L018b - Mon 1 Jun 1998 / Lun 1 Jun 1998 1
The House met at 1830.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
TIME ALLOCATION
Hon David Johnson (Minister of Education and Training): I move that, pursuant to standing order 46 and notwithstanding any other standing order or special order of the House relating to Bill 16, An Act to give Tax Relief to Small Businesses, Charities and Others and to make other amendments respecting the Financing of Local Government and Schools, when Bill 16 is next called as a government order, the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill, without further debate or amendment; and at such time, the bill shall be referred to the standing committee on finance and economic affairs;
That the standing committee on finance and economic affairs shall be authorized to meet to consider the bill on Wednesday, June 3, 1998, from 9 am to 12 noon, and that the committee shall be authorized to meet for the purposes of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill on that same day following routine proceedings until the completion of clause-by-clause consideration;
That, pursuant to standing order 74(d), the Chair of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs shall establish the deadline for the tabling of amendments or for filing them with the clerk of the standing committee;
That, at 4:30 pm on June 3, 1998, those amendments which have not yet been moved shall be deemed to have been moved, and the Chair of the committee shall interrupt the proceedings and shall, without further debate or amendment, put every question necessary to dispose of all remaining sections of the bill and any amendments thereto. Any divisions required shall be deferred until all remaining questions have been put and taken in succession with one 20-minute waiting period allowed pursuant to standing order 127(a);
That the committee shall report the bill to the House on June 4, 1998. In the event that the committee fails to report the bill on the date provided, the bill shall be deemed to have been passed by the committee and shall be deemed to be reported to and received by the House;
That upon receiving the report of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, the Speaker shall put the question for adoption of the report forthwith and at such time the bill shall be ordered for third reading;
That one sessional day shall be allotted to the third reading stage of the bill. At 5:55 pm or 9:25 pm, as the case may be, on such day, the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and shall put every question necessary to dispose of this stage of the bill without further debate or amendment;
That the vote on third reading of the bill may, at the request of any chief whip of a recognized party in the House, be deferred until the next sessional day during the routine proceeding "Deferred Votes"; and
That, in the case of any division relating to any proceeding on the bill, the division bells shall be limited to five minutes.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Mr Johnson has moved motion 15. I know that you'd like me to read it.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Dispense? Dispense.
Debate?
Hon David Johnson: I will be sharing my time with the member for Nepean, the member for Halton Centre and the member for Northumberland, with the member for Nepean leading off.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: This is going to be very important debate and I'm anxious to hear from the government side. I think there should be quorum here for it, though.
The Acting Speaker: Would you check, please, if we have quorum.
Clerk at the Table (Mr Todd Decker): A quorum is not present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.
Clerk at the Table: A quorum is now present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Nepean.
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): I'm very pleased to rise and to have the opportunity to speak to this important motion. What this motion will seek to do is to refer this bill to the standing committee on finance and economic affairs so that we can get a number of groups on the record on this bill, in addition to allowing for clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, but then as well to try to do this part of the legislative process, to make a decision. This House will have the opportunity to decide on this bill because it is an extremely important piece of legislation.
There has been a tremendous amount of discussion on property tax reform in this place over the last year to a year and a half.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): That was 106.
Mr Baird: Bill 106 was the first bill that dealt with property tax reform in Ontario. It went through first reading, second reading and had three or four days' debate and then went through eight days of committee hearings and one day of clause-by-clause. We had the opportunity to travel to Thunder Bay, Ottawa, Chatham and Port Colbourne and heard from 99 oral submissions. That was the significant piece of legislation with respect to property tax reform, something that has been needed for a good amount of time, and this bill on property tax reform continues along that line.
We also had Bill 149, on which time was spent not only at first reading, but at second reading it was debated for a period of three or four days and then it was referred to committee where there were four days of hearings, in addition to a day of clause-by-clause. We heard from a significant number of groups that came and appeared before the committee and gave their opinions to this House. We have the benefit of those submissions and arguments that we were able to hear and amend the bill. As usual, this government -
Mr Martin: Another one you screwed up, John.
Mr Wildman: Nobody has prolonged debate on this bill.
The Acting Speaker: Order. Members of the third party, you're not too many, but you're making lots of noise. I would ask you to refrain from making noise. Member for Nepean.
Mr Baird: We had a terrific amount of discussion on property tax reform over the first session of this Parliament and, since then, we've had the opportunity to have even more debate in this place, and throughout that process the government has always been prepared to listen and to learn.
I have one quote on that very issue, and it doesn't come from John Baird, it doesn't come from a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly, it comes from a long-serving member of this assembly. When we were debating Bill 16 at second reading, one member interjected in the debate and said, "Of course, I will give this government some credit: They listened." That was the Liberal member for Parkdale, Mr Ruprecht. He acknowledged, very wisely I think, that this government has taken the time to listen and to bring forward legislation based on those consultations. For those people who want to check the record, they can check Hansard, page 651, and they can find the Liberal member for Parkdale's quotes on this issue.
This government is certainly committed to creating an environment where small businesses can grow, thrive and create jobs. That's why it's important we have the opportunity to take this piece of legislation to committee and get it to be considered in its final form by the Legislature.
We've heard and responded to the concerns of two groups particularly with respect to this piece of legislation, the first being small business, which is really the economic engine of the Ontario economy. We've heard the concerns of small business and we've watched small business. We've seen them create 82% of the jobs in Ontario. I know I've seen that in my home community, where you see retail sales are up, where you see the home building industry is doing extremely well and the value of construction permits issued by the city of Nepean has gone up considerably.
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We've also listened to charities. We listened to the concerns that both small business and charities brought forward when they gave us some examples where they were facing large property tax increases. We responded through Bill 16, the Small Business and Charities Protection Act.
We listened to the concerns of a variety of stakeholders, as I mentioned, in the extensive amount of debate held in this place and in committee on Bill 106 and Bill 149, which were some pretty fundamental reforms to our property tax system.
Since the announcement of the measures contained in Bill 16 on March 27, the Minister of Finance and his officials within the Ministry of Finance have consulted extensively with businesses, municipalities and charities in order to design a bill that meets their needs. The new measures that are introduced in Bill 16 are in response to the feedback we received as a government and as legislators from municipalities, from small businesses and from charities.
While it's important to implement these measures quickly in order to give the municipalities across the province more time to plan their affairs accordingly, this government is dedicated to consultation and to listening. We will be able to get a few groups further to the extensive consultations on Bill 106 and Bill 149 on the record and to listen to those concerns and have the opportunity to see the manifestation of that listening during the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.
We're keeping our promise to protect small business from large property tax increases. Bill 16 gives municipalities the tools to limit property tax increases to 2.5% a year in each of the next three years. To ensure that all small businesses can be protected, the 2.5% limit would also apply to businesses that lease their premises. For example, this could include an office building, shopping centres and industrial malls.
Small businesses create more jobs than any other sector, and this government recognizes the importance that small businesses and the small business sector have played, and continue to play, in the economic recovery in Ontario and the economic turnaround that we've seen over the past three years in the province. Small businesses are creating more jobs than any other sector. This government recognizes that small business plays, and must continue to play, an important role in turning around the economy of the province.
This proposed legislation is in keeping with other measures that have been taken to ensure that small businesses in the province of Ontario continue to thrive. In our latest budget we announced a whole series of measures designed to assist small businesses which Bill 16, as a piece of legislation coming from the Ministry of Finance, is designed to complement. We're looking at a whole host of initiatives allowing small businesses to get access to capital through the creation of the community small business investment fund and by encouraging loans at low interest rates. We also announced that we will establish a network of enterprise centres for small businesses in order to provide coaching and mentoring, business planning, marketing, accounting and overall business strategy.
It's extremely important to get out from the walls at Queen's Park, to get out and talk to small business in local communities. I was pleased to have the member for Wellington, the parliamentary assistant for small business, take the time to come to Nepean and meet with a group of about 40 or 50 small business people to hear their concerns and to take those concerns back to discussions with our colleagues at Queen's Park. That was certainly a productive consultation.
Bill 16 also makes protection for charities mandatory. We recognize the valuable work of charities and want to provide municipalities with the tools to assist them. I suspect a good number of other members of the House were visited by charities in their constituencies. I had a visit from Greg Joy, the director of the Ottawa Food Bank, and he made a very strong and persuasive case, as I know representatives from other charities across the province did to their members of provincial Parliament. This past February and March, a number of members of the government caucus held a number of conference calls and meetings to ensure that those concerns were heard by the decision-makers here at Queen's Park, and Bill 16 is a manifestation of those consultations. Bill 16 is important. It makes assisting charities mandatory and not optional, which I think is an important part to recognize.
Charities occupying business properties would also be protected by the 2.5% limit, and when municipalities do not apply the 2.5% limit, registered charities must receive mandatory rebates of at least 40% and up to 100% of their property taxes. That's to ensure that charities in Ontario are not negatively impacted by the move to ensure greater fairness in property taxes and property tax reforms. That's an important and useful example where the government did listen and respond to what we heard. The province will share the cost of the rebates that I mentioned with respect to the business education tax, in that regard. Owners of commercial, industrial and multiresidential properties would also be protected by the 2.5% limit.
This piece of legislation, Bill 16, fulfils our government's commitment to ensure fair tax treatment of landlords, and this legislation would give municipalities additional power to make tax changes fairly in ways that meet local priorities. These powers include graduated tax rates for industrial properties, four new optional property classes, extended powers to phase in tax changes, and rebates on tax increases for commercial and industrial properties.
We recognize it is essential that this bill become law as soon as possible so that the province can return the assessment rolls to the municipalities, thereby permitting municipalities to set their final tax bills and to manage their cash flow. To help municipalities manage their affairs, we're allowing local councils more time to assess and implement the tools aimed at protecting particularly small businesses and charities, those measures contained in Bill 16, and extending the deadline for municipalities to appeal their assessments to July 31, 1998.
The province will be consulting with municipalities with respect to the fiscal effect of the extension of the return of the assessment rolls to the municipalities. This legislation would allow the government, if necessary, to advance funds to school boards in lieu of the second instalment of education taxes paid by municipalities to school boards. Municipalities would then be required to reimburse the province at a later date. This is important in terms of the implementation of these types of measures, that the government is there to listen and to ensure that we can act to meet the needs of municipalities, our partners in local government.
This piece of legislation is designed first and foremost with the goal of trying to assist small businesses in the province. As I mentioned earlier, we on this side of the House recognize the important role that small businesses play. That's why in the recent budget, complementing these measures we had a whole host of measures particularly with respect to small business.
One would reduce the corporate income tax paid by small businesses over the next eight years by 50%. That's a significant tax reduction and one that is extremely important, that small businesses be encouraged to thrive. There is legislation before this House that would phase in that tax cut, going from 9.5% to 4.75% over the next eight years. Small businesses would have the certainty of that legislation being passed by this House in terms of making their decisions, in terms of capital investment or expansion, and even to start a small business, which we think is certainly productive. I know in my community small business is a big creator of employment.
We've also taken measures such as reductions of the employer health tax. We've eliminated, effective July 1, with legislation before the House, the employer health tax for small businesses with a payroll of under $400,000. The worst thing about a payroll tax is when you punish a company, particularly a small business, for taking on more employees. We want to make it as easy as possible for small businesses in Ontario to hire new workers and new employees, and the measures contained in the recent budget do just that, complementing the measures in Bill 16.
I can just imagine if we could have all levels of government paddling together. If we could have the federal government recognize the terrible effect of payroll taxes on particularly small business and on working families across the province, that would do a tremendous amount to help unleash the power of small business and the power of job creation in the province of Ontario, because the unemployment insurance payroll tax -
Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton North): It's a tax on jobs.
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Mr Baird: It's a tax on jobs, as the member for Halton North says. It's one that causes us a terrific concern when the payroll tax is now at $2.80 per $100 of payroll and the chief actuary of the federal Department of Finance says that they could reduce it to $2.20. The government of Ontario has said, "Listen, reduce it to $2.20 because that's what is needed to fund the reserve." We're going to see by the end of this year an accumulated surplus of almost $20 billion. Where does that come from? It comes disproportionately from taxpayers, workers and small businesses in Ontario.
Mr Chudleigh: And entry level.
Mr Baird: Entry-level positions, the member for Halton North says. Indeed.
It has a particularly negative effect on low- and middle-income Ontarians, and we are calling on the federal Minister of Finance to join Ontario in helping small business and bringing in more tax fairness. That is something that is extremely important. If they could do that, could you just imagine the effect that would have on job creation and on small businesses in Ontario?
We listened very closely to Sherry Cooper, the senior vice-president and chief economist for Nesbitt Burns. She came before the standing committee on finance and economic affairs and said there were a number of reasons the Ontario economy was doing very well. She of course highlighted the situation in the United States and the low interest rates, but she also said very clearly that the positive environment for investment in Ontario created by the current Ontario government was very key and very central to that. The chief economic issue that she identified as being helpful to economic growth in Ontario was the tax cuts, that the tax cuts were helping to create jobs in the economy.
Those aren't jobs created by the government of Ontario; those are jobs created by small businesses and by enterprises across the province, where people are spending more of their own money in their communities. We're seeing a tremendous benefit from that. Cutting taxes is bringing greater tax fairness, just like Bill 16 is designed to ensure that small businesses are treated fairly in property tax reform. So if we can convince Paul Martin and the federal Liberal government to stop gouging the Ontario worker and stop gouging small business in Ontario, we would be doing very well indeed.
I was very hopeful when the Minister of Finance not too long ago made a statement with respect to taxes. I paid very close attention and I even kept it here to present to you. The Toronto Sun said not too long ago, "Martin Admits Taxes Too High." We thought that if the federal Liberal government was admitting that taxes are too high, they would listen to small business and listen to hardworking families in the province and would be able to respond to that. But protection particularly for small business, while it's contained in Bill 16, simply isn't contained in the recent measures by the federal government.
Mr Martin said, "Obviously I think (taxes) are (too high)...." The article went on further to say: "Nor would the finance minister choose between investing in government programs like health care or offering Canadians tax cuts." I think we should have both, but with the recent federal Liberal budget, what we've seen is one half but not the other, where they're starting to crank up more spending within Ontario; at the same time, the election is over, they'll put tax cuts aside. What that would do for small business would be absolutely amazing.
I think our unemployment rate is still too high. In my community, unemployment not too long ago was 10.8%; it has come down to 7.1%, but we've got to continue to work hard to see that drop further. In other parts of the province, unemployment remains high. That's why we need to continue pursuing pro-growth, pro-job-creation policies, and providing fairness for small business is a very big part of it.
Property tax reform is very important. The member for Parkdale gave a very interesting speech and I paid close attention to it. He talked about how all the restaurants along Steeles Avenue were on one side of the street. I'm from Nepean, Steeles Avenue being here in the greater Toronto area, and I wondered why. It's because the restaurants on one side of the street are in one municipality and the properties across the street are in another. Because of the inequitable tax treatment, it basically said: "Don't start a business here. Don't start to create any jobs in this community." That's a tremendous concern, and successive governments of all parties have let this go on for too long.
The previous Progressive Conservative government in the 1970s and early 1980s regrettably did not address this issue.
The provincial Liberals were elected in 1985 and they had a plan to bring in property tax fairness for Toronto. Do you know what that plan was? The plan was the commercial concentration tax. Instead of allowing the inequity to continue, they just whacked, and they whacked Toronto particularly hard. It was a tax that was so bad that Tony Silipo and the NDP got rid of it. When the member for Dovercourt is getting rid of taxes, you know it's a very bad tax. Our colleagues in the New Democratic Party - Mr Silipo, Mr Marchese, Ms Churley, the members opposite - wanted to get rid of that tax because it was a tremendous disincentive to job creation.
Interjection.
Mr Baird: As the member for Niagara South said, it killed jobs. We know that one part of the province can't do well -
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): Was Jim Bradley here then?
Mr Baird: Was the member for St Catharines here then? I bet you he voted for that tax. That hurt small business. That's why this motion on time allocation is designed to get Bill 16 passed so we can begin to help reform the property tax system and ensure that it's fair, particularly for small businesses and for charities.
When I was in my constituency in Nepean on the weekend, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I was able to meet with a lot of constituents. Taxes remain a very big issue.
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Weren't you in London at the Reform convention?
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr Baird: I was in my riding all weekend in Nepean and I know the terrific amount of priority that taxpayers in Nepean accord to not just taxes but property taxes in particular.
With respect to the situation in the greater Toronto area, the member for Yorkview said, "What is this government doing?" This government is seeking to not sit by and watch education taxes spiral out of control. They went up by more than 8% a year under the Liberal years by school boards that couldn't stop taxing. This government has stepped in to freeze the taxes.
The concern that had for the inequities around the province with respect to commercial-industrial taxes for education was considerable. That's why another measure particularly to help small business contained in the budget presented in this place more than a month ago was to bring the commercial-industrial education tax rate down to the current provincial average over the next eight years. That is contained in legislation that will be considered by this House on another day. That will help small business. In my community, that will bring one of the taxes down by 12%, and that will bring a bit of fairness.
I know it will also bring in greater tax fairness for Hamilton-Wentworth. The member for Wentworth East will know about that tax fairness for Hamilton-Wentworth, and that's an important part of making sure the taxes are fair. That's a $550-million tax cut designed to help the job creation industry in the province of Ontario, because far too many small businesses simply couldn't compete because of the inequitable tax treatment that had been there and that had developed for many, many years. Bill 16 will further help ensure fairness in that process.
There is a significant amount that I could go on with respect to this piece of legislation. It not only allows local municipalities to limit property tax increases to no more than 2.5% for each of the next three years for commercial-industrial and multiresidential properties; it applies graduated tax rates for the industrial property class similar to the graduated tax rates for the commercial property class so that lower tax rates can be applied to smaller businesses.
It applies four new optional property classes - shopping centre, office building, parking lot/vacant land and large industrial - provides a phase-in of all tax change related to property tax reform over an eight-year period, and provides rebates to business properties in need of further protection. Those are some important parts of this piece of legislation.
The government could have just simply said: "Listen, this is inequitable. This is a bad tax system. We should just leave it as it is and allow the jobs to continue to be killed in this province." But we said no, it was wrong to sit by and to do nothing while jobs and small businesses were being hurt in the province of Ontario. That's something that is not an easy decision, because change is never easy. There's no system with respect to any tax that is universally popular in the province. What we want to do is to seek greater fairness. We've tried to do that with a whole host of changes, whether it's the property tax changes contained in this piece of legislation, Bill 16, or whether it's trying to reduce personal income tax to allow hardworking families, taxpayers, in Longfields, Davidson Heights and Barrhaven, in all parts of Nepean and across the province, to keep more of their own hard-earned dollars.
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The relationship between tax fairness and tax cuts is considerable. The member for Halton Centre will know that the previous NDP government raised income taxes and brought in less money. In fact when they raised them, the member for Scarborough-Agincourt stood in this House and said, "This is going to kill 100,000 jobs." Regrettably, 100,000 jobs were killed by those tax increases. They increased the personal income tax rate from 54% to 58% and actually brought in less money.
But to give them credit, in 1990 they were honest with the taxpayers of Ontario. They promised to raise taxes and that was one promise the NDP government fulfilled. They promised to raise taxes and they did. I admire them for having the honesty to put those legitimate alternatives before the people, and in that election they were rewarded for that.
Conversely this party, when we were on the other side of the Legislature, voted against the $4 billion or $5 billion in tax increases brought in by the previous government? Why? Because we thought they were wrong. We thought they would kill jobs. We thought the government didn't need to dig deep into taxpayers' pockets, that people who worked for that paycheque had the right to maintain as much of that paycheque to help raise their families. We voted against the $4-billion or $5-billion tax increase and we're getting rid of it, which is consistency, much like the NDP today is being consistent. They disagree with the personal income tax reduction and they've put forward a proposal to take part of it back. I respect them for that, for putting forward a plan I disagree with profoundly, but I cannot do anything but admire their consistency and their seeking to be honest with the electorate of Ontario.
Sometimes, though, political parties don't want to be as upfront as they perhaps should be. I can remember that after the last provincial election one member of this place said, "We've been far too fuzzy for far too long."
Mr Wildman: Who?
Mr Baird: Who? the member for Algoma asks. "We've been far too fuzzy for far too long." Are there any guesses on who might have said that? The member for Windsor-Walkerville said that. Further: "We're going to have to some day decide what we stand for and then stand for it. We have some serious navel-gazing to do." That's not a Conservative member. That's not John Baird or Terence Young or Derwyn Shea. That is the Liberal member for Windsor-Walkerville saying that his own party should take more substantive positions, and that's extremely important. That's Mr Duncan, my good friend and colleague. That's what he said and it's something important.
Do you know what other Liberal members said? They said, "How can we go on in, guns ablazing, when we would have been doing the same thing?" Do you know who said that? That was the member for Windsor-Sandwich, Mrs Pupatello. After the election she said that the Liberal Party had to seriously weigh whether it could come into this House and blow up on command because, in her judgement, "We would have been doing the same thing." That's what she said back in 1995 when this House reconvened. She acknowledged that much of the red book was similar to this government's agenda, but they backed away from the campaign promises no sooner than the lawn signs had gone into someone's garage or basement.
Mr Chudleigh: They must be Liberals.
Mr Baird: "They must be Liberals," the member for Halton North said, and that is something that is extremely important, that type of consistency.
There's broad-spread agreement that the tax system in Ontario needed to be reformed and I think this government deserves the credit for beginning to address those initiatives. Why do we want tax fairness like Bill 16? Why do we want tax cuts like the economic agenda of Ontario?
Mr Wildman: Why do you want to do it in such a hurry?
Mr Baird: Why do we want to do it in such a hurry? Because we want to create jobs in a hurry.
Mr Wildman: Why do you have to bring in closure?
The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Algoma, I don't want to repeat it. Please.
Mr Baird: We want to create jobs in a hurry because far too many people are unemployed and economic growth hasn't been high enough. We want to create jobs. We want more headlines like this one from the front page of the Nepean Clarion in a story written by James Ness, then associate editor. The headline is "Five Thousand Jobs Coming to City of Nepean." This is the kind of announcement we want to see. We want a competitive tax structure, because in the high-tech industry income taxes are a real disincentive. We have a lot of high-tech graduates going south of the border to Seattle, Washington, where there's no state income tax. Our competitiveness to keep these bright minds is extremely important and that's why the tax rates are important, because there are many young people who might get an offer from Nortel -
Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South): Microsoft.
Mr Baird: - and as the member for Niagara South said, they might get a competing offer from Microsoft. I know of one such individual from my constituency, who got an offer of $65,000 in Seattle, Washington, compared to $45,000 here, plus a very generous share offering. The biggest reason: the tax rate. So we've got to ensure that we're competitive, keeping in mind that we have a good health care system, and that's an important part, but having a fair tax system is extremely important to economic development and economic growth. Bill 16 is very much part of that agenda.
Based on what we've heard during our extensive consultation, back both to Bill 106 and Bill 149 and in our current discussions both before and after some of the measures contained in this piece of legislation, Bill 16, we believe this bill will help address the concerns of small businesses and charities, two very important sectors in Ontario.
I am pleased to yield a portion of my time to the member for Halton Centre.
Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre): Since 1995 our government has worked hard to reduce the tax burden on individuals and families in Ontario. We're close to accomplishing our goal of a 30% personal income tax cut six months ahead of schedule, on July 1, just one month away from today, when Ontario will have the lowest personal income tax in Canada.
We have also worked hard to create a more open, competitive environment for small businesses so they can germinate and grow. We have untangled much of the bureaucratic red tape that bound small business owners, and we have made it easier for entrepreneurs to set up shop and build their future along with the future of their employees.
Between February 1997 and February 1998 small business created 82% of the net new jobs in Ontario. That's 217,000 net new jobs created by small business.
In this bill, we're focused on ways to support these Ontarians who own and operate small businesses, which are employing so many who need those jobs.
In our budget we announced 36 new tax cuts, for a total of 66 since we took office June 8, 1995.
These tax cuts are bolstering personal freedom and security and encouraging the growth of small business, that 82% that are responsible for some of the more than 22,000 new jobs last month alone.
We also proposed to eliminate the employer health tax for 88% of Ontario private sector employers and recently announced that we will bring the tax cut forward six months ahead of schedule.
We've introduced legislation to cut the small business corporations tax rate in half, to 4.75%, the lowest rate in Canada, over the next eight years.
We are working to ensure an eight-year plan to reduce commercial and industrial education tax rates in municipalities where these tax rates are above the provincial average. But we also need to ensure that the effects of these tax cut are not mitigated or cancelled by property tax increases due to the modernization of property assessments under the Ontario fair assessment system. The Small Business and Charities Protection Act, 1998, will help our municipal partners prevent that from happening.
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This act is born from the many consultations we held in the months preceding this session of Parliament with small business owners, municipal leaders and the volunteers and staff representing our charities. I held such consultations in my own riding with Ted Arnott, the member for Wellington and parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism. We met with small business owners in Halton and I'm pleased to say I learned a lot about the unique set of challenges that are before the small business person today. Like my colleagues, I brought their views forward to our government.
We know they need government to ease up. They told us they want to stop increased taxes by four and sometimes five levels of government. We realize that the Ontario fair assessment system, while long overdue and necessary to level the playing field for property owners, creates tax shifts in some areas such as older neighbourhoods where properties haven't been reassessed for many years.
Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea): It's a concern to Toronto.
Mr Young: A big concern.
We know that some small businesses would be among the hardest hit.
Through the Small Business and Charities Protection Act, we will give tax relief to small businesses and charities by giving municipalities tools to protect them. Under this proposed legislation municipalities will be able to implement property tax reform fairly, with an eye to local needs, by allowing them to limit property tax increases to 2.5% a year for three years.
This means the hardworking business people, the owners of businesses in many neighbourhoods that make up this great city of Toronto and many of our other cities and towns: someone who owns a photography studio on Bloor Street West, or a family who owns a retail store on Yonge Street, perhaps a family-run dry cleaner like the one we use in Oakville. These people should all have the potential to receive the special protection they need to survive and grow.
Our government recognizes that these are the valued, familiar services close to home from people we've come to trust, an essential part of the fabric of our communities and, frankly, the lifeblood of our economy. They exemplify hard work and what it means to make your own way, providing valuable goods and services to others and stirring up the economic life in our towns and our cities. These are the people who have invested their lives and their savings in their businesses. They've created jobs, contributed to the economy and helped to keep competition alive in Ontario.
I'm happy to say that this legislation gives them an opportunity to continue to operate in a climate of stability and of predictability.
We have also recognized the need to provide mandatory protection for registered charities. We've done this in two ways. If the municipalities choose to apply the 2.5% limit to property tax increases, registered charities that own or rent business properties will be protected that way. If the municipalities choose not to apply the 2.5% limit, then they must give those registered charities rebates of a minimum of 40% of their property tax. But municipalities also have the option to rebate up to 100% of the property taxes to charities occupying business properties and extend rebates to other charitable and not-for-profit organizations.
In recognition of their selflessly helping others and working to benefit society, while often experiencing financial hardship themselves, our government will help ensure that high property taxes don't prevent them from continuing the great work they do. Organizations including those that advocate children's rights, those that provide quality day care, those that work to prevent cruelty to animals and environmental organizations, are among those registered charities that will receive mandatory protection from major property tax increases under this proposed act.
Frankly in most cases, who knows better which charities and non-profit organizations deserve a break ? The level of government closest to them: the municipalities. The fact is that charitable and non-profit work in our communities is as essential to our civilization as any business or government organization. They deserve to be nurtured and supported.
Our government understands the importance of working with our municipal partners to make tax changes work. That means giving them flexibility to respond to the needs of their local businesses and charities and the time to implement these measures. Our municipal partners will now be more free to build their communities and neighbourhoods, to support a local economic and social structure that is sound. The Small Business and Charities Protection Act empowers and enables local government to create a tax environment for small business, charitable organizations and communities to thrive.
Mr Galt: Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the time allocation motion so we can get on with Bill 16, get it to hearings and get on to third reading - a very important budget bill indeed.
I was speaking last week on Bill 22 and there was some concern from the opposition that it was only a two-page bill and that there wasn't very much to speak on and address. I'm sure they're very happy with this one. There are some 73 pages, and there's quite a bit of content here, things from capping of taxes to rebates to charities to gross leases and flowing through of taxes, phase-in of the 1998 assessment-related tax changes, requisitions under the Education Act, connections with transition ratios, etc. I'm sure the opposition is much, much happier with a thicker bill such as this one.
This bill is really about small business and giving them a break. I can tell you it's way past due to give them a break.
Mr Baird: They deserve it.
Mr Galt: As the member for Nepean says, they certainly deserve a break. It's the small businesses in this country that basically create - I was going to say most if not all - certainly 80 some per cent of the jobs that are created in this country.
It's unfortunate that four out of five new small businesses go bankrupt in the first five years. Just imagine if we could save one of those out of five in every five years. We would have three out of five instead of four out of five. Imagine the number of people that would employ and the number of jobs it would create in the province of Ontario.
Why do they go under? Why do they get in trouble? They're in trouble because of taxation. Taxation is the number one reason for bankruptcy in this country. I'm sure the opposition would understand that, with all the tax increases they created, the members of the third party. They have got us to the point where Canada is now the world champion of taxation, particularly of property tax and of wealth tax, and that isn't a very enviable record to hold at all. It's very unenviable, just to re-emphasize there.
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Businesses in this country consume approximately a third of the municipal services, but at the same time they pay some two thirds of the property tax. Over and above that, they pay extra for garbage collection, telephone rates, electrical rates and so on.
Members of the third party commonly refer to business owners as the rich: "They can afford it. No problem." That just isn't so. According to Stats Canada, the entrepreneurs of this country make $15,000 less per household and work some 13 hours more per week than the average employee whom they hire. Many of these people running small businesses - I did for some eight years in general practice - live well below the poverty line. They are required to pay minimum wage, but they earn less themselves.
The real problem is that it doesn't matter how well the business does or where they're at, whether they're in trouble or whether they make a profit; they have to pay that property tax. There's just absolutely no excuse whatsoever. It doesn't matter whether they're a fledgling business just trying to get started, with little profit. These taxes often are very unfair. This is the very group we're asking to create all the new jobs and the wealth in this country.
I see the NDP ready to demonstrate with almost every group, but I don't see them demonstrating for the entrepreneurs, the small business people of this province.
I thought it was intriguing, and I mentioned it this afternoon when we were speaking about post-secondary education, that at the last NDP convention they came out with this brilliant idea of free tuition for anybody and everybody who wants to go to university, but the interesting part of that convention is that they voted against coming out with the total cost of the goodies package they were putting together. No wonder that during their term in government we ended up borrowing so much money and doubling the debt.
Some 70% of the firms in this country are small businesses employing fewer than five employees. Bill 16 recognizes the tremendous importance of small business being vibrant. If they're not vibrant, neither is Canada and neither is the province of Ontario.
Since we took office we've made many changes to try and help small business, and indeed small business has been helped, as I'm hearing on the street corners in Campbellford, Warkworth, Port Hope and Brighton. They are extremely pleased with the changes we've made to the income tax, cutting their income taxes, eliminating the annual business filing fees, and the red tape we've gotten rid of to help them.
Above all, they are pleased to see the employer health tax disappearing, particularly since it's been moved up from January 1, 1999, to July 1, 1998. We will eliminate all of the employer health tax for any payroll under $400,000. This was an extremely regressive tax, as I'm sure the member for St Catharines will remember, when they brought it in in 1989; the old tax-and-spend Liberal government that he was very familiar with when he sat as the Minister of the Environment at that time. I'm sure he struggled and that it really bothered him when they brought in that tax. This government is eliminating the employer health tax to help those small businesses that have five or fewer employees.
There is absolutely no question that payroll taxes discourage business, small businesses in particular, from hiring new employees. That's what we've been talking about: jobs, jobs, jobs. The employer health tax was the one that was known as the job killer. It was very high on our "most wanted" list and we moved to reduce and eliminate it just as soon as we possibly could. Come next year, I'm very pleased to be able to say that 80% of the businesses in Ontario will no longer be paying the employer health tax.
Bill 16 also provides municipalities with additional tools to help to protect small business, and reaffirms our commitment to small business.
Both the Liberals and the NDP are great at talking the talk, but they don't walk the walk as well. As a matter of fact, this morning down at the corner of Yonge and Bloor - the Liberals and the NDP were invited to join, and thank heavens, the leader of the NDP did show up with some of his staff, but none of the Liberals came, after being invited twice to help open Toronto Bike Week. Today was the kickoff, with cycling from that corner down to Nathan Phillips Square.
I really don't understand why the Liberals wouldn't have joined in and taken part to emblematically promote cycling so that we can reduce some of the air pollution that comes from our cars. I would have taken for granted that they would have been tickled pink to have gotten out and taken part in that. Yes, they talk the talk, as the previous Minister of Environment of the Liberal government loves to say, but when it came to doing something, getting out and helping to create awareness of the pollution problems in the city of Toronto, they didn't show up. They talk the talk, but they indeed forget to walk the walk.
It's interesting to see in today's paper from Ottawa that the Liberal Minister of the Environment - she happens to be a constituent of mine - is talking about gasoline formulation, putting it off until September rather than getting on with doing something today about the sulphur content in the gasoline in Canada. Here in Ontario it's at the highest level across Canada, but no, she's putting it off till September, another typical Liberal move.
We hear a lot about good news. I notice that the Liberals are very reticent about announcing good news, so I thought I would. I'll bring to your attention that there is about a $40-million expansion of the Cataraqui Town Centre, in the Kingston area, which includes 30 new stores. This comes from the Kingston paper of Saturday, May 16, 1998: "The project will generate about 210,000 man-hours of construction work." I'd change that to "person-hours" to be a little more politically correct, but I just read what's there. "The project will make room for 30 new stores and also a third department store, Sears Canada."
Interjection: Small businesses.
Mr Galt: A lot of small businesses, which this bill is really all about, protecting small business.
We brought in fair value assessment. Previous governments didn't. They were concerned that it might create too much trouble for them. Our government had the intestinal fortitude to bring forward something that was quite fair. However, in places like Toronto and ridings like Northumberland there are some pretty big adjustments as you move from the early 1940s to 1998; actually, it was based on 1996 levels, but current anyway.
That's going to make some tremendous changes in the taxes when they base it on fair value assessment and we had some municipalities pretty concerned. I get a lot of phone calls in my riding concerned about this kind of adjustment. I know there were a lot of those concerns expressed here in the city of Toronto, as you move this assessment up some 50 years: What's it going to do to their actual taxes? In some cases, there are going to be some pretty dramatic increases, so we responded - not only listened but responded. There's a big difference between listening and responding, and we're now acting. That is very significant. We're looking at limiting that tax increase to 2.5% on an annual basis, provided the local municipality accepts that and takes it into consideration.
I'd like to remind members that it's business here in Ontario that powers the province; it powers Ontario. It's business that create jobs, it's business that builds wealth and it's business that generates the taxes that the government depends on. We recognize and we applaud the entrepreneurial spirit in this province and recognize what small enterprise does.
I often wonder, does the opposition ever wonder where we would be without small business? It's pretty obvious from those lost 10 years; I don't think they really cared, because they had 65 tax increases during those years. They doubled the budget and they actually tripled the debt, which was just absolutely unacceptable.
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Small business Ontario is not asking for help. They're proud people. They're not asking for help, but what they are asking for is fair treatment. The work ethic of small business is what makes Ontario so great. It's what makes Canada so great. I know it's a nasty word for the NDP, but it's what makes capitalism really work. The fact is that people in small businesses work hard to take less in exchange for the possibility of success, for the possibility that their business may grow and may prosper.
Further protection of Bill 16: I mentioned a few minutes ago the 2.5% cap on all businesses from this bill. That will give the municipalities the opportunity to bring in a bylaw to cover that. That will be over the next three years and will include the realty and business tax.
There's also in this bill a transitional provision which permits municipalities to delay the payment of their school property taxes in 1998. I mentioned a few minutes ago that I've received several calls in my riding about the concern about this transitional year. It's working out very well, giving them a break, holding off, with the province to forward the funds. However, that will only be in place for this one current year.
It's just been brought to my attention that under the NDP government the only way to start a small business was first to buy a big one and then wait; it became a small business rather quickly.
I know it's upsetting to the opposition to realize the amount of time I spent in practice. I practised in a partnership in Napanee for some six years and prior to that practised in Seaforth. I know what it is to meet my payroll. I know what it is to pay property taxes. It might come as a surprise to somebody who was involved in education, for example, for a lot of their life prior to being elected and coming here.
Mr Wildman: A noble profession.
Mr Galt: A noble profession. Absolutely. That's one thing the member for Algoma and I agree on, that being in politics, particularly provincial politics, is indeed a noble role to play.
This bill goes on to the cutting of the commercial education tax. In looking at my riding of Northumberland, by 2005 that will be a reduction of $1.7 million, or a 27% reduction in that tax rate.
There's no question that lower taxes create jobs. That's what this government's about. That's why we reduced income tax, that's why we reduced the employer health tax and the payroll taxes, and that's why the jobs are being created, regardless of what the opposition has to say. Just ask the economists; they can explain it.
In conclusion, Bill 16 is another example of this government's commitment as we listen to the concerns of the public and respond to those concerns of everyday Ontarians. Business owners have told us about their concerns that sudden hikes in property taxes will jeopardize their profitability. We're responding by limiting tax increases for businesses because of market value assessment. We're responding by looking at the transitional year with the education tax. We're responding by reducing the education tax on property and business by some $500 million.
Other governments have failed small business in the past. We are listening and we are acting. Consequently, I'm very pleased to support this particular motion of time allocation so we can get on with this very important budget bill, Bill 16, which I am also very proud to support.
Mr Bradley: It's always interesting to see what the YPCs are doing these days. They have so much money on the government side for these Young Progressive Conservatives who have all the answers at the age of 21 about how the poor shall be shunted aside and the wealthy shall do well because they happen to be clever or they happen to be privileged. I hear this reflected in these speeches. I'm glad to see that they have something to do, that they go through all the old Hansards and so on. It does warm my heart to know that those YPCs have those jobs.
As to the last speaker, the member for Northumberland, in all my time in this Legislature since 1995 I thought he was a small business person. I've listened to these speeches day after day in the House and I was really under the impression that this was one of the prime examples of the private sector. But if my recollection is correct, he has been on the public payroll for a long time, as certainly I have, being in this Legislature. But I've listened to these speeches and I honestly thought Dr Galt was this free-enterpriser, this small business person, but I've been informed that he was on the public payroll all these years, lecturing and being paid from the public purse. I only note that because it's a shock and a surprise to me, having listened to all those speeches.
What we have before us this evening is yet another motion choking off debate by the Harris government. The Harris government has never liked criticism and has never liked a thorough debate of its policies, because when there is a thorough debate on most of its legislation and its regulatory framework and its policies, the public is exposed to the other side of the issue, not just the millions of dollars this government spends on self-serving advertising.
People in this province will know that a couple of weeks go they received a glossy pamphlet in the mail from the Ontario Jobs and Investment Board. The member for Wellington holds it up now. It is simply a piece of government propaganda, probably the worst I have ever seen. It was mailed at the cost of at least three quarters of a million dollars to all households in Ontario.
The head of that agency is David Lindsay, a fine fellow. I always liked David Lindsay when he was around this place at Queen's Park, a very pleasant individual to talk to. I think a lot of people would call David a friend. But he was the principal secretary to the Premier of this province when he was leader of the Conservative Party. He was a resource person for the Conservative caucus in charge of communications and so on. This very partisan political person is now heading up a so-called non-partisan board, the Ontario Jobs and Investment Board. So far, all they've done is produce government propaganda at the taxpayers' expense. There never seems to be money, for instance, when hospitals need money to continue their good services, but we have lots of money for self-serving government propaganda by the Harris regime.
I heard reference made to the fact that we must rush this legislation through. The people of Ontario would want to know that this Legislature did not sit for a period from the Christmas break, that is, probably the third week of December, right to nearly the end of April. Mike Harris did not want the House sitting. He did not want the daily question period and he did not want the daily questioning of ministers and others in the hallway outside this chamber where there's public scrutiny, so he simply didn't call the House back. Then he brings in bills now and wants to rush the bills through the Legislature without giving them proper consideration.
This government has established an all-time record for one thing, and that is the number of times it has imposed closure and time allocation motions which choke off debate in this Legislature, which limit public hearings and which do not allow individual members of this Legislature to give the required scrutiny in committee and in this House to legislation. That has become a habit. They've filed now I think five - the NDP House leader will nod if I'm correct - five closure motions this week on legislation. This, after keeping the House out of session for over four months. Then they decide they're going to start imposing time allocation motions.
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This is something that resonates on a non-partisan basis. Even some Conservatives I've spoken to are apprehensive about the way this government stampedes or bulldozes its legislation through this House, because they believe, even if they agree with the government bills, that careful scrutiny and analysis and amendment are all essential if legislation is to be of the highest quality.
We don't see this happening, because the whiz kids who run this government, non-elected people usually in their late 20s or early 30s, sit in the back rooms of the Premier's office and dictate what goes on. The others are simply here, if they're not in the cabinet, to read the notes from those people and say what a good job the government is doing. I always thought that government members required a third hand, because they need that to pat themselves on the back almost on a continuous basis.
I heard reference made to the tax cut. They like to make this reference to their income tax cut. I have quoted many a time in this House the most conservative of economists, councillor Dr Joseph Kushner of Brock University. I was talking to Dr Kushner on the weekend because I wanted to ask him: "Have you changed your mind? You watch the Legislature, you hear these Conservative members get up and try to tell everybody in the province that somehow the crackpot income tax cut, combined with these drastic cuts in government expenditures, have an expansionary effect."
He said it's exactly the opposite. Yes, we have low interest rates here in Canada, the lowest we've had in a long time. Small business loves those low interest rates because they're able to make some purchases and borrow money to expand their businesses at a decent rate, not like the Mulroney years, not like the Conservative years of Brian Mulroney when those interest rates were sky-high. They're now low, and our dollar is very competitive, about 68 or 69 cents right now, and the people in the export industries here think that's fabulous. The auto industry and the pulp and paper industry think that's great. Our export business is doing extremely well.
I know that the Premier has sent a letter to Bill Clinton thanking Bill Clinton for those same policies in the United States, those low-interest policies, those stimulative policies south of the border that are stimulating the demand so people buy Ontario products. I want to get a copy. I'm going to ask the Premier next time he's in the House to table that letter of appreciation to Bill Clinton for stimulating the US economy so that there are so many purchasers coming here in Ontario.
But here's what Dr Kushner, the most conservative of economists, the most conservative person I know in terms of government expenditure, has to say, and I wrote it down: "If you cut taxes and cut government expenditures by approximately the same amount, the effect is contractionary, and the contractionary effect is about the amount of the tax cut." This is called the balanced budget multiplier. He said, "When we cut taxes there are leakages in that cut." In other words, it's not all spent on domestically produced products or services.
There are leakages, first of all, to savings. Some people choose to put it into savings - nothing wrong with that, but that has nothing to do with stimulating the economy in Ontario - or to goods and services made in other countries, often luxury items, if they're the people who benefit most from the tax cut. That's the richest people because they get the most back in their pocket. They're most likely going to spend it on a foreign holiday in Aruba or Spain or Paris or somewhere like that, or on foreign-made luxury products. So there are a lot of leakages.
Interjection.
Mr Bradley: I want to get into that because we would not want to file any questions with the freedom of information commissioner about expenditures of ministers on trips. The member from Halton should be careful when he raises that issue because that will come forward mighty quickly.
So we have a situation where what is happening is downloading taking place.
Interjection.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr Bradley: Would you like to get the figures from the trip to Japan, sir? Would you like me to put in a freedom of information request for how much it cost when your ministers visited Japan? If you would like to yap, we can do that.
Mr Chudleigh: Two nights.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr Bradley: I ask the member from Halton if that's what he -
Mr Chudleigh: You're disgusting.
The Acting Speaker: Order. One more peep and that's it.
Mr Bradley: If he would like that, we can arrange that. I don't plan to do so, but if he'd like -
Mr Chudleigh: If you like.
Mr Bradley: Well, if you insist -
The Acting Speaker: Order. That's the last time I'm telling you.
Mr Bradley: I don't think your ministers would like that to happen. I'm not the kind of person who would ordinarily do that, but you're insisting. I can hear you over there insisting that we do that on this side of the House. That's always a story, I can tell you; fairly or unfairly, I can assure you, that is always a story.
Let's talk about the downloading that's happening and why we're seeing municipalities facing the crunch. I heard the Premier call municipal politicians whiners at one time because they were expressing concern about the downloading of responsibilities, complete with the onerous financial obligations that come with them. This is similar to New Jersey. If you look at New Jersey, what happened was that the right-wing Republican government in New Jersey cut state income taxes but property taxes went up substantially.
Property taxes, as we know, do not take into account a person's ability to pay; income taxes do. If a person happens to be unemployed for a long time, that person is not going to pay as much in income tax, but that does not affect the property tax. If that person has fallen on hard times, the property tax must still be paid.
I heard other taxes mentioned. The member for Northumberland, Dr Galt, who talks like a free-enterpriser but has certainly been in the public sector for many years, likes to mention tax increases. Well, they're up now to - at last count, I had 287 tax increases since the Harris government has come into office. The member for Durham East says, "How do you get that calculation?" I remember Mike Harris said that a user fee is a tax, and I agreed with Mike Harris. He was leader of the Conservative Party at the time, and when he said, "A user fee is a tax," I said, "You know, Mike, there are times when we're in disagreement and times when we're in agreement." I agreed with Mike when he said a user fee is a tax.
If I could go through it more extensively, if we had the resources of the Conservative Party and the government resources to find these things out, we would probably find out there are 500 increases in these user fees.
Interjection.
Mr Bradley: I would be happy to find some of these tax increases for my friend the Minister of Municipal Affairs and explain them to him. User fees do not take into account a person's ability to pay, so a person who is better off is less impacted by a user fee than a person who is not well-off. That's why today, our national game being hockey - my friend from Lakeshore would say lacrosse - we see some kids who cannot play hockey, because the cost of playing hockey now is far greater than it was just a few years ago. One of the major factors is the user fee, the cost of facilities being reflected in the fee to pay. Kids of well-off people can afford to play without much sacrifice, but those of modest and low income are unable to do so.
The municipalities are beside themselves over the fact that there are these user fees, these tax increases, this downloading, but some of them are being lured into accepting transition funds because they can say, "Look, this year we had no tax increase." I warn those people that the government of Ontario will look good with those transition funds because it will tide them over to their election, but two and a half years from now, when the municipal election comes up, those transition funds will have disappeared. Then the real crunch comes for municipalities, either further cuts in services, further cuts in the quality of life we have, or increases in taxes and in user fees.
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Mr Wildman: The transition they're talking about is the provincial election.
Mr Bradley: The transition is in fact the provincial election. They should not be lured into accepting those funds only for the purpose of getting these people through to the provincial election.
I looked at some of the downloading. Mr Speaker, you would be familiar with that. I was amused, and my friends from Toronto will remember, that the member for Scarborough West, Mr Brown, was out protesting this property tax bill, against Ernie Eves. He was protesting. I was amused by that. It was his own government. Then the other day I saw that the member for Scarborough East, Mr Gilchrist, was out with a sign and a petition over cuts to GO Transit. Those cuts have come as a result of the downloading of the Harris government. He should be outside Mike Harris's office protesting, not somewhere in Scarborough East. He should be outside the Premier's office protesting. Then he would be in the right place.
My colleagues tell me - one says it's the fourth and one says maybe the fifth bill. It has taken five bills to try to get this right, and now they want to ram it through. They wanted it through last week with no hearings. The opposition said, "You've got to have hearings." The clerks and treasurers, the independent people they are, said: "You've got to have hearings. There are some real problems with this." I think we've been able to accomplish hearings, meagre as they are, and the government certainly doesn't want any wild protesters in there; just pacified people they say they want.
I would like to talk about the credit rating very briefly. My colleagues will throw something at me when they want me to sit down. They will remember that Ernie Eves, as a Conservative member, used to say when the NDP was in power - Bud, you'll remember this - that the credit rating was everything. The AAA credit rating that we had under the Liberal government, when the NDP got in power it fell down to a lower rate. The AAA rating fell several notches to AA- or the equivalent, and the world had come to an end. Ernie Eves and Mike Harris would get up and demand that the government do something about that.
My friend Bud Wildman would like to know what Ernie says today about these credit ratings. He says: "They're nice reading but it's like some movie reviews: Some people like them, some people don't. I don't do budgets and policies for Ontario based on what people in New York think." This is a change too.
There was another problem that arose on the weekend. I'm wondering how many Conservative members were in London on the weekend. Some of them had masks on. The member for York-Mackenzie was there at the Reform Party convention.
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): As an observer.
Mr Bradley: "As an observer," he says. There were several people wearing masks at the convention and I thought they might be Conservative members of Parliament, provincial Conservatives there. But I want to warn them. I watched it on television, on CPaC. They were talking about getting together. The Star said the following:
"Faced with a mini-rebellion, Calgary MP Jason Kenney and Reform organizer Nancy Branscombe hastily explained the `United Alternative' banner is really just a recruitment vehicle for the Reform Party. `We're not trying to form a coalition under the United Alternative banner. It will be a coalition under the Reform banner,' Branscombe explained."
It says, "But for Conservatives, on the other hand, the cat is out of the bag. Those Tories and other right-wingers who contemplated the idea they could work with Reform without being swallowed up have heard the warning."
It goes on to talk about the provincial Harris Tories:
"But Harris's provincial Tories, many of whom are already federal Reformers, are showing interest and some have signed on.
"In a letter to Reform delegates published in the London Free Press on Thursday, right-wing Tory honcho Peter White praised Manning's initiative, but argued a right-wing alternative to the Liberals is not possible under any of the present party banners. White, a former aide to Brian Mulroney" -
Mr Klees: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I really believe it would be beneficial to have the member back on track on the subject we're to be debating tonight.
The Acting Speaker: I kind of agree with you.
Mr Bradley: I will try to get there, Mr Speaker. I know my friend from York-Mackenzie, who was at the convention, will want me to at least finish this paragraph. He'll let me. It says here, "White - a former aide to Brian Mulroney and former chief of Conservative fund-raising - is an executive with Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc."
There it is. We all know that Conrad's bought two more papers. The Sun corporation was apparently frozen out, TorStar was frozen out and Conrad got them almost uncontested. He now owns about 60% of the newspapers in Ontario.
I want my colleagues, who are very interested in aspects of this bill, to have something to say about this. I could go on at some length, but I want to hear from the member for Oakwood, I want to hear from the member for Yorkview, I want to hear from the member for Essex South, all of whom will provide us with even more information about this specific piece of legislation and why this particular closure motion should be opposed by all who believe in democracy.
Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): I believe the member for St Catharines has just said that we will be splitting the remaining time among ourselves, which is fine.
I'm pleased to rise and enter the debate on this very important piece of legislation, the so-called Bill 16. Bill 16 is part of the family which belongs to the original Bill 106. This is the fifth amendment to that particular bill. Let me say that I am very grateful to have these few minutes of time, courtesy of the government, which is calling for no more debate on this most important piece of legislation.
What's baffling is that if it really is so important, why would the government invoke closure on such an important piece of legislation? If it is as good as they say, it would be in the government's interest to prolong the debate as long as possible and take these 73 pages out into the field and ask for input from people throughout Ontario. If this is so good, I think it would be in their interest to go outside and say, "Look at what we are planning to do for you municipalities and people in Ontario." I wonder why they don't do that. Instead, they are saying, "You members of the House, members of the public, the people who elected you to this House, we are going to curtail your time to address the concerns you have with Bill 16."
Therefore, I am not the only one to say that this bill, which is only an amendment, 73 pages - that's the fifth already to Bill 106. We are not the only ones to say that this bill is terrible, is unworkable, is confusing, is abominable. You have to listen to what the cornerstones, as I would call them, of every municipality have to say. They are not politicians, but they are the people who make politicians work efficiently in every municipality in Ontario. They don't have political affiliation. They are the ones who tell the politicians how to run their business in many municipalities in Ontario. I am speaking about the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario.
There is no municipality that could function properly or even function at all without the expertise and the knowledge of the clerks and the treasurers of the municipalities in Ontario, and what do they say about Bill 16, this wonderful piece of legislation which the government is so bent on pushing through? The last two speakers, namely, Nepean and Northumberland, said: "We have to push it through. We have to give municipalities those tools." Municipalities are saying: "Hold a second. What tools are you giving us? We don't want this piece of legislation. This is unworkable. You can keep it."
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This is what they say about Bill 16. I'll first read you the paragraph at the beginning and then what they have to say at the end once they have gone through the 73 pages of Bill 16: "This bill is complicated, cumbersome, confusing and, too often, badly drafted." Can you imagine? This is the fifth revision. Who said it? The association of clerks and treasurers. Those are the people who know what the heck they are talking about in the local municipalities. "It serves to perpetuate the bad system that the government was so bent on eliminating." The system they are talking about was the tax reform. This government, the Conservatives, said: "We are going to clean house. We're going to bring in tax reform. We're going to make it a much better system." The clerks and treasurers say, "The end product is a political and administrative nightmare."
Does the Premier understand that? Does the Premier listen to that? They say it further perpetuates an assessment system which the current government, this government, has time and time again said is outdated, is inefficient, is complicated and should be eliminated.
They conclude - because I want to add my own remarks on this particular bill so that my colleague may then have time - like this: "This bill, if passed as drafted, will embroil municipal councils in complex, confusing and inefficient systems of taxation. Administrative costs will increase. So complex is the application of Bill 106, Bill 149 and Bill 16 that few municipalities in Ontario will be able to fully bill taxes before the year is ended with any degree of success within the many parameters of the law.... A win situation is to let Bill 16 die on the order paper." This is the voice of reason, the voice of experience, and the government should be listening to that.
It was only a few days ago that we said on this side of the House that we want public hearings on this bill, and what did they do? Instead of coming up with a proposal so we could go to the various municipalities and let them tell us what they think about Bill 16, what did they do instead? They invoked closure. They want to shut us off. They want to give the public no say. This is what they have done.
What they are planning to do with Bill 16 is even worse. They have created a nightmare and they are perpetuating the inequities that exist within the system now. Conveniently, a couple of the speakers on the government side, namely, the members for Nepean and Northumberland - one said, "We can give you an example of the commercial-industrial property on Steeles Avenue." I represent the south side of Steeles. The north side is represented by Minister Palladini. Isn't that nice, that the member for Nepean says, "We have solved the problem that was choking the city of Toronto." How did they solve the problem? By allowing the inequities to persist, because a 5,000-square-foot building occupied, let's say, as a doughnut shop or a restaurant, pays some $19,000 in taxes. On the north side of Steeles they only pay $7,000. Can the minister, the Premier or any other member of the House tell us how they find justice in this when they continue the inequity within the tax system?
Most important, they have done two very particular things. They have told small business specifically, because this addresses small business, "You've got three years' time to get out, to sell if you can, because three years from now we're going to hit you." They have given fair warning to the business community out there.
The second thing they have done when they say, "We have to move on with this bill because we have to give municipalities the tools to run their affairs," is that in essence they have told municipalities that they have to go back to the residential taxpayer, if there is a shortage of funds, to conduct their proper business. Isn't that nice?
What Mr Eves and the Premier have done, which the members on the other side understand clearly but don't want to admit, is that for the next three years they have capped commercial-industrial taxes at 2.5%. The question, which they don't want to ask themselves, is, what happens in the next three years? I'm asking the members, the Premier and the ministers. What is Mr Lastman, and every other municipality in Ontario, going to do when they have to provide services? Services must be provided. I'm sure they are thinking that services must be provided. If a municipality cannot go back to the commercial-industrial sector and say, "We have to raise another one, two, three, four, five points," or whatever - they can't because instead of the province saying to the municipalities, as it should have, "We'll leave it up to you; we give you the power, you administer the municipal tax dollars, so you can run your affairs," it has said, "No, you cannot touch the commercial-industrial portion."
It was only after there was a revolt, after the business community said, "What you are doing is wrong" - the member for Northumberland says: "We have listened. We have acted. That is why we have to push this through." If they were really listening, they wouldn't have come up with this bill. It would have been unnecessary. We told them what was fair, how they should have done the tax reform, but they refused to act.
What did they do? As the saying goes, "When the going gets tough, the tough ones" - do you know what the government does? Two things: (1) it defers things until after the election, for three years; and (2) it downloads. With all due respect, I have to give the government credit because they have been consistent in doing exactly that for the last three years. They have been downloading and deferring until after the next election. You know what? This is not governing. This is not creating a better tax system. This is creating a worse nightmare than we have now. Everyone, including the people on Bay Street, has been telling them that. What do we have now? We have a system that totally eliminates the potential for any fairness, for any equality in the reassessment of our tax system here in Ontario.
It was smart in a way, with the arrangement made by Mr Harris, Mr Eves and the mayor of Toronto, to say, "Let's cool these business people for the next two and a half or three years, until we get over the next election." The question is, what is going to happen three years from now? Who is going to pay? That is the question.
Unfortunately we cannot do justice to such an important piece of legislation in about ten minutes of time. I'm sure my other colleagues want to add to this, because it's an extremely important piece of legislation. The very sad thing, which the government does not understand, is that it does not change or improve the system for anyone. What they have done is make it more complicated, more confusing, even for a small municipality, to administer the changes that they are proposing.
In conclusion, it would be a very abominable thing for the government to proceed with approval of this legislation, which compounds and perpetuates the inefficiencies and inequities that exist in the present system as it is now.
With that, I will pass to my colleagues for their participation on Bill 16.
2010
Mr Mike Colle (Oakwood): I want to thank my colleague from Yorkview for his comments. He has been involved in property tax issues for many years in the former city of North York. Being a small business person himself, he knows what it's like to listen to and work with small business people and homeowners in fighting taxes. I know he has been involved in that fight for the last 15 years, so he certainly knows what he talks about and he believes strongly in fairness and equity in the area of property taxation.
In the context of this bill, which is quite alarming, this is another part of the pattern of a government that continues to invoke closure. On almost every bill that comes before this House, they don't allow full debate. They basically rush through bill after bill. It's unprecedented, probably in the history of this province, that we've seen a government ram through as many bills with closure motions as this government. The public out there probably doesn't have the time, because they're too busy trying to make a living, to realize that this government has established a very frightening pattern. Where any bill is slightly controversial, they rush it, jam it through the Legislature. Every time members of the opposition get up and question, want public hearings or want the public to know about a bill, they do not listen and they continue to ram the bill through.
Why we're here today with this Bill 16 is that this government did the same thing with a series of tax bills about a year ago. They rammed bill after bill through this Legislature without due process and without allowing for input. And you have a government that has to come back to fix up the previous mess they created by their reckless jamming through of legislation.
Certainly the public of Ontario sometimes thinks: "That bill doesn't affect me, so I don't care whether they invoke closure and stop debate on that bill. It only affects people in one part of the province or it only affects a certain segment of the population." The problem is that these things usually come around to affect all of us. Sure, cutting off debate here on Bill 16 doesn't seem to be evoking a lot of furore out there in Ontario, but it is troubling to see that this is a pattern that now has been established, that they're invoking closure after closure.
It's really the offshoot of Bill 26, which changed the whole direction of government in this province and put government back into the back room. It's government by regulation, it's government behind closed doors, it's rubber-stamping; all the members of this Legislature are now being asked to do is to rubber-stamp everything. That is not the tradition of this Legislature. Our tradition has been to question, to argue, to debate. I know sometimes the government says that's slowing things down, but here the government has basically, like Robespierre back in the post-French Revolution days, changed the calendar. They now have two days in one. That's what they've done. They even changed the -
Mr Wildman: This is the Thermidor reaction.
Mr Colle: Right. It's a Thermidorian reaction. This is the Mike Harris calendar. In a 24-hour period we've got two days. The people of Ontario, because they're being, I guess, so rushed in all this legislation, haven't caught up to the fact that this government has even changed the calendar. It's the revolutionary calendar of Mike Harris.
We have this Bill 16, which is a bill that was brought about because this government got caught. In a previous bill that this bill is protecting people from, a previous Tory bill, this government got caught increasing property taxes on 29,000 small businesses in Metropolitan Toronto; 29,000 and they got caught doing this. They thought they could get away with it. When that previous bill came out they said: "No, the bill is perfect. We've researched it. We don't need any amendment." This was about a year ago.
When the impact statements came out, the truth was revealed, that this government tried to pass on increases to 80% of the businesses in the city of Toronto. They were going to increase taxes on 30,000-odd businesses, and 17,000 of these 30,000-odd businesses were going to see tax increases of 100% or more. That's what this government got caught doing. By accident, they claim, the big bank towers downtown were going to see a tax decrease of $300 million. That's why they've had to come back with this bill I call the Oops bill or the I-got-caught bill. That's why they've had to come back, because the small business people, across the city of Toronto especially, found them out. They got the details and found out that this government was going to basically ruin main streets not only in Toronto but right across this province; they were going to essentially wipe out small business completely. Streets like Bloor, Harbord, Broadview, Eglinton, Lawrence would be wiped out.
Small communities that rely on these vibrant small businesses for local shopping, like Leaside, Willowdale, Cabbagetown and the Annex, would have also felt the harm of wiping out small business. So it wouldn't have been the big-box stores; it wasn't the president of Canadian Tire or Home Depot and these places. They weren't out on the streets of College or St Clair protesting the Mike Harris tax bill. It wasn't Home Depot, as I said, or Canadian Tire, because they were quite happy. It was the small little hardware store that was going to see his or her taxes go from $10,000 to $30,000 or $40,000 a year. That's what this Mike Harris government tried to do about a year ago. It was the small little cleaners that were going to see their taxes go from $8,000 to $25,000. It was the small little grocery store, not the Loblaws, the Dominion, the mega-this, mega-that; it was the little mom-and-pop grocery store that this government tried to wipe out.
Who could survive a 100% tax increase? Half of the businesses in Toronto were going to see an increase of 100% or more, 17,000 of them. Just imagine all the cleaners, the little shoe stores, the flower shops, the barber shops; these were the little stores that were going to see this mammoth Godzilla of attacks dumped upon them. That's what the Mike Harris government thought they could sneak by the people of this province. Well, they got caught.
You know why they got caught, Madam Speaker? As you well know, in your own end of Toronto it was the small business people and the community leaders who had to take to the streets. They knew they couldn't get any hearing here at Queen's Park, because the doors of Queen's Park are closed to them. They know the big-box store owners can get to Queen's Park and get a hearing, but that little flower shop, who in the government is going to listen to them?
So what did the little flower shop owner, what did the little shoemaker have to do? The little shoemaker can't afford to hire a Bay Street lawyer or a lobbyist, as the big-box stores can. So they went to the streets. They blocked off all of Yonge Street from Hoggs Hollow up at the old Jolly Miller all the way down Eglinton. They papered up all the storefronts and said: "The Mike Harris government is not going to take away my small business. We caught you." They started basically what was a revolution against this Mike Harris attempt to close down Main Street in Toronto.
As I said, these are the people who are the heroes, who brought this government to task, and now this government is forced to come back and try to pretend they didn't try to do this to small business. That's what they did, because they had their lawyers, they had all their whiz kids. The whiz kids, as you know, are always perfect. The whiz kids are the ones who wrote up Bills 106, 149, 160. Those whiz kids knew what they were doing when they tried to basically pillage small businesses in Toronto. But again, thanks to the community leaders and the people who closed down their small shops and took to the streets - that's the only way they could get justice, because they know this government doesn't believe in hearings any more.
2020
This government only listens to big business. This government only listens to Bay Street. They don't listen to College Street, they don't listen to St Clair, they don't listen to Lakeshore, but they listen to Bay Street. This government gave Bay Street a $300-million break on their taxes. That's what they did. Bay Street was happy. They were sipping those martinis. The Brie and Chablis were flowing on Bay Street because Mike Harris gave them this $300 million. You can buy a lot of Brie and Chablis with $300 million. But the poor little florists on the Lakeshore had to close their doors when they saw their tax assessment.
This is what happened. As Bay Street celebrated, the small little shopkeepers were in a desperate situation. What the Tory government doesn't understand is that many of these small shopkeepers never invested in the stock market, they never invested in offshore properties somewhere - as the member for St Catharines says, in Aruba. They put their life savings into that little property down there on Coxwell. That's where they put all their savings. So that little barbershop with the little apartment overhead not only was their business; it was their nest-egg for retirement. That's why they took to the streets. That's why every street across Metro -
Interjection.
The Deputy Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Member for Etobicoke-Rexdale, come to order.
Mr Colle: It's too bad. The member for Etobicoke-Rexdale is not happy because I'm trying to defend the cause of small business against the big-box stores. I don't have everything against the big-box stores, but the big-box stores don't need anybody to defend them. The Canadian Tires, the Home Depots, the Office Depots, the mega-stores are doing fine. I am here saying that this government is out to destroy the little flower shop, the shoemaker, the person selling for Beckers Milk or whatever it is 24 hours a day, with the little variety store. That's who I'm here to defend.
Interjection.
The Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
Mr Colle: The member for York-Mackenzie is the same. He's just worried about the big mega-stores and big Bay Street. What about Main Street? What about the little guy, the little person running that little shop? They can't get to see Mike Harris or Ernie Eves. They can't afford to hire a lobbyist or a lawyer. They don't have limos.
Do you know what they have to do now? I encourage everybody: Don't be afraid to go to the streets if you've got a complaint with Mike Harris. Don't sit there in despair if you've been maltreated, if your hospital has been closed, if your small business is closed down. Don't be afraid to protest against this government, because this government is now a bit worried about a thing called the election coming up. They've got their chequebook ready and they're pretending to listen so they can buy time. As the member for Yorkview said, they want to buy time until the next election. That is why I encourage people to continue to fight and not to take the abuse that this government is heaping upon small people especially.
We should also mention that this tax itself - it's quite ironic. People are saying to me, "Why does this government continue to force us to pay for education on our property tax, especially when education is now totally controlled by the Mike Harris cabinet?" They control what textbooks you read, they control the size of the washrooms, they control every aspect of the curriculum and they set the tax rate, yet they're asking people all across this province to pay for education on their property tax when they don't have any say. It's pure taxation without representation.
More than ever people have to ask why Mike Harris is still forcing people to pay education on their property tax when they have no say in what the rate is and no say about anything in education. It's about time for the Mike Harris government to answer that. Why are people still paying for education on property tax when they have no say in the property tax whatsoever, when the school boards have been emasculated of all their power and this government now controls education?
The other thing to ask is why this government is so proud of increasing property taxes on 237,000 homes in Toronto. This government is proud of doing that. They're saying it's good medicine for you: 237,000 homes are going to be increased. Even though they've reacted to the revolt in the streets about the hit on small business, they're still letting 237,000 people take this Mike Harris hit on their small homes.
This is what this government is still doing, and I hope people continue to take them to account and are not intimidated by this government and are not swayed by their phoney PR campaign. Fight back and let Mike Harris know you're not going to be bullied into accepting his government again.
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): I am pleased to have a few minutes to speak this evening to this motion of closure, of limiting debate. A famous baseball manager once said, "This is déjà vu all over again." Some people will recall last week, in this very Legislature, a motion being introduced that said, "when Bill 16 is next called as a government order, the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill, without further debate or amendment; and at such time the bill shall be ordered for third reading" and "That the order for third reading of the bill shall then immediately be called and the remainder of the sessional day shall be allotted to the third reading stage of the bill."
This resolution is one step better than that. In other words, they're not going to shut us up quite as quickly. The resolution that was on the order paper last week was withdrawn about as quickly as a dew worm sucks back on the Kingsville golf course when you shine a light on it. They just threw it back. So this week what do we have?
Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): How fast would that be?
Mr Crozier: How fast is that? Haven't you ever tried to catch a dew worm, Minister?
Hon Mrs Ecker: No, I can't say I have.
Mr Crozier: You're not quick enough.
In any event, what we have this evening that we're debating in closing this debate, limiting debate on Bill 16 - and listen to this, folks. It says, "when Bill 16 is next called as a government order, the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill, without further debate or amendment; and at such time, the bill shall be referred to the standing committee on finance and economic affairs."
I feel sorry for the member for Nepean when he has to get up and defend this tonight. He said, "We've decided to listen." You know why they decided to listen? The clerks and treasurers came and told them, "This thing stinks and the best thing you can do is withdraw it." They said, "No, we're not going to withdraw it but we're going to listen." I'll tell you, Speaker, and the folks at home how long they're going to listen. They're going to establish the deadline for tabling amendments and filing them with the clerk. The Chair of the standing committee on finance can do that, and that happens to be a Tory. Then - and we're at June 1 right now - it says, "at 4:30 pm on June 3, 1998, those amendments which have not yet been moved shall be deemed to have moved." That's a lot of listening, isn't it?
We know we're going to have this thing done by June 3, this process of listening to the people: "the committee shall report the bill to the House on June 4." When is that? Thursday?
Mr Sergio: Thursday this week.
Mr Crozier: This week, anyway. Then, in their generosity, rather than the remainder of the sessional day, lo and behold they're going to allow a whole sessional day, probably another 20 minutes or so.
When I first came to this place I thought I'd really be given the opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents. The first government when I was here was the NDP government, and there was the odd bill in which limited debate was brought in, but this is becoming the order of the day. In other words: "We're going to listen, folks, we're going to have an open ear, but the problem is we're only going to listen a little bit. We're going to make you think we're listening."
2030
The only reason they even brought this motion today, withdrew the other one that I said went more quickly than a dew worm on the Kingsville golf course is that the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario said that Bill 16 is "complicated, cumbersome, confusing and too often badly drafted. The end product is a political and administrative nightmare." The government's answer to that is: "We're going to listen to you from 9 o'clock in the morning until 12 noon on Wednesday, June 3. In three hours, we're going to fix a bill that is complicated, cumbersome, confusing and too often badly drafted, and the end product is a political and administrative nightmare."
The clerks and treasurers told you what to do with this bill, and they did it in a very nice way. They could have used language that was much stronger. But they said, "Simply let it die on the order paper."
I started out by saying that this is an example of mismanagement. This is the fifth bill. If Bill 106, in the winter of 1997, a year and a half ago, had been drafted properly, we wouldn't have needed Bill 149, we wouldn't have needed Bill 160, we wouldn't have needed Bill 164 and we wouldn't have needed Bill 16.
Some of the government members talk about being in business and they know all about business. I was in a large manufacturing firm, H.J. Heinz Co, for 11 years. I was secretary-treasurer and part-owner of a retail lumber business, a small business, for 22 years. I was in the insurance business for three years and I was on municipal council, part of the time as mayor, for eight years. If anybody had had to bring the same thing back four or five times in any one of those areas, they would have been fired. Absolute mismanagement. They might have had one chance, they might have had two because we're really generous, but to have to bring something like Bill 16 back four or five times is absolute and total mismanagement, and the clerks and treasurers are telling them they still don't have it right, that the bill should just simply die.
I don't know what magic this government is going to perform in three hours on June 3. On Wednesday, June 3, they are going to take all these bills, they are going to take all the mess-up with all these bills, they are going to take a bill that should be scrapped, that should die on the order paper and they're going to fix it in three hours. Speaker, as you well know, and I've spoken in this Legislature before, I'm not a gambling person. I'm not a gambling person unless it's a safe bet, and then I'm willing to put some money down. I'll put money down that this Bill 16, after its amendments on June 3, still won't be right.
I tell you, municipalities should have had their tax demands out weeks ago. The government promised them they would give them the roll last Friday, I think it was. I tell you what, folks at home, they still don't have the rolls. I tell you what, folks at home, the computer program isn't fixed yet. I tell you what, folks at home, your municipalities are going to be crying for money. I tell you what, folks at home, municipalities are going to have to pay interest because they're going to have a shortage of cash.
I tell you what, folks at home, this bill as it's written now, in the words of the clerks and administrators, is "complicated, cumbersome, confusing and badly drafted," and when they get three hours of fixing done on Wednesday morning, it's still going to be confused, complicated, badly drafted and should be allowed to die on the order paper. If they don't do the right thing and let this thing die, do you know what we're going to have? We're probably going to have the great-great-great grandson to deal with.
Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): I was going to say I'm glad to have a chance to join in this debate. Actually I'm not glad to have a chance to join in this debate. I'm always happy to have the opportunity to speak on important issues, but this is a debate that quite frankly should not be happening. So I'm not glad to be up on my feet speaking on this closure motion. We should remind people who may be watching this, that's what we are debating. While we're talking about property taxes, Bill 16 and the property tax bill, what's really in front of us tonight is in fact a closure motion brought by the government to end debate here in this House on this bill but, more important than that, to pretend that they're going to go through a process of committee with this bill.
What we're going to do, according to this motion, is to have this bill in committee this coming Wednesday - that's two days from now, the day after tomorrow; in fact, less than two days from now - from 9 o'clock in the morning to 12 noon for consideration; ie that's the debating time that we will have to actually hear people who might want to come forward and speak to this bill - three hours on an important issue like this.
Then in the afternoon the committee is going to sit, according to this motion, and do what's called clause-by-clause consideration of the bill; in other words, dealing with whatever amendments there may be that the government may bring forward or we from the opposition parties may bring forward, and that will be it.
That will be it on a piece of legislation that is going to change the nature of the whole property tax system in Metropolitan Toronto and indeed throughout the province; on a piece of legislation that according to the people who will have to put this in place, the municipal clerks and administrators, will cause political and administrative chaos; on a piece of legislation that they said the best thing to happen to this bill would be for it to die on the order paper. They set out 12 pages of criticism of this bill in a letter they sent to the minister last week in which they outlined a whole bunch of errors, not just political differences, not just administrative differences, not just difficulties in implementing the legislation but actual mistakes in the way in which this legislation has been drafted.
Does that surprise us? No. As has been mentioned by other speakers, this is a piece of legislation that for the fourth time now tries to deal with the property tax system in this province, and for the fourth time the government is trying to do this in the same way they did it before, by rushing the legislation through. By rushing the legislation through, they're going to find in this bill, as they found in the previous legislation, that they're creating an even worse problem rather than fixing the previous ones that they created. The bulk of this bill aims to try to correct mistakes that were set out in the previous pieces of legislation, yet we know that even as they try to do that, there will be mistakes made because what we have here is a piece of legislation quite frankly that was put together hastily and that is being rushed through the House in a way that should not happen.
It doesn't surprise us because only about three months ago, if you'd asked members of the government would they bring forward this type of legislation, they would have vehemently denied it because at that point they were busy beating up on small businesses here in Toronto and throughout the province.
In fact, I was at a meeting when Minister Eves announced the new structure for financing and the new assessment system as it related to small business. He was saying there was no way he was going to do anything to assist small business here in Metropolitan Toronto because the problems that had been created here, as he put it then, were of Toronto's own making. Of course, then we saw the problems and then small business began to see the impact of the new market value assessment system and we had a situation in which the government had to listen. The government had to change, to move from that position that they took in mid-February to about a month later, recognizing that they could not let small business, not just here in Metropolitan Toronto but indeed throughout the GTA, deal with those kinds of inequities and those kinds of problems.
Their solution was to bring in this magical cap of 2.5%. Has that addressed the issue? I think to some extent it has, and for many businesses perhaps it has. At least it gives the impression that it addresses the problem, because what we have is a situation in which the tax increases for small businesses will be capped at 2.5%. Of course, we don't know what's going to happen at the end of this three-year period when the caps come off. It's a convenient way for the government to push off the problem in the future and, at the same time, they have now created a situation in which municipalities that opt to go into this system will end up in a situation in which the only place they will have to be able to deal with increases from the continuing download of services from this government on to the municipalities will be to increase property taxes for homeowners. That is something that municipality after municipality is now beginning to realize.
2040
The other shoe, as the saying goes, finally dropped in Metropolitan Toronto. Here in the new city people are realizing that what they thought was a good deal may not be such a good deal. To quote Councillor John Adams, "It puts us in handcuffs for the next three years." That's the predominant view that now is there at city council.
Beyond that, leave the politicians aside and what we have here goes back to the kind of stinging rebuke that this government had to listen to from the municipal clerks and administrators across the province, who have said, as I indicated earlier, in a 12-page response to this government, that this piece of legislation was going to create more problems than it was going to solve. Even today they are coming in and saying to this government that there is a minimum of five or six amendments that they absolutely need to be prepared to make for this legislation to even have the semblance of going forward. They make it clear that these are what they consider to be essential amendments, but they say, "Even if all of these amendments are adopted, Bill 16 will continue to have manifold problems, not the least of which are its complicated provisions and confusing drafting."
Part of that problem we're going to see unfold in the regulations. We understand that the regulations that are to accompany this bill, which we originally were given to understand we might actually see before the bill was passed but I suspect we will not see, are now in their drafting form, have probably reached some 70 to 75 pages, and God knows how long they will be by the time they are finished. All of this is being rammed through. All of this is forcing municipalities, particularly the people who are going to have to implement this, to try to deal with this in a situation in which it is impossible to enact proper legislation, proper regulations to make the changes.
The only sensible thing we can see is for the government to realize this and to do what even the clerks have said, which is to let the bill die on the order paper. We would go one step further and say what they need to do is to freeze the whole assessment system for another year, let things settle down, go back to the drawing-board and in effect devise a new tax system that makes the changes that we all believe need to be made but doesn't create this kind of division.
But of course this is the way in which the Tory government of Mike Harris continues to behave, trying to divide and conquer; in this case, trying to be seen to be responding to small businesses but setting them up against homeowners and leaving municipalities and municipal councillors to carry the bag for them. That's the kind of approach they're taking.
They've had to at least to some extent listen to the municipal clerks who have come forward and said: "You can't do it. It's not going to work. There are going to be increasing problems with this 2.5% cap in the way in which you're doing it and with some of the other provisions that are in this bill." The government again is going to give the impression that they have been listening, but even they will not be able, no matter how they spin this, to try and portray this one day of committee on this bill as being in any way a proper and just process for a bill of this magnitude.
The irony is that while we oppose what the government is doing in the whole property tax field, we certainly here in the New Democratic Party recognize that at the end of the day the government has the numbers, if they want to be able to carry the bill. We had, ironically enough, some three to four weeks ago suggested to them a way in which this bill could actually have been in committee for a couple of weeks of good, solid discussion in hearings, instead of us having the bill just simply sit on the order paper or be debated in this House for most of the past week, as it was.
At that point the government, in their unending wisdom, said: "No, no, no. Thank you, but we don't want to do it that way. We know best. This bill has to get passed." They said it had to get passed by last week. It's now going to get passed by the end of this week. Ironically enough, they could have had that if that's what they'd wanted and still had a process worthy of the name of having the bill in committee for a few weeks with proper hearings, proper discussion, proper debate, proper drafting or proper amendments. Yet what we have again is the continuing arrogance of this government that believes they know best in the face of anybody who opposes them.
From time to time someone comes forward, as in this case, the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario, and then the government is kind of caught, because these aren't exactly left-leaning lunatics. These aren't exactly zealots out there. These are people who have to implement this thing and they're saying: "We can't do it. It can't be done." Ironically enough they end up saying similar things to what many of us and many people out there have been saying, which is, "You're moving too fast, you're moving in the wrong direction and you're not doing this in the way that you need to do it," so we end up in these problems.
It'll be interesting to see. We look forward to the limited work that can be done in the time that's going to be there in committee the day after tomorrow. I hope the government will at least have the decency to come forward at the beginning of that session and tell us what amendments they're prepared to make so that we're not waiting until the afternoon, minutes before we're supposed to vote on those amendments, to find out exactly what the government is intending to do.
I would like to go on at greater length, but I will stop there. I will indicate now, which I probably should have done at the beginning, that I will be dividing the balance of this time with my colleagues from Sault Ste Marie and Algoma. Given that the time is limited, I will sit down and let them pick up from here.
Mr Martin: Again tonight we have before us a piece of work that is so typical of this government, a government in a hurry, always needing to fix something, always, though, in the end hurting somebody with no plan, no vision, just ideology run amok.
Tonight we have before us again a piece of legislation to put time limits on the process we have developed here over a number of years to vet pieces of legislation that in the end affect every person who lives and works in Ontario, affect every community that exists in Ontario.
We have this government wanting to do it yesterday, not wanting to take the time that is necessary to honour the time-proven tradition of bringing something in here and allowing for that full discussion that is expected to happen, where holes are pointed out or benefits are pointed out and everybody has a chance to participate in a full and wholesome way, allowing for that legislation then to go back out into the community for discussion with people who might be affected, directly or indirectly, so that they might have a say, so that they might bring to the discussion, to the table their experience, their understanding, their view of how this might affect them in either a positive or a negative way, so that at the end of the day we have a piece of legislation in front of us that has the fingerprints of all those who call Ontario home in a way that speaks of a confidence that it will actually do what it was intended to do, that it will clear up the difficulties that were laid out, usually in the preamble of such bills, that speak to an evolution of laws that govern us all, of things we put in place to help us work together to make sure that everybody is paying their fair share.
At the end of the day, everybody is able to participate in a way that speaks to their being able to live up to their potential and contribute so that they win, the community wins and we have a future together that is full of hope and good feeling for the people of a jurisdiction like Ontario.
Always, it seems, in this place when we deal with the business of this government we're in a huge hurry. Always at the end of the day, what we put in place by way of legislation turns out to be lacking, seriously and sadly lacking in some significant and important way. We need to bring it back to this place to fix it, which in fact is what we're doing with this little piece of legislation that we're dealing with here, Bill 16.
It's a bill that has been drafted to fix a piece of work that this government in its haste brought in to answer a very serious challenge out there re the question of how we tax each other in a property tax way to pay for those goods and services we all come to expect and rely on, so we can get on with our lives, and together find ways to make it easier for everybody to take care of common challenges and provide common opportunities in the communities in which we live.
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This government, in its haste to ideologically turn the province in a direction that is driven primarily by the forces of the market and the predominant culture of an economy that is interested in nothing but money, in particular money for those who own and have an interest in big industry, big corporations that generally no longer have many ties to or much interest in a jurisdiction like Ontario and the communities and cities that make up that jurisdiction, has imposed on municipalities a whole bevy of costs for services.
I don't think anybody in their right mind, anybody who understands how democracy works, anybody who understands how you in a civilized society decide on things we can do together that will make people's lives easier, would in any way for a second consider putting those on to a property tax base and ask people who pay property taxes to be responsible for paying for and delivering those services.
They have downloaded services on to municipalities that don't belong there, that are going to cost them in a major way. They then were in a big hurry to change the property tax system, which we all know needed to be changed but which we also know should have taken longer than we allocated here because of the new regulations we all live under in this place which allow the government, any time it feels like it, to bring in a bill like we have before us here tonight which puts time constraints on the ability of people to assess and view and participate in the discussion about how these things can happen. So you end up with a complete and utter mess that now needs to be fixed.
The interesting thing is that when you look at Bill 16 and what it proposes by way of a fix, you will understand that it doesn't fix anything. As a matter of fact, it creates even more problems for the people of the communities out there that this government is now trying to speak so in favour of helping.
We heard members across the way, as they usually do when they get up to defend or support a piece of legislation their government is bringing forward, tell us about all the good things they're doing and how they're going to help this group and that group and the other group, when we know, anybody knows who's out there talking to anybody in a community across this province today, that this government is really helping nobody but themselves, and big corporate interests that will ultimately help themselves as well.
Every community across this province is feeling ever more increasingly a sense of tremendous anxiety and dis-ease as they look at what's coming at them by way of the download. In particular, I would suggest to you that the group you spoke so eloquently about earlier in the debate as one that you help, that group we commonly call small business, the small business entrepreneurs in our communities, are, if you talk to them off the record, if you talk to them away from the boardroom of the chamber of commerce, beginning to feel, as are the working people of this province, ever more anxious and ever more concerned about the impact of what this government is doing to them.
If you really want to help small business, you'll stop taking money out of communities, you'll stop charging communities for things they can't afford to pay for and you'll begin to do things in this place that reflect in a real, concrete way that you have concerns about small business and want to help them.
I'll just give you a small example in the few minutes I have left here in this debate tonight before I allow my colleague from Algoma to wrap up for us. For example, the 21.6% that you took away from people in our communities who were on assistance of one form or another delivered by this government in the summer and fall of 1995, which everybody thought was a great idea - you know, here are some people who are out there doing nothing, lazing around, drinking beer and taking money from the public purse, when anybody who knows, who is in contact with those folks, who works with those folks, who lives with those folks, understands that they are our neighbours, they are our family members, they are people who find themselves in a period of time in between having a job and who this government unfairly centred out as the cause of all our ills and as the sole focus of their agenda to target somebody and take some money away.
You know what you've done by taking that 21.6% away from those most marginalized and most poor in our communities? You've also taken, in the instance of Sault Ste Marie, my community, on average - we've done the mathematics - $2 million a month out of the economy of Sault Ste Marie. That's $2 million that's spent in the corner store, in the grocery stores, in the clothing stores, in the small businesses of my community; $2 million that you as a government have taken directly out of the pockets, out of the cash registers of the small business people in this province. That's $24 million a year. When you add that to the number of people you've knocked off the rolls, who you claim are out working, who we know are not, that becomes an even more exorbitant number, an even more dramatic number that small businesses are now beginning to feel as they do their month-ends, as they do their year-ends and begin to understand more clearly than ever before what this government is about.
In my own community, I would suggest that by way of the cutting of provincial service jobs in the Ministry of Natural Resources, in the Ministry of the Environment, in the Ministry of Transportation, in the Ministry of Education, in the Ministry of Health and on and on we've probably lost out of the economy of Sault Ste Marie some $35 million to $50 million a year. So we're now talking $75 million a year, directly due to decisions made by your government, out of the economy of my community that used to flow almost directly into the cash registers of every small business in every mall, on every corner, on every strip of small business in my community, directly out of their pockets.
If you want to do something to help small business, which you said a few minutes ago you indeed want to do, this isn't going to do it, Bill 16 isn't going to do it, because all you're going to do with Bill 16 is put a cap on the amount of property tax these folks will have to pay, but by doing that you will shift an enormous load on to the backs of the residential property tax base. Those people are going to be out of pocket and they are the people who actually go into your stores, your small businesses, and buy the goods and services you have to offer. What you give with one hand, you take away with the other. But that's not unusual for this government. That's the way this government operates: in a hurry, always fixing something they've broken and have not taken the time to do right, always hurting somebody, no plan, no vision, just ideology run amok.
Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): And it's not too far, too fast.
Mr Martin: It's not too far, too fast; it's just absolutely in the wrong direction.
Something else you might want to do, and I suggest it here tonight in lieu of this as you try to fix this property tax mess you've created, I suggest you take the time to work it out properly and talk about it with some people so that it works in the end. But something else you might do to help small business, if you are interested in helping small business, is bring to this House and table the bill that your Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations promised about two years ago to regulate the franchise industry in Ontario. Bring that forward and let's talk about that and let's see how that will help literally hundreds of small business entrepreneurs around this province who have invested every penny they've got by way of severance or pension payout because they've lost their jobs due to decisions made by your government. Let's help them. Let's do it that way and let's talk about that. But you don't want to do that. That might be too intelligent, that might be too direct and might create a fairer playing field.
Anyway, I wrap up my few thoughts tonight on this subject by saying to you that communities want stability. Communities want a plan that they can participate in, that they can count on to deliver all those things that you say so eloquently you want to do but that will not be delivered by this piece of legislation and certainly will not be delivered by cramming this piece of legislation into the time lines that you've presented by way of this bill here tonight.
I would ask everybody in this House, everybody out there across the province, to look at this, to think about it and to recognize it for what it is: a government in a hurry, always fixing something, always hurting somebody, with no plan, no vision, just ideology run amok.
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Mr Wildman: I want to express my appreciation to the deputy leader of our caucus and to my friend from Sault Ste Marie for allowing me to participate in the debate briefly in my capacity as House leader for our caucus.
I want to point out a couple of things. Here we are this evening debating a closure motion on Bill 16. This is one of five closure motions this government has brought forward. Under this particular motion there will be a three-hour period for consultation in committee and then clause-by-clause discussion subsequent to that.
I ask why we're here at all debating this closure motion. This is a government that kept the House out a month late, that didn't call the House back when it was supposed to come back in March because they didn't have much to do, apparently. There wasn't a lot on the order paper. There was nothing of importance to do. So this government wasn't ready to proceed.
Interjections.
The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Member for Kitchener, order.
Mr Wildman: I know this bothers them. It bothers them to hear the truth.
Mr Lessard: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I believe if the member for Kitchener wants to heckle the member for Algoma, he should be in his own seat.
The Deputy Speaker: That really isn't a point of order. Heckling is out of order anyway. I say to the member for Kitchener, stop heckling.
Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I'm quite surprised that the member for Algoma would accuse this government of not doing much for too long. I've been hearing "too much, too fast."
The Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order. Take your seat. Member for Algoma, go ahead.
Mr Wildman: Thank you, Speaker. I know that interjections are always out of order. That's why I so seldom interject myself.
The fact is that this government could have followed the calendar of this House and called us back in mid-March, which was the normal time for the House to come back into session. But the government said: "No, there's nothing pressing. There's nothing that really needs to be done that can't wait." So the House did not reconvene until a month later. And now that we have reconvened, had the throne speech and the budget, we now have five closure motions before the House. Why is that? Why is it that the government that didn't have that much to do now has to get everything done all at once?
Why is it that the government that has been worrying about property tax reform for years suddenly needs Bill 16 passed immediately, despite the fact that, as my colleague mentioned, the clerks and treasurers have written to the government a detailed critique of Bill 16 which indicates that essentially it's unworkable, that this bill is not going to fix the mistakes made by this government in the other bills related to property tax but in fact is going to make things worse, more complicated and unworkable?
It would seem to me that any reasonable government, on receiving a letter like that, would say: "Wait a minute. We'd better look at this again. We'd better sit down with these clerks and treasurers and find out what the particular problems are that they've listed in this lengthy letter and then consult with them and others, particularly the property owners - the business property owners, the residential property owners - and the people who speak for them, the taxpayers' coalitions per se, and get some advice as to how to implement this in a way that will resolve the problems."
But, no, we have a closure motion before us which gives all of those people who are interested a total of three hours to influence the government. Then the rest of the day will be spent in clause-by-clause, and if all of the amendments that are required are not passed at the end of the day, at the end of the process, they will be deemed to have been passed. So they will go through without debate and they will be passed.
This is the fourth or fifth piece of legislation. Frankly, that's not surprising. Property tax is indeed complex. Property tax reform is complex. It has worried government after government. This is a government, though, that said they wanted to reassess the whole province. We're told by the Ministry of Finance, the revenue officials, that to do that properly would take three years, and this government said, "No, we want it done in a year or less." So there have been many, many mistakes, a multitude of mistakes made, simply because this government insisted, because this government wouldn't listen, because this government said: "Don't confuse us with facts. We know better than the experts in the field."
We've seen what people have to do to influence this government. Because this government gives a total, in this case, of three hours for consultation, the aggrieved people, the business property owners, had to get out on the streets because they weren't listened to. They couldn't make contact with Conservative MPPs. They couldn't talk to the Treasurer of Ontario and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. They wouldn't be listened to. They had to make their voices known in the streets.
That's what this government is about. It's a government that doesn't listen to the constituents of Ontario, that doesn't listen to the people it affects adversely, that believes it has all of the facts in the first place and doesn't need to be influenced one way or the other, and then when it comes to debate in the Legislature doesn't believe it needs to listen to any other opposing voices but simply can run roughshod over the democratic process in this Legislature.
The government is ruing the day. Why is it that this is the fourth or fifth piece of legislation they're having to deal with on property taxes? Because they don't listen. They aren't interested in what the experts have to say. They aren't interested in what the property taxpayers have to say. They believe they have all the facts in the first place, and inevitably they make mistakes. They try to fix them, and every time they try to fix them, they make it worse.
I believe this legislation shows clearly where this government stands. I guess if you use the example of Metropolitan Toronto, it makes it very clear where this government stands. It's clear that this government stands with the bank towers on Bay Street and it stands clearly against the shopkeepers on Main Street. There's no question about that.
If any small business people in this province had any illusions that this Conservative government listens to them, all they have to do is look at this closure motion and see that they've got a total of three hours for consultation. If the clerks and treasurers of all the municipalities of this province had any illusion that this is a government that listens and is interested in good administration, all they have to do is look at this closure motion and see that they've got a total of three hours to discuss their concerns. If the residential property taxpayers of Ontario had any illusions that this government listens to them, they should look at their assessment notices and see the obvious errors that have occurred because this government would not proceed with caution, but rather proceeded in a way that had little or no interest in their concerns and in their interests.
This government simply wanted to get the money and to give the break to the bank towers. There's no question that this government certainly stands with big business, with the financial institutions, with the banks, with Bay Street. They do fine, thank you very much, by this so-called property tax reform.
Mr Eves, the Minister of Finance, has attempted to give the impression that he cares about business property taxpayers by putting the 2.5% cap either way on changes. But, forgive me, all that does is postpone the problem. It gets the government through the election and postpones the problem for three years.
Mark my words: No matter who is in government after the next election, we are going to be back in this House debating property tax reform and what effect this has on small business and on residential property taxpayers. There's no question we are. The only question is, who will be sitting on that side of the aisle, and will it be a government that listens? Will it be a government that is concerned about the interests of property taxpayers, be they small business taxpayers or residential property taxpayers, or will it be a government that runs roughshod over democracy and brings in closure motions that only allow for three hours' token consultation because they're not really interested in listening? All they're interested in doing is getting the money, and be damned with the property taxpayer's interests.
The Deputy Speaker: Mr Johnson has moved government notice of motion number 15. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?
All those in favour of the motion, please say "aye."
Those opposed, please say "nay."
In my opinion, the ayes have it.
Interjections.
The Deputy Speaker: Call in the members; a five-minute bell.
Interjections.
The Deputy Speaker: The motion is carried.
It being now close to 9:30 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 2113.