L002b - Mon 27 Apr 1998 / Lun 27 Avr 1998 1
The House met at 1830.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
INTERIM SUPPLY
Hon Ernie L. Eves (Deputy Premier, Minister of Finance): In the absence of Mr Sterling, I move that the Minister of Finance be authorized to pay the salaries of the civil servants and other necessary payments pending the voting of supply for the period commencing May 1, 1998, and ending October 31, 1998, such payments to be charged to the proper appropriation following the voting of supply.
I wish to confirm at the outset that I believe there is all-party agreement to share the time equally among the three parties this evening.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Agreed? Agreed.
Hon Mr Eves: I will keep my payments - my comments; that's a Freudian slip there, I'm afraid - very brief this evening, to allow more members to participate in this debate. I'm pleased to put forward the motion for interim supply.
As most members are aware, the supply motion is simply providing the government with the authority to make payments to hospitals, boards of education, municipalities, suppliers, civil servants and others who do business with the province of Ontario or receive payments from the province of Ontario. These payments are currently being made under the authority of a motion for interim supply which came into effect on November 1 of last year, 1997. The motion for interim supply is now required, as the authority under the existing motion expires on April 30, 1998, and payments cannot be made after that date. To ensure that all payments scheduled on or after May 1 are made on time in all parts of the province, including especially northern Ontario, it is necessary to provide the banking and distribution system with some lead time. The practice has been to give them at least five working days to ensure that all payments are received on time.
Scheduled payments made early in May include, among others, payments for general welfare, transfers, as I've said, to hospitals, school boards and children's aid societies. To ensure that the province meets its obligations in an orderly fashion, I hope that all members will be supportive in ensuring the motion is passed this evening.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): I can't tell you how good it is to be back in the House and have an opportunity, after a five-month delay, to call on the government to make the appropriate changes necessary in a number of areas that have been lacking over the three years they've been in office. The interim supply bill gives us a chance to have a look at what the government is spending money on, where the money has gone and where we expect the money should go.
As many people in my community know, health care is the number one concern where I come from. We also know that people in Windsor have long been suffering from the negative effects of the Mike Harris government, and now we see that the balance of Ontario is catching up. I wanted to spend some time on some of the issues that have come up in Windsor, where we have made a number of attempts to get our information to the Minister of Health. That has been of no avail.
In February of this year, we launched a health line in my community so that more and more people who had experienced the health system would call. We took the opportunity to take those concerns and send them directly to the Minister of Health. We struck a health line, and people in my riding could call 254-0440 and launch concerns. We would then transcribe all their concerns from the health line, send them back to the people who called and then we would fax the concerns over to the Minister of Health.
Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton): What's the area code?
Mrs Pupatello: It's area code 519. If I'm not mistaken, we have a number of callers from Lambton who have actually taken the opportunity to call the Windsor health line to talk to us about their concerns.
Let me just put in perspective the kinds of calls we are getting. I suppose that in the last 20 or 30 years many hospitals have been faced with complaints from patients over time, but there's always a kind of pattern set that tells us where the problem lies, where it originates. We know in our community - for the last more than three years it has gotten progressively worse, to the point of breaking now - that because the operating budgets of hospitals have been cut back so severely by this government, because promises made by this government were broken, were not kept, because this government goes forward and makes announcement after announcement of reinvestments in the community that never happen, we are now at the breaking point.
Let me share with you a couple of stories from people who actually gave permission to us to use them publicly. We have hundreds of calls that have come in, and we have an average of five to six calls a day. I'd like to share with you this story from Archie Garrick. He lives on Daytona Street.
He said that on February 2 of this year he went into emergency with an asthma attack and chest pains. He was left in the waiting room until 1 o'clock in the morning, at which time he was given a room with a cot in it to lie on. At 3 o'clock he still had not had his EKG or even seen a doctor. While he was in there one of the nurses who used to work at IODE Windsor west was there, whom he recognized. "They treated me there," he says, "for the last three years, when they were open. I got to know them very well. They're good nurses. I felt so sorry for them, because they were crying when I left. I walked out of there. If this is what it takes, then I don't need this. It's just a sad situation. If this is the mess they put the hospitals and medical care in then I think they better take another look at what they're doing. If they want to kill me, all they have to do is say so. I have a good mind to charge them with attempted murder.
"While I was in there, a young fellow came in" - he works at one of the auto plants - "on a stretcher, with a possible heart attack. He was 23 years old. At 3 o'clock he was still not attended to either, although his foreman was sitting with him the entire time. I think it's sad, damn sad. It is unfortunate that we have to put up with that kind of stuff, all because of the stupidity of the government that doesn't really give a damn. Well that's it for me. Like I said I wish nothing bad ever happens to me. I hope the government goes upside down and never comes back to power."
That message was from Archie Garrick.
There is another woman who talked about her neighbour. In this case, she was talking about how her neighbour was sent home with information that an appointment with a specialist would be made by a hospital at 9 o'clock the following day, but the woman lives alone.
"That morning I found her. She had fainted and was on the floor and was still in a great deal of pain. On contacting the hospital, no appointment had been made by them. She was returned by ambulance and was still awaiting consultation after four days. Is this how we treat our citizens? Our city was not prepared to close two emergency services. The remaining have several years of reconfiguration to be effective. How many will die because of dollars? Thank you."
These are the kinds of messages we get time and time again. The people in the Windsor community are very bright. They are very clever. They have actively followed the restructuring of health services in our community for a long time, because it isn't new. In 1994, our own community came forward with a Win-Win report, which was sanctioned by the government; it was guaranteed by the government to have reinvestments made in our community before you started cutting services. This government failed to deliver.
In April of last year you closed another emergency room. The buildup to that, I know the members of the House remember well. We went on about it day after day: "Some 18 days to go to the closure of the west side emergency room. When is the reinvestment coming?" It never came.
I want to tell you what happened last week. Last week the government made its third announcement of money for an emergency room expansion at one of our sites. This is the third time it has been made. The emergency expansion of the remaining sites is still not completed. Even when it's completed, you have not adjusted the operating budgets of the hospitals; you cut them. So, where we have an emergency room that's going to be this big today, because it hasn't been expanded, you're going to maybe, in the next several months, have more space, but you're going to have the same number of nurses, because you haven't adjusted the operating moneys for the hospital. That is what we're facing today.
Today again you have another commission, the health restructuring commission, making another announcement. Duncan Sinclair is head of that commission. You know what he said in the media today: "Well, if the government doesn't reinvest like they say they're going to, we're going to have to slow down the restructuring." I'd like Duncan Sinclair to come to Windsor. I'd like him to come to Windsor to see that the government money that controls the business of our hospitals controls which services get closed and which stay open; that the government funding formula for hospitals is totally inadequate.
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau): Peterson closed the beds.
Mrs Pupatello: The member across the way wants to talk about closing beds. Let me tell you that today, because of the mismanagement of the health system in Ontario, you have gone forward -
The Acting Speaker: The member for Ottawa-Rideau.
Mrs Pupatello: I don't know why the member for Ottawa-Rideau wants to speak out. The Ottawa hospitals are in an absolute mess. I've talked to the Ottawa hospitals; I've talked to the people there. It's the same predicament that we told this House about in February 1997, through my private member's bill, which you will recall was passed in this House. In my private member's bill we called on several things: abolishment of the commission, because it was simply an arm of the government, it was simply your way to remove your poor decisions off to some other organization, because what really matters is who controls the money. So it's the same thing we predicted would happen in Windsor, that you would shut down the services because you're stopping the flow of money without reinvesting in community care, the new buzzwords "community care" and "home care."
What we know today is that this community access centre that you created, another bureaucracy that you created last year, is laying off staff.
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Why would they be laying off staff? They have more work to do, because you cut the hospital budget so that people are getting thrown out of hospital sooner, sent home, because supposedly there's going to be community care to take care of them. But as we're finding out, the community care isn't there. The private member's bill in February 1997 told you that was going to happen. We warned you it would happen. The worst part about the health fiasco that's hit Ontario today is that it was entirely predictable. We saw it was coming, we told you it was coming and none of you did anything about it, even though seven of you in this House on the government side voted in favour of my resolution because in your own communities you saw the pattern and in your own communities your own residents called you, told you, petitioned you to vote in favour of that resolution. So we're talking about well over a year ago. By then we had already seen the bad effects of your policy in the Windsor area. Now it's spread like a bad weed right across the province.
So last week the Minister of Health trumpeted out a new announcement: $225 million for all of Ontario, $225 million across Ontario. We studied the announcement. Almost every aspect of that announcement was reannouncement. The same emergency room money that you itemize in this special line for Windsor Regional Hospital - I thought they might have done that just for my community - was the same money you have talked about three times. There's about $55 million of it, and it's being offered up there like a piñata. Every hospital across Ontario now takes their stick and starts whacking away at this piñata in the hope that they are going to get some piece of it.
The health officials are busy rushing down now to the hospitals to say: "Now, let's plan. How can we offer you some help?" Hotel Dieu in Windsor and the Windsor Regional from Windsor have got to sit down and draw up yet another report, another application for some piece of this money, given the emergency crisis we're facing.
This morning on the answering machine of my constituency office I had a caller who used the pay phone from the emergency room to leave a message and say: "Where do I come to protest? We've been waiting with my family for hours in emergency." That was this past weekend, and this is the time that your health officials are trucking down the 401 to Windsor to say, "Let's see how you can put together a plan."
Put together a plan? We told you what the plan was. We told you three years ago. We told you in the private member's resolution from Windsor that you cannot cut operating budgets of hospitals without making your reinvestments first. Anyone who follows this issue says that what's so strange about it is that it makes perfect sense to do it in that order. If you don't want to see patients falling through the cracks, that is the order of things, if you insist on changing. Everybody agreed with you, but you fell down on your end of the bargain. Every one of you in this House on the government side is responsible yourself for what is currently happening in hospitals today in the Windsor area.
We've done everything we can do. We've sent you postcards, we've sent you petitions, we've written you letters, we've given questions in the House, we've given speeches on the issue, we've talked to you about how there weren't enough bays for an ambulance to drive in to at the remaining sites because it hadn't been expanded. We explained all of this to you in fine detail, and the minister last week announced $225 million for all of Ontario, the bulk of which was simply reannouncements.
There was a section in there that said $1 million for retraining nurses. That would be wonderful. Would you like to come to my emergency rooms today and ask me which of our nurses are going to have the time and wherewithal to go and take that training? Where and at what time? We're losing our emergency nurses because they're giving up. They're far too stressed working in that environment. Anyone who has any study of the effect of stress over a long period of time knows that you have a significant body breakdown. That is today what is happening to the nurses in Windsor, because all of them are working too long and too hard.
When I sat in an emergency room at 2 o'clock in the morning and watched them, the nurses didn't have the time to take a bathroom break because there aren't enough of them and there were too many people in the hallway and just not enough hands on these patients to take care of them. The nurses finally are starting to speak up about this. Hospitals across Ontario have been loath to be negative about your policy, always because they were told in very explicit terms in the backrooms of this place at Queen's Park, "If you speak out, you will be the loser." It has taken this time for the situation in hospitals to become so severe that patients are finally starting to speak up, that patients are realizing they matter.
We released a health video in my town a couple of weeks ago. We had health professionals speaking to our constituents. A nurse on our video said, "It's a terrible situation to have to be here and feel like a failure because I can't give the kind of care that I know I'm supposed to give."
The situation in Sarnia is no different. We have cleanliness issues that we've come across, people complaining that they just don't have the level of staff they used to have. People just aren't getting the service they used to get.
This government says it's more efficient - more efficient for the people in Windsor even though they complain that the food is absolutely terrible because one of them has decided they're going to truck in frozen food. At some point you have to wonder, how far are you prepared to go to be efficient? The 93-year-old woman who's in the hallway because you don't have a bed, for how many hours - is that efficient? Is it efficient for you to leave the 93-year-old Windsorite in the hospital hallway because you want to be efficient? How much longer will every hospital in Ontario put up with that?
It isn't the hospital in the end that is facing the brunt of it; it's the patient and it's the patient's family.
We met Mr Lyle Browning, who ended up on a gurney in a hallway for hours, who was taken in after surgery and given all this medication because after that kind of surgical procedure he's got to have various bowel movements and all that before they move him. They didn't tell him that when they give him all this medication there wasn't going to be a nurse to come and attend to him when he needed attention during the evening. He sat there on the gurney all night long, until the next day. In that hospital bed he witnessed how many seniors were being diapered because they don't have the nurses on the floor to care for these people like they should be cared for.
How many people in this room have seniors in their own family? I want you to substitute your parent, your grandparent, yourself for that individual and say, "That could be me diapered in a hallway, because we don't have enough nurses on staff on a shift to change them."
I don't know how much more graphic we need to get to tell you that the level of care is not acceptable. As Sister Emma Bezaire told us, it's not just, it's not acceptable, it's not fair. People like Lyle Browning, who's worked hard all his life, built a business, who is in his retirement years now, said the one thing you could look forward to in life was having your dignity. He said that in one fell swoop it was gone, and all he had to count on was his dignity.
I just want you to understand that those are the human effects of government policy from this Mike Harris government. This is the same Mike Harris who stood in this House under the throne speech trying to put on this kinder, gentler face to Ontario. On the front page of my Windsor Star the next day it was, "Oh, we realized we've made some errors in health care." These are not errors, members; these are the things that are a real travesty in health care in Ontario. They're happening in my community and Dalton McGuinty has advanced cases across Ontario where this is happening.
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Many hospitals across Ontario have made choices. This past year one of our hospitals chose to go into deficit. When you stand up in another week or two and announce your budget, you're going to talk about how much closer you're coming to balancing your budget. I want you to take a good look at your own community. I'd like you to look at Niagara Falls. I'd like you to look at Ottawa. I'd like you to look at Sarnia. I want you to go to your own backyard and look at hospital budgets. I'd like you to go to Scarborough. I want you to see if your hospital in your community totals $300 million of debt load that the hospitals are now assuming.
What does that mean for the daily operating of a hospital when they're making choices? They refuse to cut certain services, because they know they have to provide the service to people in their community.
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): Local hospital beds - we opened 39 beds.
Mrs Pupatello: I don't think the members from Ottawa should be gloating. Considering the conditions occurring today in the Ottawa hospitals here in Ontario, the member for Nepean should know better. If he doesn't know, I think he should go back to his constituency, not just talking to people but really listening to people. That's what I have to say to the members who want to interject at this point. We currently have $300 million of total debt load in hospitals. That means that in financing, the hospitals - never mind the worry they have to actually produce the health service; they've got to go to their local bank, and they are facing financing charges. The cuts you have made to their operating budgets have been translated into a debt; their local boards themselves are facing the debt. So while you want to come out with a rosy picture on the wonderful job you have done on Ontario finances, you have just shoved it over to the hospitals.
We're going to have a look pretty soon at the municipalities and what you've done in the end with the cuts you have made. Are you going to include the reserve fund that the city of Mississauga has now eaten into because you cut them? Are you going to look at the debt being incurred by local cities and towns, the ones in your own backyard, because you cut them? Then I want you to come here on budget day and tell me how proud you are of the job you've done. I want you to say that you're proud of what you've done.
When you go back home when those assessments are completed and realize that your constituents are facing property tax increases because of your downloading of social services, welfare workfare, housing - they're paying on their property tax what you think you're saving - I want you to come back into this House after budget day and tell me how proud you are of the fabulous financing job you're doing for Ontario.
Do you honestly think people are stupid? Do you honestly think they have more than one pocket of money? No. We've heard time and time again that there's only one bank of money and it's all coming out of the same pocket, and our constituents are paying for it. Here in Ontario their hospitals are paying for it in their debt load. Their property taxes are going up, and they're paying for your downloading.
I think about the major initiatives of the government. Even if people agreed with what the government was doing, I want you to think about major initiatives and how successful they've been so far. Your biggest plank was workfare. The biggest thing you said you were going to do was workfare. If any one of you were to stand up today and say it was a success, it would be laughed out of the House because the thing has been a complete failure. The parliamentary assistant for community and social services knows this better than most. It is an absolute disaster. You haven't been successful in bringing through change in any measurable, successful way. You made your big megaweek announcements in January of last year and every one of them went through absolute upheaval and change. You did your downloading project. Then you had to upload it and then you downloaded again and then you uploaded it, and you're still talking about how exactly you're supposed to make this change. We have cities in Ontario today that still don't know what to do in terms of their own budgeting because they can't get information from this government.
In my city hall tonight - in three minutes the city council of Windsor is having their meeting. They're going to be talking about hostels. Hostels that were funded provincially were somehow completely left out of the ledger here, so the city of Windsor is saying: "This must have been an error. It must have been an oversight, because no government could be this inept in its management." That's all we can say. All your major initiatives have been complete failures.
Your workfare plan, by the ministry's own numbers - let's just look at Metro Toronto. Let's look at exactly what you have. In Toronto, for example, there are 85,000 people on welfare and fewer than 100 of them in your supposed workfare plan; 85,000 and you have 100. I hope all those people who voted for you because of it are listening tonight. Out of 85,000 people you have 100 - an absolute botch-up. There can be no other description than that - a complete failure - because none of you thought through any of your mantra.
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): The Titanic syndrome.
Mrs Pupatello: My colleague from Sudbury calls it the Titanic syndrome. It's catching, I think, because everything you touch turns sour. Nothing you are doing seems to be working.
You introduced legislation. You sent it for hearings around Ontario. It couldn't receive support in North Bay, the Premier's home town. They said, "Workfare is the stupidest thing going because it doesn't work." We went through this public hearing process. You brought it back in the House for debate. You didn't make the significant changes that you were told time and time again you should make. What did you do? You passed the bill but the regulations weren't ready for months, so cities and towns didn't know how to interpret the bill because you didn't give them the detailed regulations they needed. Now you're bringing out regulations. Now you're finding out that it's not working.
The other day the Minister of Community and Social Services took a trip to Wisconsin, where they have a workfare program. Minister, don't you think you should have taken a trip to Wisconsin before you wrote the bill, before you went for hearings, before you brought it back for third reading, before you finally passed it and then wrote regulation?
Don't you think you should have gone to New York? If you went to New York, you would have seen in the state of New York scant evidence of jobs from workfare. We could have told you that what people need to get off the system is a job. They don't need to be cajoled and used as examples of the meanness of this government.
Interjection.
Mrs Pupatello: Oh, absolutely you're going to fix the system. It's an absolute disaster, not to mention what you've done with support and custody - an absolute disaster. We still have people in our community who aren't getting funds that are legitimately theirs because of another foulup. Every major initiative by this government has been completely mismanaged.
I just want to say that I don't want the members here to be applauding on budget day, because you've moved debt from the Ontario government to the backs of the same Ontarians. The worst crime committed by this government is your complete botch-up of the health care system, which has been felt in the Windsor area for a long time. The people of Windsor will remember how they've been treated by this government.
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Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): It's always a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak during interim supply debate, because it enables us to stand back a little from individual situations and look at what the actual management technique of a government is and what is actually happening as a result of the kind of planning a government does.
It must be said that there have to be a lot of questions about the so-called ability of this government to manage. This is a government that prides itself on having set up business plans, increasing the demand for others to operate the way they do. But in fact it would be hard to find a successful business in this country that operated in the way that many of the government initiatives have been implemented.
Because the health situation is top of mind for most Ontarians, let's talk about the whole issue of health care and the implementation of the massive and sweeping changes this government has caused to occur. Not only has the government taken huge amounts of money out of the health care system in advance of the directives of the restructuring commission around how the restructuring should actually occur, the government has done even more than that. By taking that money out, they've made it extremely difficult for those health care facilities that have been ordered to make massive changes to carry out those changes.
The government says, "That's not a problem, because we've set aside $2 billion to assist in health care restructuring." What they don't tell you is that only $154 million of that $2 billion has been flowed, and that was for retrospective staff settlements for all the fired staff that resulted out of the kind of restructuring that had to happen.
One of the really shocking issues of health care reform in this province is the loss of expertise, particularly among nurses, across the system because this government for two years drained millions of dollars out of the hospital system, forcing those hospitals to contract quite remarkably, forcing those hospitals to lay off many of their expert staff, and then of course incurring costs because many of these people would have been under contract. We all know that that is a hidden cost of so-called downsizing that makes itself felt very directly across the system.
When you are trying to accomplish something as massive as hospital restructuring in a province like Ontario, there are things you can do to make it a much more feasible program. One of those things, of course, is to reward those communities that participate willingly in the restructuring and are willing to carry out the directives that are given, and, where communities have been resistant, to use some of those financial levers to try to make them more cooperative.
It's really interesting that this government has taken exactly the opposite way of doing things. This government punishes those communities that have participated willingly in restructuring and rewards those who have resisted and who have refused to carry out directives. What a message for a government that claims to have all the answers to how you get communities to, in the words of the member for London South, "buy into the program."
It's really quite distressing for communities like London in particular, where I come from, that never fought the restructuring commission, that responded as a group of hospitals together not that they couldn't do something but with how they could do the kinds of changes. Even though that meant the loss of acute care in one of our major hospitals, even though that meant the loss of an emergency department, even though it meant the loss of two psychiatric hospitals, even though it meant a reduction in the number of acute care beds and mental health beds, we had a community that was on board and willing to participate with restructuring.
What does the government do? It takes $56 million away from a community that was required or estimated by the restructuring commission to be able to save, after all the changes were done, $40 million. Not only that, but now the Ministry of Health says, "Well, we're not sure the restructuring commission had the numbers right, and we as the ministry are going to redo those numbers." So London continues to be trying to manage this huge restructuring with $24 million less than it needs to have.
Or a community like Sault Ste Marie: Sault Ste Marie is a community that has a lot of difficulties in terms of attracting and keeping physicians, as many of the northern communities do. Sault Ste Marie, recognizing that it wasn't going to be possible to keep two hospitals going unless there were a rejigging of the services, unless they figured out what to do about governance, had the foresight to move forward to one management of their two hospitals, maintaining two boards so that they wouldn't get into the dispute around Catholic governance of their Catholic hospital and moving ahead to change the services so they would be concentrated in logical places. But the Ministry of Health, because they went ahead with that voluntarily before the restructuring commission came to town, tells Sault Ste Marie they aren't eligible for any of those restructuring funds. In fact, it is not clear, as it wasn't clear in Windsor, which also went ahead with restructuring prior to the restructuring commission, that they would be permitted to go ahead with the plans that the community had already done. So not only are they out the dollars even though they are saving money because of the changes they made, but they don't even have the assurance that the changes they have made are going to be recognized as either appropriate or sufficient by the restructuring commission when it finally comes around to coming to town.
This is particularly pertinent to interim supply, because as we sit here tonight, as we know, the government continues to spend money. The members over there are fond of ticking away and talking about what it costs in the debt load per hour, but we all know it costs a great deal per hour to run the services in our province. We have excellent services in our province that we've built over many years, and of course it costs tax dollars to run those services. But when we talk about voting an interim supply to the government, talk about flowing those dollars, giving the government permission to flow those dollars, it's appropriate for us to be asking questions about the priorities of the government, about the policies of the government.
My colleagues from the London area, in this current dispute with the hospitals, keep saying it's not the minister's fault or the government's fault; it's the bureaucrats' fault. Somehow they can't seem to get the bureaucrats to do their will. We all know that bureaucratic structures are very difficult to work with sometimes; that's true. Certainly those of us who have experience in government know that the Ministry of Health is notorious in terms of its independent actions and its belief that it ought to be making all the decisions no matter who is the government of the day. But the reality is that a government that is creating such massive change in our health care system can't afford to sit back and let that be disrupted.
As I said to my colleagues the other day, who's in charge here? Who is in charge? If this government is really in charge, why is it not making sure that those who wish to go forward and who are doing everything they can to go forward with restructuring get rewarded?
Instead, we see a change in direction. In the Thunder Bay community, which has resisted the restructuring, has insisted on a whole different way of organizing things, we see a redirection so that in fact what the community wishes to do, it is going to be allowed to do: no more money, but it is going to be allowed to do what it wants. The message to us in London is that the government is allowing, first of all, its bureaucracy and its restructuring commission to completely ignore the realities of how you lever change in a community.
It's interesting that when we talk about money, and particularly if we talk about money in the health care system, the government says, "You can't criticize us in terms of health care because we're spending more on health care than anybody has ever spent before," and they keep trotting out this $18.4 billion. The trouble is, they aren't flowing $18.4 billion. They're announcing and reannouncing and reannouncing dollars without flowing them.
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Let me give you an example. The CCACs that this government created across the province are for the most part staggering under the demands that have been created for them. They are trying to deal with budgets that were designed to deal with long-term-care reform, designed to deal with those who have long-term health care needs and who require assistance within the community either by being placed in facilities or in the home care area. But because the government, through its budgets, has taken so much money out of hospitals ahead of the creation of these so-called subacute hospital beds, ahead of the kind of investment into the community that would allow subacute care to happen in the home, a 20% to 30% increase in the load on CCACs has occurred in absolutely every area of the province, without additional money.
Oh, yes, the government announced, announced and announced that there were going to be $170 million spent over two years. That was announced in 1996. But it's really interesting, when we went through the public accounts committee, how much of that money went out. Actually, $4 million was reduced. None of the $170 million went out. The public accounts show that in fact there was a $4-million reduction in the CCACs.
This government, when they began to listen to the polls and began to realize how totally fed up the people of Ontario were getting with them and their rhetoric, their promises that aren't translating into care in the community, what did they do? They sent their minister without portfolio for seniors out to do little investigations at each CCAC and they cash-managed. They sent out one-time money to try to keep the CCACs, their boards of directors and their clients quiet, to try to put a little damper on the problem, to try and pretend they were being responsive to need: one-time money, not base funding to deal with what we know is an ongoing growth, but throwing a little money at it to quiet people down. This is not good management. This is what this government complained about with other governments. It's doing exactly the same thing.
Let me read a copy of the letter to the minister from the Ottawa-Carleton community care access centre. I'm sure the member for Nepean will be interested. It reads:
"As you know, the Community Resource Centre of Goulbourn, Kanata and West Carleton is very concerned about the adequacy of funding of visiting nurses and home care services being provided by Ottawa-Carleton's community care access centre to our clients. Last year, in recognition of the increase in demand for these services, you provided the CCAC with $3 million in one-time funding to meet the needs of our clients and others for home care, for which we are grateful. Today we are writing to ask you to convert the $3 million you gave to the CCAC into permanent funding for home care in Ottawa-Carleton, so that the current need for home care services for our clients can continue to be met. In addition, we are also asking that you provide additional funds for home care services in Ottawa-Carleton for 1998-99," beyond that $3 million that they got last year but they don't know whether they're going to get this year, "in order to ensure that the CCAC will be able to meet the expected increase in caseload, as a result of both the effects of hospital restructuring and an aging population here in Ottawa-Carleton."
Mr Speaker, that letter could have been written by the president of the community board of any community care access centre in the province. It's just the dollar amount that changes. Every single one of these centres that is mature enough to be actually delivering services is staggering under the burden of an inadequate budget. Yet that $170 million wasn't flowed, and it shows up as only $100 million in the estimates for last year. We have no idea how much has flowed, and we won't until the public accounts come out. That is what is happening all the way along the line with this government: great, big announcements of how it is meeting the needs of the people of Ontario, and no money flowing to match those announcements.
The Minister of Health and the minister responsible for seniors had the nerve to go out throughout March of this year reannouncing money that they had already announced the year before, reannouncing and reannouncing, and many of the so-called recipients have yet to see a penny. Yet this government is trying to create an impression that they are meeting the needs of people. They are trying to create an impression that they are actually listening.
That impression doesn't go very far for anybody who has had to deal with themselves or a family member or a friend who has needed the health care system over the last little while. It is a disgrace that this government continues to play this game of smoke and mirrors, to claim to be spending dollars on health care that we clearly know from the public accounts they didn't spend when they announced it the first time around, and we have no assurance that they'll spend it this time around.
How about another example? There's not very much that was good about the agreement this government reached with the Ontario Medical Association, because in fact what it did was cave in to the demands of physicians who wanted very much to maintain a fee-for-service system and who wanted to ensure that there was no mechanism whereby the government could force them to obey the cap that was on their fee. We all know, because it's been in all the papers, that they didn't meet the cap. In fact, the last I heard they were about $120 million over the cap. That means, of course, that if they are going to be paid, the dollars have to come from other places in the health care system.
But there was one good thing at least in that agreement with the physicians, and that thing was a special pot of money set aside, $36.4 million, which was supposed to go to fund what we call globally funded group practices in areas that were hard to serve, areas that have been underserviced for a long time, where a complement of physicians able to care for the population 24 hours a day, seven days a week didn't exist. There were good proposals from underserviced communities, certainly across the north, and the Professional Association of Internes and Residents of Ontario did a survey in southwestern Ontario which showed there would have been good acceptance of globally funded group practices in the underserviced areas in southwestern Ontario. Many, many negotiations, and what happened? Precisely nothing, except a lot of talk, and there were a couple of reasons for that.
This was supposed to be a special pot of money. Everybody understands that when you're going to take money out of the fee-for-service system, the OMA objects to it. We all know that. So this was supposed to be a special pot of money set aside particularly for this purpose. Well, now we're starting to hear that in fact that wasn't a special pot of money; it was out of the fee-for-service money. That's the first thing guaranteed to make sure the OMA would continue to oppose a plan to set up globally funded group practices.
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The second piece of it is that these out-of-control bureaucrats the minister can't seem to get under control first of all said that the money was one-time only, not for the course of the agreement, which certainly wasn't the agreement I read, and second, this claim that yes, it wasn't a special pot and therefore it was subject to further negotiation with the OMA.
So $36.4 million wasn't spent on globally funded group practices. Now, it may have been spent to pay for some of that overrun of the fee-for-service doctors, but it certainly wasn't spent on globally funded group practices. Communities throughout Ontario continue to be underserviced when there are young, well-trained, eager physicians wanting to go as long as the group practice idea is put in place, to enable them to have the sufficient resources to actually provide the service - a real tragedy.
If that money wasn't spent on the fee-for-service area, then of course it got put back into the pot, which is just as tragic because the government keeps saying, "Oh no, the money's there." Is the money there last year's plus this year's? I doubt it. It may indeed be the second and third year of the agreement that the dollars have been set aside for, but we have no assurance that they're going to be spent.
Another example is community mental health. People across this province are telling - certainly telling the member for Scarborough Centre, who has been doing the study on mental health reform - all over the province are being very clear about the need to flow money to community mental health.
What did we see in the public accounts last year? Thirty million dollars underspent in community mental health, $30 million in the estimates allocated for community mental health not spent. What was the excuse? "We couldn't get it out the door." Those of us who have been around here for a long time know that government bureaucrats always claim they can't get the money out the door and they'll do better next year. But the problem is that the problems out there in our communities mount up over time.
We have a government determined to get out of the business of providing mental health services to the patients who need them in this province. We've seen them agree - they didn't need to agree because it could only be advice from the restructuring commission since they weren't public hospitals - to divest themselves of in-hospital mental health services. But did they agree to the advice that all of those dollars would be put into the community? No, they haven't; and we haven't seen any of those dollars flow, nor have we seen what was already in the estimates flow.
So when a government comes looking for interim supply, it needs to know that these are the kinds of issues that are going to be raised, that they are legitimate concerns of the people of this province. They deserve to know whether (a) their government even knows what they're doing; (b) whether the dollars are being spent where the government says they're going to be spent; and (c) whether the government can actually manage both the finances and the services it purports to offer.
Mr Baird: I am pleased to rise and have the opportunity to speak to the motion for interim supply for a number of reasons. The interim supply motion gives members an opportunity to review the economic performance of the government, an opportunity that those of us on this on this side of the House always welcome because job creation, economic growth, taxation and debt reduction are all key priorities for middle-class families, particularly in my riding of Nepean.
But if I could, maybe at the outset of my remarks, say this bill will also allow for many of our law enforcement agencies to be funded, from the parole board through the strict discipline facilities. I did want to say at the outset how very proud I am to serve in a caucus and a government with the Honourable Bob Runciman, someone with a tremendous amount of class, a tremendous amount of integrity, someone with honesty just above and beyond the vast majority of folks in Ontario. He has made a tremendous contribution to the security of this province. I am very privileged to call him a friend.
Let's look at the Ontario economy.
"Ontario's economy became red hot in 1997 and is likely to remain so through 1998, growing at a 5% pace in both years," the Bank of Montreal said.
"The significant decline in the vacancy rate is a strong indicator that we are entering a long-term development cycle," Royal LePage said with respect to the increase in demand for office space in Toronto.
The Royal Bank stated, "As Canada's leading engine of job growth, it's great to hear that most small business owners and operators are bullish about 1998."
We had pre-budget consultations at the standing committee on finance and economic affairs and were able to hear from Dr Sherry Cooper, senior vice-president and chief economist, who came before the committee as an expert witness of one of the largest financial institutions in Ontario. She came before the committee and cited a whole host of reasons why the Ontario economy was growing. I'd like to go over that. She said, "Growth prospects in Ontario continue to be stellar," and one of the reasons cited for that evaluation was the tax cut.
She continued: "This is a reflection of the multi-year easing in monetary policy, the provincial tax cut and the shift to a more business-friendly economic environment...."
She went on: "In my view, full marks go to the Ontario government for its pro-investment initiative.... public policy shifts in Ontario have also contributed to the rebound in economic activity.... the income-supporting impact from the tax cuts have paved the way for a broad-based economic expansion of a kind not seen in nearly a decade.
"The personal income tax cuts, while delaying the move to fiscal balance, have gone a long way towards reviving consumer confidence and spending. The most recent data show that Ontario's retail sales were on track for almost 7% growth in 1997, compared with virtually no growth in 1996. The tax cuts are working."
Those aren't John Baird's words. Those aren't the government's words. Those are the words of Dr Sherry Cooper, who was asked to appear before the committee as an expert witness.
She cites five reasons for the underpinnings to Ontario's growth. Much you would expect - interest rates, the link to the American markets, the Canadian dollar situation, the automotive sector - but of the five reasons, number 5 is, "The pro-business stance of the Ontario government will continue to play an integral role in attracting business from other jurisdictions. This is evident in the upswing in absorption rates in the office sector, taking the commercial vacancy rate for class A space in downtown Toronto to a mere 5%. This compares to double-digit vacancy rates just one year ago."
I could go on. "The Ontario government deserves credit for maintaining its commitment to budgetary reform, effectively breaking the tax-and-spend grip on the fiscal landscape of the late 1980s and early 1990s." I agree with Dr Cooper in this regard.
When we came into office almost three years ago, we immediately started down the road to fulfilling our campaign commitments, unlike the two previous governments which put aside their campaign commitments shortly after being sworn in to office. These commitments were made in response to 10 years of fiscal mismanagement and outdated ideas. While other jurisdictions, both in Canada and around the world, were lowering their deficits, welcoming business and modernizing their health and education system, Ontario was going in the other direction. The Liberals and NDP would sit around the cabinet table and dream up new schemes to create jobs. One would say, "Tax," the other would say, "Spend," and we regrettably saw the results.
As we promised, provincial income tax is being reduced by 30%. We have reduced the size of government and are providing better services for less money, and we are well on our way to balancing the budget. We have eliminated the barriers to job creation, investment and economic growth. For the year 1997, the Ontario economy recorded its strongest growth of the decade, with real GDP rising at a rate of 4.8%.
In March 1998, Ontario's total employment rose by 3,300, following a 35,400-job gain in February - impressive indeed. The Ontario unemployment rate continues to decline, falling to 7.4% in March. We on this side of the House are not satisfied with that. We're going to work harder to ensure that we can create an economy that will create more jobs for people in Ontario.
Ontario international merchandise exports rose 8.8% in January 1998. Look at my own riding of Nepean. Nortel at this moment is undergoing a quarter-billion-dollar economic expansion - 5,000 new jobs.
I look at some clippings from the Ottawa Sun: "Tech Boom Triggers New Development." "The local economy got more good news yesterday as Nepean announced an incredible 365% jump in the total value of building permits issued during the first quarter."
I know this is bad news for our colleagues on the other side of the House. They don't want to hear about the good news going on back home. But I'm going to continue.
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"Buoyed by the region's high-tech giants, the sector jumped to $45.4 million from a mere $1.5 million in the first quarter of 1997," one Nepean official said.
"The commercial sector also boasted staggering improvement with a jump to $8.9 million from last year's $2.5 million. The residential sector showed a more modest gain, rising to $8.9 million...." This is very good news indeed.
"If the first quarter is any indication, 1998 promises to be a very prosperous year for new business starts, job creation and assessment growth." Who said that? Not John Baird; Jack Stirling, the city of Nepean's commissioner of planning and development.
In fact the Ottawa Sun, in a story by Simon Tuck, said that "what is now becoming Canada's second-hottest market behind only Calgary" is my constituency of Nepean. That's good news not just for the folks who are able to get the high-tech jobs but for the spinoffs in retail and construction and the home-building industry. That's god news indeed for the entire economy of Ontario.
Business confidence in the province continues to rise. Private sector economists are optimistic that the Ontario economy will remain strong in 1998. The average private sector forecast for Ontario real GDP growth is more than 4% for 1998. All private sector forecasters expect Ontario to grow faster than the Canadian average in 1998.
You've got to wonder. The federal government's policies are so successful and the economic boom going on south of the border is so successful. We're not seeing that in British Columbia, we're not seeing that in the Quebec, we're not seeing that in three of the four maritime provinces, but we are seeing it here in Ontario.
The federal government's, Statistics Canada's Business Conditions Survey reports that Canadian manufacturers expect to increase employment hiring in the first quarter of 1998, and production levels are expected to rise again.
A recent Royal Bank-Angus Reid study shows that Ontario's small business owners are optimistic compared to those in other provinces. Again, if it's happening in other jurisdictions, whether it's the federal government or the US economy, why is it being felt in other jurisdictions? The Angus Reid poll found that among small business owners 56% expect improved business conditions in 1998. That is indeed good news because we on this side of the House know that small business is the economic engine of this province and we've got to support small business to see it create jobs.
Following years of economic uncertainty and pessimism, Ontario citizens have become optimistic about their financial future. An Angus Reid poll showed that consumer confidence in Ontario was high in early 1998: 44% of the people of Ontario, according to this poll, expect the Ontario economy to improve in 1998.
Just three short years ago, as you and I know, Mr Speaker, as we knocked on doors in Ottawa-Carleton we found not that unemployment was the biggest concern among voters but that it was bigger than that. It was the lack of hope and lack of confidence in the future. Parents were worried about the opportunities for their children who are students. Far too many were worried about losing their jobs and weren't spending. So the question of unemployment was far bigger than that. It was a big issue, and for the constituency of my colleague the member for Niagara Falls as well.
Increased employment opportunities and lower provincial income taxes have made Ontarians feel more secure, and as a result they're digging down in their pockets and spending more of their own hard-earned tax dollars.
For 1997, department store sales in Ontario rose by 11.2%, the strongest annual gain on record. Over the first two months of 1998, unit auto sales in Ontario were up by 4.9% from the same period a year ago. In March 1998, Ontario housing starts jumped by 23.6%, to reach an annualized level of 70,100. This represents the highest level in starts since March 1990.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp stated, "Consumer optimism created in an environment of strong job creation will sustain the demand for both new and resale homes." The CMHC forecasts housing starts will jump by 10% in 1998, which is unbelievable compared to the solid growth that occurred in the Ontario economy last year.
As promised, we're on track to eliminating our deficit by the year 2000-01. In 1996-97, for a second year in a row, we exceeded our deficit target - no excuses, no blame game; the targets were set and they were met. That is extremely important, because we simply can't afford to spend in the next generation's name. Every year, year after year, this government has made its deficit reduction target, something that is essential for business confidence and investment confidence around the world. The deficit has fallen to $5.2 billion, from a high of $11.3 billion inherited from the previous government in June 1995. That's a decrease of more than 50%.
Mrs Boyd: There wouldn't have been any deficit without a tax cut.
Mr Baird: One of the members opposite said it would have been decreased by a lot more if we had not had the tax cut. You know what? If we told the unemployed, "Step aside, you can wait. We're going to balance the budget first. We're not going to tackle unemployment; we're not going to tackle consumer confidence; we're not going to tackle for those families who are struggling to meet their mortgage payments," if we told them to simply wait, that balancing the budget would be more important, indeed we might have been able to balance the budget. But that would have been unconscionable, to simply tell the unemployed in Ontario, "You'll have to wait three, four or five years."
That's why we targeted job creation and economic growth as a solid priority, and that's why we've seen that in the last 11 months more jobs have been created in the private sector in the province of Ontario than in any 12-month period since Confederation, ever. That's a lot of good economic news. And it hasn't been the government buying those jobs; it's been hardworking Ontarians and small business people and others making investment decisions, investing in Ontario and creating those jobs.
There are other economic arguments where we can disagree. I know that my colleagues in the New Democratic Party respectfully disagree on the issue of mandatory work for welfare. You know what? I respect that position, because they've always disagreed with it; they've said they believe it's wrong. I respect them for that position because they only have one position. But the Liberal Party campaigned in the last election saying, "We're going to bring in mandatory work for welfare." What was it called?
Interjection: Mandatory opportunity.
Mr Baird: "Mandatory opportunity." Now we've got the sight of Dalton McGuinty going around the province promising that a Dalton McGuinty government will immediately get rid of mandatory work for welfare. Also, because he is totally against the welfare reductions, we know that one of the first things Dalton McGuinty is going to do is go back to the old way and jack up welfare rates by 21.6%.
We on this side of the House disagree with that approach. We on this side of the House believe that mandatory work-for-welfare programs are good for the Ontario economy, that they give people a sense of hope for the future that they can get some experience and get a reference to put on that next job application. That's very important, so work for welfare will continue to be part of this supply motion because our welfare costs in the province of Ontario will continue to come down as more people leave workfare and go into the labour force and get a job and work and contribute, get the dignity of earning their own salaries and being contributors to our society. That's good news.
I know the Liberals want to get rid of mandatory work for welfare and go back to the past. We know that. They've been very clear on that. If I'm wrong, if there's any misunderstanding, I invite my colleague the member for Ottawa West or the member from Sudbury to stand up right now and correct me if they don't want to get rid of mandatory work for welfare.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order, member for Sudbury East.
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Mr Baird: I will echo the comments made by one of my colleagues that yes, we are increasing health care spending to more than $18 billion a year in of Ontario. The member for Windsor-Sandwich asked why I don't go back home and check out the hospitals in Nepean. Well, I have a clipping here: "Local Hospitals Reopen 39 Beds." We got back the beds that Peterson closed in the 1980s, and that's good news. In Elizabeth Witmer we have a Minister of Health who is sympathetic to the important and urgent needs in our emergency wards and in long-term care.
The member for Ottawa-Rideau and I have been fighting to try and get those beds that Peterson closed back in the 1980s and we finally are starting to get them back. That's good news.
Interjection.
Mr Guzzo: She knows who Hitler is but she doesn't know who Peterson is.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Ottawa-Rideau.
Mr Baird: "`We've opened an additional 26 beds,'" the Ottawa Civic site operating officer Wendy Nicklin said. Queensway-Carleton Hospital president Rob Devitt hailed the announcement as good news."
We know that as we continue to move forward with health care reform, being careful to listen on the way to ensure that we get it right, as it said last week in the throne speech, long-term care will be a real priority, and that's good news.
Our government is the first government in Ontario in recent years to have the political courage to reinvest those administrative savings spent on administration back into front-line patient care, and that's good news.
We've made a firm commitment that we will ensure that health care priorities are met before restructuring goes into effect. I was pleased, as from the recent example, that my colleague the Honourable Elizabeth Witmer, the Minister of Health, committed up to $225 million to address the recommendations of the emergency services working group to improve emergency room services. She didn't order a report done and have the report gather dust on the shelf. She got the report back and the government moved that day to follow through to ensure that the health care needs of the people of Ontario were being met. That's a very direct result of listening to the people of Ontario.
People know that issues this government is trying to solve are complex. They know they're not easy. They know that sometimes some decisions are tough ones to take. But a recent Angus Reid poll said that 60% of Ontarians agree with the government's direction, that we must continue to make the priorities we outlined in our first and second throne speeches the priority: job creation; economic growth; helping small business be lifted out from under a mountain of red tape and regulation; making health care a real priority; making the education of our next generation important. We've actually increased the funding to classroom education. The first thing that some education administrators said around the province was, "Could we take some of the money from the classroom and put it back into administration?" and Dave Johnson said no, you couldn't take money from the classroom to spend more on administration. That is a real priority.
Also, we've had to look at dealing with the incredible mess of the deficit, and that too is going very well. It will be eliminated by the year 2000-01, as promised.
Those commitments remain our priority, as is strengthening work for welfare. I was saying to the member for Ottawa-Rideau the other day that if we can continue getting mandatory work for welfare up and running, maybe we could convince Dalton McGuinty it was a good thing so he wouldn't promise to get rid of it. That will continue to be a priority for the government, and we will continue to work on job creation, on economic growth, on helping small business, on work for welfare and building a better Ontario economy.
Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): It has been rather interesting to listen to the inventive fiction that comes from the other side. I think those watching the debate tonight must wonder what it is we're talking about. Of course we're talking about a motion with respect to supply, that the Minister of Finance be authorized to pay the salaries of the civil servants and other necessary payments pending the voting of supply for the period commencing May 1, 1998, and ending October 31, 1998. We're talking about the expenditures of this government for the next six months.
When we talk about the expenditures of the government, of course we know that we're talking about something on the order of $56 billion, according to the third-quarter financial report of this government, of which only about $42.6 billion actually goes towards programs. We do find, however, that there's a $9-billion payment on public debt interest and that this government, despite all the brave words on the other side, continues to run a deficit of about $5.2 billion.
I think it's important for people to realize just what is happening here when the government comes in with this motion of supply and talks the brave talk about the financial figures or the financial measures it has brought to Ontario. It claims all kinds of credit for this, that and the other, yet, as you will find out from my comments, there is a real cost, a real human cost being incurred in Ontario as a result of this government's fiscal agenda. It's a fiscal agenda that Ontarians really, when you look at it, when you look at the polls, when you ask the people on the street, do not support.
To draw to your attention just what it is we're talking about here, this is a government that came in in 1995 facing a deficit of about $8.8 billion and facing expenditures of about $58.3 billion, and over the course of their mandate to date they have been able to bring that down to about $56 billion. I just outlined that about $9 billion of it or more deals with public interest debt. The revenues have gone up from $49.5 billion to about $51 billion or so, but the fact is that they're continuing to run a deficit. It's rather amazing that here we have the Harris government, supposedly the deficit fighter, adding about $21 billion to our deficit to date.
As a matter of fact, it's interesting to note that Ontario took 118 years to accumulate a debt of about $30 billion. That was 118 years, right through to the end of the Peterson regime, to accumulate a debt of about $30 billion. That wasn't all that long ago. I believe the member for Nepean was still in school at that time, but he can remember those days. Under the Peterson regime, which was a Liberal government, the debt increased about $9 billion over those five years, and under the Rae government, another five years, a further $49 billion. But here we have the Harris government running a deficit year after year. Remember, we're talking about a supply motion that's going to be spending taxpayers' dollars to support programs, to run a deficit.
Why is this government continuing to run a deficit? It's because it continues to insist, at the same time, to try and cut income taxes. I say this because in the speech from the throne, one of the few lines I can read out, there is a line that "this government is going to stay the course." It will stay the course. In other words, it's going to continue with a fiscal agenda that even the banks, even the investment houses, even the bond rating agencies suggest is not financially very sound. Why is this? It's because this income tax cut is costing us money today.
In 1996-97 the income tax cut under this government cost about $1.2 billion in lost revenues, revenues that would have gone towards maintaining our hospitals, maintaining our schools, ensuring that we had an adequate social infrastructure in place, putting money into training, something this government still refuses to do - this is amazing - in its negotiations with the federal government. However, it cost in 1996-97 $1.2 billion; in 1997-98 $3.3 billion; in 1998-99 $4.7 billion, and we expect, if they continue - and we hear them say they're going to stay the course - another $5.6 billion. What does this mean? This means that in staying the course, this government is committed to more and more and more cuts.
Let's recall all of this. Here we have a government that said it's going to increase our deficit even further, but we must cut the deficit, yet at the same time it's going to cut income tax. How is it going to finance all this? It's going to cut programs.
Let's just remember, shall we, what this government said when it came to power. What did it say it was going to cut? Well, it was going to reduce the size of government.
But what did it say about health care? What did this government say? What did Mike Harris, the leader of this government, say about health care? During the election campaign in 1995, Mike Harris said, "Not one cent will be cut from health care" - Mike Harris, May 3, 1995. What has this government done? Some $800 million has been cut from hospital budgets. Can you believe that? Eight hundred million dollars. Here we have the member for Nepean crowing about 39 new beds going back into Ottawa-Carleton, but what did they take out of the community in terms of hospital budgets? They took $800 million, and when you add in the other cuts to health care during the mandate of this government to date, they have taken $1.4 billion out of our system.
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You have to ask yourself, how can the government on one side say they're spending more money than ever before in health care and yet on the other side - the black and white of it; you can find it in the auditor's report - they've taken this money out? Quite frankly, we all know the answer. We have a growing population. We have an aging population. Our health care needs are growing. We find ourselves with longer and longer waiting lists. Does this government listen to that? No, indeed it does not. It will stay the course. It is proud to say that it will stay the course.
Hospital closures: What did the government promise again? Of course during the campaign, the leaders' televised debate, we had the question coming from the journalists, broadcast all over Ontario, "Can you guarantee us tonight that your pledge to protect health care will mean that you, Mr Harris, will not close hospitals?"
What did Mike Harris, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, say at that time? "Certainly I can guarantee you, Robert" - you know, with those blue eyes staring into the cameras, staring with sincerity - "that it is not my plan to close hospitals." Yet here we stand today with 32 hospitals named for closure and more to come yet.
All we can say here is that these cuts have to be made so that this government can meet its fiscal agenda of finding the money for an income tax cut that Ontarians would much rather not have. They would much rather keep their health care system, keep their hospitals, keep the education system that they know they need for their children.
User fees: Remember, we're speaking in the context of an expenditure plan for this government to take them through the next six months. What is it premised on? It's premised on a fiscal agenda that's going to find money, more cuts, to pay for an income tax cut that is going to benefit whom? Certainly not the average Ontarian.
Mike Harris, in his famous Common Sense Revolution, which all those members opposite had to sign an oath of allegiance they were going to uphold - remember, they are going to stay the course in this thing; in their own speech they have affirmed they're going to stay the course. "Under this plan, there will be NO new user fees" - Mike Harris, Common Sense Revolution.
Indeed, what is the reality? Some $225 million in new user fees for seniors and the poor who purchase medication through the Ontario drug benefit plan, thousands of new user fees for provincial and municipal government services, and I will touch upon the costs of downloading in a moment.
I've only gone through three broken promises so far. There is more to come. I have to tell you this.
Law enforcement: One would think the Progressive Conservative Party, being the kind of Reform Party in blue clothing that it is, would be a law-and-order party. As a matter of fact, they even speak of crime prevention in this speech from the throne. "Funding for law enforcement and justice will be guaranteed.... [A]ny savings we find in our justice system through greater efficiencies will be reinvested to ensure public safety in our streets and in our homes," said Mike Harris in the Common Sense Revolution.
What has happened? Some $215 million being cut from the ministry of justice budgets, including $88 million from justice services, $23 million in court administration, $8 million in legal services to the crown. Even in the community that the previous speaker, the member for Nepean, comes from, the police budget there was cut by $8 million by this provincial government. The money that was going from the provincial government to the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Police commission was eliminated, $8 million. Who's going to make up the difference? It's going to come out of one pocket into the other. You can't tell me, when we're dealing with police, when over 80% of their costs are salary costs, that it's not going to have an impact on service on the street.
Agriculture: One, two, three, four, five. I'm on my fifth item here. What did Mike Harris say as part of his Task Force on Rural Development in 1994? No cuts for agriculture. Yet what happens under this government? Agriculture budget cuts of $45 million, including $23 million in cuts to policy and farm finance, $10 million in cuts to education, research and labs, $11 million in cuts to food industry and development.
What did we hear just last week? There were so many Conservatives at the Ontario farmers' association's little gathering downstairs in the legislative dining room, and they said, "We have to have those funds cut from the budget, which this government has done, reinvested." I think there was kind of an "or else," and when we hear the farmers in Ontario saying, "We can't take these cuts; we have an industry that needs service here. We didn't expect you to cut this. You promised not to cut this," but this government does so - well. That was only the fifth item.
I move on: seniors and the disabled. Again, Mike Harris, in that famous Common Sense Revolution - and I say this because we're dealing with the expenditure plan of this government, we're dealing with a motion of supply that will allocate where the taxpayers' dollars are going to go for the next six months, and it's important to know that in order for them to meet their fiscal agenda, they still have to dig out more money from these programs, not just simply to deal with the needs for the community, but they have to dig out money from these programs to finance that income tax cut with which we've only gone partway along, and we expect in the next couple of weeks to hear that the government is going to be committed to yet advancing the full stage of that cut. But as I have already outlined to you, health care, hospital closures, user fees, law enforcement, agriculture - cut after cut after cut, promise after promise after promise broken by this government.
Seniors and the disabled: "Aid for seniors and the disabled will not be cut." Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolution. And what has this government done? Some $225 million in new user fees for seniors and the disabled who have purchased medication through the Ontario drug benefit plan. Does this sound to you as if indeed the programs for seniors have remained - shall I dare use the word? - revenue-neutral? Such a word.
The environment: Mike Harris telling the Toronto Star on June 5, 1995, with those sincere blue eyes - you've got to remember those sincere blue eyes when you see those infomercials and he's looking into the camera and he's telling everybody what he truly believes in - "I don't think you'll find a cent there cut out of the environment. We were able to find $6 billion in cuts without cutting the environment."
What is the reality? Ministry of Environment and Energy budget cuts over $121 million, 42% of the budget. In the one area where people in Ontario think we should be investing more, which is protecting our environment, what does this government do?
Why does this government do this? Because it has to find money for that income tax cut in order to follow through with its fiscal agenda. Does this make sense? If this money stayed in place, we would be out of a deficit situation today. We would have more money to put into the areas where we have need. This government is not listening to the public when it says: "Don't cut our hospitals any more. Don't cut our health care services any more." But what's in store?
Let's talk about education. The Common Sense Revolution: "Classroom funding for education will be guaranteed." What happens instead? Over the course of the mandate of this government to date, $1 billion has been taken out of education, forcing 23 school boards to cancel junior kindergarten classes, and the government has the gall to announce that it's going to appoint Dr Fraser Mustard to look into early childhood education. My heavens. If it only listened to the school boards, to the parents, to the teachers, but this government does not listen. As a matter of fact, I heard the Premier say that school boards and teachers ought not to be trusted with the future of our children, throwing into complete mockery the democratic tradition we have had in this province even predating Confederation, where school board trustees were elected from their communities and sought to meet the needs of their communities. They may not be in the world's greatest respect in terms of what taxpayers believe these days because of the propaganda this government has put forward, but you have to ask yourself, when this government says in the Common Sense Revolution that classroom funding for education will be guaranteed, yet we find 23 school boards cutting junior kindergarten classes, when we find 53 school boards reducing special education programs, when we find 21 school boards scaling back or cancelling adult education, how can anyone say that this is a promise kept? It's not.
Even the new funding formula, which the member for Nepean seems to think is a wonderful thing, is going to mean that programs are going to be cut in Ottawa-Carleton, in the city of Nepean, the city of Ottawa, the city of Gloucester, the city of Kanata, the city of Cumberland. All those communities are going to see cuts in their programs.
Adult education: Here you have a person who has dropped out of school for whatever reason growing up to be an adult, realizing the need to get a full high school education, wanting to go back, and here is a government supposedly committed to providing them with those opportunities, and yet it takes the money away. Why? Why are they taking that money away? To finance an income tax cut, again another income tax cut.
2000
Post-secondary education: Mike Harris, in his document A Blueprint for Learning in Ontario, wrote all these things. Was he looking for election at the time? I think so. Was he trying to reach out to voters at the time? I think so. Was he trying to say, "Trust me and I'll do these things"? I think so. What did he say? "Tuition fees should be allowed to rise, over a four-year period, to 25% of operating costs." What is the reality? Some $400 million in cuts to post-secondary education have forced tuition fees to rise to 35% of operating costs. By the year 2000, tuition fees will have risen up to 60% in five years, putting it out of the reach of middle-class families in this community and our community in Ontario. I ask you, can we believe this?
Welfare reform, one of the pillars of achievement that the member before me spoke about so much: Mike Harris, June 2, 1995, in the midst of the election - in an election we are asked to display our policies so that the people can judge us to see who is going to be worthy of government. What did Mike Harris say in his effort to try and convince people that they should vote for his government? "Welfare recipients must be given incentives to re-enter the workforce, learn new skills and enhance their self-esteem. Our plan, Ontario Works, does exactly that."
What happened? The work-for-welfare plan is in complete disarray. We have the minister even in the interim between the last session and this session, over the past four months, going back down to Wisconsin to find out where they went wrong. The plan's not working. There is the birthplace of workfare. What do they do? How come we can't get it off the ground? Despite spending $1 million in advertising workfare, the program in most regions has yet to get under way. The regions are resisting. The volunteer community is resisting. Why? The municipalities are telling you - and you're not listening - "We can't afford to pay for this. We can't afford the administration for this."
Mr Guzzo: Following the Liberals, who were against it.
Mr Cullen: The member for Ottawa-Rideau should listen to his colleague who now is the chair of the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. It's costing them money to run this damn thing, and every municipality is finding it so. What are you doing? "Just make it happen, make it work." Is this the listening, the kinder, gentler government that was promised here in this speech? Absolutely not. "Make it work or else."
Municipal amalgamation: Here's a beauty. Here's a real beauty, a gem. Mike Harris, speaking to a small-town paper, the Fergus News Express, in 1994 - again you've got to imagine those baby blues looking at that editorial board right there, emoting sincerity - "There is no cost for a municipality to maintain its name and identity. Why destroy our roots and pride? I disagree with restructuring because it believes that bigger is better. Services always cost more in larger communities." Anyone remember Bill 103, the Toronto megacity bill that passed even though 76% of Toronto residents voted against a forced amalgamation?
I simply cannot resist. That was Mike Harris who said that, oh my Lord, and yet in his speech from the throne, although it's not clear after this afternoon who actually wrote what in this - maybe I shouldn't blame Mike Harris. He's not sure what he vetted, what he approved. But there is a section in here dealing with referenda, that indeed the government's going to listen more to the community out there. They don't listen to municipalities. They don't listen to the hospitals. They don't listen to the seniors. They don't listen to the people with disabilities. I don't know. We're supposed to be seeing something different.
All I can tell you is that right now I've gone through one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 statements of claim made by the leader of the Conservative Party, Mike Harris, which he has failed utterly and entirely to honour, absolutely, utterly and entirely. If there was truth in advertising, this man would be convicted right now. But I'm not finished.
Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): You haven't got enough time, Al. There's too much -
Mr Cullen: Thank you for that.
Really, one of the more amazing things here is municipal downloading. In the Mike Harris Common Sense Revolution, Mr Harris, "Mike" to his friends, says, "You know, there's only one level of taxpayer - you." Remember those blue eyes, looking with such sincerity into the camera. "We will work closely with municipalities to ensure that any actions we will take will not result in an increase to property taxes."
Lo and behold, I even remember him - I was there at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference when he stood up and he said, "I pinkie swear." Where did he get that phrase, "pinkie swear"? Wasn't that his young son at the table saying, "Dad, when you promise, you've got to pinkie swear"? He went there, and I remember his statement, again those pearly blues talking, that the municipal downloading would be revenue-neutral.
Instead, what we see here is $650 million in provincial services downloaded on to municipalities. The cost to the municipal taxpayer as a result of the initiatives taken by this government going through one, two, three, four, five iterations since January 1996 - five times he tried to get it right, and only most recently do we understand what they got right. Even then, the municipalities are saying, "It ain't right yet." But no one can doubt that it's going to cost taxpayers. There was only one level of taxpayer? That's right. It's going to cost taxpayers more money.
Culture, and my colleague will respond to this: Here we are during the campaign again, on May 30, 1995, with Mike Harris saying, "There's not a single cut in any of the cultural grants, in any of that pot of pie that is there." Bill Cameron, who is the journalist, says: "Is that an absolute commitment? You will not cut cultural grants?" Mike Harris, blue eyes, sincerity, looking into the camera: "Yes, it is."
We know what the reality is. Unhappily, we know what the reality is. Culture cuts: $88 million, one third of the budget, including $17 million in cuts to the Ontario Arts Council, $20 million in cuts to libraries - how are people going to be able to learn to read if they don't have libraries to go to? - $15 million in cuts to community support, and $23 million in cuts to film development support. It's ridiculous.
Northern Ontario: Is there no area in this province that will be left alone by this juggernaut known as Mike Harris and his Common Sense Revolution? "No cuts to northern development": Mike Harris in the Legislature, June 22, 1994. You can read it in Hansard.
Interjection: Another broken promise.
Mr Cullen: Another broken promise.
Northern development budget cuts: $49 million, including $14 million in cuts for highway maintenance, $15 million in cuts for community support, and $7 million in cuts for mining initiatives. Even the north is not left alone in all of this.
Jobs: You know, maybe if we had the jobs that this government promised, we might be able to understand better what's going on, but I have to tell you, we have to thank the American economy for the growth in ours, because ours is an export market. It's not because people are spending so much more here; it's because people in the States and in Japan and China and in the Third World want our products. The member for Nepean talked about Nortel. Where does Nortel sell to? Eighty percent of it is offshore. Where are the people they're hiring? It's not locally in Ottawa-Carleton, let me tell you.
So here we have it, "725,000 new jobs in Ontario," Mike Harris in the Common Sense Revolution, and what do we have? We have a government that's asking us in its fiscal agenda to approve this kind of interim supply, this kind of expenditure of $55 billion, this kind of deficit of $5.6 billion, another additional tax cut, and it's going to miss its job target by 200,000 jobs.
What are we left with? An unemployment rate in Ontario of about 8%, double that when you count our youth, the very people who we should be investing in to provide for growth in the future.
2010
I could go on. I could talk about the promises in rent control where "Rent control will continue" was the promise of the day. I could talk about leadership: "Leadership by example." I could go on and on. But the bottom line, as we deal with the resolution here to give this government money so they can operate for the next six months - all I've given you here is that they have committed themselves to carry on. They will stay the course, which means more cuts to finance, an income tax cut and more broken promises.
It is with regret that I find myself here dealing with a motion of supply and the sad litany of a government that won't listen and won't honour its commitments.
Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I'd like to take the next 15 to 20 minutes or so to participate in the debate of concurrence in supply. This is one of the rare occasions in the House where we have an opportunity to basically wander and speak about a number of issues and try to bring them back in together. I want to put on the record a couple of things here.
I listened intensely to the government members talk about what's happening in the economy and about how the Ontario economy, in some sectors, is doing well, which it is. The economy of Ontario, for a number of years, for probably at least a good 100 years, has done well or better - actually much better - than most other places in Canada because of where we are. We're situated to one of the biggest markets to the south with some of the most highly populated areas. We have a very strong industrial base. We have a very strong natural resource base. We have a good infrastructure. Ontario, because of a lot of policies set out by former governments in the past, has positioned itself in the economy of Canada quite well. What I take exception to is when the government gets up and tries to say that everything that's happening that's good in the economy is only because there is now a Conservative government in Ontario and nothing pre-1995 ever went well.
I listened to the member for Nepean talk about how there was a huge investment of almost half a billion dollars in his community by one of the telecommunications outfits. On that I congratulate him. That's not the first investment, however, that Ontario has ever seen. I can point to a number of investments totalling over almost a billion dollars that happened in my riding from 1992 to 1995. When was that? It's when Bob Rae was in office. There's a lot of investment that happens in this province on the basis of where we are, on the basis of the infrastructure of our economy, the infrastructure delivered by the province and our municipalities.
For the government to somehow suggest, ooh la la, that the economy of Ontario has done well only since 1995 I think is a bit of a stretch. Governments come and go but the economy of Ontario will be here. I get a bit annoyed when I listen to them try to take credit for everything under the sun. This government has done some things well, it has done some other things quite badly, and to all of a sudden suggest that everything that's good in the province has been since 1995 is offensive, not only to myself, but to a lot of other people who have participated in our economy, both in the private and public sectors, pre-1995. I take some exception to it.
But what I'd like to put on the record tonight is that the picture the government paints is simply that they have done a number of things to restructure the expenses of this provincial government in order to do two things: first of all, to try to balance its budget. I think most of us agree that over a period of time the government has to get to a point where it's basically not spending more money than it's taking in. Every government has worked towards that end. Unfortunately the Ontario economy has undergone huge changes because of free trade - NAFTA - and a whole bunch of other things. The government has had to restructure how it delivers its services. The second thing they're trying to do is ideological, to change Ontario to their own vision, and that is an Ontario where, if you've got money you will do well, and if you don't have money you will do far less well than those who do.
The government has an ideological bent and that's where they want to go. They believe government should play little or no role when it comes to a lot of the things we take for granted here in Ontario. We know that in education alone the government wants to restructure education in its own vision; that is, a private system where people who have money will be able to send their kids to well-financed charter schools and where people who don't have money will have to send their children to public schools, which in the long run will be underfunded, understaffed, underresourced, undersupported and, quite frankly, will have difficulty getting the same level of education.
They're doing the same thing in the health care sector. They have allowed through Bill 26, the omnibus bill, and through a number of other bills that they've put through this House, humongous changes in our public system of health care, to where they're going to be allowing the privatization of a number of services that are presently organized by the public sector. They tell us that will be better. I say time will prove me right, that it will be worse. We just have to look at the United States and the health care system they have there as compared to Ontario, and we will find that our system is much better.
I'd like to go through a couple of letters I've received recently from constituents in my riding because I'm sure government members are getting these letters as well and are not taking the time to bring them into the House and share them with the rest of the Legislature and the people who watch on television. I listened to the member for Nepean come in and read a letter about how the economy is doing well, the letter of a particular individual, which I don't remember at this point. I'm sure the person was quite sincere when they wrote that letter, but I have other letters here that have been written to me from people who are equally sincere and who talk about some of the difficulties they now face because of changes this provincial government has put in place. I have a particular letter here. I'll start with this one written this last March from Jean Baxter from Iroquois Falls. She writes:
"I write this letter to draw your attention to the deteriorating level of health care services available in our community....
"During the past two years the following services, previously rendered by public health nurses, have been abandoned or reduced."
Home visits to seniors are no longer covered through the public health unit, this is something that no longer happens. Home visits to newborn babies are not being done by public health nurses any more. Foot care clinics have been basically eliminated. Blood pressure clinics have been reduced from a weekly to a monthly basis.
I look at one of the members across the way sort of saying, "What does that have to do with anything?" The point is, every dollar we spend on prevention saves us a lot of money down the road when it comes to more obstructive ways of providing health care, as compared to trying to give people healthy lifestyles. One of the things that this government is doing, if this person goes through the letter that Mrs Baxter goes through, is that the government has made a choice. It says: "We're not going to spend money on preventive health care, instead we're going to try to save some quick dollars now by not giving money to these types of programs. We're smart, we're going to reduce our expenditures and hopefully at the end of the day we'll balance our budget." The problem is, this is really shortsighted. If you don't spend money on prevention up front, what you're going to get down the road is a higher bill because these people are going to get sicker for longer and it's going to cost us a lot more money to be able to take care of them if we're not able to deal with them up front.
She goes on to say that pre-kindergarten assessments are no longer being made. Public health nurses used to do pre-kindergarten assessments of our young children going into the school system to identify if there were any health care problems with those children before they entered school, for a whole bunch of reasons which I don't need to explain right now.
Health teaching in our schools is no longer offered by public health nurses. They used to send the public health nurses into our schools to teach our young children a healthy lifestyle, good diet, what the dos and don'ts are when it comes to a healthy lifestyle. This government has said: "This is not important any more. We're going to cut that. We're going to save money in the short term." You might be getting your fiscal target, as far as where you want to go on the fiscal side in the short term is concerned, but I'm telling you, in the long term Jean Baxter is right. She summarizes in this letter that what's going to happen in the long run is that if you want the services you're going to have to pay a user fee, which is a totally different issue, but more importantly, this is going to cost us oodles of money in the long run because people are going to get sicker, and when they get sicker it's going to cost our public health care system much, much more money, if we still do have a public health care system by that time.
I have another letter here and the person explicitly asked me not to say their name, and I take it from what she's writing here in the letter, she's a little bit worried about repercussions. I won't get into that, that's for another debate.
2020
This is interesting. She was writing to one of the local long-term-care facilities in our community, and I'm not going to say which one because I'm not comfortable singling out one institution because I think that would be unfair. She writes:
"I'm writing to complain about the lack of housekeeping" on this particular wing when she went to visit her mother. She explains in great detail, which I won't go through because it's a little bit graphic, the condition of the bathroom that was adjacent to her mother's room and the condition of the room. The point that she's getting at is that bathroom was soiled, it was dirty, it was, in her view, very unsanitary. The room was dirty. She goes on to talk about how there were actually cobwebs at the top of the windows because the people had not had the opportunity to go in and dust it for a while. I would hope that's not the case, and it's something actually I need to take a look at in more detail.
She goes on at great length to talk about the condition of the room. She went to complain to the nurses' station to get somebody in there to clean up the room a little bit. "I went to the housekeeping office about the poor condition of my mother's room. I was told that due to cuts, the rooms are only cleaned once a week." Can you imagine? Can you imagine living in your home where you basically just leave everything to accumulate for a period of a week and you don't clean anything, what kind of condition your home would be in?
That's what they're doing in this particular long-term-care institution, on the basis of what your government has cut. Why? Because this particular home for the aged had to cut the budget of their housekeeping department to meet the fiscal target your government set, and as a result they no longer clean the rooms on a regular basis as they used to. They only clean them once a week.
This woman's poor mother is having to live in what she terms - and I'm not going to get into the details because the condition she feels her mother is living in is actually quite horrendous. This is as a direct result of what you're doing when it comes to how you're approaching the health care system, when it comes to the cuts you're making.
I hear the government talk at great length about how it's investing all kinds of money in the health care system. Listen, you're not fooling anybody. You're not fooling this particular woman who writes me this letter and says: "I look at the condition, the state of my mother, where she's now at the long-term-care institution she lives in, and I see a difference. The room used to be clean, she used to be well-fed, she used to be well taken care of. Over the last couple of years" - and she goes in great detail to explain that the condition in her long-term-care institution has dwindled to a point where she is really concerned about the health of her mother, because of where she is living and lack of care and lack of housekeeping. This is but one letter.
I have another person who writes me a letter, and I get a lot of these. They write, "Please don't mention my name." I find it really interesting that citizens of Ontario have difficulty having their name expressed in this House when they come to raise these particular issues.
I've gone back to talk to some of them and I say, "Why is it? You don't want the attention?" They say: "No, I'm afraid that if I say anything the cuts might be more severe when it comes to me, because I've heard that if you take an oppositional voice to this government, they're going to go back and penalize you."
They look at what Mrs Cunningham did to the women in the London area a couple of years ago. She basically said, "If you keep on protesting against this government, we're going to cut your budgets." It's to the point, in some cases, where citizens are afraid to speak out. It says right on the top of the letter: "Please do not mention my name." I've actually gone back and talked to this person to ask him why and that's what he's told me.
This person goes on to explain an issue. It's about eight pages long. I'm not going to go into it in detail, but what the person says is: "I have a heart condition. I use a fair amount of medication. These drugs are fairly expensive." He goes on to list the various drugs he has to take and how a lot of these drugs have now been taken off the list. They are no longer being paid for by the drug program. In order to get them, he has to go through the Trillium program where he has to pay additional user fees that never had to be paid in the past when it came to these drugs.
This guy goes on to talk about how, prior to the last election, he had decided he was going to vote Conservative on the basis of the Mike Harris promise that there would be no user fees. He writes that in his letter: "Mike Harris promised in the last election that there would no user fees of any sort under a Mike Harris government." Then he goes on to explain, and he's got all of the various receipts, what he's bought with regard to medication over the last one month alone, $1,600 worth of medication this poor man has had to buy between him and his wife for their health care, things they've never had to pay for before.
He goes on providing all of the various receipts he has had in order to pay for this and the conclusion is: "Basically the Mike Harris government not only" - and I can't use word that L word, and I won't because that would be unparliamentary, but basically says he feels the Mike Harris government did not -
The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): You can't infer the word either. Thank you.
Mr Bisson: Mr Speaker, I think the inference has made. I'm sorry about that.
But the point is that this person goes on to say that he voted for the Mike Harris government on the basis of a promise that there would be no user fees because he was upset at what was going on in Ontario at the time under the Rae government. This person goes on to say he would have been a lot better off with Bob Rae than he is now under Mike Harris. He's having to pay a lot of user fees that he never had to pay before. He's now worried that he's not going to have the money to pay for his medication. This is but one constituent.
I have another constituent who writes a letter. I'm not going to use the person's name here because he has it whited out and that must be because this person doesn't want his name used. The letter reads:
"Thousands of Ontarians have had their lives put on hold by funding cuts. I am sure there are thousands in worse shape than I am but that is no consolation" to me.
He goes on to say: "January 20, 1997, I developed heart problems. It took from that date, with waiting lists for testing, till March 10, 1997, before I could get an appointment at Sudbury Memorial Hospital for an angiogram.
"I have patiently been waiting for the past six months for an appointment to have a blockage corrected, a procedure that according to the Sudbury doctor would have taken an additional 15 to 20 minutes to correct during the angiogram.
"Three weeks ago, I was finally given the date of September 25 to have this procedure performed, only to be crushed by receiving a call on September 24 to cancel my appointment for the next day."
This person wrote to me back in September of last year to get an angiogram done, and eventually bypass surgery, but he couldn't get it done within a period of six months because of what was happening with the funding cuts and how it had affected the waiting list at Sudbury Memorial Hospital. What ended up happening with this gentleman was I had to intervene and make some phone calls on his behalf to do what we could to get this guy in. The long and the short of the story is he was affected by your funding cuts. He had to wait six months just to get the angiogram done.
The other point I want to make is it's not right in the health care system that this particular individual ended up having to go to his provincial MPP to get health care services because of your funding cuts. We're finding in ridings like Windsor and London - my good friend Marion Boyd - I'm seeing in Shelley Martel's riding, in Howard Hampton's riding, in Len Wood's riding, a number of other members I discussed this issue with, that they're having the same problem. People are on cardiac waiting lists far longer than they have to be and often, quite frankly, don't make it off the waiting list because they end up dying before they ever get to the hospital.
I say to this government, what you can extrapolate from that is that this particular guy ended up having to wait six months to get his procedure done, and only when my office got involved did the guy finally get it done, and that's wrong. The health care system shouldn't work that way. The reason it's failing is because your government has cut the money to the Sudbury Memorial Hospital cardiac program and people are having to wait far longer than they have.
I have a couple of other letters here that are of interest. I have a letter from the Lord's Kitchen Society in Timmins. This is indicative of a number of letters that I've received in the last six months to a year. It says, "...the Lord's Kitchen Society, a non-denominational and non-profit organization, served last year over 21,000 meals, at a cost of $43,557....
"With the addition of a second weekly meal at St Matthew's Anglican Church along with an increase in the total number of guests our costs continue to rise. We, once again, appeal to you for support. This year our expenditures for eight months have already exceeded $38,000."
The point is that the Lord's Kitchen is now serving more people than it ever has before. Make the connection. People go hungry; people end up at the Lord's Kitchen. Why are they going hungry? Because your government has decided to effectively cut the welfare rates, effectively kick people off FBA and GWA and a whole bunch of other changes that you've made where people are now having to go to the Lord's Kitchen to get a meal and they're not able to keep up.
I have another such letter, from Community Living Timmins, that says:
"Community Living Timmins will be establishing a fund-raising committee. The focus of this committee will be to raise funds for new service initiatives...covering existing service deficits as well as enhancing already established services. Your support in this initiative is needed."
They go on to say here that they ain't got enough money. Why? Because your government has cut them. For them to try to provide the services in our community, they're having to go to myself and a whole bunch of other people in our community - labour, business and others - to fund-raise what we used to do before by way of our tax system.
The point I want to make to you through these letters is simply this: Once you start making the kinds of cuts you've been making blindly and, I would say, badly, what you end up doing is affecting programs that affect people in their daily lives. In the end, you may be achieving in the short term your fiscal target, but in the long term, these cuts that you're making are going to cost our society a heck of a lot of money, both in misery of the individual and also when it comes to what it's going to cost our taxpayers further down the road when they have to pay additional costs in health care and additional costs in a whole bunch of other government services because of your particular cuts.
2030
Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): I'm pleased to join this lively debate on the motion for interim supply. I note that the debate has gotten so good that we've even got little clusters of discussion going on throughout the House about the interim supply bill.
The motions for interim supply are of interest to all members in the House, me no less than any other member, because this is the kind of motion that leads to expenditures for such things as nursing homes, post-secondary institutions and children's aid societies. These are all priority services that the people of Ontario want their government to provide and to pay for.
I'm pleased to say that in the wake of the throne speech, the kinds of difficult decisions that our government has had to make to try and get the province's fiscal house back in order have led to us getting back on the right track fiscally and provided us with the opportunity, I think, to embark on some expenditure areas that are probably long overdue and that previous governments really haven't had a chance to embark on because they have not been responsible fiscally.
The member for Nepean has really provided a lot of the information on the general health of the provincial economy and how Ontario has outstripped the other provinces in the recovery period. In fact, real gross domestic product is rising at a rate that far exceeds the predictions from the private sector.
One of the most important figures for people in my riding and for people throughout the country is the number of jobs that have been created in jurisdictions. While Canada generally has done well in that area, Ontario has been particularly creating a lot of jobs since February 1997. In that period the private sector has created 261,000 net new jobs, so the province certainly has good reason to be very confident.
Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber): What was that figure?
Mr Grimmett: That was 261,000 net new jobs since February 1997. Sixty per cent of the new jobs created in Canada have been created in Ontario in that time period.
Another indicator that people in my riding keep an eye on is the help wanted index. That is an index that is kept of the number of jobs in the papers throughout the country. The help wanted index in Ontario has been rising and is now at its highest rate since September 1990. Remember, we had a winter with very little snow. I know in my riding people would think that would lead to a loss of jobs but in fact in March 1998 the Ontario help wanted index climbed 2.9% in Ontario, yet another indication of a healthy, confident economy.
I thought I'd take a few minutes tonight to talk about the kind of confidence that exists in my riding which has led to a lot of good, positive business information. When I sat down to write this speech, I found that I was actually coming up with more ideas than would be allowed in the brief time that I have tonight, so I'm going to try to very quickly summarize the good-news announcements in a business context that have occurred in the Muskoka-Georgian Bay area in recent months. I think it's an indication that the confidence level is high, consumer confidence is driving the retail trade and the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Muskoka-Georgian Bay.
Earlier this month the finance minister who opened the debate this evening was the guest speaker at the first Muskoka industry luncheon. That was a combined event. The Gravenhurst Chamber of Commerce, the Bracebridge Chamber of Commerce and the Muskoka home builders got together and at that discussion he outlined many of the measures that our government has introduced to improve the province's economy and he noted that in the Muskoka-Kawartha region for February, a time when employment in central Ontario is sometimes difficult to find, employment was up 12,000 jobs from last year. That's an 8% increase year over year from February 1997. I think that's a very impressive number, particularly taken in the month of February.
Bracebridge-based Muskoka Transport, a family business recently ranked as one of the top 100 fleets in the country, reports that its business has increased 16% in the first six months of the current fiscal year. This is good news as the trucking industry provides a good indication of the state of the economy, not only provincially but also in our region.
The Bracebridge Chamber of Commerce has reported a better than 10% increase in its membership this year, as the community enjoys positive economic growth. They also reported an increase in the number of visitors who have been seeking information, both in the summer and in the winter.
Minister Eves and I were able to tour the Meritor automotive plant in Bracebridge. This is a high-tech auto industry related plant. They design and build seat adjustment systems, both power and manual, for cars and light trucks throughout the world. Some of their products are shipped as far away as Czechoslovakia. Meritor expects solid growth in the next five years and expects to add about 100 new employees to their current 423; again, continued good news right in Bracebridge.
NEBS Business Forms in Midland announced that it'll be adding an additional 30,000 square feet of warehouse space and creating 10 new full-time positions to accommodate expected increased volumes in business. That expansion is expected to be completed this fall.
Muskoka has a new fitness club - Muskoka Fitness. I've been so busy going to openings of new businesses that I was unable to make it the opening of the Muskoka Fitness club but I expect to make it there within the next year.
Elcan Optical Technologies is another high-tech business in my riding. It's located in Midland. They employ 650 workers. They're predicting even stronger growth than expected due to the consolidation of plants in the United States, another example of an American plant closing and the extra work coming to Ontario.
Earlier this year, Career Blazers Learning Centre, which is an international computer training business, expanded to Huntsville. The existing office in Bracebridge opened in 1995, and since that time it's graduated more than 1,000 students in computer upgrading.
In Midland there's the $75 million Tiffin-by-the-Bay waterfront community development that's attracting a great deal of attention as the Trilet Group plans the creation of waterfront homes, community parks, open space and further commercial development on the waterfront in Midland.
In MacTier, I reported last year that the community suffered a devastating fire on the main street that destroyed two important local businesses. Last month, Wayne's Home Hardware and the Knechtel Food Market reopened, in part due to the support of the people of MacTier.
In Midland, the vacant Mitsubishi plant was sold and continues as a viable entity, with the promise of over 200 jobs.
In Port Carling, a former supermarket building is being converted into as many as nine retail units and most of them are expected to be occupied for the busy summer season.
In Gravenhurst, a very aggressive council is planning to hold two open houses for residents to help draft a vision statement for the community. Goals will include increasing tourism and supporting the development of a diverse and healthy economy.
Muskoka Tourism has entered into a unique partnership that will help promote local tourism. Fonorola is sponsoring Muskoka Tourism's popular 1-800 service to encourage the public to get more tourism information.
Swift Canoe and Kayak have announced they're moving their headquarters from Oxtongue Lake to Gravenhurst, where they'll open a manufacturing workshop and showroom on Highway 11. The move is expected to bring as many as 20 jobs to the area within two years. The reason for the move is that they needed a bigger location because their kayak business is booming.
2040
In Huntsville the well-known Deerhurst Resort, a major local employer, is planning major renovations and an expansion of the sports pavilion. There will be more hotel units, additional meeting space and a new indoor pool. The changes should make Deerhurst an even more attractive conference facility. It already touts itself as being the largest resort of its kind east of the Rockies.
Another well-known Muskoka resort, Aston Villa, is currently undergoing a $2-million renovation to modernize the popular facility. I know the owners there would not be investing the money if they had doubts about the Ontario economy.
In Windermere, the well-known Windermere House is preparing to launch its 128th season as a major Muskoka resort, despite having a major fire two years ago. The rebuilt facility recently received a prestigious four-star rating from the AAA/CAA.
In Huntsville, Muskoka Heritage Place's Portage Flyer project is under way. This is a unique partnership between private industry, the local chamber of commerce and several non-profit groups that are trying to get an old railway with a steam train working. This will be an important tourism project and it's likely to generate about $2.5 million. They hope to have it online for the year 2000.
Evans Forrec, a Bracebridge-based business, is developing a strong international reputation for its development of theme parks around the world; in fact the Disney Corp often has Evans design their theme parks. They have about 40 employees, and the company is talking about possible expansion, perhaps within a year.
Clearly the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well, both in the province and in my riding. More and more people are finding out that Muskoka-Georgian Bay is a good place to do business and an excellent place to visit. I believe we have turned the corner in Ontario with our provincial finances on the road to recovery, and now we have the opportunity enhance our services, those services that my constituents hold dear.
I thought I'd take the last few minutes to speak about the children's aid society and the important work they do. I was pleased to announce recently on behalf of the community and social services minister additional funding for children's aid services in my riding. These funds are part of the money that's included in the interim supply motion this evening. They're going to hire additional child protection staff and help strengthen local child protection efforts.
Hundred of preschool children in my riding with speech and language difficulties are also going to benefit from funding for new services announced earlier this year by Minister Ecker and Minister Witmer.
Last week Environment Minister Norm Sterling announced that the village of Port Carling will receive funding of up to $3.5 million to build a new water treatment plant. The people of Port Carling have been waiting a long time for this money. They have been waiting for this money. It was not able to be provided by previous governments because of the fiscal situation they put themselves in.
After a period of tough decisions, I believe we can look at enhancing our key services. This motion this evening and the throne speech indicate that there are great opportunities in the future, and we certainly will be building on our sensible fiscal management. I think you're going to see a resulting strong economy. I would urge support for the motion this evening.
Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): Tonight I just want to remind people who are watching on television that this isn't the reruns; this is actually live tonight at about 10 to 9 on Monday evening.
We're talking about a resolution by Mr Sterling to pay the salaries of civil servants starting on April 1. It's interesting that we could have been recalled to the Legislature a month ago. We're here debating this resolution a few days before these payments have to be made to civil servants when we could have been doing this a long time ago. Because of the mismanagement of the Tory government, we're doing this here tonight at this late hour.
When we're talking about this, we need to think about what was said in the Common Sense Revolution - I've got a copy of the Common Sense Revolution - when they talked about what they're going to do to civil servants back in the 1995 election. I just want to quote some of the things that were said there. They were going to trim the cost of the provincial government workforce by 15%. That's 13,000 employees. They're going to make those reductions "through attrition and retirement packages. Where necessary, this could mean cutting some positions." "Cutting some positions" - I just want to reiterate that. But they're confident that "the tremendous growth in the private sector will provide ample job opportunities for those who may be displaced."
I want to ask people, what kind of jobs are going to replace those public service jobs? What kind of jobs are going to replace those persons who were providing quality public services in areas like health care, education and other types of services in this province? People in Ontario don't want to have a job at any cost. They don't want to have McJobs. They don't want to have jobs that are going to be paying minimum wages when they could be providing jobs that provide services that the public appreciate and are willing to pay for here in Ontario.
This afternoon I went to a rally by OPSEU employees, the very same employees who are going to benefit from this resolution to be paid after April 1. I want to say that we support their efforts to retain long-term employment, security on the job, decent wages and decent pensions, and reject what this government is trying to do: to downsize, to privatize and to eliminate their jobs for the very purpose of fuelling their phoney tax scheme. That's what it's all about. These are the sorts of things the Mike Harris government is trying to do to civil servants here in the province.
They're trying to privatize print and mail services. These are workers who for the most part are persons who suffer from disabilities. It's shameful that that is the subject of the Mike Harris attacks. They want to downsize these services. They couldn't get away with it. They tried to eliminate these jobs last year and they weren't able to get away with it, so now what they're trying to do is reduce the funding to government mail services so that those who rely on those services are going to be forced to look elsewhere. What that is really is downsizing through the back door. That's what it's about.
What the Tory government is doing as well is trying to privatize Central Collection Services. They're also trying to privatize the Ontario Realty Corp, the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, and the Ontario Securities Commission. This is what members of OPSEU are trying to fight against right now, and we join with them in their struggles.
The reason this is going on is because the Tory government is interested in finding the funds for their phoney tax scheme, a tax scheme that benefits very few but picks on those who are marginalized and those who are vulnerable. These are cuts, cuts, cuts. That's what it's all about. It's an attack on unionized workers here in Ontario. It's got nothing to do with efficiency; it's got nothing to do with improving the economy here in the province of Ontario. This is an attack on unionized workers. It's privatization through the back door.
We know that the people who are paying the cost of these cuts are the most vulnerable in Ontario, those who are marginalized, and those who really are faced with inequity in bargaining with their employers and with the government. But OPSEU employees have been able to negotiate some favourable arrangements because of the strength and solidarity of their membership.
This government has had a pretty lousy track record when it comes to going to the courts, going to arbitration, trying through other means to attack public sector workers. They haven't been successful because those systems by and large are fair. Going to the courts, going to arbitration, are generally systems that provide some fairness to people who find themselves in unequal bargaining positions.
This government doesn't like the results, because time after time they have been confronted with something they negotiated in the collective agreement between Management Board and the Ontario Public Sector Employees Union, and that is appendix 9, which deals with employment stability for people who provide services in the public sector.
In that appendix 9 it says, "The employer shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that where there is a disposition or any other transfer of bargaining unit functions or jobs to the private sector or broader public sector, employees in the bargaining unit are offered positions with the new employer on terms and conditions that are as close as possible to the then existing terms and conditions of employment of the employees in the bargaining unit": reasonable efforts to find similar employment for those people who are displaced by the privatization and downloading of this government's services. Time and time again, the government has been found to be in breach of those provisions.
OPSEU workers are concerned that this government is going to not go to the arbitration process any longer, but that because they are able to get away with just about anything because of their huge majority here in this place, what they're going to do is legislate an end to those reasonable provisions in the OPSEU collective agreement. That's something we must fight against, because a government cannot use their majority to oppress the interests of their employees, to oppress the public interest and to oppress the best interests of everyone here in the province. We must ensure the democratic process is followed and that this government doesn't abuse that process and use their majority to say that a contract is not a contract.
The Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Eves has moved that the Minister of Finance be authorized to pay the salaries of the civil servants and other necessary payments pending the voting of supply for the period commencing May 1, 1998, and ending October 31, 1998, such payments to be charged to the proper appropriations following the voting of supply April 23, 1998.
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. I declare the motion carried.
Hon Norman W. Sterling (Minister of the Environment, Government House Leader): I move adjournment of the House.
The Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
This House stands adjourned till 1:30 of the clock tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 2054.