular initiative, the idea was supposed to be that this would be revenue-neutral. I am sure all members will know that at present in Canada we have a 13.5% federal sales tax that is really buried in a lot of the things that we buy. What they were proposing was to take that 13.5% out and add a 9% GST at the consumer level, but the net revenue to the government would be neutral.
Again, economists evaluated, did their calculations and said: "That is absurd. The proper number should probably be somewhere around 6%."1 should tell members that the Minister of Finance was adamant. This was the number, this was the right number and this was the number they were going to go forward with. The uprising, the uproar that accompanied that allowed the government to backtrack and it now came in with its 7% tax.
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My concern about Bill 1 is that the government has addressed one issue. That issue is the piggybacking of the provincial sales tax on to the GST. But they have not addressed a host of other issues, and there are many of them. The impact of the GST will be pervasive. I think that is the mildest term I could use. With few exceptions, a 7% tax will be imposed on all goods and services consumed in Canada. It will apply to the value added at every stage in the chain.
By the federal government's own estimates, well over one million businesses and organizations in both the private and public sector will have to account for the GST. If you compare that to the present time, when only 75,000 individuals are responsible for remitting under the federal sales tax, it is going from 75,000 to one million-plus, with all of the paraphernalia, all of the forms, all of the minutiae that go with remitting all of this. That is going to create an incredible hardship, particularly on small business individuals.
Let me just list for members the groups that are going to be impacted by this: We are going to have every individual, every partnership, every corporation, every trust, every estate, every society, every union, every club, every association, every organization or other body that is carrying on any commercial activity being required to register and to remit tax on its transactions. Despite assurances by the federal government that this would be a simple tax to administer its application is going to be very complex.
One of the things that I find has escaped most of the attention of the government -- I am talking now of the provincial government -- is that notwithstanding that the GST is supposed to be revenue-neutral, it will not be economically neutral. What is going to happen? I notice the Minister of Housing is nodding his head. He is going to find that he is going to be involved in problems because of GST.
There are three classifications of people: There are some people who do not pay tax, some people who do but, generally speaking, people who rent will not pay the GST. Most tenants breathe a sigh of relief. But what is not apparent to most people is that the landlords are not allowed to collect tax but they are not exempted from paying tax, which means every time they buy cleaning supplies or whatever it is they are buying, every time they pay services in that building, they will be subject to GST, which means the minister's proposed Bill 4, where he is allowing for expenses that are beyond the control of the landlord, will pass that through as an expense recoverable from the tenants. That is going to happen throughout our economy.
There are going to be lots of services that are provided where there is no GST but the prices are going to go up. The people are not charging the GST and as a result they do not collect it, but they will be paying it. There was no mention of this in any of the legislation that has come forward, no addressing of this by the government. There is no one looking at what is happening. The only thing that has happened is that the Treasurer's economic statement has predicted that the rate of inflation in 1992 will reach 6.1%. The Conference Board of Canada and other institutions have looked at it and they feel it may go as high as 6.3%.
What that is going to do is it is going to automatically impact on labour negotiations, because everybody who is going to be impacted by a higher rate of inflation because of his COLA clauses is going to say, "We want more." The expectations are going to be there. There is going to be an increase in economic pressure, and suddenly we have ourselves in a situation that is the direct reverse of what the intent of the federal government was, and that is to lower inflation.
So just by the GST, it is going to increase it. There is going to be a multiplier effect and, as a result, we are going to find that not only are we not going to be a real beneficiary -- and I want to hasten to say that some sectors of the economy will benefit. Exporters for sure will benefit. But, and I have said this publicly before, the government's policies, where it thinks it is doing the right thing, have really become a situation where the cure is worse than the ailment.
It is something that we collectively have got to address. It is not good enough to sit on one side or the other and say, "What did you do about it?" or, "Why haven't you done something about it?" We collectively have got to address it. We have got to get to the point where we maintain our competitive position.
I am not happy about the stories I see in the press, whether they are attributed properly or not. When I see a story in the media that Imperial Oil is saying, "We're going to leave Ontario," and when I see the irresponsible, stupid ads that are placed in the Wall Street Journal, it does not give me any comfort to say, "Those guys are stupid" and "That isn't what the guy said."
Out there, there is that message. People are looking at it. With all due respect to the Minister of Energy, she said today that she got a letter saying that was not quite what they said, but there will be very few people who will hear that. What they will see is an article in a paper that has the largest circulation in Canada that says Imperial Oil is thinking of going, and people say. "Oh, my God, we can't invest there."
Again, I am talking collectively. This is not a partisan issue. It is an issue where we have to address it without a partisan sort of leaning to it. We have to make sure that we remain competitive. If we do not remain competitive, we are going to have a serious problem.
Mr Speaker, I had planned to speak at greater length, but many of my colleagues are anxious to participate. So at that point, I will say thank you.
Mrs Sullivan: I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill l, which is being put forward by a government which says it opposes the GST and will lead a crusade against the GST, but whose very first action in relationship to the GST is to introduce a bill which provides harmonization with the GST.
That tells us that the government has accepted the goods and services tax as a fait accompli, a given, and that is frankly what this bill is about. If members accept that, we must accept their logic and move on from there, but understand that logic. We must ask how the government has championed its own people.
For instance, on the day after she was sworn in as minister, did the Minister of Revenue get on the phone with the federal Minister of National Revenue, the Honourable Otto Jelinek, and discuss this issue with him? Did she get him on the line and tell him what the needs of Ontario were in relationship to the GST? Did she request a meeting? No. Did she hound him in his constituency office? No.
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Her decision to proceed with Bill 1 is an unusual decision in comparison to the other kinds of action we have seen in that she made a decision. We have not seen many other decisions coming out of this government. But we want to know if in making that decision she spoke up for Ontarians when she was coming to her conclusions.
I would like to backtrack a little bit about the GST. It is a value added tax, we know, a tax that will apply to most goods and services sold in the country, collected at each stage as goods and services pass through the sequential stages of the production and distribution system. The federal government introduced that tax, according to Michael Wilson, to replace an unfair manufacturers sales tax, a tax that meant that our products were uncompetitive when they were being placed. through export, in international markets. The manufacturers sales tax also penalized investment and capital expansion and the purchase of capital goods by our industries.
There were alternatives to a goods and services tax. Michael Wilson chose not to accept them. Instead, he has chosen a goods and services tax which is regressive, which is arbitrary, which is mean-spirited. It is based on faulty economics. It is a tax that will cause significant inflation. It is estimated that inflation will be up 2.25% next year. It is a tax that will remove purchasing power from consumers. It is a tax that will cause serious dislocation for our small businesses and it is a tax that will harm our low-income earners in a very significant way.
Now we have Bill 1 before us, a bill that says there is no fight left because this government is going to harmonize with the GST. This bill does two things. First. it legislates a policy decision relating to the point of collection of the provincial sales tax. It says that the retail sales tax provincially will kick in on the before-tax value of a product rather than on the after-tax value of a product. That decision will cost the provincial Treasury $500 million annually starting in January, when there is no new revenue base, and going when there is no new revenue base for a full quarter of the fiscal year. That money will have to be made up somewhere else. We know that there are only three alternatives for that money to be made up: through upward adjustments in other taxation, through borrowing or through decreases in service.
The impact on the 1991 budget will be significantly higher in 1990 in fiscal planning terms. I can tell members that the Deputy Minister of Revenue was at one time budget chief in this province, and he understands these issues very, very well.
The Treasurer, the member for Nickel Belt, is a charming man, a tough man. He was a very fair committee chairman. He is going to have to make extremely tough decisions as a result of the decision made by the Minister of Revenue. I will tell the members on the backbench who did not participate in making that decision that they are going to have to go back to their communities -- to Victoria-Haliburton and to Oxford and to other places in this riding -- and they are going to have to explain to people why, because of a policy decision, there is not $500 million left in the kitty for schools, for roads and transit, for sewers, for environmental protection and for more Ontario Public Service Employees Union positions. I want to tell members that they will discover that those are the realities of political decision-making in this place.
The second part of this bill relates to the technical compliance. It does not simplify the issue, and in fact for a collector of the tax, it may well make things more difficult and more costly to administer. Those compliance costs will be significant in every sector and in every enterprise. I tell members that bookkeeping procedures will have to be adjusted first for the GST and now for the revised application of the retail sales tax.
This is a conundrum for the collector, who is an agent of the federal government and an agent of the provincial government. Federally, the concept of supply is at the root of the GST system. The amount of the tax to be paid and the eligibility for the input tax credits depends on whether the supply is taxable, zero-rated or exempt from GST provisions. Provincially, the final sale price on products is now included in the base, subject to the retail sales tax. Under this bill it will not be the final sale price; it will be the second to the final sale price.
The complications, I tell members, will be horrendous for vendors, for government and for auditors. What the government thought it was giving away, the $500 million of retail sales tax savings, in fact will be more than accounted for in the delivery costs for the people who will be collecting this tax on its behalf, and there are close to 250,000 of them in Ontario today.
I think of a bookshop that may have to look at a situation like this where books, unless they are religious, are subject to the GST but not subject to the retail sales tax; bound magazines and periodicals subject to the GST and the retail sales tax; newspapers, no GST, no RST; cards, a GST and an RST. What will happen is that for every one of those transactions there will have to be a different input, a different accounting mechanism.
I look at the corner grocery store. We all have them in our communities. We know that most of them are operated by small business people. The corner store may sell food. It may sell candy. It may sell toilet paper. It may sell a number of a broad base of products. One of the things that it will probably sell is soft drinks in refillable containers. We know that when we buy that kind of soft drink, we pay the retail sales tax when we purchase it. Under the federal laws there will be a new GST payment required, but when that bottle is returned, imagine this: The vendor can reclaim a GST notional input tax credit of 7/107 of the amount refunded to the customer. Can members imagine the headaches, the gnashing of teeth of the person who is subject to that structure? This does not affect only the retail sector and I hope the minister is very well aware of these issues.
I want to refer to another area where there is significant disruption as a result of the tumbling and paralleling of this tax. The GST is not only something that is going to affect our businesses, our industries, but it is going to be something that will have a huge impact on our municipalities and our institutions.
I would like to read a clipping from the Oakville Beaver, which is a newspaper published in my community, quoting the town treasurer, who says about the GST:
"The major concern that we have is that the municipal sector is the most complicated sector when it comes to the GST because we have more categories to deal with than does a manufacturer. Some of our services are tax exempt, some of them are taxable and some of them are taxable and rebatable. For example, the town will have to charge GST on recreational programs for children 15 and over, while programs for kids under 15 will be GST exempt. What happens if you run a program for kids from 12 to 20? Is that taxable or not taxable? Or what happens if you have two groups using the same services in the same facility at the same time? Do you charge tax and how much do you charge?"
There are all kinds of interesting little problems. Those kinds of issues that the treasurer of the town of Oakville has raised will be faced not only by municipalities, but by other institutions and by other merchants and vendors, by auditors and by governments.
On motion by Mrs Sullivan, the debate was adjourned.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon Miss Martel: Perhaps I might advise the House of the business for next week.
Next week, on Monday 10 December, we will continue with Bill 1, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act, and we will hopefully complete it. We will begin debate then on second reading of Bill 4, the Residential Rent Regulation Amendment Act.
On Tuesday 11 December, we will continue with the debate on second reading of Bill 4 and hopefully then move to the debate on second reading of Bill 17, An Act to amend the Law related to the Enforcement of Support and Custody Orders.
On Wednesday, we will continue with the debate on second reading of Bill 17 and hopefully complete it then.
On Thursday, we will have the following: government notice of motion 5, the debate on second reading of Bill 11, debate on second reading of Bill 16, debate on second reading of Bill 12 and debate on second reading of Bill 13.
The House adjourned at 1801.