Hansard Transcript 1993-May-11 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): I'd like to bring to the attention of the Legislature an incredible event that happened in my riding of Timiskaming, specifically in the town of New Liskeard, on Friday last.

The Treasurer, Floyd Laughren, was visiting our riding. It gave an opportunity for our constituents to really show their unhappiness and unease with the two massive decisions that the government made on April 23 in regard to my riding. One was the cancellation of the Ministry of Natural Resources relocation of jobs to the town of Haileybury, and the other was the closing of the New Liskeard College of Agricultural Technology in New Liskeard.

We had 4,000 people turn out to greet the Treasurer. We had tractors and farm equipment lined up all the way from Earlton, 20 miles down Highway 11, to the town of New Liskeard. In the town, the Treasurer was greeted not only with the demonstration at the college, but also we had about 3,000 people in the town itself dressed in black, in mourning costume, if you will, mourning the loss of these jobs to our economy.

If anything, this government has pulled together the people of the Tri-town areas of Haileybury, Cobalt, Dymond township and New Liskeard. We are determined not to let these cuts affect our economy. We are going to fight these decisions. The government has a right, obviously, to take a look at the budget, and has a problem there; we don't feel it's the government's right to be able to make those decisions without consulting and working with the community.

I today would ask the government to work with our community. We think we can find cheaper ways to run that college, and we'd like to see some of the jobs come to Haileybury. Our economy needs it, and we're quite willing to work with this government to make this happen and build a better economy in the riding of Timiskaming.

STUDENTS' ACHIEVEMENT

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): I rise today to congratulate a group of grade 7 students from the Cummer Valley Middle School. These students recently became national champions in mathematics.

The team of Roger Hong, Manfred Lau, Simon Law and Daniel Jacobs were first overall among 605 schools in the Canadian National Mathematics League competition.

In addition, Cummer Valley's grade 8 team of Vincent Yeung, Colin Huang, Savvas Panagiotakakos, Miriam Hamburg, Alex Blasko and Franklin Sham earned second in Ontario and sixth in Canada among 566 schools.

Individually in the contest, Vincent Yeung was fourth in the province of Ontario and 16th nationally, while Colin Huang was eighth in Ontario.

I would like to take this opportunity as the representative for the riding of Willowdale to congratulate the students and teachers of Cummer Valley Middle School for their outstanding performance at the competition.

The math skills that these students are learning will provide them with the opportunity to advance academically while allowing them to compete for the jobs of the future. The importance of mathematics cannot be underestimated in today's increasingly specialized and technical job market.

I'm proud to take this opportunity to congratulate the students of Cummer Valley Middle School for the excellence they demonstrated at the national mathematics championship and to say that in Willowdale our students can compete.

HIGHWAY ACCIDENT

Mr Noel Duignan (Halton North): Road collisions are the leading killer of young people aged 16 to 24 in Ontario. In 1991, more than 1,100 people died and 90,000 were injured in road collisions. Early Sunday morning, eight more young people were added to those figures in a fiery crash in Caledon just outside my riding of Halton North. Every car accident like this represents futures that have been stolen from our neighbours across this province, like the futures of the eight young people who died in that crash in Caledon.

We have to start recognizing that driving is a tremendously dangerous activity and that driving is not a right but is a privilege.

With this in mind, I hope that all members of the House will support the quick passage of the proposed graduated licensing system, which will help reduce the amount of serious and often fatal car accidents on our roads that take so much away from our province's wellbeing. This legislation will require new drivers to gradually earn driving privileges by successfully completing tests at the end of each of the first two years of driving.

In the first year that similar legislation was introduced in New Zealand, fatal collisions in that age group declined by 13% in the first year alone. That's 13% more young adults who can celebrate their futures and 13% less tragedies for our neighbours, and that's the kind of effect that's worth supporting.

I believe that with the graduated licensing system, we'll help to reduce such accidents like the one that happened in Caledon last weekend.

SHELTERED WORKSHOPS

Mrs Yvonne O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau): The Minister of Community and Social Services has today made an important announcement of government policy, but once again, he chose to make this announcement outside of the Legislature and just to the press.

I am, however, happy that the minister has decided to take the advice of countless families and care givers and our Liberal caucus and cancel at least part of the $5-million cutback to sheltered workshops. The minister announced today that $1.5 million will be saved.

May I take this opportunity to congratulate the many concerned people who have made effective interventions to my office and I'm sure to the minister's office on behalf of developmentally delayed individuals, whose lives are profoundly affected by government's unfulfilled promises and this government's lack of direction.

Today's announcement, as usual, leaves more questions than answers, but I ask the minister now to share with us his studies and evaluation of the supported employment programs announced in last year's budget and to be reinforced in this year's budget. I trust that the working group announced today will be given all necessary resources to, without undue delay, engage parents, consumers and local agencies and, as the minister challenges, determine a real meaning for non-vocational, community-based support alternatives.

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): My statement concerns St Ann's Separate School in Penetanguishene, which is the only school in all of Simcoe county to be recognized as a green school under the federally sponsored Society, Environment and Energy Development Studies program.

I want to thank principal Tim O'Halloren and vice-principal Bob Doucette, who decided to have St Ann's participate in the SEEDS program.

SEEDS involves children from junior kindergarten to grade 8 completing projects and activities that either communicate about the environment or enhance it directly. After completing an overwhelming 100 projects, St Ann's was officially designated a green school, the first of its kind in Simcoe county, I might add.

It was both exciting and informative to watch as teachers and pupils participated in skits that promoted the greening of Ontario. They also designed a beautiful mural featuring Waldo the raccoon, which will be on display in the school for years to come.

I was impressed with the attitudes and achievements of both the teachers and pupils of St Ann's, who clearly recognize that there is an important role for each and every one of us to play in the protection and preservation of our environment. I was really pleased to be part of the SEEDS celebration on May 7, 1993, at St Ann's Separate School in Penetanguishene which recognized the first green school in Simcoe county. It may be the first, but I expect it won't be the last. Congratulations.

1340

SANDBANKS PROVINCIAL PARK

Mr Paul R. Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings): This year is the 100th anniversary of the provincial parks system in the province of Ontario, and I believe that every provincial park in the province -- in fact it's true -- is represented by at least one member of this Legislature.

When we think of provincial parks, we often think of that very famous provincial park in the province of Ontario, Algonquin Provincial Park. But I want to tell you about a provincial park in my riding. Indeed, in Prince Edward county there's a provincial park called the Sandbanks Provincial Park. I want to tell you, it's about 35 years old. It may be a new member to the provincial park system, but an outstanding park nevertheless. It represents two of the finest baymouth sand-dune bars in the province of Ontario, and indeed it is very close to where I grew up.

I want to say that it previously was called the Outlet Provincial Park and now it's called the Sandbanks Provincial Park, represented by the east lake sector and the west lake sector, and it provides some spectacular scenery. The west lake sector has sand-dunes that stand 30 to 40 metres tall and are very attractive to all those who come and see them. The east lake sector has one of the finest beaches in the province of Ontario, about a mile wide, and maybe not as deep this year because the water level in Lake Ontario is quite high, but certainly a safe place for children to play.

So I invite all the people in the province of Ontario: Come on down to Prince Edward county and visit Sandbanks Provincial Park.

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): I want to draw the attention of this House to the serious job crisis facing our youth. The unemployment rate for 15- to 24-year-olds is 17% and in some regions reaches as high as 20%. Right now, more than 140,000 young people are out of work in this province. We can't afford to let these grim statistics and these difficult realities continue to go unchallenged.

The Premier's response to the crisis of youth unemployment has been totally inadequate. The $1-billion Jobs Ontario Training program is not working effectively: 55,000 people have applied for the program and only some 7,500 have had success in getting jobs. That simply isn't good enough.

My leader and this caucus believe that government can and should intervene to help create jobs for youth, and that's why we have developed a plan that will assist young people in reaching their goals. The Liberal plan would immediately help a total of 69,000 young people, 18,000 more than under current government programs, and many more over the longer term. The measures would cost $183 million, paid for with funds from existing programs, not through tax increases.

The Liberal Jobs for Youth program builds on successful existing programs and introduces some new ideas, making it both workable and fiscally responsible. The proposals in our Jobs for Youth initiatives follow a commonsense and practical approach to addressing the urgent needs of young people who can't find work. I commend this program to you, Mr Speaker, and to the government.

NURSES WEEK

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I invite all members of the Legislature to join with me in recognizing Nurses Week, which runs from May 9 to 15 in Ontario. The theme for the week is appropriately titled Nurses: A Dynamic Force in Quality Care. Nurses Week provides all of us with the opportunity to reflect upon and celebrate the vast contributions made by nurses to Ontario's health care system.

Nurses are the largest group of professionals in our health care system. As front-line workers and gatekeepers to the system, they have played a critical role in helping to ease the transition to a restructured health care system. Through their professionalism, devotion and commitment, nurses have helped to soften the impact of the government's slash-and-burn health care agenda.

Nurses Week is an important instrument in helping to raise public awareness to the vital role played by nurses in support of our health care system. The cutbacks in our system, where 2,000 nurses have been laid off in the past year, have meant more work and more responsibilities for nurses.

Nurses continue to provide leadership in meeting new challenges and in continuously improving the quality of care they provide to the people of Ontario. The strength of our health care system is a function of Ontario having capable and talented nurses throughout the province.

Nurses are quite often the forgotten jewel in our health care system. I'd like to extend my appreciation to all nurses in Ontario, because without their tireless contribution, there would not be quality care in Ontario.

SPRUCE FALLS MILL

Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): I'd like to provide the House with an update on the progress of the Spruce Falls mill in Kapuskasing. Most of us know that the mill, formerly owned by the Kimberly-Clark corporation and the New York Times, was acquired by its employees and area residents in partnership with Tembec in December 1991. Spruce Falls Inc produces quality newsprint and publishing paper grades for the newspaper and commercial publishing industry.

The positive results of Spruce Falls Acquisition Corp in its first fiscal year of operation represent an extraordinary accomplishment. The company has generated modest earnings of $6.6 million year-to-date during a period when newsprint transaction prices dropped to record lows and competitors incurred significant losses. These results are due in large part to the reorganization and streamlining of its operations, along with an enormous amount of support from the employees and area residents.

In order to meet the company objectives, a new thermomechanical pulp plant will begin production in July of this year. The new $116-million state-of-the-art TMP plant will produce 500 metric tonnes per day of high-quality, high-yield pulp with 50% less wood fibre. It also replaces the existing rossing-debarking operation, a groundwood mill and a magnefite plant, which closed last week.

The closure, as part of the original business plan initiated by new owners in 1991, did not come as a surprise to them. In fact, they are already entering a phase of development which includes plans for a chip-stud mill to be fully constructed by early 1994, creating an estimated 75 jobs.

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON ELECTION FINANCES

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I beg to inform the House that today I have tabled a supplement to the 16th report of the Commission on Election Finances containing recommendations concerning the indemnities and allowances of the members of the Legislative Assembly.

RESIGNATION

Mr John Sola (Mississauga East): Mr Speaker, I rise today on a point of personal privilege to offer my resignation to the leader of the official opposition and the leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario. It is my intention to continue to work for my constituents as an independent member.

I have been a member of this Legislature for five and a half years. During that time, I have endeavoured to represent the interests of my constituents to the utmost of my ability. I have always been an ardent defender of human rights for all peoples. I have spoken on many occasions condemning violations of human rights perpetrated against Lithuanians, Latvians, Chinese, Estonians, Romanians, Hungarians and numerous others.

As a Canadian of Croatian descent, I have been deeply affected by the destruction and unspeakable horrors that have been and are being inflicted upon the peoples of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and other areas of the former Yugoslavia. I have and I will continue to speak out against those atrocities, notwithstanding that my warnings have gone unheeded and my efforts have been largely ridiculed. The defence of human rights should have no political or national boundaries, and it is our duty as members of the human race to speak out against abuses no matter where they occur.

On March 11, 1993, at a forum held at York University dealing with atrocities being committed against women in Bosnia, I strongly condemned the perpetrators of these atrocities as well as any individuals or groups supporting or condoning them.

It was never my intention to generalize or cast aspersions on any particular group. I would like to apologize to all Canadians, particularly Canadians of Serbian heritage, who respect human rights and who have been in any way offended by my remarks. As Canadians, we are of course constantly striving to ensure that our society is harmonious and that all feel equal and accepted. I have enjoyed these privileges as a Canadian over the last 41 years and will work to ensure that all Canadians are guaranteed equality and security for themselves and their children.

1350

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY PRESS GALLERY

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): Mr Speaker, perhaps I might rise on a point of order, although I see many of them are absent, to point out to you that elections in the press gallery were held today. I'm sure you would like to know, as all members would like to know, that Richard Brennan from the Windsor Star was elected president for the third consecutive year; Guy LePage, CKCO-TV in Kitchener, vice-president for electronic media; Emilia Casella, Hamilton Spectator, vice-president for print media; Betsy Powell, Canadian Press, secretary; Randy Rath, CHCH-TV in Hamilton, treasurer.

I'd point out, and I'm sure they would like this to happen to some of us and not others, that all received an acclamation. Congratulations to them from, I'm sure, everyone in this House.

The Speaker: The member will be surprised to learn that he does not have a point of order. However, it is a point of great interest to all of the members.

ORAL QUESTIONS

INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY

Mr Monte Kwinter (Wilson Heights): My question is to the Minister of Economic Development and Trade. Minister, exactly one year ago today -- well, it's actually a year ago tomorrow -- to great fanfare, the former industry minister unveiled the government's industrial strategy. Included was a three-year, $150-million sector partnership fund to help sectors compete internationally. When your government unveiled its expenditure control package last month, however, this fund was put on hold for this year and has now become spread over a five-year program.

So far the government has not spent any of the sectoral partnership money and will not spend any this year, yet -- and I think you and I both agree -- this is the very time when industry needs this money to help with its restructuring. A key part of the government's industrial program has been effectively disabled during this critical time when it is most needed.

Minister, you have announced the closing of all of our foreign trade offices. You've put on hold for this year the sector partnership fund to help sectors compete internationally. Could you tell us what use an industrial strategy is that has one of its key elements non-functioning?

Hon Frances Lankin (Minister of Economic Development and Trade): I think the member raises a good question, but it provides me with an opportunity to clarify some of the issues that he raised and to, I think, correct the record on a couple of points.

First of all, he is correct to say that the sector partnership fund will be spent over a five-year period instead of a three-year period. In fact, in our discussions with the players from various sectors and in the work plans that we've been developing with them, it has become clear to us, and also with their agreement and in many cases their insistence, that they recognize that this assistance will be better over the long term and that some of the work plans involve long-term development, and a five-year period is an appropriate period. So it does accomplish two things.

I will not deny to him that it does help us in a cash-flow situation, but the money will still be spent. As the budget and estimates come forward, you'll see that there is money earmarked for spending this year. The first of the sectoral plans came forward in the area of telecommunications. We are working with a number of other sectors. I'm in the process of taking those through approval right now for their initial work plans, and I will in the very near future be in a position to tell the member and others the details of those.

Mr Kwinter: My information is that in the telecommunications sector it's going ahead, but that it's going ahead with their money and not with any government money.

But let's take a look at another plank in the government's much-touted industrial strategy, and that is the one-stop investment centre which was to give potential investors access to all kinds of information about government programs and Ontario's business opportunities. The then industry minister promised to have this investment resource up and running by last fall. Now the ministry is promising to have these centres open some time next year. Much like the sectoral partnership fund, the one-stop investor shopping centre is stalled at the very time when new investors could be looking to Ontario for investment opportunities.

Why is it taking so long to set up the one-stop investor information service, or is the ministry so busy looking for places to cut spending that it never got around to even setting this service up?

Hon Ms Lankin: First of all, referring to the lead-in to the member's question with respect to the telecommunications strategy, I should point out to him that the technology networks funds that are being sponsored are government funds and that there is in fact a commitment of government dollars to that. As well, the process of developing that was supported through the government.

There is a council that's being established and there are government moneys that will support that. As well, part of the strategy is a commitment to government as a model user, which will involve investment in terms of our own capital dollars in equipment, software and processes within the government.

I understand the point he's making. I think he's wrong on some of the facts. We will be continuing to roll out information under the sector partnership fund. I think that it is something that will be moving on very shortly, and that he will be impressed with the results.

With respect to the Ontario investment, what was originally called a centre now is referred to as an Ontario investment service, and for a very good reason. We brought together a group of stakeholder advisers to work with us in terms of the development of this, as well as working with the investment subcommittee of the Premier's Council. In discussions with them, they had very clear input and advice into how these services could best be organized. They view it more as a service and what we can provide through services, as opposed to a bricks-and-mortar centre.

We've redesigned the program with the input of the private sector and the financial community. It's quite exciting. Again, we believe that with that advisory group that's put in place, we will have this operational within the next year. We are in the process right now of working with municipalities and others to bring together the databases and to release the request for proposal for the establishment of the systems that will provide the information to potential investors.

Mr Kwinter: Minister, it would have seemed to me that the way to have gone about it would have been to have designed the program before you announced it, not announce a program and then start designing it and then have to make the adjustments. What you have done is you've set up expectations you can't deliver. It really puts the whole program in a bad light.

This is a delicate time in Ontario's economic recovery. The indications are that the province could start growing again, but we still see job losses and companies leaving Ontario for more friendly climes in the United States. Last May's industrial strategy was supposed to improve the environment for companies looking to expand and invest in Ontario.

So far nothing concrete has happened. Not one industry has tapped into the sectoral fund, a program which the government has now decided not to fund for this year, and the one-stop investment information service will be more than 18 months behind schedule when it is finally up and running. The government's industrial strategy has turned out to be nothing more than words on paper, with no concrete action to help companies and improve the investment climate in Ontario.

Does the failure to set up these two key elements of an industrial strategy mean that the government has jettisoned the goals of business and totally turned its back on them, solely for the reason of dealing with the deficit?

Hon Ms Lankin: I have to come back and both correct the member and ask that he listen to the answers and incorporate them in his next questions. Quite frankly, his question shows a lack of understanding of the industrial policy and the sectoral partnership and where we're headed.

There never, ever was any commitment for individual firm-specific assistance under the sectoral partnership fund. In fact, the whole premise of the sectoral partnership fund is to move away from firm-specific assistance and to look at how we work within a sector to develop pre-competitive cooperative actions around R&D and around a number of other sorts of things.

The progress we've made there in a very difficult area, of bringing together firms with labour in a sector that does not have a history of being cooperative, that does not have a history of working together, to try and identify what the state of the sector is and what areas could be addressed in a cooperative way that could bring up the competitive advantage of that sector, that could lead them to being export-ready and internationally ready, that process has been very successful. Again, I tell the member to wait just a few days and he will get the information on that.

Just a last comment: With respect to the investment services program, I can tell you that it is not a program that has fallen into any kind of disrepute. The private sector working with us is very supportive of the concept and there is a lot of energy and excitement in it. I would invite the member to speak directly to the people who've been involved in helping us design it.

1400

TRANSFER PAYMENTS TO MUNICIPALITIES

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): My question would ideally have been to the Premier, but I gather he's --

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): He's on a talk show.

Mr Phillips: He's on a talk show, as someone said. In the absence of that, I'll direct my question to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. It has to do with the management of the expenditure control plan. I think the minister will understand that municipalities in the province have truly been thrown into turmoil; "chaos" may be too strong a word, but certainly turmoil.

It was five months ago, Minister, that the government announced specifically to the municipalities the money that they would have to manage their affairs in 1993. They've been working, I think it's fair to say, very hard to bring their budgets in, in many cases, with no tax increases. In many cases, they have done an extremely good job. Yet here we are, and these municipalities, Minister, as you know, are more than a third of the way through the year; their budgets are set. In many cases, their tax rolls have gone out, and they find that they see a 10% reduction in the promised transfer payments from the province.

My question to you is this: What happened between the time you made the announcement, which was only five months ago, and now that would lead you to say to those partners that they will be getting 10% less from the province, and do you agree that you have indeed thrown them into turmoil?

Hon Ed Philip (Minister of Municipal Affairs): I don't agree that we've thrown them into turmoil. I recognize that some municipalities have concerns about this. I met in Hawkesbury last week with the smaller municipalities. I also met with the northern municipalities the week before. I think that one of the things that is fairly clear to them when you talk to them on an individual basis, one by one, is that they recognize that there's a major problem that we all have to share a responsibility for and share in the solution to.

In fact, Joe Mavrinac, the president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, has pointed out, and I think it's correct, that it's important that the government not make across-the-board reductions, that there are differences in municipalities. We've given the assurance that we will be releasing, hopefully this week, the figures as to exactly how each municipality will be affected by the unconditional grants.

Mr Phillips: The municipalities, everybody in the province knows you've got a problem. That's no secret to anyone. It is how you manage the problem that's at issue here. It was just five months ago that you gave a solemn undertaking: Here would be your transfer payments. They know the problem. They're trying to deal with the problem.

Minister, knowing that you are now going to reduce the transfer payments by 10%, and when the social contract negotiations are complete I gather that it is your intention to take another $285 million from municipalities, representing, I gather, a pullback, a drawback on their transfer payments in the range of 40% -- as I say, they understand the problem. In fact, they have been spending the last four months wrestling with the problem, Minister; nothing new to them. My question to you is this: Do you share the mayors' concerns about this midyear reduction in their transfer payments, and will you undertake to set the meeting up between the Premier and the mayors this week, before the final decisions are made on the budget, so that there can be some consideration of their concerns as the budget is finalized?

Hon Mr Philip: The honourable member is not correct in most of what he said. In fact, the $285 million is not coming directly out of them. The successful outcome of the social contract negotiation means that all the impacts of that process should be fiscally neutral. He understands that.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Oh, give me a break.

Hon Mr Philip: The member for York West keeps interjecting and trying to talk over our voices. As usual, he doesn't make any sense. He didn't make any sense as the municipal councillor.

Interjection: Etobicoke West.

Hon Mr Philip: Etobicoke West, I should say. The fact is, and I will try to answer the member because I think he asked a good question and has provided me with an opportunity to answer, that any reductions in the provincial transfers through the social contract should be offset by similar reductions in the municipal compensation costs. So in fact, that $285 million, assuming that the social contract talks are successful, and we understand that they are progressing well at the moment, will in fact be fiscally neutral.

Mr Phillips: Frankly, I do understand the numbers and I understand the problem the municipalities are facing. I will say to you, you've put them into a very tough spot. There's none of them that would disagree with the need for restraint; I'll say that again. But here they are, they are four months, almost five months into the year, they have spent that money; it's gone. Now they've got eight months left in which to find that money that you are taking away from them. So they understand the problem far better, I think, than you do, Minister.

The Premier has said on several occasions that you are going to build into the budget -- it's a fait accompli, I gather -- a $2.4-billion expenditure reduction program and the $2 billion from the social contract. That's a fait accompli.

My question to you is this. The mayors want to meet before the budget in order to have some influence on that final decision. They believe they face a significant crisis. I think they should have an opportunity to persuade you one way or the other on that. Will you firstly guarantee that that meeting with the Premier will be arranged before the budget is announced, and will you undertake to let the House know and to let the mayors know what you are prepared to look at in terms of helping them work their way through a very tough situation as they try to deal with restraint midway through their fiscal year?

Hon Mr Philip: The municipalities are part of the social contract. They're at the table, they are presenting their ideas, they are part of the process. Unlike other governments across this country that have simply slashed, we are actually consulting with the various stakeholders. The municipalities are there at the table. They have every opportunity to present their views, and indeed if they wish to meet with the Premier, then I'm sure that the Premier would consider that, as would Michael Decter. They are meeting with various people and obtaining input from various people. But the municipalities are at that table; they're part of the process, so I don't know what the honourable member is saying, that somehow they're not being consulted. They're right there, part of the consultation process.

TAXATION

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): We're one week before a budget. We have no Treasurer here. We are in the middle of social contract talks. We have no Premier. We have no Deputy Premier.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): To whom is your question addressed?

Mr Harris: I would ask then for your permission and unanimous consent of the House, since the Premier is in Windsor on open line right now on the Wayne McLean show, and I have talked -- my office -- with Wayne McLean and he is agreeable, if we could phone the Premier on the Wayne McLean show, place our question to the Premier so that all of Ontario --

The Speaker: Would the member take his seat. The honourable leader of the third party may have missed the admonition to this House just a few days ago about the use of electronic equipment in the chamber, notwithstanding his request to speak directly with the Premier. The rules, however, permit the member to address a question to any minister who is present in the chamber.

Mr Harris: I wonder, could I have unanimous consent to talk directly to the Premier on the Wayne McLean show and place my question that way?

The Speaker: I'm sorry, no. No, I won't allow the question to be placed, because we do not permit the use of cell phones in the chamber. But the member is invited to place a question to one of the ministers who are present.

Mr Harris: I'm sorry they won't give me unanimous consent. It would have been good for the show. It would have been good for the people of Ontario too, Wayne, and I apologize that we cannot talk to the Premier directly.

I then will place my question to the deputy Deputy Premier for the day, as we were told, the deputy Deputy Premier for the day; so that's whom my question is to.

Yesterday the public sector unions said they would return to the bargaining table. The reason is because they were encouraged by a letter from the Premier. The Premier said in that letter, Madam Deputy Deputy Leader for the Day: "In this spirit, I welcome your proposals. Your proposals on taxes and revenue have been referred to the Minister of Finance for consideration in his budget preparation."

Minister, the unions have called for a wealth tax. Given the Premier's letter, it would appear that in fact a wealth tax may well be the price of your social contract discussions. I would ask if you would confirm for me today, Madam Minister, as the Finance minister said on March 6, that there will be no wealth tax in the upcoming budget.

1410

Hon Frances Lankin (Minister of Economic Development and Trade): Questions of this sort have been asked many times in the Legislature. The Premier and the Minister of Finance, on all occasions, have indicated that taxes will not form part of the negotiations at the social contract table. That remains the case and that in fact is the direct response from the Premier, both at the meeting that he held with the unions and the social contract coalition and in the letter directly.

Ideas for taxation from all sectors of society have been welcomed by the Minister of Finance. I know that I have met with numerous groups and have passed on their comments to the Minister of Finance. He's met directly with a large number of groups and has considered proposals from the business community, from boards of trade, from unions, from others.

There is nothing out of line with what has been suggested. Those proposals have gone forward to the Minister of Finance -- the actual nature of taxes and the specific taxes the leader knows well that I will not comment on in question period here -- and will form part of the Minister of Finance's report to the Legislature when he presents his budget next week.

Mr Harris: By way of supplementary to the minister, this is a minister who should be responsible and should be promoting and encouraging the upsizing of the private sector, particularly at a time when others are proposing the downsizing of the public sector.

The private sector has told you very clearly -- those who still have a nickel left -- that that is the money that, if it invests it in Ontario, will create the jobs we need in Ontario. You, as minister responsible for the private sector, for economic development, should be fighting tooth and nail to make sure that no more of those dollars are taken away from the job creators.

I would ask you, Madam Minister, to confirm this: The Treasurer said there will be no wealth tax in the upcoming budget. I would ask if you agree with Michael Harcourt, who said there'll be no wealth taxes in British Columbia. "We want that money to stay in British Columbia to create jobs in British Columbia." I want to know if the minister agrees with that. If you do, will you assure us that you will fight tooth and nail to make sure that there is no new wealth tax in the upcoming budget?

Hon Ms Lankin: I want to draw the member's, I guess, attention back to the original reason why we've embarked upon this balanced approach to the setting of the budget this time. We've said clearly that we believe, in order to have a climate for economic investment, in order to bring about the possibilities of economic growth, in order to be prepared to build on the beginning of the return and the recovery, that we need to do something about the government's fiscal situation and that the budget needs to deal with bringing the deficit under control. We've said we wanted to approach that in a way that allowed us the latitude to maintain investment in our infrastructure and in critical programs to support growth in the economy and a climate for economic investment.

With respect to the package that we have been developing for the budget, we've looked very clearly at a balanced approach which tries to have a fair contribution from all Ontarians. That includes looking at expenditure reductions. It includes the social contract negotiations and it includes taxation.

I've met with a number of groups that have raised their concerns around any kind of taxation. Those views I have reflected to the Treasurer. The actual composition of any tax decisions will be made by the Treasurer --

The Speaker: Would the minister conclude her response, please.

Hon Ms Lankin: -- and set out in the budget, Mr Speaker. I will not today in the Legislature answer direct questions on that.

Mr Harris: By way of final supplementary to the minister: Your own committee -- what did we call it? The Fair Tax Commission? Right. It studied wealth taxes and indicated potential negative economic impacts, such as reduced investment in Ontario, discouragement for private savings, the possibility that people might simply move themselves or their money to other provinces to avoid the taxes.

I would ask the minister if she agrees with that assessment, if she agrees with Michael Harcourt. Does she have some study in her ministry that suggests that wealth taxes will somehow encourage investment in Ontario, contrary to all the laws of economics and of taxation policies? If she does, will she table that? If not, will she confirm for us today -- and you would understand the concern, Minister, because the unions said, "We're not coming to the table unless you look at our tax proposals," and the Premier wrote them a letter back: "Thank you. We like your tax proposals. I'm giving them to the Treasurer."

So there is great fear and great concern out there. I would ask you again, Madam Minister, can you assure us that in your desperation to appease the unions, there will not be new wealth taxes in the upcoming budget?

Hon Ms Lankin: The member opposite continues to ask a question that he knows well I will not answer at this point in time. The Treasurer, the Minister of Finance, will be coming forward with a budget next week. He will get his answer about specific tax moves at that point in time, when that comes forward.

I want to clarify one point on the record, which is to ensure that the people listening know what the Premier actually said in his response to the unions. He said, "Your proposals on taxes and revenue have been referred to the Minister of Finance for consideration in his budget preparation" -- what has been done to all other proposals: they've all been referred to the Minister of Finance.

The government shares your determination to make the tax system more equitable, and the work of the Fair Tax Commission will be helpful in that regard. May I say to the member that he must also look not just at the impact of taxation -- and any tax moves we make, and there will be some, we hope will be a very fair and equitable package -- but also at what the impact would be of not taking action: an increased deficit with the resultant increase in public debt interest, much of which would be paid to offshore capital markets, and what that would do to our economy in terms of taking money out of the Ontario economy. We have a balanced approach and we think it's the right one.

LABOUR RELATIONS

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): In the absence of the Premier and in the absence of the Deputy Premier, who I'm told is in his office just across the street -- he doesn't want to come and represent the Premier while the Premier is in Windsor -- I will address my second question to the deputy Deputy Premier for the day.

The Premier has been very clear that he needs $2 billion from the payroll of the public sector. Never mind the tax part of the agenda, never mind the cutbacks in spending, he's been very clear that there will be $2 billion less in total payroll costs in the public sector this year over last year. He said that figure is not negotiable, that's what it's going to be: not negotiable.

However, as we saw in their proposal last Friday, the unions seem to be talking about everything else under the sun except actual payroll cuts. They've said: "You can cut here. You can cut there. Hike taxes. Do this. Do that."

We were led to believe that this process was different from any other -- and quite frankly, I supported it on that basis -- that you're going to cut $2 billion in payroll costs, but that instead of doing it unilaterally, just 5% across the board or imposing it, you would invite the unions to discuss how the 5% could be cut.

Can you tell me this, Madam Minister: As far as you're concerned, is it still your intention to live up to the ironclad commitment that the $2 billion is not negotiable and, if so, can you explain to me why, while the unions are present, not one word of the negotiations has been about how to cut back their wages?

Hon Frances Lankin (Minister of Economic Development and Trade): I would suggest to the member that this is a very different process and that if he supported it for that reason, he will support the fact that what's different about is that we said we would go to the table and listen to what people had to say. He seems to suggest that we should have a unilateral approach, even though we're doing it differently and not really having a unilateral approach.

I would point out to the leader of the third party that within the government's proposals to the social contract table, we very clearly talked about things like the tripartite task force that would have terms of reference that would look at a review of measures to improve effectiveness, efficiency, equality and affordability of the public sector service delivery in Ontario; a review of procurement; contracting of activities; a review of senior management numbers and compensation; delayering.

Some of the proposals that the unions have placed on the table are very similar to that. So we indicated by our own proposals that there were a range of things that we would be willing to look at within the $2-billion number that had been set.

In direct response to the member's question around the $2 billion, the Minister of Finance has been very clear, and the government is very clear, that this will form part of our approach on the three-legged stool, as the Minister of Finance has referred to it.

Mr Harris: Minister, when you asked the unions for a proposal on how to cut $2 billion from their payroll, they sent back suggestions on how to further cut the private sector. They sent back suggestions on, "Here's some taxes you can increase." They said if you'd had whistle-blowing legislation, they could find, I don't know, another billion dollars or two. They had lots of ideas for you, but none on how they would cut one cent from the total wage package they have.

1420

Minister, during your government's first two years in power, inflation increased a total of 6%, yet, for example, OPSEU's overall wage bill for the same two years increased 19.5%. So, Madam Minister, even if the public sector employees take an overall 5% cut in the third year, they will still be far better off during your term in office, where payroll costs have gone up have gone up far in excess of the rate of inflation for that same three-year period; far better off, I think you would agree with me, than the private sector, which, according to your Premier, is in the middle of the toughest recession it's been in since, I don't know, the Boer War, to hear him talk some days.

Madam Minister, given that what you've called for is a 5% cut to bring them down to a level well in excess of the rate of inflation during your three-year term, can you explain to me why it is that the union leaders don't even want to have one word of discussion on how to achieve that? Instead, all they want to do is talk about tax hikes: "Somebody else cut back, not us." Can you explain that?

Hon Ms Lankin: I would think that the leader of the third party should direct that question to the parties whose thinking he wants to know on that and not to me, as a minister of the crown. I can tell him what our thinking is. We've put forward a proposal; we've asked people to engage in discussions about our ideas and their ideas. Our proposal was much broader than just compensation, although that certainly formed part of it. We talked about openness and accountability, restructuring work, reskilling workers, partnership for Ontario capital investments, reform of the framework for collective bargaining.

In their response, they talk about reform of collective bargaining, they talk about workplace democracy, accountability. There's a lot in common between the two proposals, and the Premier, in his letter to the public sector coalition, I think has indicated that there is value in starting the discussions in earnest, and if we can start with where we agree, perhaps that will start moving us down the road to deal with some of the more difficult issues: those where we don't yet agree.

Mr Harris: By way of final supplementary to the deputy Deputy Premier for the day and also to the minister who I believe was responsible for negotiating that first contract that went up some 15% or so, yesterday the Finance minister said, "We will insist upon achieving $2 billion at the social contract table." The Premier has said that part is non-negotiable. We know there are other discussions; we know there are taxes now on the table and everything, that they weren't going to be. But they've been very clear, the Premier and the Deputy Premier, about saying there will be $2 billion in cuts in the total payroll cost to bring the public sector to still some 5% or 6% ahead of inflation over the time of your government: not bad, when you look at the private sector.

I would ask you this, Minister: Are you, as the deputy Deputy Premier for the day, prepared, on behalf of all the companies out there, all the workers who are looking for jobs, to insist that this $2 billion in savings will come out of these social contract talks, and if not, are you prepared to legislate it?

Hon Ms Lankin: Again, the leader of the third party has asked this question on a number of occasions, and the answer he gets from me, whether I am in this position for the day or whether I'm here for longer if the Treasurer and the Premier aren't here, will be the same as he's heard from the Treasurer and the Premier. We don't go to the table putting a gun to people's heads. We have committed ourselves to the $2 billion. That will be reflected in the budget and ministries' estimates. There are a number of ways to achieve that, and the member knows well that one way might be to simply reduce further the transfer payments to reflect that amount.

I want to touch on one point that the member has raised in his last two supplementary questions, because I would hope that he would find this helpful. We wouldn't want to inadvertently mislead the viewing public. That is with respect to this issue of the 15% increase in the civil service, and how even with 5%, they're still doing well. It gives the impression of individual civil servants having an increase of that amount, and he compares it to the private sector, which rates actually talk about individual wage increases.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the minister conclude her response, please.

Hon Ms Lankin: Yes, I will. That amount he refers to includes increases in programs where new staff have been hired.

The Speaker: Would the minister please conclude her response?

Hon Ms Lankin: It is not an annual wage increase. It is very, very unfortunate that he continues to use that number in a way that could inadvertently mislead the public.

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): In the absence of the Premier, to whom I wanted to direct this question, I guess I'll direct it to the Chair of Management Board.

At a time in the province of Ontario when developmentally delayed children are being denied the kind of assistance they require at home because of budget cuts, at a time in our province when people are having to line up on stretchers in the hallways of hospitals until there are beds available to them, and at a time in our province when senior citizens are being forced to dip into their meagre savings to be able to pay for drugs that are, in some cases, prolonging and saving their lives, could the minister tell us what possible justification he could present to this House for the millions upon millions of dollars that his government is squandering on self-serving political advertising?

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet): On the matters the member refers to in his preamble that dealt with, I think, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health, I'll ensure that my colleagues take note of your comments and perhaps deal directly with you at some point.

In terms of the specific question that ended off that lengthy preamble, the advertising which this government does is no different from the advertising done by any other government in this country or, for that matter, in many others. The vast majority of that advertising is to make the people of this province aware of government programs, changes in government programs like the rent review legislation in this province, so that they in fact have appropriate access to the things that government provides and delivers to them.

Mr Bradley: The government of Ontario has squandered about $1.5 million on advertising for Jobs Ontario instead of putting those additional funds into jobs themselves. Your government has spent $1.7 million on blatantly political advertising over the issue of rent control that any objective observer would see as simply self-promoting for the government. You're spending money on posters and new advertising for the support and custody office at a time when the support and custody office itself needs the necessary staff to carry out its roles and responsibility.

So I ask the minister, in light of the squandering of this money in these very difficult restraint-filled economic times, would you now abandon this self-serving, politically generated advertising and return that money to needed services for people in this province?

Hon Mr Charlton: I've never, I don't think in my entire life, heard such a ridiculous set of conclusions out of a number of findings that the member has made.

Last fall, I can recall being in this House when members across the way were raising questions about the Jobs Ontario Training fund and the fact that at that time there were only a few hundred people who had been placed in employment as a result of that program. We have now started to promote the program and to date we have created over 23,000 new job positions in this province and put in jobs, aside from interview processes, some 10,000 people who are now actively working as a result of that program.

That advertising program that the member across the way refers to is helping the people of this province move into employment, off of unemployment rolls, off of welfare in this province, and providing a significant boost to the economic recovery.

LEGAL SERVICES

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): My question is to the Attorney General. Attorney General, I understand you've been meeting with various interest groups and advocating the imposition of provincial sales tax on legal services. Is that correct?

Hon Marion Boyd (Attorney General): I have certainly discussed with a number of concerned groups the proposals that have come forward from a number of different quarters around the imposition of provincial sales tax. As the member is well aware, the Treasurer is the person who is responsible for tax decisions, and one of the issues that I certainly have taken up in pre-budget consultation has been some of the suggestions that have come forward from various parts of the community around that, as I believe have come up around other professional fees as a means of revenue-raising.

1430

Mr Harnick: Attorney General, if the Treasurer imposes the provincial sales tax on legal services, what will be the effect on people's access to justice?

Hon Mrs Boyd: It would certainly be my concern, as I think it would be the member's, that particularly those people who are beyond the level where they could be protected by the legal aid plan and yet who have not got a great deal of income themselves might be unduly affected by that. That, of course, would have to be one of the considerations taken into effect by the Treasurer.

I know that the Canadian Bar Association and the law society have both made representation to the Treasurer, urging him not to impose a sales tax, and if one were imposed, to dedicate some of the funds to improving access to legal services if that should happen.

As I say, this is a decision that is up to the Treasurer. It would certainly be my job to advocate that if he were to make this decision, we as a government would have to take some very serious action to ensure that access was not affected.

HYDRO RATES

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): My question is to the Minister of Housing. Minister of Housing, you must be doing a great job of communication and marketing out there, because let me tell you, within a week, over half the residents of the Clearview cooperative housing in my riding have been sending me a number of letters.

This housing project was built in 1986 and provided affordable housing to the residents of the city of Chatham. At the time of the construction, electrical heat was installed because it was most economical. However, since that time, the cost has risen. As we've seen what the Liberals did with Ontario Hydro, it just escalated and took off, to the point where the residents of Clearview are paying double, even triple, the heating bills of people in homes heated by natural gas. Sometimes these bills are as high as $500 for the December and January months.

My question to the minister is, with the social housing energy retrofit program being extended to these constituents; will they be able to get relief for the astronomical hydro cost that is facing them?

Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): The government has been very concerned about what high heating bills in particular are doing to households that are living in social housing. While it was cheaper to construct with electrical baseboard heating, it certainly has not proven cheaper to operate with electrical baseboard heating.

That was the reason why in 1991, first of all, we decided that non-profits would not be built with electrical heating except if there were no other fuel available, and second, to begin the social housing energy retrofit program, which also seeks to try and improve the effectiveness of water use. What we did last year was allocate $9 million to this program. It converted over 12,000 homes and it employed about 250 people, so it's a program that's well worthwhile.

Mr Hope: By supplementary, I would ask the minister when she expects the announcements to come. Also, you know that you've received a number of these petitions, which are indicated by all the people who are there, talking about $429 a month in hydro costs. Will you give deep consideration to these residents in Clearview and the working people of my riding and the city of Chatham?

Hon Ms Gigantes: We will be allocating, I'm pleased to say, $19 million to SHERP this year, and the letters for the preliminary approvals on those allocations will be going out over the next week or so, so groups like the Clearview group which have made application should have a preliminary indication by just a few days from now, and then once they submit the details of their applications following on that initial approval, we should be expecting to be able to work with them, providing funding by midsummer.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION BOARD

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): My question is to the Minister of Labour.

Minister, I've asked you questions recently in this House about workers' compensation, and as you know, the unfunded liability at the board is topping some $11 billion, growing by $100 million each and every month. Despite all the problems that occur, they're going ahead building this new 30-storey office edifice. I don't know if they're going to call it Mackenzie Place or Simcoe Place, something like that, something in your honour, and they're building that in downtown Toronto at incredible cost.

Also, to the minister, I understand in July 1992 there was a report of the Chairman's Task Force on Service Delivery and Vocational Rehabilitation and then in November of 1992 a response from the chairman of the WCB, in spite of all of these problems, called an action plan, wherein the chairman set up 47 internal committees to study all of the problems that have been --

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Forty-seven?

Mr Mahoney: Forty-seven internal committees to study the problems.

I understand, rumour has it --

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): And your question?

Mr Mahoney: -- Mr Minister, that you have set up another committee and that the purpose of that committee is to look into the feasibility of a royal commission to study all of the problems and the reports set out in all of the committees looking at all of the problems at workers' compensation. You wasted $3 million with John Sewell's commission.

The Speaker: Does the member have a question?

Mr Mahoney: You've set up a royal commission on education. Who knows what that's going to cost?

Is it true, Minister, that you're setting up a royal commission to study all the problems that we already know about at workers' compensation?

Hon Bob Mackenzie (Minister of Labour): The committees the member talks about are internal committees at the board itself, of its employees who are trying to come to grips with some of the problems we've had. I might say that the initial steps have been exceedingly successful, and they are the front-line workers who have to deal with the problems we're raising about the board at all times.

Mr Mahoney: I didn't hear an answer to the question. Let me try again. Minister, I asked you if you would ask, not instruct, as you misinterpreted my question, the Provincial Auditor if he would launch an investigation into the dealings that took place between WCB, between its investment fund, between Cadillac Fairview Corp and the Toronto-Dominion Bank to put up that edifice down at Simcoe and Front streets. I asked you to ask the Provincial Auditor to look into the misdealings that I've reported to you in this House. You refused to take action on that.

Instead, what you're doing is you're hiding behind committees. I mean, this is unbelievable, an $11-billion deficit. Never mind your government's problems, we have a government agency that's $11 billion in the ditch, growing by $100 million each and every month, and what is your solution? Set up 47 internal committees. Do you know that there's even a recommendation --

The Speaker: Does the member have a supplementary?

Mr Mahoney: -- in this report that recommends that the board approve the appointment of the chairman and the vice-chairman of the WCB instead of bringing it to cabinet, and they adopted that. They're stripping cabinet of the power --

The Speaker: Would the member please place a supplementary.

Mr Mahoney: -- to deal with the WCB.

My question, by supplementary, Mr Speaker: Rumour has it, sir, that, as a result of all of these reports, as a result of the 47 internal committees, as a result of your latest task force, you are going to be recommending at the next cabinet meeting the establishment of another --

The Speaker: Would the member please place a question.

Mr Mahoney: -- royal commission. You're a government of inaction, a government of royal commissions.

The Speaker: Would the member take his seat. If the minister detected a question --

Mr Mahoney: I didn't see you on your feet for the deputy deputy.

Interjections.

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I don't think any authority has been stripped from the government at this point in time, and I can tell the honourable member that we're always looking at ways to improve the service at the Workers' Compensation Board.

1440

HOUSING CONDITIONS

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): My question is to the Minister of Housing. The tenants at 1002 Lawrence Avenue East in North York have been subjected to deplorable conditions in their accommodation. They have been intimidated by hired thugs; they have had falling glass; the heat has been turned off in that building periodically and the elevators periodically do not work. What are you doing about this, Minister?

Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): The problems that have existed at that apartment building certainly have been a matter of concern at the Ministry of Housing. Members of my own staff and members of the ministry staff have been working with tenants to try and help them use existing legislation, in particular the Rent Control Act, to improve conditions there. I could give the member a more up-to-date briefing once I have checked back with the ministry and find out the current state of affairs at that apartment.

Mr Turnbull: Minister, that isn't good enough. People from your ministry met with the tenants' group in January. The intimidation has continued; you have done nothing. To suggest that you're having further meetings and you're going to brief me is not sufficient. These people are enjoying terrible living conditions. That has taken since January. I'm asking you, what are you going to do for the tenants now?

Hon Ms Gigantes: The Rent Control Act of Ontario provides full redress for tenants. It provides that they shall not be harassed. It provides that where maintenance is not adequate they can apply for a rent reduction. It provides that where there is a property order, the apartment owner cannot ask for an increase, even a guideline increase.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Rent reduction? They need heat.

Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): Not right now. They need air-conditioning.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Our task is to make sure that people in that building are getting the assistance they need to use the legislation, which, for the first time, provides them with those protections. I can assure the member that I will check and find out where matters are with regard to this particular property and make sure that the --

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): We are so dismayed. The dismay over here has reached a level of no return.

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): I'm in shock.

The Speaker: Will the member for Yorkview please come to order.

Interjections.

The Speaker: I ask the member for Yorkview to come to order.

HORSE RACING INDUSTRY

Mr Donald Abel (Wentworth North): My question is to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Madam Minister, I recently visited the Willis Training Centre, which is an enormous complex currently housing over 300 horses which are being trained to participate in the horse racing industry. I met with the local farmers and entrepreneurs within the industry, so they could discuss what they perceive to be negative impacts on people affiliated within the horse racing industry, and I believe that they do have some legitimate concerns.

Madam Minister, are you aware of these concerns, and if so, how are they being addressed?

Hon Marilyn Churley (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Yes, I'm aware of the concerns as expressed by the member. The province is committed to working with the Ontario horse racing industry to maintain its viability. I would say, with the exception of the city of Windsor and the law enforcement community, that no other interest group has been consulted so extensively as the horse racing industry when it comes to casino gaming.

It's quite true that horse racing is under tremendous competition throughout North America for the consumer's entertainment dollar, and through government programs like the tax-sharing arrangement, the province pledges to continue to assist the horse racing industry in meeting this competition.

Mr Abel: Thank you, Madam Minister. I'm sure those involved in the industry will be happy to hear that.

Since this is such an important industry and involves so many people, does your ministry plan to have ongoing discussions with those most affected?

Hon Ms Churley: Yes, I certainly do pledge to continue our consultations and discussions with the horse racing industry. A point that I'd like to make here is that when we release the request for proposals for the casino in Windsor, a component of that RFP in fact asks that the winning proposal would pledge to work extensively with the horse racing community and be sensitive to the Ontario horse racing industry.

Mr Carman McClelland (Brampton North): I have a question as well for the minister of casinos, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. I might add parenthetically that maybe you should get your act together with the horse racing industry, because I defy you to go head to head with it on the comments and the response you just had.

ELEVATOR SAFETY

Mr Carman McClelland (Brampton North): Minister, you're responsible for elevators in this province and the safety of them. You spend $4.5 million a year. There are 35,000 elevators in the province of Ontario. Last November the Provincial Auditor said that you're spending $4.5 million and you're doing an inadequate job. In fact, there are as many as 10,000 elevating devices that are probably or possibly unsafe in this province.

That was six months ago. You apparently haven't done anything in the intervening six months. In fact, right in this building and in the building across the street, the Whitney Block, there are licences that have expired. What have you been doing for six months, Minister?

Hon Marilyn Churley (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): The elevating devices branch -- and I've said this in the House before when this question has been raised -- has been recruiting an additional, I believe, nine inspector trainees. I said in the House before that some of them will be starting by June, so it's not as though we have been inactive. We have been busy and working with the Ministry of Labour in training new inspectors.

Mr McClelland: Minister, I think it's indicative of a general malaise and incompetence that runs throughout the whole government, and your ministry is no exception.

As of 11 o'clock this morning, licences in the west bank elevators in this building had expired, licences in the east bank had expired, licences in the Whitney Block elevators had expired. The licence in one of the central elevators, which you possibly use, you possibly ride as you take the people of the province of Ontario for a ride on almost a daily basis now, expired in April 1991. You're only two years out of sync here. This is your responsibility.

What does that say about what else is happening in your ministry right across the board? Are you on top of it? Do you know what's going on or not? Where have you been? What are you doing?

Hon Ms Churley: I know that my new critic from the Liberal Party secretly knows that I'm doing a good job over here and that I'm on top of the issues.

Hon Ed Philip (Minister of Municipal Affairs): We do too.

Hon Ms Churley: And Ed does too.

Hon Mr Philip: The Speaker thinks you're doing a good job.

Hon Ms Churley: And so does the Speaker. Good. We know that there have been too few inspectors and we have had some trouble in recruiting a number of inspectors, for a variety of reasons which I'm sure you won't let me go into here, but there will be very soon some new inspectors coming on stream.

PROPERTY ASSESSMENT

Mr Dave Johnson (Don Mills): My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

The assessment base in Metropolitan Toronto was put in place in 1953 using 1940 information. Today in Metropolitan Toronto there are about 40,000 homes under appeal because the system is out of date, and most people concede that it is very unfair. In frustration, Scarborough has appealed the assessment of 1,000 homes in the city of Toronto; and Toronto, in retaliation, has appealed the assessment of some 5,600 homes in Scarborough.

What action can we expect from this government to deal with this mess? What action can we expect from this government to assist thousands of innocent people who are caught in the middle of this battle?

Hon Ed Philip (Minister of Municipal Affairs): I met with Chairman Tonks and Councillor Cavalier on March 22 to discuss market value assessment. We've had ongoing dialogue about it. It's my hope that Metro will be able to address some of the issue which my predecessor and I have raised with him, issues concerning the reassessment plan. There are staff at Metro who are looking into those issues and they'll be getting back to me.

1450

But let me say that I'm concerned, as is he, and indeed I'm meeting with the mayor of Scarborough this afternoon and I have met recently with the mayor of Toronto. I'm concerned about the actions that are being taken by both Scarborough and the city of Toronto in appealing the assessments in each other's jurisdiction. I don't think that that is terribly helpful and I don't think that that kind of thing between the two cities really is very constructive and will lead to a solution to the problem.

Mr Dave Johnson: Mr Minister, I'm glad to hear that there is concern. However, there are about 6,000 people who are caught in the middle of this mess. Indeed, in the city of Scarborough, for example, there are about 30,000 appeals. Some of these will be resolved fairly quickly, but thousands of them will go to the Assessment Review Board and that will require many additional courts at a very high cost to the taxpayers of this province to resolve these problems.

I guess my question to you is, what plans have you got in place, again, to deal with this, given that people are going to have this hanging over their heads for many, many months, well into next year, and how much cost will the taxpayers of this province be required to foot because we haven't had action to deal with this problem?

Hon Mr Philip: Certainly, the massive task of handling the more than 165,000 appeals against property taxes in Scarborough is already under way. We understand that they are being dealt with. There is the particular decision which we're still waiting for concerning Mr Marum's appeals, and that will be decided with due process.

But what I have informed the member of is that there is a process under way to deal with the very issue of the taxation and of the concerns that have been brought to us and brought to my predecessor, Mr Cooke, about such things as not having people across the province pay excessively for transportation and for hydro as a result of the particular proposal that was brought forward, not destroying the film industry in Metro Toronto, which would likely have happened --

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the minister conclude his response, please.

Hon Mr Philip: -- if that proposal had gone forward and not putting small business in Toronto out of business. Those concerns are being dealt with by the group at Metro and they will report back to me.

The Speaker: The time for oral questions has expired.

PETITIONS

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Hugh O'Neil (Quinte): I have a petition that was forwarded to me by Mr Carey Webb from Trenton, Ontario, and it's signed by many of the residents in the Quinte area. It reads:

"To the Legislative Assembly and the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario:

"Whereas the people of Ontario are undergoing economic hardship, high unemployment and are faced with the prospect of imminent tax increases; and

"Whereas the Ontario motorist protection plan currently delivers cost-effective insurance benefits to Ontario drivers;

"Since the passing of Bill 164 into law will result in higher automobile insurance premiums for Ontario drivers,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That Bill 164 be withdrawn."

I have affixed my signature to this petition.

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): This petition is to the Parliament of Ontario.

"I, the undersigned, petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"To implement without delay the new open municipal government law and new conflict of interest law."

It's signed by Henry Freitag.

MUNICIPAL PLANNING

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I have another one. It says:

"To the Parliament of Ontario:

"I, the undersigned, petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"To revise the Planning Act (and any other act) in such a manner that such conduct as shown above and experienced in the town of Penetanguishene never, ever can take place again in Ontario."

That one's signed by Henry Freitag.

BUILDING CODE

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): And the other one:

"To the Parliament of Ontario:

"I, the undersigned, petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"To revise the Building Code Act (and any other act) in such a manner that the fees charged must be reasonable and must only cover the cost for the services provided by the licence; also that the service must be performed in a frugal and most efficient manner.

"(Signed) Henry Freitag."

TAX REVENUES

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): The final one:

"To the Parliament of Ontario:

"I, the undersigned, petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"To pass a law prohibiting the use of tax money by provincial government, municipal government and organizations under the jurisdiction of the provincial government for meetings, conventions, gatherings and caucus meetings in other than public buildings;

"To pass a law prohibiting the use of tax money to wine and dine officials of the government and their friends; the new law to set a limit of money and a limit when a lunch or food or other expenses can be charged. This law must also include municipalities."

That's signed by Henry Freitag, and I have endorsed those four petitions.

DRIVERS' LICENCES

Mr Larry O'Connor (Durham-York): I've got a petition here.

"To the Parliament of Ontario:

"Whereas in 1990 the Ontario Ministry of Transportation demonstrated its good intentions by proposing a system of graduated licensing that would require newly licensed drivers to adhere to certain conditions and restrictions which would be removed as the driver gains driving experience; and

"Whereas statistics show that new drivers of any age are five times more likely to be involved in road accidents due to lack of experience, death and injury from traffic-related accidents continues to be the biggest risk facing Canadians between the ages of 16 and 24, and research strongly suggests a graduated licensing program would result in a decrease in traffic accidents, reduced injuries, save lives and make our roads safer,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"To take immediate action to revise the law, specifically the Highway Traffic Act, to include a graduated licensing program for novice drivers.

"As concerned parents and citizens of Ontario, we believe that it is now time to take action to protect our young and novice drivers and, in effect, our very future."

I have signed this petition.

GAMBLING

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I have a petition from a number of people concerned about casino gambling. It reads as follows:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has traditionally portrayed itself as having a commitment to family life and quality of life for all the citizens of Ontario; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has expressed a historical concern for the poor in society who are particularly at risk each time the practice of gambling is expanded; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the citizens of Ontario have not been consulted regarding the introduction of legalized gambling casinos despite the fact that such a decision is a significant change of government policy and was never part of the mandate given to the government by the people of Ontario,

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos by regulation and that appropriate legislation be introduced into the assembly along with a process which includes significant opportunities for public consultation and full public hearings as a means of allowing the citizens of Ontario to express themselves in this new and questionable initiative."

I am pleased to sign this, as I agree with the contents of this particular petition.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The member for Simcoe West.

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): Thank you, Mr Speaker; you're doing a good job. I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has traditionally had a commitment to family life and quality of life for all the citizens of Ontario; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has had a historic concern for the poor in society who are particularly at risk each time the practice of gambling is expanded; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly as follows:

I've affixed my name to this petition.

1500

Mr Dennis Drainville (Victoria-Haliburton): "To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has not consulted with the citizens of Ontario regarding the expansion of gambling; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally vulnerable and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas credible academic studies have shown that state-operated gambling is nothing more than a regressive tax on the poor; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the government has not attempted to address the very serious concerns that have been raised by groups and individuals regarding the potential growth in crime;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government must immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos and refrain from introducing video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario."

I affix my signature to this petition.

Ms Zanana L. Akande (St Andrew-St Patrick): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the Christian is called to love of a neighbour, which includes a concern for the general wellbeing of society; and

"Whereas there is a direct link between the higher availability of legalized gambling and the incidence of addictive gambling;

"Whereas the damage of addiction to gambling in individuals is compounded by the damage done to families both emotionally and economically; and

"Whereas the gambling market is already saturated with various kinds of government-operated lotteries; and

"Whereas large-scale gambling activity invariably attracts criminal activity; and

"Whereas the citizens of Detroit have, since 1976, on three occasions voted down the introduction of casinos into that city, each time with a larger majority than the time before;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government of Ontario cease all moves to establish gambling casinos."

There are 83 signatures here, and I affix mine to it.

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): "To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the government of Ontario intends to reduce funding to the provincial psychiatric hospitals by $45 million;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"We do not want funding to be reduced in the Ontario mental health care system. We want programs in the community that truly serve the psychiatrically ill and provide the opportunity for hospitalization if needed."

There are over 70 signatures on this petition, and I've also signed the petition.

GAMBLING

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has traditionally had a commitment to family life and quality of life for all the citizens of Ontario; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has had a historical concern for the poor in society" -- or thought they had -- "who are particularly at risk each time the practice of gambling is expanded; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the citizens of Ontario have not been consulted regarding the introduction of legalized gambling casinos, despite the fact that such a decision is a significant change of government policy and was never part of the mandate given to the government by the people of Ontario;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos by regulation and that appropriate legislation be introduced into the assembly, along with a process which includes significant opportunities for public consultation and full public hearings as a means of allowing the citizens of Ontario to express themselves on this new and questionable initiative."

This is signed by many signatures from the riding of Durham East, I believe, and I too attach my signature to it.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): I have a petition to this House:

"Whereas the people of Ontario are undergoing economic hardship, high unemployment and are faced with the prospect of imminent tax increases; and

"Whereas the Ontario motorist protection plan currently delivers cost-effective insurance benefits to Ontario drivers; and

"Since the passing of Bill 164 into law will result in higher automobile insurance premiums for Ontario drivers;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That Bill 164 be withdrawn."

That's signed by 90 people in my area.

DECENTRALIZATION OF GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): "To the Legislative Assembly:

"We, the undesigned, being residents of the Tri-town area in the district of Timiskaming, petition Premier Rae and the provincial government to reconsider their decision to cancel the MNR relocation to the town of Haileybury. We request that the following be considered:

"1. That the relocation program was initiated as an effort to minimize the impact to the district of the closure of the Sherman and Adams mines;

"2. That the 36 MNR positions have already been filled and families relocated and employees are working out of rented facilities in the town of Haileybury; and

"3. That Timiskaming is less able to recover or stabilize from the loss of the number of jobs lost in the past five years than areas more diversified."

This has been signed by 672 residents, and I affix my signature to this also.

GAMBLING

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): This is a new one.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has traditionally had a commitment to family life and quality of life for all the citizens of Ontario; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has a historical concern for the poor in society, who are particularly at risk each time the practice of gambling is expanded; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling;" and

Whereas the New Democratic Party is probably the most hypocritical party that's been elected in the last number of years; and

"Whereas the citizens of Ontario have not been consulted regarding the construction of legalized gambling casinos, despite the fact that such a decision is a significant change of government policy and was never part of the mandate given to the government by the people of Ontario;

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): I have a petition. It's signed by 11 people. It comes from the St David's United Church congregation in the fine city of Woodstock and it is similar to other petitions. These people are opposing casinos and after several "whereases" they ask:

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos and refrain from introducing video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario."

1510

ORDERS OF THE DAY

MUNICIPAL STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT DES LOIS RELATIVES AUX MUNICIPALITÉS

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 7, An Act to amend certain Acts related to Municipalities concerning Waste Management / Loi modifiant certaines lois relatives aux municipalités en ce qui concerne la gestion des déchets.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The member for Renfrew North was the last speaker, but he is not in the chamber, so I will recognize the honourable member for Markham.

[Applause]

Mr W. Donald Cousens (Markham): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I haven't heard such applause since the last time.

Bill 7: The government, under the ministership of Mr Philip, the Minister of Municipal Affairs, has brought in a bill affecting waste management for the province of Ontario. I'd like to make a number of points on this bill, some positive and some negative.

Certainly the bill has to do with the whole need to recycle in this province, and on that part of it I want to be very supportive of the leadership the government has given in this area. But I would also like to comment on a number of questions and problems I have with regard to the bill, some of the inconsistencies that exist within it as it pertains to Bill 143, which was passed last year, and some of the questions that concern the cost of implementing the bill. These questions have not been addressed by the government and certainly need to be.

Many people, when we in the Legislature are dealing with bills and new legislation, say, "All you ever do is criticize," and this adversarial form of government we're under, this parliamentary system, does require that kind of honest criticism that goes on with government initiatives. But one of the things our party has consistently done, when and if the government comes forward with initiatives that are supportable, that are worthwhile, that are financially affordable, is to have the courage of its convictions and share in that kind of decision-making.

Sometimes it's very painful, because there are times when the government has to make decisions that are not easy. When this government has come forward with a number of initiatives with regard to cutting back costs, we have been supportive of those initiatives. When this government came forward with its social contract discussions trying to find a way of cutting back on the costs of the payroll of some 900,000 public servants in Ontario, in spite of the hardship that this is going to bring to many of the people in the public service, our party has supported that.

But you will certainly hear from the leader of our party, the member for Nipissing, Mr Harris, and all the members of our caucus should this government decide to bring in more taxes. That is something we see as a very serious negative impact to the economy and to what Ontario is all about. I can guarantee you, on those issues we have a conscionable difference with, we will do everything we can to prevent the government from taking that dangerous course.

Dealing with the issue of recycling, I don't think there's any doubt that we as a party, having started the whole blue box program in the province of Ontario under the then Minister of the Environment, Andy Brandt, some years ago, started a process in which municipalities began to take a very serious effort in separating their garbage, finding those things that could be recycled and doing something with it. It's spread now to the point that we have some 90% of the population, in one way or the other, participating in recycling programs.

My community, the community of Markham, has been recognized as one of the leaders in the province of Ontario for its own initiatives in promoting recycling.

[Applause]

Mr Cousens: That's good. It's not often that Markham gets applause. Today, we'll take it again. I will take it, because indeed Markham has always taken a sense of pride in trying to be a leader when it comes to these areas of recycling and the initiatives that go into the 3Rs. In fact, if you go back some period of time and look at the people in our community, long before it became fashionable we had our own depots established in Thornhill and Unionville where the community could come and bring recyclables, and the community volunteered time and energy.

I remember Mrs Audrey Pickard in Thornhill was one of the leading lights at that time, and Jeanette Annbinder, who now heads the town of Markham's initiatives for recycling, helped start the whole activity in Unionville.

It was a community activity. We did it because we wanted to, we did it because we believed in it, and when the government sanctioned it with its blue box program and it began to expand, our community committed itself wholeheartedly to it.

A community that takes these initiatives is doing something not only for itself but for the future generations. To that extent, it's good to see so many taking part in the blue box, participating in the compost programs. These are all ways in which the community as a whole is making a strong statement of support to the government's plan to, number one, reduce the amount of garbage by 25% at the end of 1992 -- and I think we can all participate in celebrating that victory at the end of last year -- and then to aim for an even more difficult challenge that by the year 2000 we will have reduced the 1987 levels of garbage by 50%. That is going to be a tougher challenge to reach; nonetheless, the people in the province of Ontario have the kind of energy and commitment to work towards that.

So all of these things begin to build a story of success, that here is a province that at least is trying and is trying for the right reasons. I don't think that any of us can ever let up on those initiatives because we've only just begun to scratch the surface. Certainly, in our province, in our country, the world looks to us for leadership in so many ways, and I think we're going to have to continue to show other countries that we really mean business. Maybe that becomes some of the questions that we have out of our trade arrangements with other jurisdictions, that if they don't have an environmental agenda that somehow matches us, we're going to look at their way of doing business so that we won't be trading partners unless they too are participating in it.

Dealing with hazardous waste maybe is one of the areas where this province has gone astray. The Ontario Waste Management Corp continues to look for a site. They're getting down to the last stages of finding that site in Lincoln, yet no one has stepped in to see whether or not we still need the kind of facility that the government has spent millions of dollars trying to identify. In the meantime, the people of the province of Ontario, those businesses that are generating certain kinds of hazardous waste, have found other ways of disposing of it, so there may not be the same necessity for it.

Notwithstanding that, on the initiative of this bill coming forward to say, "We want to do something about waste management," the intention is honourable, that if we're going to do something about the recycling initiatives in the province, we are moving in the right direction.

That really is where I start to differ with the presentations that have been given by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and this government. Intentions are honourable and good, the fact that we are moving in the direction towards major reductions in the amount of garbage that we have, major reductions in the amount of waste we generate, a way of reducing the amount of landfill that is required. If we as a province are able to act in a very intelligent and deliberate way to bring these numbers down, we will have done something that we all believe in.

But how do you do it? How much is it going to cost? How are we going to proceed to the next stage? That's really where we begin to have problems with Bill 7 and the plans that this government has put forward. When you look back to the blue box program, one of the reasons it was such a success was that it wasn't solely a government-sponsored program. It was a program in which you had Ontario Multi-Material Recycling Inc involved in developing a joint program.

Some 200 employers, businesses in the province of Ontario, with heavy support from the bottling industry and those businesses that felt they were contributing to the problem, wanted to contribute to the solution, so they brought their money to the table and they, with the support of the government of the day, began to develop the whole blue box program.

When you start seeing a program jointly funded by industry and government, then you start having cooperation and a spirit towards the solution that has everybody saying: "It can work. We'll make it work." In the early days of the blue box program, they couldn't always deal with those items that were put in the blue box, but now we're getting to the point where it's generally believed that the paper, the bottles, the plastics and the other substances are being recycled. That is certainly the direction we want to move in.

Now as we look at this, we're saying with Bill 7, "Who's going to pay for this?" Historically, we've had a relationship with industry that participated in the costs. Now we're coming forward with legislation that is brought down by the government that makes me ask, "Who is going to pay for this?"

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Who?

Mr Cousens: Well, I haven't seen the answer in the legislation.

Hon Gilles Pouliot (Minister of Transportation): There's only one taxpayer, Don.

Mr Cousens: There is only one taxpayer. My honourable good friend the Minister of Transportation is absolutely correct: There's only one taxpayer, who ends up paying the taxes at the municipal, the regional, the provincial and the federal levels, and that same person is just running out of money to pay all the taxes that are coming out.

So if we're bringing forward another bill that has cost implications, we should analyse and assess those implications before we speedily pass the bill, because you can't just take the ideology and the intent, separate that off and say that because the whole purpose of recycling is in itself worthwhile, we don't need to look at the cost side of the equation. You have to take both and consider them and say, "Having decided that we're going to move towards a very difficult goal by the year 2000, to reduce the amount of garbage by 50%, how are we going to afford to do that?"

1520

Mr Stockwell: Change the rules.

Mr Cousens: We can change the rules, we can change the legislation, and as that legislation gets changed, so too do the ground rules. Those ground rules mean that municipalities, which are going to be forced to participate in the whole 3R program in a way they've never before been forced, will now have costs associated with these programs that they may not be able to afford. It goes into the cost equation again, because when the program was originally introduced with the blue box program, the cost equation had private industry, OMMRI, with the Ontario government, helping the municipalities cover the cost, and then there would be a recovery of some of the costs through the recycling efforts themselves.

But the fact now will stand that within a few years from now, this government may well remove the subsidies that underpin and underwrite the whole blue box program. Should those subsidies be removed, and I think it's safe to assume that those subsidies were intended to get the program started and that the money will not be forthcoming from the province on an ongoing basis, the municipalities will then have to pay the total cost of the blue box program and the recycling efforts of those municipalities.

The municipalities, as we look to the future, are not going to have the resources that can afford some of these initiatives. I think we owe it to those municipalities when in fact, at the present time, we're forcing upon municipalities far more costs that they have to save in order to run those municipalities, far more costs that are being taken away from the province in order for them to continue to survive.

We cannot continue this one-way street where the province continues to push down to the municipalities more and more costs, because at that point this one taxpayer we're talking about has to pay more of a local tax, and that tax, as it continues to increase, becomes an impossible burden for those people who have to pay those taxes in the municipalities, because taxes at the local level this year have been kept, pretty well across the province, on a whole basis where they were not increased.

But that is not the case for the last several years where the province balanced its budget a few years ago based on the backs of the local taxpayers, where they ended up having to pay so much more. We now, through this bill, are going to pass down to the local municipalities more of that cost. That concerns me. We want to proceed with a recycling initiative, but we've got to be mighty careful of what we're passing on to the local ratepayers.

I know there is about to be a tax revolt. You're seeing signs of it in Scarborough, and the honourable member for Don Mills referred to it in a question earlier today on just the whole problem of that municipality in trying to face up and deal with the cost of doing business. I don't think there is a municipality today that isn't having screams and an outcry from those people, who as ratepayers are saying, "Hey, you've got to stop it." It's not just a matter of keeping your taxes at par; you've got to start reducing the local level of taxes. These communities will not begin to be able to address cutbacks in the cost of doing business if we at the Ontario level of the Legislature are going to be forcing upon them new obligations that cost money. So what we have to do is to find ways of working this through.

I ask the question, has the minister, has the government spent some time looking at all the costs of all the programs they're funnelling down to the local level? I don't think they have. I don't think they've taken the time to really listen and grapple with the hardship that municipalities are dealing with today, and the hardship of the taxpayer. When we're dealing with this bill, we have to begin to look at that.

The costs that will go into implementing this bill are far greater than you would see just by reading the fine print, because if you're going to have recycling facilities, one of the things you will have is material recovering facilities being brought in, at least two of them for Metropolitan Toronto. To build the first level of recovery station costs in the order of $23 million to $25 million, and then what you need to do is to feed that with the materials in order to get the things out of it, but there's a capital cost to it.

Then when you move to a second level that's going to take even more garbage in order to recycle and deal with it, that costs $30 million to $40 million to build. Where is the money going to come from to build those facilities? Is it going to come out of the tipping fees? That's going to come out of the local taxpayers. Are there going to be grants from the province to help it? Not likely. Not with the kind of financial hardship the province is facing now. There can't be a continuing sending of money to the municipalities to pay for this bill. There won't be the continuing downloading of funding to pay for it. The province doesn't have the money.

We're living so far beyond our means even now that we haven't begun to face up to the crisis that Ontario is in. When the Treasurer comes out with his number of a $17-billion proposed deficit for Ontario, people say: "Well, I guess we're used to it. We had $10 billion or $12 billion last year." The accumulated deficit: $10 billion or $12 billion, and another $17 billion.

There is no doubt that the people of Ontario cannot continue to live beyond their means. We have to find ways of cutting back expectations, cutting back what we really have to do. It may mean that we have to phase in some of these new ideas and new expectations and hopes, because we're not going to be able to do it within the short time frame that this government is imposing upon the municipalities.

I'm going to a meeting of York region council on Thursday afternoon and I have no doubt the kind of message that's going to be shared at that time, the genuine concern they have on how they're going to deal with the financial crunch they're in. Here in this year alone, they've completed their budget, the budget process is over, they've established the tax rate, and now with the expenditure cutbacks and the social contract that the government has, they're going to have to face up to how they are going to deal with the financial changes taking place in the province of Ontario.

What that's going to mean is not just close to a $200-million withdrawal of unconditional funds; it's probably going to mean closer to $500 million of money that will not flow through to the municipalities this year. There isn't any recognition of how the municipalities are going to deal with this.

It's a crisis of great proportions, and the crisis is not going away. What is happening is that with this kind of bill, we are adding to the crisis, because what we're going to try to do is to get our fiscal house in order, provincially and municipally and at every level. Yet when we come along and ficklely pass further legislation that is going to cost the local taxpayers, we have to think twice about it. What we may have to do is say, "This is worthwhile legislation and the expectations are honourable, but we can't afford to do it right now."

That's what we do in our own homes when we put off purchasing a capital acquisition of some kind. We say: "Look, we don't have the money now. We don't want to build up more debt. We are going to hold off on this expenditure until next year or the year after that." So you take the car to maintenance and you have new tires put on it and you keep it going a little longer.

If it means that we have to extend the goals and expectations for the province and for every one of us a little further into the future, then as long as we know why we're doing it, as long as we still continue to believe in the dream, then we can do it and we will make more sense to the people who are out there.

It's one thing to hold up this tremendous example where Ontario is now the leading environmental recycler in the world, and we're bankrupt. Somehow or other, you have to work out the two together. All I'm asking is that the government hold back on some of its thinking so that we don't necessarily add to the burden that is already just overcoming and overwhelming the people who are out there.

The inconsistencies that go on in the Ontario Legislature are another concern that I have, and it's not without a little bit of trepidation that I talk about it, but it ties into Bill 7. When this government brought in Bill 143 back in October, just two years ago -- Bill 143 is the law that makes it necessary for Metro and York and Durham and Peel to come up with three landfill sites that will be selected in each of those regions, one for each of the regions. The selection process would be under the Interim Waste Authority, the IWA.

What would happen then is that Metro's garbage would come to York region, so York would then be the host site for some 40 million tonnes of garbage from Metropolitan Toronto and York over a 20-year period, and there would similarly be a large landfill site selected for Durham and for Peel. That process is continuing and we're now down to the short-list stage where there is a small number of sites, three of them in York region, three or so in Durham and another three in Peel, and by the end of August the government will have come up with its preferred site for landfill.

The kind of thing that you begin to ask is, now that we're coming out with this recycling bill, Bill 7, and we're dealing with Bill 143, what powers will exist within a municipality under the Municipal Act to deal more fully with all the problems of garbage? What's happened is that the government has tied the hands of municipalities under a previous bill, Bill 143, because the government said in Bill 143 that there can be no rail haul. This government will not consider the possibility of hauling garbage out of the Metropolitan Toronto area to a possible host site that would receive that garbage.

1530

Kirkland Lake has been identified as a possible place where there could be a rail haul operation that would take the garbage from Metro and York to a remote site. We visited the site, the Adams mine site near Kirkland Lake, and it is a site that would appear to have many advantages. The municipality voted 69% in favour of having an environmental assessment of that possibility, and yet the government has said, "No, we will not consider rail haul as a viable option." They've said that the only way in which Metro, York, Durham and Peel can deal with this garbage is within their own boundaries. That being the case, now that we're coming through with another bill, Bill 7, it's going to limit the options of municipalities if in fact the government is restrictive in the first place as to what they can do.

The government has also said that there will be no consideration of incineration. That's interesting, because a number of years ago there used to be 4Rs -- the first 3Rs plus recover -- and during the time of Mr Bradley, the Liberal Minister of the Environment, he removed the fourth R and we just quietly heard of reduce, reuse, recycle. The fact of the matter is, just recently -- the other day -- the leader of the Liberal Party announced at a gathering on the front steps of the Legislature that she's now in favour of incineration. We've been a little bit more careful in saying we're in favour of incineration, but we've at least said, "Let's look at incineration as a possibility and let it be seen as an alternative, but subject it to a full environmental assessment before you draw that conclusion. If the environmental assessment would allow incineration to be given further consideration, then the government could consider that as one of the ways of having energy from waste, possibly." None the less, Bill 143 ties the hands of municipalities and other jurisdictions in the province of Ontario from looking at either rail haul or incineration.

Here is a government that took away the rights of municipalities to look after their own garbage and imposed a set of rules through Bill 143. When they brought in Bill 143, they brought in the Interim Waste Authority and said, "Here, Metro, even although you're in the final stages of working out your own problem with waste, we now, the province of Ontario" -- the Honourable Ruth Grier, then Minister of the Environment, came in with her bill, Bill 143, that took away the rights of Metropolitan Toronto and of the other jurisdictions who --

Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Under standing orders, I believe the debate should be restricted to Bill 7, and the member is not debating Bill 7.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Thank you. As far as the Chair is concerned, the honourable member's on topic.

Mr Cousens: I want to stay with it, because when you have the government on the one hand taking away the rights of municipalities, as it did with Bill 143, and then coming along with Bill 7 saying, "Well, we're going to start giving you more rights," I have to say that it does tie in together. Everything is linked, and the honourable member for Durham West has a tremendous failure to see the big picture on anything. It's part of the myopic view the socialists and communists of the province of Ontario have where they're not able to get the broad, big picture. They're able only to see things in a narrow, focused way. They can't balance things out and say, "Well, what's it going to cost to do this?" They come along and their only way of looking at it is their way, and they're not able to do it in such a way that brings in private enterprise and the municipalities and the whole of the province.

What you have in Ontario right now is a one-party government that has another two years to serve and all we have to do is somehow survive till 1995. Notwithstanding that, everything integrates. You can't come along and say, "Bill 7 stands on its own merit as a bill to reduce the amount of waste in the province of Ontario," without looking at the way in which the province has taken away the rights of municipalities to do other things. They've taken away their rights under Bill 143 to incinerate. They've taken away their rights to rail haul. They've come along and said, "We are going to run the process for Metro, York, Durham and Peel's waste management systems through the imposition of Bill 143. Then they come along with this bill and say, "Here; under Bill 7, we're setting up another set of rules."

I just have to come back to the whole concept of the bill. The concept is valid. We have to continue to do everything we can to reduce the amount of waste we've got. But also, we have to look at the way it fits in with everything else that's on the public agenda. The public agenda is now at the point where the people of Ontario are saying: "Stop spending our money. Don't continue to bring forward legislation in the Ontario Legislature that is going to cost us more and more in our local tax dollars." We can come along with this bill and then walk away from it and say, "There, it's not our problem; it's the problem of the municipalities."

They can't afford it. What I'm saying is, had we come down and sat with them and said, "Now, in the face of the crisis that we have in Ontario, how are we going to work out a resolution to this problem? How are we going to come out of this set of problems with a way of reducing the amount of waste we're generating?" If we could sit down in a collaborative way and talk with sanity and openness, where we have got government, business, municipalities, every level, somehow participating in the solution, then we would go further toward finding solutions overall to the whole province's problems.

I sincerely hope that this Legislature will take further time to look at Bill 7 and that when it does go to committee there will be an opportunity for presentations so that we can just understand the cost implications of this bill. Let us not just again and again bring in more legislation that's going to cost the taxpayers without understanding that there are dollars associated with it.

I cannot divorce myself from the desire to have something but also the ability to pay for it. That is all we're asking for. If we were in a position to develop that kind of consensus where everybody is committed to a recycling program and committed to finding ways of making it happen, to do it without legislating things that are going to be impossible for some communities to handle, impossible for some communities to pay for because, by virtue of the withdrawal of funds from the province -- it's not going to be possible for municipalities to continue to afford it.

Let's look at the total picture. That is not being done by Bob Rae's government; it is not being done by Ed Philip. We've got a minister who is bringing forward this bill who has somehow removed himself from the Bill 143 fracas. We haven't seen or heard of Mr Philip. He has deferred the questions to the Minister of Environment, but he, as Minister of Municipal Affairs and minister responsible for the greater Toronto area, has not taken any kind of personal commitment to the issues that are being raised by our municipalities in the GTA.

He comes now with this bill. I wonder whether or not he's in a position to defend how it affects the decisions this government made with Bill 143. I am convinced he couldn't defend it, and maybe that's one of the reasons that he just kind of sidesteps the issue. We're not going to let him sidestep it. It is too important an issue. The issue that I want to make, and will continue to make with this government, is that you can't keep spending the taxpayers' money. There has to be an accounting of the cost of every piece of legislation.

We cannot continue to build the deficit in this province. We cannot continue to download responsibilities to municipalities. They cannot continue to afford to do the things that this province is demanding of them. What we have to do is find a better way of working together. I sincerely hope that through the committee process, when this bill is debated even further, we will proceed in that direction.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?

Ms Sharon Murdock (Sudbury): I just wanted to address myself to a couple of points that the honourable member so eloquently put, and specifically to the rail haul to the Adams mine in Kirkland Lake. I'm not from Kirkland Lake but I'm from Sudbury; I'm a northerner. It comes down to how hauling garbage from Metro Toronto to the north -- and I for one personally am absolutely opposed to looking after someone else's garbage.

But that brings me to another point in terms of the reduce-reuse-recycle aspect which was also mentioned by the honourable member. I was very pleased to note on the news the other night, a couple of weeks ago, that there is once-a-week pickup in some parts of Toronto now. I thought: "No wonder these people have never learned how to reduce and reuse. Forget recycling. I mean, if I had my garbage picked up twice a week, I would not have to worry about whether I had one bag or three bags or whatever." The example they used in the news coverage was a person who had something like four garbage bags full of waste ready to be transported. Of course, as long as you don't have to worry about it and you can send it to the north, then fine, you don't have to really ever learn to reduce and reuse.

1540

Recycling isn't a problem, it's quite successful, and so I point out that the focus should be on reducing and reusing rather than recycling, and we are committed to that. I know the honourable member said, "If we are all committed to recycling" -- well, I think that's been shown, but I think we have to, all of us, particularly in Metro, become really committed to reducing and reusing. I don't believe that they have truly worked out their own problems. They have to start looking at it seriously.

I just thank the member for having the opportunity to speak today.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? The honourable member for Etobicoke West.

Mr Stockwell: First of all, I think the member for Markham has given a very well versed, topical review of this piece of legislation. Being the Environment critic for the last couple of years, I think there's no one who knows this issue as well on this side of the House, maybe both sides of the House, and he offered, I think, a rather fair, even-handed review of this piece of legislation.

The two issues that he touched on that I think need to be the underpinnings of a couple of his arguments are about the cost provisions involved.

There's no question the cost provisions are going to be passed on to local government, and it's a cost that you, as the provincial government, should shoulder. It's a cost that you were committed to in the past and now you're passing on to local municipalities who, with the social contract and $500 million there and disentanglement, are left in a very, very precarious situation with respect to the financial concerns of their local municipalities.

The second concern that needs to be made very clearly is that this isn't an opt-in or opt-out program. Some of the costs are so prohibitive that a lot of municipalities, particularly smaller municipalities and counties and areas and regions around this province, simply can't afford to get involved. Unless there's going to be commitment from this provincial government to them, then it's going to be very cost-prohibitive for them as well.

Five thousand people -- and this is what it goes down to -- is not a lot of tax base to implement a full-scale, broad, blue box program. The regulations are suggested but there's no commitment of dollars and cents from this provincial level. There's no commitment from this government about what kind of financial help you're going to give these local municipalities. There's no financial commitment in any of this legislation that's going to tell them, "Don't worry about implementation; we'll assist and offset those costs."

Until you can prove to me by putting your money where your mouth is about the blue box and recycling program, you're just blowing hot air, in my opinion, because you're leaving the municipalities in the lurch and providing no financial assistance.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? The member for Durham West.

Mr Wiseman: I'm pleased to rise today and make a few comments on the member for Markham's comments. I appreciated the tone and the contribution that he made to the debate.

I would like to raise the issue of Rail Haul North, which has been one of the issues the member has consistently raised, and also to correct the record. I've been saying it was the Ernst and Young report, but it's really the Peat, Marwick, Stevenson and Kellogg report on the economic impact study of the Ontario Northland Railway option prepared for Rail Haul North Coalition. I think the taxpayers of the greater Toronto area, and particularly Metro who would be paying these costs, would be interested in what these costs are.

The systems cost for the Adams mine development, quoting from the study, 1996 to 2016: acquisition and approval costs $50 million; site development $65 million; transportation costs $780 million; container costs $39 million; site operation costs $156 million; existing transfer station costs $780 million; royalty agreements and associated other costs $267.9 million, for a grand total over a 20-year period of $2,137,900,000 to be picked up by the taxpayers of Toronto to ship their waste up north.

In the three areas here alone -- royalty agreements, transfer stations and transportation costs -- there is enough money to fund twice the recycling program for all of Ontario that we are currently now doing.

I think we have to be aware of these numbers when discussing this bill.

The Acting Speaker: We can accommodate one final participant.

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I want to comment briefly with regard to the presentation made by my colleague the member for Markham. The knowledge he has of Bill 143 was exposed today, and I want to say he kind of locked it in with the changes being made here and the amendments Bill 7 is making to 208.

When we talked about incineration, the member spoke of the feasibility of it being part of the overall system. He mentioned that, and I never heard anybody say too much about that.

As to the site selection in process now for Bill 143, which is the one that allows it to happen, the Interim Waste Authority, the sites under review have not had much discussion here in this Legislature with regard to Bill 7. But I've got to tell you, that site selection review that's going on, when we look at sites that are close to Lake Simcoe, two of them just in the south part of Lake Simcoe, when we look at the great dairy farms that are being looked at for site selection, class 1 land -- we had a willing host for garbage, and that is not acceptable to the government. I think a willing host should be at least looked at to see if it is feasible. You're not going to get many people who want to have a garbage site close to them, but when you've got a willing host that wants to look at it, I think it's important.

The other major issue is the overall cost of this downloading on to the municipalities. The parliamentary assistant said yesterday that there will be no cost to them. Well, I don't quite believe that. I still think there will be a cost, because when I talked to the clerk of the county of Simcoe with regard to the AMO position on it, it's not very much in favour of Bill 7. I've got to tell you that.

So in the overall picture when we're looking at this bill, I say to you I hope that there are at least two weeks set aside in committee for it to be dealt with.

The Acting Speaker: This completes questions and comments. The honourable member for Markham has two minutes in response.

Mr Cousens: I want to thank fellow colleagues in the Legislature for their comments. It's the beginning of good debate when you have a cross-section of viewpoints.

I particularly appreciated the comments from the members for Etobicoke West and Simcoe East, the sense that there's got to be common sense brought to this, and that really has been what's missing so much from government legislation ever since Bob Rae's government was elected. It makes it just about impossible for people to come forward with any point of view, because it's blocked out of consideration.

The whole issue of rail haul could be discussed and debated and reviewed within an environmental assessment. Let's not make political decisions when technical decisions can be made. Our view is simply, don't close off options where in fact you could open up that dialogue. Let the dialogue take place through a process known as the environmental assessment review, and at the end of that and in conclusion, you can come up with a decision that makes some sense.

What we argue with most vehemently is that the government makes political decisions and it will find information and substantive evidence that backs up its own point of view without giving time or sense to another point of view. If you clean up the process and rather than make all decisions politically, let that technical process go to work through an EA, then we begin to have some sense.

That's the failure of this government. It's probably the failure of our political system, because when a government's elected, as Mr Rae's is, it has such total control of the legislative process that it pre-empts the opportunity of the opposition to do anything more than to make its criticisms known, because we will have no success in changing amendments. It takes a tremendous amount to get a government such as this to change its mind. They're very fixed in their ways, and that's really part of the whole problem of Ontario.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate on second reading of Bill 7? I see none. Would the parliamentary assistant have some windup debate?

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): Yes.

Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): You've got half an hour. Go for it.

Mr Hayes: I've got half an hour. I won't take half an hour, because I know there are other important bills that have to be debated in the House here.

I'd like, first of all, to thank all the people and all the members who have participated in the debate on Bill 7. I'd just like to correct the record, though. I think the member for Simcoe East got up a moment ago and said that the parliamentary assistant from Essex-Kent said there'd be no cost. I don't believe I said that; I said we would not be downloading on municipalities.

1550

I would like to say to the members talking about there being no consultation that, I'll tell you, we have had extensive consultations with municipalities, with the private management firms, with the environmental groups. And I might add that all these people and also ordinary citizens of this province have told us that we are on the right track with this waste management bill and that it's long overdue.

There were some questions and, I believe, legitimate concerns about the cost. I'm sure we will be dealing with this when this bill does go to committee.

Also, I know we talked about a couple of the amendments. One in particular is that a simple majority would make the decision from the upper tier to the lower tier about taking charge of waste management. But in committee I'm sure we'll be able to put an amendment in that will change that to two thirds. I won't go through the whole amendment at this time, but we will be prepared to do that.

I have a letter here, and I'll just take a moment to read it. It's a letter dated May 7, 1993, to the Honourable Bud Wildman, and it's from the Ontario Waste Management Association. It said:

"Dear Mr Wildman,

"I would like to make some formal comments on Bill 7.

"When we read the bill, we identified a few clauses which we considered to be somewhat ambiguous. We were concerned that, in the future, other parties, who had not been privy to the ministry's legislative intent, might interpret these sections of the bill in a manner which had not been foreseen otherwise.

"We contacted the staff of the Ministry of Environment and Energy and at Municipal Affairs to express our concerns. We also discussed some potential changes that might be made by way of amendments. These changes, in our opinion, would eliminate these ambiguities.

"We reached agreement with your staff on what changes were needed and they are currently being prepared. Assuming that the bill is amended accordingly, it should provide the private sector with the assurances it needs to further invest in the infrastructure of Ontario's waste management and recycling industries. This renewed confidence will undoubtedly result in more employment opportunities for Ontario workers.

"The Ontario Waste Management Association is pleased to have been involved throughout the consultative process which accompanied the promulgation of this legislation. We are extremely grateful that we were given the opportunity to express our views and that our opinions were carefully considered.

"If the amendments which your ministry brings forward satisfactorily address the concerns which we have raised, and if they are incorporated into the bill, the Ontario Waste Management Association will strongly support the amended legislation."

I think that certainly says a lot for this government and how it has been consulting with not only municipalities but with the private sector, because as far as we're concerned, the private sector still plays a very important role in waste management in this province, along with this government and municipalities.

I'd just like to thank everyone and say that this bill clearly defines which level of government is responsible for waste management programs while also giving municipalities the flexibility they need to meet their local needs.

I know the member for Markham talked about a project in his riding and about how they started the recycling program. I'd certainly like to do the same as he did, compliment those people in those types of communities, because that's the kind of thing this government wants. We want the communities to get involved, with assistance from this government, and we'll certainly support that and compliment those people for having the foresight.

I'm looking forward to dealing with this bill so all members from all sides here can have input on implementing and working together to reduce the waste that goes into our landfill sites, and also to help to create jobs, because cleaning up the environment is certainly a way of creating jobs, and that is just one small factor that this government is looking forward to.

Thank you very much, and I'd like to --

Mr Stockwell: You're welcome, for heaven's sake.

Mr Hayes: Thank you, too, member for Etobicoke West. I really appreciate your input into this. It certainly helps us to drive stronger ahead.

The Acting Speaker: Mr Hayes, on behalf of the Honourable Ed Philip, Minister of Municipal Affairs, has moved second reading of Bill 7. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour, please say "aye."

All those opposed, please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members. We will have a 30-minute bell.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. I have correspondence here from the office of the chief government whip, room 251, Main Legislative Building, Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, dated May 11, to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly:

"Pursuant to standing order 28(g), I request that the vote on Bill 7, An Act to amend certain Acts related to Municipalities concerning Waste Management, moved by Mr P. Hayes, be deferred until immediately following routine proceedings on Wednesday, May 12, 1993."

Signed by Fred Wilson, and this now stands.

Hon Shelley Martel (Minister of Northern Development and Mines): I am going to move both the 14th and 13th order together. I believe we have agreement with the opposition parties that Bills 32 and 34 will be considered together, both for second reading purposes and for committee of the whole.

So I would move that the Minister of Transportation move second reading of Bill 34, and after his opening remarks, if agreeable to the House, the parliamentary assistant for the Minister of Finance will then move second reading of Bill 32 and his opening remarks will follow immediately.

The government will then skip the rotation to compensate for putting up the two speakers together, and once there are no further speakers from the opposition parties, both Mr Pouliot and Mr Sutherland will make brief closing remarks. Any votes will be taken separately.

The Acting Speaker: Do we have unanimous consent to proceed with Bills 32 and 34 simultaneously? Agreed.

VEHICLE TRANSFER PACKAGE STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES DOSSIERS DE TRANSFERT DE VÉHICULES

Mr Pouliot moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 34, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act and the Personal Property Security Act in respect of Vehicle Transfer Packages / Loi modifiant le Code de la route et la Loi sur les sûretés mobilières à l'égard des dossiers de transfert de véhicules.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Would the minister have some opening remarks?

Hon Gilles Pouliot (Minister of Transportation): On June 1, 1992, this government introduced Bill 34 for first reading in this House. Bill 34 introduced a new product, now called the "used vehicle information package," to protect consumers purchasing vehicles privately.

Le projet de loi 34 a présenté un nouveau produit appelé maintenant «trousse d'information sur les véhicules d'occasion,» qui vise à protéger les consommateurs qui achètent des véhicules auprès des particuliers.

Passage of this bill will require people selling used vehicles privately to purchase the package, make it available to prospective buyers and deliver it to the buyer at the time of sale. Buyers will be required to present the package in order to transfer the vehicle registration to their name.

Mandatory use of the package should help to reduce problems in the marketplace, including unscrupulous vendors who misrepresent the previous use of vehicles or who fail to provide accurate information on the existence of lien.

Only private-sale cars, light trucks, vans, motorcycles and motor homes will be affected by this bill. We will recognize exemptions for such transactions as gifts between certain family members and sales by licensed dealers, who must satisfy the separate requirements under the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act.

Since February 1993, the information package has been available, and we have encouraged voluntary use of the package for private sales of vehicles.

1600

Our heavy agenda last fall prevented this bill from taking effect on April 1, 1993. At this time, a new date of July 1, 1993, has been set to allow the public adequate notice before mandatory use of the package is called for. The package contains a description of the vehicle, its ownership history, outstanding liens and fair market value: key information to help buyers make informed purchases.

Cette trousse contient une description du véhicule, la liste de ses propriétaires, ses privilèges -- autrement dit, les dettes contractées à l'endroit du véhicule -- et sa valeur marchande : des renseignements pour aider les acheteurs à faire des choix éclairés.

By requiring the use of this package, we are taking an important step towards increasing fairness in the used vehicle marketplace in Ontario.

The Acting Speaker: Before we proceed with second reading by the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance, we will have questions and/or comments.

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): Mr Speaker, I think we have agreement with the opposition parties that Bills 32 and 34 will be considered together for second reading.

The Acting Speaker: This has been approved.

Mrs Caplan: That's been approved?

The Acting Speaker: Yes. We're looking for questions or comments on the minister's opening remarks.

Mr W. Donald Cousens (Markham): I just wondered why the minister is bringing this bill in. How is he going to enforce it? Are there any regulations that are going to be coming out with the bill?

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? Seeing none, the honourable minister has two minutes in response.

We now proceed with the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance.

Mr Cousens: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Why do we have an opportunity for questions and answers, when you ask a couple of questions of the minister and he doesn't deign to answer? What a mockery that is of this place. All I asked were three questions and gave him a chance to respond, and he doesn't show the courtesy to respond.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Pouliot: On the same point, Mr Speaker: The points are well taken, but the format? Due process in the House does allow the minister to conclude at the end. The points are well taken. They will be answered meticulously, each and every question, at that specific time.

Mr Cousens: Come on. You don't know the answers. It will take you two hours to get a training session.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Point of order, Mr Speaker: I can see that clearly the minister is not ready at this time, so I'd be prepared to allow him to have staff come in and give him the answers, if that's what needs to be done.

The Acting Speaker: Order. Let us now proceed.

RETAIL SALES TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LA TAXE DE VENTE AU DÉTAIL

Mr Sutherland, on behalf of Mr Laughren, moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 32, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur la taxe de vente au détail.

The Acting Speaker: Would the parliamentary assistant have some opening remarks?

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): Yes, I do. This bill includes changes announced by the Treasurer in the 1992 Ontario budget. Effective October 1, 1992, stricter controls made the used vehicle market fair and equitable for sellers and buyers of used motor vehicles. When a vehicle is sold privately, retail sales tax is paid on either the purchase price or the average wholesale price, whichever is greater.

There are some exceptions to this practice. Family members, such as spouses, parents, step-parents and in-laws, children, stepchildren, grandparents and grandchildren can transfer used vehicles as gifts, without paying tax. Only one such transfer per vehicle is allowed in a 12-month period.

New residents can register their motor vehicles without having to pay Ontario's retail sales tax only if proof of their previous residence outside Ontario is shown. A motor vehicle that is a gift from an estate settlement can be registered by the owner, without paying tax, when a sworn statement is shown.

People buying used vehicles from licensed dealers will continue to pay tax to the dealer on the actual selling price. A tax refund may be claimed if an appraisal shows that damage or excessive use is reason for a lower purchase price than the average wholesale price.

I will be introducing amendments to Bill 32 that will allow purchasers of used motor vehicles which have been subject to excessive use or damage in an accident to pay tax on a reduced value, rather than having the purchaser claim a tax refund, as the bill currently allows.

The first amendment applies to vehicles that have an average wholesale price of less than $1,000. The buyer will be allowed to pay tax on the purchase price rather than the average wholesale price.

The second amendment applies to vehicles that have an average wholesale price of $1,000 or more. If a buyer obtains an authorized appraisal prior to vehicle registration, the buyer will pay tax on the higher of the actual price paid or the appraised value, provided both are lower than the average wholesale price. If the appraisal is obtained after the vehicle has been registered, the purchaser will be required to apply for a tax refund, as provided for in Bill 32.

Licensed motor vehicle dealers are the only individuals who can collect tax on the sale of used vehicles and transfer used vehicles without paying tax to the motor vehicle licence issuer. These transfers can be made only on vehicles that are registered in the dealer's name.

The ministry will be able to release information to the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations and the Ministry of Transportation. This information is necessary to administer and enforce the collection and payment of retail sales tax.

This bill also contains administrative changes needed to carry out day-to-day operations under the act.

The definition of "transient accommodation" has been expanded to include lodging or prepared foods and lodging that are included in a paid membership to a club or organization.

This bill also clarifies that only the 8% provincial sales tax can be paid over the full term of a long-term lease or rental.

The authority to seize records during an audit is removed.

The penalty for failure to provide a complete return form is removed.

Anyone wanting a tax refund for a vehicle converted to an alternative fuel must convert the vehicle within 180 days of the purchase. The requirement for a written contract within 90 days no longer applies.

People who unlawfully obtain or attempt to obtain tax refunds or rebates will be guilty of an offence.

Finally, I will also be proposing a change to Bill 32 that gives both those individuals who buy vehicles privately and those who buy vehicles from motor vehicle dealers the same rebate opportunities under the alternative fuel-powered vehicle rebate program.

Copies of the proposed amendments, I believe, will be distributed or have been distributed to the honourable members. I look forward to their comments.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and or comments on the parliamentary assistant's opening debate?

Mrs Caplan: As I rise today to debate in some detail --

The Acting Speaker: We are still on questions and comments.

Mrs Caplan: Oh, I'll be speaking to the debate. I thought you called for further debate.

The Acting Speaker: We are on questions and comments.

Mr Cousens: On the questions and comments, with this bill coming forward now -- it was given first reading on June 1, 1992. Why are we coming to second reading at this late date?

The Acting Speaker: Further questions or comments?

Mr Sutherland: If I wanted to be in my more partisan nature, I could easily say that it's because we haven't been able to get it on the agenda and have the cooperation. But we know that there have been many pieces of legislation that have had to be dealt with since this bill was introduced. They have been dealt with and we've debated them and had thorough debate and now we're at this piece of legislation today.

The Acting Speaker: Before we proceed with further debate, I have this announcement which must be made prior to 5 o'clock. Here it is: Pursuant to standing order 34(a), the member for Mississauga South has given notice of her dissatisfaction with the answer to her question given by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations concerning the Ontario Film Review Board. This matter will be debated today at 6 o'clock.

Further debate?

1610

Mrs Caplan: I've been so keen to begin the debate on Bills 32 and 34 that --

Mr Hans Daigeler (Nepean): A lot needs to be said about it.

Mrs Caplan: There is a lot to be said about it, because these two bills, while they are entitled An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax and An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act and the Personal Property Security Act in respect of Vehicle Transfer Packages, I believe give us an important opportunity to talk about tax policy. What I find is that very often the public does not understand fully enough the role of government and what we would sometimes call the levers of government in establishing the kinds of public policies that will have an impact on our economy.

As I've discussed, Bill 32 and Bill 34, which I have just heard the minister say are now due for implementation July 1, 1993 -- I think it is very important that we take this opportunity to look overall at the tax policy of the NDP government, and consider it in time and before the government plans to implement this new tax, and consider it at a time when the province is just coming out of this recession, and hopefully the government will change its mind about its tax policy.

I referred a moment ago to the levers that government has available to influence the economy. There are a number of those levers. One is through lawmaking, and we see today two bills which will become law unless the majority government of Bob Rae, the NDP, changes its mind and withdraws those bills. This is second reading debate in principle on these bills, so there is some considerable process yet and we are, as I say, discussing the in-principle component of it, so we have an opportunity today to discuss tax policy. These bills were both tabled June 1, 1992, and here we are, almost a full year later, beginning the debate in principle on second reading. So these are laws. One of the things that laws do is to say it is legal or illegal. If it is illegal, it requires enforcement or fees to be paid, and these bills do both of that.

The other thing that government can do is to levy taxes. I would like to make a statement that I think everybody in the House will agree with. That is that everybody hates paying taxes. Nobody likes taxes. Nobody likes taxes when times are good. nobody likes taxes if they are levied by the school board or by the municipality or by the provincial government or by the federal government. It doesn't matter who levies the tax; people generally don't like paying taxes. In all of my years of public life, I've never had a constituent phone me and say, "We're really happy to pay more taxes to the government."

So I think it is fair to say that people don't like paying taxes. But the one thing I've realized after more than a dozen years in public life is that the public realizes that it is only through the collection of taxes, sometimes called "revenues," that the governments, whether it's the school board or the municipality or the provincial government or the federal government, pay for those services which are important to people. That's the reality. Without the ability to tax, without having tax revenues, there's very little the government could do in the way of providing the services that people say they want.

The question really becomes whether the taxpayers feel they are getting value for the services, value for the dollars in the form of services, whether they are getting valued and valuable services, whether they are willing to pay for those services. That's one issue.

The other is whether they feel that the taxes they are being asked to pay are fair, and "fair" leads us to a look at what kinds of taxes we have in our society. I think most people looking at Bill 32 and Bill 34 would feel that these are not particularly fair. They are what would be known as a regressive tax, as opposed to a progressive tax, because this is not based on your ability to pay in any way, so it would fall into that category of tax which would be considered regressive.

The Canadian Constitution has given different levels of government, federal and provincial, distinct taxing powers. The provinces only have the power to institute direct taxes such as sales taxes, whereas Ottawa has the right to set whatever kinds of taxes it sees fit.

For a long time after Confederation, Ottawa tended to stay out of the area of provincial taxing by primarily using trade duties as its primary taxing vehicle.

What's interesting is that the province, over the course of time, under numerous years of Conservative administration, Liberal administration and now NDP administration, has brought in many different kinds of taxes, but there are some basic taxes that we presently have as part of our structure here in Ontario and everybody's used to them. We have provincial personal income tax; we have corporate tax; we have retail sales tax; we have employer health tax; we have tire taxes and now we have, as a part of the retail sales tax and the Highway Traffic Act, taxes on used cars. We always had those, but now we have them defined in yet another piece of legislation.

What's interesting about these pieces of legislation is that they begin to discuss taxation on used cars at a very low level. I'll get into the specific details of this bill, but I think it is important when we talk about taxes to have an understanding of the framework within which government operates when it comes to seeking revenues in all the places they can look to getting revenues in order to then pay for the services we have in the province.

What we've seen is the federal government and the provincial government over time getting into different kinds of taxes, constantly looking for new ways to tax. Ottawa has tended to act as the tax collector for both personal and corporate income taxes and these have usually been as a result of tax collection agreements.

Just for one example, Ontarians pay their personal income tax to Ottawa, who then remit the provincial portion back to Queen's Park, and other levies such as sales taxes are applied by both levels of government but collected separately and there are different administrations.

We've stood in this House on numerous occasions and talked about the burden on business that all of these different tax forms have -- they've really been a tremendous burden to small business. And I have had numerous constituents, small business people in the riding, tell me that if there was anything the government could do to relieve the administrative burden on small business, it would be to eliminate some of that duplication.

I want to go on record as saying I think it is a very important thing that this government could consider doing in assistance to small business, to start to look at the amount of paperwork and duplication on taxes and tax forms that business have to fill out, and to try and streamline that procedure so the burden of filling out paper, having to hire professionals or sitting into the wee hours of the night really needing accounting courses for individual entrepreneurs to be able to fill out all of the government forms that are required to pay your taxes -- is something this government could do, and what we find in Bills 32 and 34 is exactly the opposite approach because it does require additional forms to be filled out.

It's not just business that will be affected; it's the individual, it's the small transaction between two people -- not through a big dealership, but just individuals who will have to go and buy the red book, find out what their car is going to be worth, fill out forms. I predict -- I can tell you as sure as I'm standing here today -- that when the people realize how much paperwork is involved as a result of these pieces of legislation, they're going to be very angry and very upset, because this will have an impact on the individual who just wants to sell his car. We already have a requirement for certification. We already have requirements. What this does now is require additional papers to be filled out and submitted to the government, and more forms. It adds to that paper burden, and yes, you're going to kill a lot of trees but you're going to make a lot of people very angry because of the administrative responsibility of submitting forms to the government.

1620

One of the keys when we talk about taxation not only is in fairness but it's also the provision of, "Can we afford taxes at this time as a part of our economy?" That's very important, because what taxes do is take money out of the economy. When the government takes money, whether it is from businesses in corporate taxes, from consumers via sales taxes, from consumers via personal income taxes or from people generally, whether it's a tire tax or an employer health tax, as the government takes those revenues into the government coffers, called the consolidated revenue fund, as the government takes those dollars out of the economy, it has a number of very specific impacts.

That's why, when we discuss the total tax burden and whether or not it is time when the consumer or the business sector can cope with any more taxation -- it's not only the argument that people don't like taxes at any time. It doesn't matter when it is -- as I said, nobody likes taxes -- but there are certain times when taxing and taxing policy are harmful and detrimental to the economic times of the province. That time is now. If there ever was a time not to bring in any new tax, it is now. If there ever was a time not to increase the rate of taxation, that time is now.

The reason that it is not the time to increase taxes is because of the fragile state of the provincial economy. It is because this province is just beginning to work its way out of one of the most devastating recessions in decades, certainly since the 1930s. At that fragile time as the economy is just recovering, the effect of taking more money out of the economy, whether it is in the form of a tax on used cars, whether it is in the form of increases in the employer health tax, whether it is in the form of an increase in the base of personal sales tax, whether it is in the form of an increase in the rate of personal sales tax, whether it is in the form of increases in the corporate tax, whether it would be in the implementation of a new wealth tax or an inheritance tax, any increase in the total tax burden of this province is madness, absolute madness.

Why? Why am I saying that? I'm saying that because if you raise personal income tax, you take money out of the hands of consumers which they could be spending, and that consumer spending would help the economic recovery. If you take money out of the hands of corporations -- I say "hands" figuratively -- you give them less money to reinvest in job-creating investment. If you raise your retail sales tax, you have a direct impact on retail sales, because you make the cost of that purchase higher. Consumer resistance means people will not purchase, and again, that lack of consumer confidence, that lack of consumer purchasing because of the higher tax, means that you are affecting the economic recovery of this province, and at this time it would be madness to have any increase in the total tax burden of the province.

Is there a time to increase taxes? I will say to you, yes, there is a time. The time when you increase taxes is when everybody is doing very well, when the economy is booming, when people have a lot of discretionary income and when the demand for more services or for more income by the people delivering those services is justified. When you can afford to spend more, on the basis of your society's wealth-creating ability, then it is reasonable, and only then is it reasonable, to take taxes to pay for services, to take taxes to raise wages. That's reasonable, and every reasonable person knows that when the economy is growing, when the economy is healthy, when wealth is being created, there are certain obligations the government has and certain opportunities the government has to then tax and provide additional services that the public demands and that it wants.

But the other side of that, just as there is a time when, although nobody likes taxes, nobody wants to pay more taxes, even when times are good, at least when times are good, people understand that they're going to be either paying people more who deliver those services or they are going to be having additional services that they feel are important to them. They want those services provided, and therefore they understand if they demand those services, they have to be paid for.

So that brings us to Bill 32 and to Bill 34, because these two pieces of legislation will bring additional tax revenue to the province of Ontario right at the moment when the province of Ontario should not be taking any more tax dollars out of the economy. It's been a generally accepted rule of thumb that for every $40,000 in new taxes taken out of the economy, you kill one job, because that money, if it were invested in the economy either through purchasing power or investment by business, would create jobs or protect jobs; that when you take that money out, you are affecting the job-creation ability of the private sector.

Therefore, as we look at Bills 32 and 34 in some detail, it's important, I believe, to remember the overall ramifications of the tax policy of the Rae government, of the NDP government, which at a crucial point in our economy is looking at a number of taxes.

Today is May 11. On May 19 we are going to have a new provincial budget. I would argue that in advance of that budget, it is premature for us to even be debating these pieces of legislation during second reading. I would have hoped that the Treasurer would have withdrawn these pieces of legislation pending his new budget. He tabled these two pieces in June of 1992. They've sat on the order paper for a year. He's got a new budget coming out. We're going to be debating the fiscal policy of the government when that new budget comes down, and yet a week and a half in advance of that new budget we're standing here debating tax bills. To me, this says that this government has no plan, it does not understand fiscal planning, it does not understand the impact of its lack of planning on the provincial economy. The budget is a time when they bring down their plan for the next year for the province, and we should not be dealing with Bills 32 and 34 today in advance of that budget.

1630

If you want to bring in legislation affecting used car sales that are going to be implemented in July 1993, this should be incorporated in your budget and then we can debate it as part of your total fiscal plan. Why we are standing here today debating this with a budget coming down in a week and a half makes no sense to me.

However, I will address myself now to the specifics of this legislation and make the points that I would like to make. I say in advance that I know there have been a number of amendments that have been proposed. They've been proposed here in this House. We will have the opportunity to discuss it here in committee of the whole. That means this legislation will not be going out to committee for public hearings, and I frankly feel that also is something the government will come to regret. That's because public hearings give people an opportunity to come forward and talk about the provisions of new legislation that are going to affect them directly.

The sale of an automobile, a used car, affects a lot of people in this province. When they find out what they're going to have to do to comply with the new laws, they're going to say, "Why didn't anybody tell me this?" And they're not going to find out until they try to register the vehicle, the change of ownership, and they're going to be very angry. When that happens -- I'm not one who likes to say, "I told you so," but I can tell the government that it had better consider today how people are going to react when they find out that without public hearings, they passed this legislation which has made them mad.

The government has made two changes to Bill 32 since the legislation was introduced last year. One change is that they have said they will accept a presale appraisal of the established value of the automobile. In the original bill, a person would have been forced to pay the tax, then get an appraisal and apply for a refund if the appraised value of the car was below its Red Book value. This change will allow people involved in the transaction to get an appraisal prior to the sale and pay the tax on the appraised value.

But how many people who are out there with another private citizen, selling their cars, are going to know or understand this until after the transaction is done? That's going to be a very significant problem and it will create a lot of confusion.

The second thing this government has done since last year when the bill was first introduced: On the transaction -- that's where a car is worth less than $1,000 -- the government will accept the actual sale price for tax purposes. Before this change, the original legislation, which was, in my view, terribly misguided -- under the previous legislation, the person was going to be forced to pay tax on the Red Book value of the vehicle regardless of the actual value of the car.

Let me tell you what this means. Under the original proposal, it didn't matter what you paid for the car. If the Red Book value was more, you had to pay tax on the value of the Red Book, and you had to go and buy the Red Book or find it somewhere. You would only find this out when you went in to do the vehicle registration. I know that provision was upsetting a lot of people. We had a number of calls on it as people were confronted with that.

So this change says that if your car is under $1,000 you will only have to pay the tax on the actual price you paid for the car rather than on the Red Book value, but if you pay $1,025 you are going to have to pay the tax on the actual Red Book value, not on the price you have paid. I want to make that very clear. While the government has made changes to this legislation, it's only done this for people under $1,000 on purchase price. You are going to have to pay tax on the actual Red Book value of your car, not on the price you have paid.

Those people who are purchasing cars of under $1,000 will likely like these amendments, but those people who are paying $1,001 and more are going to be very upset that the government chose $1,000 as a level, because there are not very many cars that get sold for under $1,000.

I would say to the minister -- he's here in the House today. He seems very proud of this legislation. He's saying that this is the whole idea of the legislation. If the whole idea of this legislation is to make people mad, Minister, you will succeed. You will succeed in making people mad, I guarantee it. Wait until people understand what this legislation does.

Let me tell you some of the other things that Bill 32 does. Bill 32 makes a number of changes to the Retail Sales Tax Act. I could support a clarification of the definition of "tangible personal property." I even see that as what I would call a housekeeping kind of amendment, and if you had brought that in separately, you would have my support; I would say that's a very minor part of this bill.

There are more provisions in the bill that I can't support. Fundamentally, I can't support the legislation because it raises taxes at a time when Ontario cannot afford to have any more tax revenue taken from the economy. That's number one. But I don't support this bill for a number of reasons, and the provisions of both Bill 32 and Bill 34 are -- in the next few minutes I think it will become apparent as to why these bills are not supportable.

In April 1993 the government began offering its own information package to the public. This is information that people need to know how this legislation will work. This is information that people need to know (1) so they'll know how to fill out the form and (2) how to properly obey the law to do a simple transaction of selling their used car to another private citizen in the province.

So what has the government done? They're charging $20 for the information package to tell people how to obey the law.

That's very offensive. Not only does it add $20 to the cost for a purchaser who's buying a new car or a person selling their car, but here the government is saying to you: "Here's a new law. You must obey the law. We're going to tell you how, and it's going to cost you $20 to find out how to obey the law." That's not fair, and that's what this legislation says.

We've heard a lot of people talk about what legislation is supposed to do and how it is supposed to be fair and simple for people to understand and simple for people to obey, and here is another example of the NDP government taking an issue which I think most people would say, "Well, we should do something about it," and doing it in the wrong way.

The terminology is called "curbsiding." When I first heard the term "curbsiding," I will tell you, I didn't know what it meant. I didn't understand what curbsiding was, and I bet that of the 10 million people in this province, nine million people don't know what curbsiding means.

1640

Mr Stockwell: I think that's a safe bet.

Mrs Caplan: A pretty safe bet.

Do you know what curbsiding means, Mr Speaker? I think you do now, because you've been in this Legislature and you've seen the bills that are here, but the majority of people don't know what curbsiding means. Curbsiding is the avoidance of retail sales tax in used car transactions. In other words, the government has been concerned that people have been selling their cars and deflating the prices that they paid in order to save tax.

So this whole elaborate scheme, these two pieces of legislation are designed to getcha. That's what this is designed to do: You're gonna get 'em. I'll tell you, that's going to make people take a look at you and say, what is it that you're doing? Why are they doing this?

Hon Mr Pouliot: This is consumer protection. Money is secondary.

Mrs Caplan: I hear the minister say consumer protection. Minister, do you know that in this province before you can sell a used car, you have to get a certificate already? That's not in this legislation, but you have to provide a certificate that says that your car is drivable. A safety certificate is already required in this province. This legislation has nothing to do with consumer protection. This legislation is all about increasing taxes.

One of the reasons people are cynical in this province, one of the reasons people are cynical here, is that ministers of the crown sit down and they say, "This legislation is all about consumer protection." This legislation is about taxes.

Hon Mr Pouliot: Start telling the truth. That's your obligation. That's why people are cynical.

Mr Stockwell: He said you're not telling the truth.

Mrs Caplan: I'm sure the Speaker will want to intervene.

Hon Mr Pouliot: It's very provocative, Mr Speaker. It brings out the worst in people.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Thank you. Please.

Mrs Caplan: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

As I said, this legislation has nothing to do with consumer protection and everything about a tax grab, hiking taxes and hiking taxes at a time that Ontario can least afford a tax increase, and not only least afford it, but it is at a time when a tax increase will jeopardize our economic recovery.

Why are they doing this? The NDP has been forced to look for every possible revenue source in order to pay for its government's mismanagement of the economy since it assumed office in the fall of 1990. It's that simple.

I will agree with you that we have had some very difficult economic times. We have experienced a serious recession and we have seen a fall in revenue. But notwithstanding the fact that the Treasurer is predicting a budget which I believe is inflated at $17 billion -- I think that number is inflated, but even if he were only predicting a $10-billion budget deficit, even if that were his prediction rather than his goal; to get the deficit under $10 billion is his stated goal -- even if that were his estimate of what he thought the deficit was going to be, I would argue that's a record of serious economic mismanagement.

We have seen three consecutive budgets from this government --

Mr Stockwell: Two.

Mrs Caplan: I'm predicting the third one. The member for Etobicoke West has said two. That's right; we've had two so far that are completed. We have a third one that is going to bring in deficits in a range which were unthinkable in this province.

While we have the former Minister of the Environment talking about what is unthinkable in the province of Ontario -- she used that in the context of, "It's unthinkable to ship our garbage to some part of Ontario," one, that wants it and, two, where it would create jobs and be a source of economic activity. That to the NDP government is unthinkable, and that policy has been maintained by the existing Minister of Environment and Energy.

That to them is unthinkable, but let me tell you what is unthinkable to the people of this province. What was unthinkable was the prediction of $9.9 billion as a deficit in their first budget of 1991; that was unthinkable. Then you didn't even achieve that target; it came in $1 billion -- at $10.9 billion.

What was unthinkable was the second budget, that similarly predicted a $10-billion deficit and this year has come in at $12 billion. I can't even comprehend how this government can think that bringing in a budget with a deficit of under $10 billion is acceptable. That is unthinkable for three years in a row in the province of Ontario. That is economic mismanagement in the extreme. What is also unthinkable is that this government would try to solve its economic mismanagement problems by raising taxes at a time when tax increases would damage and potentially cripple our recovery.

We know that the economy is recovering more slowly than most economic analysts had originally predicted. We know that unemployment in Ontario is at a high of the last decade. People are unemployed; they have lost their jobs; they have lost their businesses; they have lost their homes. Unemployment is over 11% in this province.

Youth are being denied opportunities, not just for summer jobs; that's bad. What's worse is youth do not have opportunities when they are prepared to enter the workforce. There are no jobs for the next generation, and we have an obligation to do what we can. Your tax policy, which is going to kill one job for every $40,000 you take out of the economy, is killing hope for those young people who want opportunities and want jobs and want to work. They don't want welfare. Your tax policy is killing jobs for people, not just youth, but for people who have lost their jobs and want to work and don't want to collect welfare. That's what this debate is about.

As the Treasurer and the Minister of Transportation and the Minister of Revenue pick on private citizens selling their used cars, this is their attempt to pay in small part for the economic mismanagement of Bob Rae's Ontario. The NDP is trying to tax its way out of its economic problems. Just as we told the Treasurer that he could not spend his way out of the recession, just as we told the Treasurer he cannot spend his way to prosperity, so I will say to him today you cannot tax your way to prosperity.

Over the last two years of this government, we have seen successive tax increases in the two budgets that have been brought down. We told the Treasurer what the effect would be in his first budget when he was predicting a $9.9-billion budget. We told him, "Don't raise taxes in this budget," but he did. As he announced he was going to try and spend his way out of the recession, we told him what the result would be. He didn't listen. We gave him alternatives, and he didn't listen.

Instead, he raised wages in the public sector, and the cost of that wage bill in the Ontario public service alone was 14%, and it rippled through the entire broader public sector so that here we stand, May 11, 1993, watching this government claw back, via its social contract, in an attempt to lower that wage bill to what it was in September of 1990. What they are trying to do is take back what they gave, take back what they couldn't afford to give, take back what we told them not to give in the first place, and not only are they doing that but they are attempting, through this legislation, to tax back and to tax working people in this province who just want to sell their car.

1650

Over the last two years, not only has the Treasurer increased taxes in both budgets but the Treasurer has increased and boosted all kinds of fees, every kind of imaginable fee, to try to gather in new revenues, and still revenues continue to fall. That's because rather than looking for new sources of revenue, what you should be doing is looking at wealth-creating initiatives, looking at sending a message to the business sector, where jobs are created, where wealth is created, and creating a climate where business can flourish in the province of Ontario, creating a climate where business wants to invest in Ontario.

So your tax policy has had exactly the opposite effect of what you had wanted it to have. Rather than giving you more money at a time of falling economic activity, your revenues are falling, notwithstanding your tax increases. So whatever plan you said you had has failed, and it has been self-defeating. You're on the treadmill. I say to the government: Get off the treadmill, because the more your Treasurer taxes, the more the economy stalls. The more you have taxed, the more slowly the economy recovers. The more you have raised taxes, the worse it has gotten. So your plan is self-defeating. Get off the treadmill. This is not the time to raise taxes.

I mentioned Ontario's unemployment; our unemployment numbers are very high. Unemployment means that people aren't working who want to work. The unemployment number reflects the number of people who are out there looking for jobs. What it doesn't reflect are the numbers of people who have given up. They've given up looking for work because they are feeling fear, hopelessness, and that is a terrible legacy of the fiscal and economic policies of this government.

While I have said that the economic recovery has begun, the economic outlook, as a result of the policies of Bob Rae and the NDP government, is bleak. The predictions are high unemployment and slow growth over the next little while. I would say to this government that there are some things that you could do that would give people hope and not crush the hope that is there.

One of the things that you could do is make a commitment to not increase taxes at this time. One of the things that you could do is pull Bills 32 and 34 and bring back those portions of the bills that do with the housekeeping things, that fix the definitions, but leave out of them those parts of it which take additional revenue out of the economy through higher taxes.

An oxymoron is a contradiction in terminology; most people know that. I remember the day that the NDP talked about its recovery plan. There were many of us who were actually quite hopeful, until we looked at it and realized "NDP recovery plan" is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms to the people of this province, because you can't look at one policy in isolation from the rest. Bill 40 has scared off investors and businesses, high deficits have shocked taxpayers and the heavy-handed tactics of the NDP have destroyed confidence, not only of consumers, but of your very own civil service. Morale is at an all-time low in the Ontario public service.

The politicization of the civil service, the appointment of David Agnew as the top civil servant in the province -- David Agnew, Bob Rae's campaign manager; David Agnew, Bob Rae's chief of staff -- as the number one civil servant, the secretary to the cabinet, sent shock waves through Ontario's public service and signalled a politicization unlike we have seen in this province. Never before have we seen this kind of behaviour in this province.

Mr Sutherland: Come on; 42 years of Tory rule and it wasn't politicized? Give me a break.

Mr Stockwell: It wasn't; not like you jerks.

Mrs Caplan: I hear the members opposite saying the Tories did this, and I will say to Mr Sutherland --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Oriole.

Mrs Caplan: I see that I hit a nerve, but I'll tell Mr Sutherland, the member for Oxford, that even in the worst days of Tory abuses and patronage -- and there were some bad ones -- what you have done surpasses anything which they ever did in the way of politicization of the civil service. A professional, non-partisan civil service has been a hallmark of this province, you have systematically destroyed that in the last two years and you will rue the day for doing that.

There is not a day goes by that I do not hear from yet another one of your employees how morale has suffered, how the civil service feels that you have been at war with it and how you are infiltrating the civil service with patronage, political appointments in a way which the civil service feels and I feel have betrayed the public trust. But I do digress.

Incompetent economic policymaking, incompetent economic policy direction, incompetent economic and fiscal policy, has been a hallmark of the Rae government from day one. This used car tax needlessly complicates a simple, private transaction between individuals; it's as simple as that. Bills 32 and 34, let me say it again, needlessly complicate simple, private transactions between individuals: one who wants to sell a car; the other who wants to buy a car. Forcing people to buy information packages and deal with government bureaucracy for refunds and reassessments muddles private business transactions between individuals in a way which will boggle the mind and infuriate the public and infuriate my constituents in the riding of Oriole and infuriate your constituents right across this province.

Just to add a lighter note, when I was discussing this with a constituent, the person said, "You know, years ago the big debate was over whether or not government belonged in the bedrooms of the nation," but in fact what this person said was that he didn't believe the NDP has any place in the garages or at the curbsides of this province. I thought it was quite an amusing comparison.

1700

This legislation, I will say once again, needlessly complicates a simple private transaction between an individual who wants to sell his car and an individual who wants to buy that car. This is not about consumer protection. The law today already requires a certificate of safety. The law today already requires the individuals to pay tax on that car; it already is a requirement, and this legislation complicates that very simple process.

The NDP government is forcing people to spend $20 for an information package. Let me tell you, they want them to pay $20 for valuable information. The valuable information they want them to have is how to pay higher taxes, higher retail sales tax on their car. In order to get them to pay a higher retail sales tax, they're charging them $20 for the information. This makes sense to the NDP. This makes sense.

People must buy the Maclean Hunter Red Book or, after that, April 1993, provided the government has its information package available -- the reason they have to buy it is to ascertain the proper value of their used car. Not only are the individuals paying more retail sales tax, they're also paying more to find out the information about what their car is going to be worth so that they can pay more retail sales tax, and the government thinks this is sound policy. The government of the day thinks that's good policy, Mr Speaker. I think you should already be convinced and I think the people of this province should be convinced at the lack of any kind of thought and planning going into these pieces of legislation.

I would like to spend just a few moments on Bill 34. Under the rules of the House, as the critic for the ministry of revenue, normally I would have a considerable period of time to speak on both of these pieces of legislation. But in order to work cooperatively and constructively with the government, we have agreed to deal with these two pieces of legislation at the same time, and therefore I'm going to be using my 90 minutes of debate to debate both of these pieces of legislation at the same time. I just wanted to point that out to you, Mr Speaker, because people are often not aware of the rules of procedure of the House, and that's why I will be discussing this all at one time and having the two pieces of legislation discussed at the same time.

Let me tell you a little bit about Bill 34, which is also receiving second reading at this time in this session of the Legislature. Bill 34 is called An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act and the Personal Property Security Act in respect of Vehicle Transfer Packages. This was also tabled June 1, 1992, and it is a companion piece of legislation to Bill 32, the legislation I've been discussing for the last few minutes.

Bill 34 was the bill that was tabled to implement the provisions which were in last year's budget. I'd make the same point about Bill 34 that I made about Bill 32. We have a new budget coming down in a week and a half, on May 19. If you still wanted to do this, it should be part of your overall fiscal plan. These bills should be withdrawn and they could be tabled again, hopefully in a different form, after your budget of next May 19, a week and a half from now. You still have time to do that, and that's my advice to this government so that the people will have some confidence that you're dealing with a complete fiscal plan for the province, not a piecemeal approach.

This is a leftover from last year. You're hoping that people will not notice, and it is not true. They're going to notice it. It didn't have an impact last year; it will have an impact this year, and it will also affect the other things that you are going to be doing in the budget. This should be debated as part of your overall budgetary plan. I can't make that point too strongly.

Bill 34 requires that every Ontarian selling a used car must buy a vehicle transfer package from the Ministry of Transportation. That's what Bill 34 says. Let me read that again. In fact, let me find the clause. It amends the Highway Traffic Act, and it says in section 11.1:

"Every person who sells, offers for sale or transfers a used motor vehicle shall provide a valid vehicle transfer package in respect of the vehicle for inspection by proposed purchasers or transferees and shall deliver the package to the purchaser or transferee at the time of sale or transfer of the vehicle."

Section 11.1(2) says: "The ministry shall issue a vehicle transfer package in respect of any used motor vehicle to any person who applies therefor and pays the prescribed fee."

Ah, this is interesting. This is a law, and it says that if you want to sell your used car, you must buy from the Ministry of Transportation a vehicle transfer package and you have to present this at the time that you transfer the ownership. The package will contain a registration history of a car or a truck, along with other information, and the minister says this is a consumer protection package because it will also list such things as outstanding liens and so forth.

I would say to the minister that as long as people have this opportunity available to them, the rule of caveat emptor -- I believe people who are buying a vehicle understand that they have an obligation to check this out. They can find this information out if they choose to. But you are legislating in this legislation that whether they want to know or not, if they know the person who owns the car and it's their best friend and they live next door and they trust each other, you are mandating that they have to buy a vehicle information package even if they don't want one.

This is an intrusion. This is exactly the kind of intrusion that people resent. They say to government: "Get off my case. Get off my back. Don't tell me what I have to know before I can buy a used car. If I want to find out about it, I'll find out about it." They are an adult person. As long as they know where to go to get the information --

Mr Stockwell: Caveat emptor.

Mrs Caplan: What caveat emptor means is, "Let the buyer beware." People are not asking you for this protection. They don't want this. This is a tax grab. They know this is a tax grab.

I will say again that this government is complicating a private transaction. The transfer package which the seller must buy will cost $20, and the government expects to receive $13 million a year from the sale of the vehicle transfer package. I'm going to predict what the result will be. Consumers will become more confused by the introduction of the vehicle transfer package.

Red books and other government-imposed hurdles will just further upset and complicate a private transaction when they go to sell their car. In an era when governments around the world are moving away from excessive regulation, this NDP government is trying to impose more government red tape and hopelessly complicate even the simple sale of a used car from one individual to another.

1710

I spoke before about the levers government has. I said economic and fiscal policy is a very important one. Taxation policy is very important. Legislation -- what's legal and illegal -- is very important. The other one is the ability to regulate, which says: "You will fill out the following 250 forms. You must fill these forms out and you must sometimes pay a fee and sometimes not pay a fee." When a fee is involved, you have to stand accountable for why you are charging this fee.

As recently as just last week, I went to update my driver's licence, to get my 1994 sticker. What I found out is that everything is computerized at the ministry. The information is all there. I stood in line. It was actually quite efficient. It didn't take very long at all. I stood in line for a few minutes. I handed in my forms. They punched everything up in the computer. I paid the fee to get my new licence and my ownership for 1994.

I spoke to the people. The office happens to be in the riding of Oriole and they're very nice people who man the office. They were very polite and very helpful. But one of the things that I realized when I was there was that all of this information that the minister would like to sell for $20 is available in those computers today. All they have to do is punch it up like that. They could tell you at that time, without any problem, that there's no lien on the car. It's there. It's not going to cost them a nickel more to provide it for you. The system is in place. Therefore, this is a very thinly disguised tax grab. That's all it is.

The vehicle transfer package is yet another tax. The government's mismanagement of the economy has forced the Treasurer to look for every possible source of new revenue and to attempt to disguise tax grabs in a way which is making people angry and making them cynical. They say to me, "Don't tell me this is about consumer protection. This is about increasing taxes," and they're right. The vehicle transfer package is about tax increases and $13 million for the government at a time -- do you know how many jobs will be affected by taking $13 million out of the economy in this tax grab? The arithmetic is very simple: Divide $40,000 into $13 million and you'll see how many jobs this tax will kill.

In the case of the used car tax, not only does the government gain more in retail sales tax revenue -- that's Bill 32 -- but Bill 34 says it's going to get $13 million for a vehicle transfer package that many people don't want, don't need, or which could be provided as a free service when you do your transfer. To require people to pay for this when the information is there already, at a time when they're already feeling overburdened, just increases voter anxiety, increases taxpayer anxiety and makes people mad. At least have the guts to stand up and call it like it is and say, "We're going to raise taxes." Don't disguise it in the form of a vehicle transfer package. Utter nonsense.

The new tax system as proposed by Bill 34 is also unfair. It's unfair to used car buyers and to people who are selling their used cars. I think it's sad, because we hear Bob Rae day after day talking about fairness, yet when we see what he is doing, we see him bringing forward proposals and policies and schemes which are unfair. This new scheme forces sellers to purchase an unnecessary vehicle transfer package and it forces buyers to pay for the cost of that car on the basis of the past history of the car or the truck.

Bills 34 and 35 are unfair. They're unfair because they are regressive. They're unfair because they force consumers to buy something they may not want. They're unfair because they complicate what should be a simple transaction.

This new regime as proposed by Bill 34 forces the purchaser to claim a tax rebate. Buyers will face all kinds of new red tape trying to get a rebate.

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I think this is an important bill in this House and I don't see a quorum. The government can't even feel it's responsible to have the proper representation.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. Would you please check if there is a quorum?

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is present, Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: A quorum is present. The member for Oriole.

Mrs Caplan: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The point that I'd like to make on the rebate foreseen in this legislation is that this is how it's intended to work. If the buyer of the used car believes that he or she has paid tax based on an overinflated assessment of the car, then the person must have an appraiser estimate the true value of the car and then the buyer must appeal to the government for a refund. By overcomplicating this transaction, by forcing people who think they've overpaid to go and get an appraisal, to get into paperwork, one, they're simply not going to do it, which is, I think what you know is going to happen -- they won't do it -- and second, it's going to cost them money to get an appraisal to find out whether or not they've overpaid, and that's just not fair.

This provision of the legislation raises false hope. It says to people, "Well, if you think you've been overtaxed or charged too much, you can go and get an appraisal, and there will be remedy and there will be redress." It'll never work that way.

One of the things that the government has to consider when it brings forward proposals like this is, is it practical? Will it work? What's going to be the result of this? The result will be frustration and anger and cynicism, because this is so unfair and it's unjust. People are going to look at this and say, "You told me I could do this and I tried to do this," and there's so much red tape they're going to say, "Get off my back."

I'd like to repeat the point because it's an important one. At a time when governments in North America, governments in Canada, governments around the world are looking at how they can ease the regulatory burden, one of the new bits of language of the last few years has been the term "deregulation," and it's also fraught with debate and discussion. I'm not suggesting that it's an easy subject. It's not. It's a difficult subject to discuss. But at least everybody is comfortable with the underlying principle of deregulation which says: "Don't regulate if you don't have to. Ease the burden on business; ease the burden on the individual consumer wherever possible. Don't do things that are unnecessary."

All kinds of procedures the government undertakes every day are found to not benefit anybody at all. Everywhere governments are looking at streamlining and simplifying, looking at everything they're doing to make it more understanding, less complicated, more reasonable, less onerous, less intrusive, less bureaucratic, less expensive. And what's the NDP doing? Adding another regulation, adding yet another obligation, adding another piece of paper, adding another regime and more red tape. It shows how out of touch and how misguided and how unfair this government is.

1720

I was reading with interest an article that I'd like to share. It's a short article. It's an article that an accounting firm published for their clients, and this is what they had to say about "Ontario: Province of Opportunity?":

"On April 23, 1993" -- this is timely; this was just last month -- "Premier Bob Rae summarized the New Democratic Party government's $8-billion total deficit reduction plan by saying, 'It can't be business as usual.'

"It can't be business as usual? What planet has Rae been visiting for the last two years? How many of us recall the NDP's philosophy of spending its way out of the recession without any regard for the deficit? Who remembers that this was implemented when the federal government and most of the provinces were introducing budgets based on restraint?

Mr Paul Klopp (Huron): Oh, get out of it.

Hon Mr Pouliot: Who were the big spenders when the money was rolling in?

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, order. Please, I would ask all the members to take their own seats. Perhaps we'll be able to control the order a little more. Minister. Please take your seats. The member for Oriole.

Mrs Caplan: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As I was saying, and as I was quoting when I was interrupted by the interjections of the minister -- and I'm going to read the last sentence again so that it is in context. They're asking a number of questions. This is a major accounting firm in the city of North York in a newsletter to their clients; these are their words. They say, "Who remembers that this was implemented when the federal government and most of the provinces were introducing budgets based on restraint?" They're referring to the NDP philosophy of spending its way out of the recession and not having any regard for the deficit. Then they say, "We see a lot of hands raised out there." In other words, they know a lot of people remember your policies of spend the way out of the recession at a time when the rest of the world was bringing in budgets of restraint.

I continue. It says: "Many of us have been demanding restraint for two years," and I would add that I have been echoing those calls for restraint for two years. I continue by quoting, and it says:

"Thankfully, the government has finally found the financial savvy to recognize it better implement deficit-reduction measures before the province files for bankruptcy.

"But tax increases!

"Obviously our provincial politicians don't pay for the drugs they've been taking. Clearly an increase in taxes will seriously undermine the fragile economic recovery and impede job creation."

These are the words of professional accountants practising in the city of North York. They go on to say:

"Although Laughren hasn't said where the tax hikes will come from, we can speculate they will result from two sources. While we believe the government will be reluctant to raise the overall sales tax rate, this 8% tax may be extended to most currently exempted goods and services such as professional fees, books and children's clothing.

"Ontarians are subjected to a two-tier surtax. The first surtax, imposed at a rate of 14% of Ontario tax, kicks in at about $49,000 of taxable income, while a second 6% surtax (for a total of 20%) is applied when taxable income reaches about $65,000.

"We believe the government intends to continue its attack on this higher-income group. Instead of raising the Ontario tax rate, which would affect the entire population, Laughren will increase these surtaxes. Don't be surprised if they hit 30%.

"On the bright side," these accountants are saying, "We don't think the NDP government will introduce a wealth tax or inheritance tax. While the annual tax haul might help get the province's finances in shape, we believe even this government is not that myopic.

"Economically, the negative impact of either of these taxes would drain whatever investor confidence remains. Politically, these taxes would not likely survive an election and would, therefore, only be temporary measures.

"After living through these NDP years, we often ask," and I quote, "'What happened to this province of opportunity we used to sing about?"'

These are the words of professional accountants in the city of North York as they predict what the Treasurer is likely going to do in this next budget. These accountants have not even mentioned Bills 32 and 34, because --

Mr Curling: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The members of the government will understand. I don't think there's a quorum.

The Deputy Speaker: Would you please check if there is a quorum?

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees: A quorum is present, Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: A quorum is present. The member for Oriole.

Mrs Caplan: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As we debate Bills 32 --

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): On that point of order, Mr Speaker: There have been a number of times when that member has stood up, and having counted the members in the House himself and knowing there was a quorum, he's just simply using it as a tactic to allow the other member to catch up on her speech, because she's just reading from a document. Mr Speaker, we recognize it --

The Deputy Speaker: Please take your seat.

Mr Perruzza: I hope you recognize it as well.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Oriole.

Mrs Caplan: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think my comments are relevant, because as I began this debate on these two tax bills, I said that I believed the issue was broader than simply these two bills. It was important to look at Bill 32 and Bill 34 in the context of the fiscal reality in Ontario today, to discuss them in the context of the total tax plan, that is, the budget of the province of Ontario, and in order to understand what's happening in the province today we have to hear what people are saying.

1730

One of the things that sometimes happens here at Queen's Park is that we don't listen well enough to what the public is saying. We certainly know that often the government doesn't hear what the professionals of the province are saying; for whatever reason, it has been anti-business and anti-professional. But I can say to you that it is important for the government to understand the impact of every one of its tax bills, it is important for the government to understand the impact of its legislation, it is important for the government to understand the impact of new regulations and how much people hate red tape. They hate red tape. They don't want you to bring in legislation that's going to increase red tape. They want you to bring in policies that are going to eliminate red tape. I believe that the public is right to want red tape eliminated, and Bill 32 and Bill 34 do not do that.

I had a constituent -- if you want to know how people are feeling, let me tell you what this constituent had to say. He said, "Bob Rae and Mike Harris would like to introduce the Frank Lorenzo school of management for dealing with labour." He said, "Their approach would abrogate contracts and unilaterally slash payrolls."

Let me tell you who Frank Lorenzo was. Frank Lorenzo took over an airline company in the United States in the early 1980s and within two years put it into bankruptcy, fired all the workers and hired them back at less pay.

This is what my constituents are saying about the way that this government and about the way that Mr Harris, in his support for Mr Rae, are being seen by the public. The approach of the NDP and Bob Rae has been to make mistakes and then panic, panic and try to correct those mistakes. Mr Harris's approach, Mike Harris's approach, is to say whatever sounds politically expedient at the moment, to tell people what you think they want to hear, even though you know you're not going to be able to do it the way you said you were going to do it, and that increases cynicism.

At this time in Ontario's history, as our economy is just beginning to recover, we don't need the Frank Lorenzos of this world in Ontario. We don't need his clones, and we certainly don't need those kinds of approaches sitting on the government benches in the figure of Bob Rae. We don't need the public losing confidence. We don't need the public having less money in their pockets to spend. We need consumers to have more confidence and to begin spending. We know that we need the business sector to feel that there are opportunities to earn a profit. "Profit" is an important and good word. Profit is about wealth creation. No matter how much you tax, unless you understand --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mrs Caplan: Unless the government members -- and I see that I have provoked some of them -- begin to understand how you create a climate of confidence, until you begin to understand how you create a climate where wealth can be created, until you understand how important your taxation policies and your economic policies are in affecting consumer confidence and business confidence, until you understand that Ontario is at a very fragile time of its recovery, until the public believe that you understand all of those things, they will have no confidence in your Premier, they will have no confidence in the members of your cabinet and they will have no confidence in the NDP and its ability to govern.

What has become clearer, whether we are looking at Bill 32, Bill 34 or other pieces of government legislation, whether they are revenue bills, mini-budgets or procedures, when we see this government's approach, we know it is in a crisis-management mode, that it is in a state of panic and chaos and confusion. Instead of instilling confidence, it is instilling lack of confidence.

These bills before us today are one more example of a lack of a cohesive plan. These bills today are one more example of your inability to manage the affairs of the province. These pieces of legislation are not worthy of support, and they are not worthy of support because not only is it the wrong time to raise taxes, but if you're going to present an economic plan in 10 days, these are the kinds of proposals that should be part of that comprehensive plan.

So it is with frustration on behalf of my constituents in the riding of Oriole that I stand in this House today debating two revenue bills which are going to increase taxes just at a time when the public is starting to feel there might be a recovery and everyone, every sensible policy analyst, is saying to you, "Don't raise taxes now."

Admit you made mistakes when you assumed government. Admit that you made those mistakes. Stand up and say, "We made a mistake." We want to help you. We offer ideas and suggestions to you. You just don't listen.

It's my hope that over the course of the debate of these two pieces of legislation the government may decide that the approach of withdrawing these pieces of legislation until after the budget has been presented is a far wiser plan. It would make me feel more secure and my constituents feel more secure if they knew you had a plan that was comprehensive and well-thought-out.

As you can tell, I will not be supporting Bill 32 and Bill 34 when we have the vote on second reading, and I thank the members of this House today for their attention.

The Deputy Speaker: Question or comments? The member for Markham.

Mr Cousens: I see that the honourable member didn't use her full time. I just want to congratulate her for that magnanimous and generous effort. With an hour and a half to go, there was one minute left. We're really pleased with that.

As I was listening to her last words, first of all the honourable member for Oriole was pleading to the government, "Admit you have made a mistake" -- to hear that coming from that member. Then she went on to say, "You just don't listen," and the passion that came through from the member for Oriole was enough to wake me up and get me on my feet in these latter moments of the House, because those very words could have been echoed from one of the socialists about the Liberals when they were in power; indeed, the very minister sitting there taking it all in. It's the kind of comment he would have said to the member for Oriole when she was Minister of Health: "You just don't listen. Admit you've made a mistake."

The fact is, I didn't hear the honourable member for Oriole go into the detailed history of the Liberal Party when it had a chance to do things right. They didn't do it right then, and yet there is no recognition at all of all the 33 taxes that government brought in under Bob Nixon and Mr David Peterson. Talk about sleaze, talk about two-handedness, talk about --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. Only one speaker at a time, and that's the member for Markham.

1740

Mr Cousens: Are you going to extend my time, Mr Speaker, because I could have some more fun at their expense. The fact is the Liberals are in the marvellous position to remember the recent past and what's going on. They have a very convenient memory that disallows them to face up to the truth of the very serious consequences we're suffering today because of the days when they were in power.

Mr Perruzza: I want to go back to a comment that the Liberal member for Oriole said just a few short moments ago in a rather long-winded speech that spanned almost the entire afternoon. She talked about restraint. She has been asking for restraint, and these are her words, and I will get Hansard on this later, she has been asking for restraint for the last two years. Well, let me tell you a little bit about the kind of restraint that she asked for when she was the Minister of Health for -- she had a number of portfolios -- about five years. I'll tell you what they did.

They looked everywhere, and everything they saw and everything they touched they taxed. They saw a tire, they taxed it. They drove into a parking lot, and they said, "This is a great place to tax," and they taxed that too. They went and they shopped and they said: "We get a sales tax. It's seven cents; let's raise it to eight." That's a 15% increase on tax; that's another tax. They went and they said, "I need a pack of cigarettes." They said, "Oh, Jeez, I can tax this too." So they cranked that one up as well. They filled up, and what did they do? "Gas. What a great thing to tax is gas, so let's crank that up as well." So they taxed, and they taxed to the level of what, 32 or 33 times over five years? They spent and they spent and they spent. Did they set aside a rainy day fund for a depression or for a recession? Absolutely not. They didn't think that far.

The Deputy Speaker: On a point of order, the member for Nepean.

Mr Perruzza: There was no plan --

The Deputy Speaker: I'd like to remind the member for Downsview that when you are called to order, you should take your seat. The member for Nepean, you have a point of order.

Mr Daigeler: I think, on a point of order, we just should remind the member that we do have a loudspeaker system in this House, and he doesn't need to yell.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Scarborough North, you have the floor.

Mr Curling: I just want to commend the member for Oriole for the very excellent and thoughtful speech that she gave. My concern is that although the comments were very thoughtful, I don't think one member of the government heard a word. The fact is that they never listen to things. I hope they have a second chance. They have a chance to read the Hansard, and I would recommend to them that although you may get bored in five minutes, spend that five minutes on some very, very thoughtful points that the member for Oriole has made.

I just want to address a bit to the member for Markham. The member for Markham --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Scarborough North, please take your seat. The member for Yorkview, I would ask you to refrain.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Minister, the member from Geraldton, the member for Downsview, the member for Yorkview, members. The member for Scarborough North.

Mr Curling: Although the government is doing its tactics by killing my time, I just want to address the member for Markham, who seemed to have his focus redirected a funny way. It is the government that is doing these awful things. You seem to want to direct to the Liberals. I understand your desperation, hoping that you will win the next election, but that won't help you. It will be about policy and about consistency, what the Liberals have always offered.

The member for Downsview, who seemed to talk about how we taxed everything: I didn't hear one word about your rollback. If you feel we have taxed so much, where's this government rolling back these taxes?

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. Your time has expired. The member for Etobicoke West, you have two minutes.

Mr Stockwell: I'll try and bring this debate back to a sane and rational one.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Be very calm, Chris.

Mr Stockwell: I am, in my non-bombastic fashion.

What we're speaking about --

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): Saturday Night Live.

Mr Stockwell: I again comment, the member from Mississauga is heckling me, and I'll ignore him.

What we're talking about here is a piece of legislation that has been disguised, in my opinion, as protection for the consumer. What I think this is, is a piecemeal basis. They've tried to piece off a certain industry in hopes of gaining significant revenue increases and a tax grab.

I don't think there has been a huge cry out there by the private sector or the consuming public that when they go out and buy a car, they need a package of everything that's ever taken place with that car, whether the muffler's been changed or a tire's been changed, or whether they've bought a used part instead of a new part to replace a carburetor. What it comes down to --

Mr Paul R. Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings): Car dealers love this legislation.

Mr Stockwell: You'll get your opportunity. You're the parliamentary assistant, so you must have something to do, and you'll get an opportunity to speak to this.

I think the whole thrust of this piece of legislation is another opportunity to pawn off on the public this government's ability, or inability, to suggest it's protecting the public from unscrupulous behaviour. Well, I don't get a lot of complaints about this. I get a lot more complaints about the fact that you've overtaxed, overregulated, all kinds of industries, not "I want a package when I buy a 1990 car about who changed the lug nut on the spare tire."

That's what we're talking about here. It's a tax grab by a ministry that shouldn't be out there taxing and grabbing; it should be assisting the consuming public.

Mrs Caplan: I'm pleased in the two minutes that are remaining to respond to the comments that were made by members of the Legislature about my remarks. I'd like to just point out, particularly for those members opposite, what the record of economic management was between 1985 and 1990 that had them so exercised.

Ontario experienced the strongest economic growth in North America. Over 700,000 jobs were created, and along with those jobs, wealth was created. We had consecutive balanced operating budgets that began in 1987-88, and we were paying for capital out of our operating expenditures from 1988 on. We had a debt repayment for the first time in 40 years in this province of $430 million, and after 15 years of Tory debts and deficit building up, we had the first fully balanced budget in 1989-90.

We know the Provincial Auditor has attested to that.

Mr Mike Farnan (Cambridge): Dismal.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Cambridge, please.

Mrs Caplan: Those are the facts and, Mr Speaker, let me tell you what these people inherited. They inherited a triple-A credit rating. So for all of their protestations about economic management, I stand here in my place today, and I will stack up the record of the Liberal government from 1985 to 1990, all of it, to anything that you have done and anything that you will do in your five years in office, and I will stack it up against anything that the Conservatives did in the five years before us, and I'll go back even further than that. When you want to look at a record of economic management in this province, the years between 1985 and 1990 will be seen as days of sound, competent fiscal management.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate? The member for Markham.

1750

Mr Cousens: Really, what we've heard in this House, for most of today, shows how irrelevant the Legislature really is. Just to point it up, we're dealing with two bills at one time. They have nothing in common with each other except that they're in their 30s and were brought in the House on June 1, 1992, which is almost a year ago. One comes under the Ministry of Transportation and the minister is sitting here. One comes under the ministry of revenue and the parliamentary assistant is here.

But what else do they have? They're different bills. One's a tax bill and one's another bill. People come along and they say, "What are you doing in the Legislature?" "We've put these two together." "Why?" "To clear up the backlog of some of the things the government wasn't able to schedule when it could have scheduled it." You've changed the rules in the Legislature so that we're hardly able to debate or deal with the issues anyway and now you come along and you're trying to shove these under the door.

The Legislature is irrelevant, is my beginning point. What do we have to do here? The government operates by fiat. It's a one-party government. They've been elected since September 6. They come out with their policies and their guidelines and then, eventually, they come to the Legislature to deal with them. We haven't dealt with Sunday shopping. The government brought in all the changes. They gave advice to the Solicitor General, "Don't ticket them any more; they can be open on Sunday," but we haven't dealt with the legislation in the Legislature.

This is a government that comes along and makes all kinds of announcements. They go and do their own thing and then come back here. What do they want us to do? Rubber-stamp it; just a bunch of rubber stamps. We come along here and we're supposed to say, "We've got Bills 32 and 34 today and we're going to deal with that." I happen to have the sense, having been around here 12 years, to know that I'm not going to have much impact on the New Democrats, because the New Democrats haven't modified a position or a bill or an issue since they came to power.

They don't listen to the people. They're operating by themselves for themselves, for their own groups. When they do make a change of some kind, it's the lobby of great power. The insurance industry comes in upon them and then they realize that the auto insurance shouldn't go ahead, so they put on the brakes and then go for a walk by the waterside and come out with another position. Or they come along and they'll change their position on casinos. At one time they have a great self-righteous position, but then they see it as a way to make some money, so they'll go and do it.

Here is a government that is as inconsistent as anything you've ever come across, but what does it do? They use the legislative floor to just push through their agenda. It's a mockery of the legislative process as people have come to appreciate it since its inception, because really what we are able to do here is at least make an effort to put on the record our concerns about the government, its initiatives, its policies, what it's doing and why it's doing it. But as for having any impact on what they're going to do, tragically we are not able to change them from their path.

That's terrible. The level of confidence that's now in the minds and hearts of the people of Ontario is dreadful because, unfortunately, the New Democrats are giving all politicians a bad name by virtue of the way in which they have come to power and the way they use that power.

When I say, "Come to power," when you come to power you set out some expectations of what you stand for and what you're going to do. When in fact you renege on your promises, your word isn't worth very much at that point. The public of Ontario suddenly realized that those very people who were out criticizing the Liberals or the Conservatives for raising taxes and causing other problems are now the ones bringing into this House more regulations, more taxes.

Why do I think it's irrelevant? Tragically, it's irrelevant because we know how every vote is going to go in this House. The New Democrats have sufficient power. They whip their members so that they are present in the House for every vote and there isn't a chance that this government will lose a vote till 1995, when it has to go back to the people of Ontario and face the people to ask them how they want to vote.

That's the problem we've got in this House, because once a party is given a majority such as this one has, we are stuck with it. I have many, many people who say: "Do something to stop them. Can you do something to bring some common sense to them?" In spite of the tremendous efforts from members of our caucus, the New Democrats are not prepared to listen.

I found it so irrelevant as well to listen to the member for Oriole, because how speedily her memory has gone from the days from 1985 to 1990. When you start asking yourself, how many tax increases were imposed by the Liberal government from 1985 to 1990 -- how many?

Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): Thirty-three.

Mr Cousens: Thirty-three. Hey, no answer from the Liberals. I mean, they're not prepared to remember any of those tax increases, at least to show you're listening. The New Democrats remember that there were 33 tax increases. You'd never have thought that when you listened to the member for Oriole, because it was as if this is the first time there has been a tax increase. They've forgotten the days when they taxed us almost to death.

You want to ask another question? Is the percentage of annual increase in Liberal spending --

Interjections.

Mr Mahoney: Whose side is who on around here?

Mr Cousens: I want to make a few points at the expense of the Liberal Party, because when they can stand in this House and pontificate about government spending and taxes and forget conveniently what they did to the province of Ontario during their five-year tenure, I suggest that it's only correct and good and proper that we remind them of those days and years. Because the people of Ontario said something to Mr David Peterson and his group on September 6. Unfortunately, the people at that time didn't support the Conservative Party, but the fact of the matter is that people begin now to recognize us for what we are and what we stand for, the consistent record. They're looking back to the 42 years as having been a time when there was good leadership, good administration, fiscal responsibility.

People are beginning to see in our leader, Mr Mike Harris, the qualities of a leader who will lead the province into the future. They recognize him for one of honesty and integrity, and that is really how people are going to select their governments in the future. The amount of loyalty that people have to the past isn't all that great. They want to see people who are genuine in their beliefs and genuine in their commitment to follow through on something.

What I see in the presentation by the member for Oriole is a tremendous lack of consistency, because as she talked, she was almost judgemental to the point where it's as if all the problems we have today stem from the New Democrats. What she's failed to realize and failed to face up to is the tremendous havoc wreaked upon the province of Ontario during the years of the Peterson reign, which was made possible because of the accord of the New Democrats and the Liberals.

You know, when you start looking at the increase in taxes that we have gone through in the last number of years -- I'd like to just point out another couple of statistics. The percentage increase in government spending from 1985 to 1991 was 100%. Government spending went up 100% in a six-year period. The percentage increase in general tax revenue in the same period went up by 124%. That's a 124% increase in the general tax revenue in the period of 1985 to 1991. The percentage increase in personal income tax revenue in the same period: 156%. The result, then, is that we would almost think it's time to have a tax holiday for people in the province of Ontario, and the New Democrats who came in with such a sense of doing something right, here they're bringing forward more tax increases to the people of Ontario, and that has us angry.

We are going to fight this government on their tax increases, the tax increases they tried to impose last year and still haven't legislated, and we're going to be fighting them on the tax increases that they're going to be bringing in next week when they bring out their budget. We will oppose the tax increases. We can't afford more tax increases. The province of Ontario is already fed up with taxes. We've got to stop raising taxes, and here today again you're coming in with another tax increase.

The people of Ontario have had it. They've had it with all of us as politicians. Yes, sir. They want us all to cut back and stop our spending, stop increasing expectations, reduce it, pull it down, and they're expecting me to do something about it. And I'm going to do everything I can to persuade you to cut back and turn the corner back to the days when Ontario was a prosperous place and we had something to be proud of. We're not proud of the way in which you're spending our money. We're not proud of the way in which you're grabbing our money. We're not pleased at all with the fact that here today you're trying to legislate another tax hike.

Mr Speaker, I move adjournment of the debate.

The Deputy Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 34, the question that this House do now adjourn is deemed to have been made.

1800

ONTARIO FILM REVIEW BOARD

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): The member for Mississauga South has given notice of her dissatisfaction with the answer to her question given by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations concerning the Ontario Film Review Board. The member has up to five minutes to debate the matter and the minister has up to five minutes to reply.

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): On Monday, May 3, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations inadequately answered my question concerning the Ontario Film Review Board. She defended a board that in the eyes of many Ontarians is making a farce of the film review process.

Since raising my questions, I have received a huge number of calls and letters of support from individuals as well as groups, including the Canadians Concerned Against Violence in Entertainment, the Coalition for the Safety of Our Daughters, Canadians for Decency, Canadians Opposing Pornography, and Canadians Taking Action Against Violence. I would like to summarize the major complaints I have received regarding the OFRB.

First, the board is headed by a chair who holds the public in contempt. The chair admitted in a confidential internal memo that she lied to the public about the speed at which the board views sex videos. This chair has also refused to release information to me about the board's activities unless I use the freedom of information act, despite a statement in the annual report of the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations that "All information related to the decisions of the Ontario Film Review Board is accessible to the public."

Second, as the chair admitted, the board classifies adult sex films after viewing them at warp speed with the soundtrack turned off. As I said in my question, how can the board judge under these conditions whether a film depicts consensual sex or rape? The Criminal Code of Canada says it's a criminal offence to distribute an obscene film; that is, a film that depicts sex combined with crime, horror, cruelty or violence.

Third, the Ontario Film Review Board says its first service is a direct service to the distributor, while its second service is an indirect service to the public -- this is shown both in the internal memo and in the OFRB's response to a human rights complaint about slasher films -- yet the public spends $750,000 each year for the board's operations.

Fourth, the conduct of some board members leaves much to be desired. In the internal memo, the chair chided members for not putting in a full day's work and had to remind them to pay attention when viewing the films, since they are legally responsible for the rating attached to the product.

Fifth, the board has approved for restricted viewing, and in some cases even younger audiences, AA-14 rating, slasher films which glorify violence against women. These films feature women in various states of nudity being beaten, tortured, mutilated and murdered. The board has not been exercising its authority under the Theatres Act to withhold its approval of films which contain graphic scenes of violence, torture, crime, cruelty, horror or human degradation. Indeed, the board has recently approved slasher films made several years ago that, when first reviewed, were denied approval. If this isn't a lowering of community standards, what is?

Sixth, at a meeting last week, the board considered a motion that will lower its standards for the approval of adult sex videos. Although I didn't have the stomach to read the resolution last week, I feel that I must now read it for the public to understand my concern. That recommendation stated:

"That the board allow, in adult sex videos, bondage, the insertion of foreign objects, double penetration and ejaculation on the face, provided that they are not in a context that is verbally or physically coercive and do not cause physical harm, and provided that foreign objects are not weapons (such as guns, knives or razor blades) or other potentially injurious objects such as bottles."

Today, I telephoned the chair to ask her what the board decided regarding this recommendation from its policy committee. She refused to tell me. However, I have heard from another source that the board approved the resolution, with the exception of double penetration.

Minister, I think most Ontarians would find a film depicting these activities to be degrading and to contravene community standards. In the case of bondage, it could be very hard to judge when a situation is not violent or coercive, especially if the film is reviewed at seven or eight times the normal speed without the sound track.

Thus, if this resolution has been approved with the exception of double penetration, I believe the new guidelines could result in the OFRB's classifying films whose distribution could violate the Criminal Code.

In conclusion, given this overwhelming and disturbing list of problems concerning the OFRB, I don't see how the minister can brush aside my call for the chair's resignation and my request for a review of the Ontario Film Review Board's mandate and procedures.

Hon Marilyn Churley (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): First of all I'd like to thank the member opposite for her indulgence. Last week she had called for this late show and I was ill, and I appreciate her sympathy and her support for leaving this to this week.

I think it's important to point out once again for people the reality of the nature of what the Ontario Film Review Board is appointed to do. It's an independent citizen body responsible for the classification of commercial films and videos in Ontario. It operates under the legislation and regulations set out in the Theatres Act. The board also sets policies relating to classification decisions within the parameters set out in the Theatres Act.

Board members come from across the province. They are women and men of great diversity. They are teachers, social workers, writers and retirees, they are community volunteers, lawyers and bookkeepers, they are secretaries, performers, real estate brokers, bank tellers and fund-raisers. They are doing their best as representatives from the community at large to make decisions in very difficult situations.

To help viewers make informed decisions about the movies they watch, the board classifies films into four categories: family, parental guidance, adult accompaniment and restricted. Short information pieces or warning labels, such as "not recommended for children" etc are included with the classification and on all advertising. I've asked the chair to look at ways of letting viewers know when films contain scenes of violence against women and more information pieces.

In terms of search and scan, as I explained to the member last week, "search and scan" is a somewhat misleading term. Panels use specialized viewing equipment which measures real time and shows the picture frame by frame at double speed. Search and scan is not synonymous with fast-forward, which speeds an image up by seven or eight times. This is the same review technique that is used by the police and it is the same review technique used by Canada Customs.

In terms of the memo, I think if you read Dorothy Christian's memo in its entirety and not just selectively, it is clear that in the memo the chair is saying and is making an effort as a manager to ensure that board members are using acceptable reviewing practices. She is reaffirming that they must do that. The chair reminds board members to exercise care and vigilance when using the search and scan feature. It is Ms Christian's responsibility to ensure that the board is managed effectively. Her memo is an expression of this responsibility.

In terms of the adult sex guidelines, I understand that the board had a discussion about recommendations from its policy committee last Thursday. I have been in touch with the chair, and she has informed me that she will be reconvening the board in June in order to have a more thorough discussion about the recommendations.

The guidelines themselves are regularly reviewed by the board. The policy committee of the board makes recommendations to the full board, which then votes to adopt, amend or reject these proposals. I understand that in June there will be a full-day discussion of the guidelines that will take place.

I want to make very clear that the board's mandate is to serve the citizens of Ontario by reviewing and classifying films and videos according to the Theatres Act and by providing information about films and videos to viewers so that they can make informed decisions about the movies they choose. While the board performs services for the film and video industry, its fundamental responsibility is to the people of Ontario.

In closing, I'd like to say to the member from Mississauga that I welcome some of her suggestions and ideas and will continue to work with her and those in the House who are interested in this issue and to work with the federal government in terms of the Criminal Code so that it'll make the job of the people at the film review board a little easier in terms of dealing specifically with the aspect of violence, particularly towards women, but violence overall. That's an area that we have to look very closely at and we do need some assistance with that. Thank you.

The Deputy Speaker: There being no further matter to debate, I deem the motion to adjourn to be carried. This House stands adjourned until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon.

The House adjourned at 1811.