L019b - Tue 2 Jun 1998 / Mar 2 Jun 1998 1
The House met at 1830.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
SMALL BUSINESS AND CHARITIES PROTECTION ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA PROTECTION DES PETITES ENTREPRISES ET DES ORGANISMES DE BIENFAISANCE
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of 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 / Projet de loi 16, Loi visant à alléger les impôts des petites entreprises, des organismes de bienfaisance et d'autres et à apporter d'autres modifications en ce qui a trait au financement des administrations locales et des écoles.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Pursuant to order of the House dated June 1, 1998, I am required to put the question.
Mr Eves has moved second reading of Bill 16.
Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?
All those in favour, say "aye."
All those opposed, say "nay."
In my opinion, the ayes have it.
The motion is carried.
NORTHERN SERVICES IMPROVEMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR L'AMÉLIORATION DES SERVICES PUBLICS DANS LE NORD DE L'ONTARIO
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 12, An Act to provide choice and flexibility to Northern Residents in the establishment of service delivery mechanisms that recognize the unique circumstances of Northern Ontario and to allow increased efficiency and accountability in Area-wide Service Delivery / Projet de loi 12, Loi visant à offrir aux résidents du Nord plus de choix et de souplesse dans la mise en place de mécanismes de prestation des services qui tiennent compte de la situation unique du Nord de l'Ontario et à permettre l'accroissement de l'efficience et de la responsabilité en ce qui concerne la prestation des services à l'échelle régionale.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): At this point we are on questions and comments on Mr Spina's speech. Questions and comments? The Chair recognizes the member for Algoma.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): Poppycock.
The Acting Speaker: Comments and questions?
Does the member for Brampton North wish to respond?
Mr Joseph Spina (Brampton North): I disagree with the honourable member for Algoma.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): I am glad to have an opportunity to speak tonight on Bill 12 or, as it is euphemistically called, the Northern Services Improvement Act, which I think is unfortunately quite typical of this government in terms of how they frame their legislation and how they try and spin it out to the public, because indeed there is nothing about this legislation that improves services for northerners in any way at all.
It's just another one in a long list of bills and legislation put forward by this government that does nothing but hurt northern Ontario. It's probably important to discuss the process that's gotten us to this point and to explain why certainly we as a Liberal caucus feel very strongly that it appears that as a result of the government's action and as a result of the government's behaviour in terms of their downloading exercise and the position they have left municipalities in, this legislation may be something municipalities actually will need in order to carry on.
That being the case, that doesn't mean we find this legislation anything other than offensive and a lot of waste. It also doesn't mean that we don't think it needs to have much more debate. We believe very strongly that as a result of some of the flaws in this legislation - and, again, this is affected by the process - what we need are public hearings across the north to help make some amendments that will make this more palatable and will answer some of the questions that the municipalities in my district are asking me to try and find the answers to.
In speaking to the government directly on this, if they are willing tonight to stand up, if the parliamentary assistant is able to do so, and say that public hearings will be the result of what comes out of tonight, I think then we can probably talk about moving things forward. But that not being the case, there's an awful lot of problems with this legislation that require us to carry on this debate.
Let me carry on with process to a short extent. The bill was first brought forward - actually, I think it was Bill 174 - in December 1997. Quite frankly, it only came forward at that time because of some prodding by those of us in the Liberal caucus saying, "You're meeting with all the municipalities, you're having discussions, you're forcing this upon them, but you're not even allowing them to have a look at what's going to be in there."
The government responded in an interesting manner. They brought the legislation forward, but then the House prorogued, so nothing took place other than introduction of the bill.
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): They didn't carry it forward.
Mr Gravelle: They didn't care before. So it was really pretty interesting.
But what they did say was that there was going to be, in the winter break, in the break between the sessions, public consultation. There was going to be consultation with municipalities. They were going to go out there in some kind of formal way and meet with the communities.
That would have been a good thing if it had happened, but again I've had an opportunity to talk to a number of the municipalities in my district, and I know my colleagues have had the same opportunity to do that, and indeed that consultation did not take place.
In fact, what happened was that we come forward to the session here in April, May and June, and Bill 12 comes forward and the government puts forward the position that this is a new and improved piece of legislation and they insist that we are now holding it up when in fact what we want to do is work forward to make sure this is a piece of legislation that actually works.
We don't like the process by which we got here. We don't like the downloading that has been the reason for which this has been put forward. We recognize that municipalities are in a tough spot, but we are prepared to stand here and to help improve this piece of legislation. We are prepared to debate it and to bring some suggestions forward, but most significantly we are prepared to move forward if the government will simply acknowledge and agree to public hearings perhaps over the summer recess. It would be an excellent way for the government to make sure we get a piece of legislation - because otherwise what we have here is a piece of legislation that leaves the municipalities in an extremely difficult position. There's a lot of confusion about what's actually in the legislation.
Mr Bartolucci: No one knows.
Mr Gravelle: No one knows. In fact it's almost impossible to decipher that.
Mr Bartolucci: Municipalities are begging to have that information.
Mr Gravelle: Exactly. The fact is that this is something that we think can be the solution to this dilemma. Certainly the government can stand there and say, "You're holding up this fine piece of legislation." It's not a fine piece of legislation.
Mr Bartolucci: Poppycock.
Mr Gravelle: It is poppycock. The fact is that we are offering an opportunity for the government to have those public hearings. If they can do that, then let's move forward. Let's get through second reading. We're quite prepared to do that and then we can move on and make this a better piece of legislation.
But I think also you can't carry on with this discussion without recognizing that indeed the beginning of this whole process was the downloading, the megaweek of January 1997, I guess about 18 months ago, when this government decided what they were going to do was shift all the responsibilities and very clearly download all kinds of responsibilities to municipalities.
Of course they were going to talk about it being revenue-neutral. We know that is not the case. I think the government has acknowledged that it's not the case. They are out there trying to find various transition funds and special assistance funds which in the short term will at least perhaps keep things quieter for them, but the fact is that everybody recognizes that this process is not revenue-neutral and is not in any way fair at all. But it's being forced upon the communities, and in northern Ontario we are disproportionately affected by this downloading. It's extremely damaging, let alone the fact that so much of what has been downloaded is absolutely inappropriate for the provincial government to be downloading.
Mr Bartolucci: Almost like we're the forgotten people.
Mr Gravelle: We really are almost like the forgotten people. There's example upon example of legislation, of behaviour by this government, that shows they really are not sensitive to the needs of the north at all; in fact, they don't care much about the north. They simply will put out legislation that they think has no impact.
The truth is, when you get right down to it - I recall a casual discussion that I had with a member of the government really very early in the term, back in the fall of 1995. I recall this particular member - and I won't name this member because it was a casual conversation, but the suggestion was made that, "May the fittest survive." That was the summary of it, that there should be no particular help for communities unless they can absolutely make it on their own. It betrayed a real sort of attitude not just about the north but about many parts of this province, about some of the rural communities, about many parts of this province that have contributed so incredibly to the growth of our province, yet are being treated I think in an extraordinarily difficult manner.
Going back to the downloading aspect, because I think that's worth carrying on about, we've all fought, I'd like to think, in a valiant way, if I may say so, without any intention of back-slapping, but strongly to fight the issues such as public health.
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I think it's recognized just about everywhere that public health, for very, very good reasons, should be a provincial responsibility. You honestly can't legislate the boundaries of contagious diseases. You can't legislate those areas. To decide that public health can be brought into municipal boundaries only is clearly incorrect; it's certainly dangerous and it makes all of us concerned.
There have been, as I say, extraordinary efforts to get the government to listen to this. Once again, the pressure has had some impact, as they've decided there are some programs that they agree should be funded. But the fact is, they literally are, as always, so incredibly stubborn about it all. The bottom line is that the government still doesn't listen. They're trying very hard to give the impression of being a different kind of government now. They're being a kinder, gentler government, but the fact is, they still don't listen. This piece of legislation, may I say, is a perfectly good example of that.
Here we have a piece of legislation, again, that's essentially forced upon the municipalities and forced upon this Legislature because of the decisions that were made to download that have left our municipalities in a very difficult situation. We're left with that. It has been forced upon us. The legislation comes forward for the second time, supposedly an improved piece of legislation, clearly with very few changes from the original but, most significantly, with flaws that are quite extraordinary.
The government says, "We've got to get this legislation through quickly because the municipalities need it." The municipalities are concerned and nervous. They've made it very clear that if this is what's going to happen, they recognize that they need to have this kind of legislation, but their greatest concern is that there are so many questions that have been left unanswered, so many areas that are not the least bit clear, that in its present form this legislation cannot go forward unless there are some significant changes.
Mr Bartolucci: Municipalities don't know what the legislation is.
Mr Gravelle: My colleague from Sudbury said it: Municipalities don't even know what's in the legislation, what it really means. That is a pretty extraordinary thing to say when you've got legislation that you cannot even clearly understand.
I had the opportunity of talking to Ron Nelson, the past president of the Thunder Bay District Municipal League, the other night and he went through the legislation with me as well and actually, to back up my colleague's point, said, "This is what it says but we're not sure what it means."These are people who have followed this closely. Mr Nelson was involved with the preconsultation and was very concerned about it and on behalf of the league was fighting to make sure that if we're in this position, at least let's make it something that will work, based on the pressures that we're under.
Certainly, again, let's come back to this consistently. We are prepared to move forward. We think this legislation can be improved. We think the only way it can be improved is through public hearings. We are more than prepared to go forward tonight if the government will agree to have public hearings and if, therefore, the government will agree to listen.
Of course, part of the problem with public hearings, at least the history that we've seen with this government over the last couple of years, is that there certainly have been a significant number of public hearings held across the province, many of them that have been forced upon the government. Bill 26 is a perfectly good example. We had to actually sleep over -
Mr Bartolucci: They didn't listen.
Mr Gravelle: That's the problem. We forced public hearings upon this government, but unfortunately they didn't listen. They didn't make significant changes at all to it. So on the one hand, we're calling for public hearings, I guess in the hope that indeed these public hearings, if they take place, will be listened to by the government. The history isn't good but we're still prepared to say -
Mr Bartolucci: The new Mike.
Mr Gravelle: This is the new Mike. This is the new pre-election Mike. But let's hope that if these public hearings take place, they'll listen to the municipalities and listen to the decisions and recommendations that they make because, ultimately, when you look at what this legislation implies and when you look at what the area service boards ultimately leave the boards responsible for, it makes one again think to some degree about the hidden agenda of the government.
If all of this is implemented, the aspects of the piece of legislation or the aspects of the bill which will affect the boards are child care, welfare, public health, social housing, land ambulance and homes for the aged. These are the areas under which the area service boards could be responsible. But what could be included in that, what could be added on to that, is economic development, airports, land use planning, waste management, police, fire or roads. You add all that together and what do you see?
Mr Bartolucci: More government.
Mr Gravelle: You see an upper tier of government, something that for a government that believes in being more efficient and operating well doesn't make any sense.
Also, more significantly, what you see is a situation where the municipalities themselves may no longer be relevant bodies as they are meant to be. What are we talking about? Are we talking about a government that's going to try and force a Greenstone again upon communities? Make it difficult for them to function in terms of their municipal responsibilities? If that's what they want to do, why don't they say so? That brings me back to the conversation that I had a couple of years ago with the Conservative -
Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): Tell me more about Greenstone.
Mr Gravelle: Greenstone is an interesting story, and if I had more time, I would tell you more about it. It is an extraordinary story. You have a restructuring commissioner come in and tell the area what they're going to do, have them resist it, have them go to court and have it thrown out of court because Justice O'Driscoll, I think it was - I hope I've got that right. Justice O'Driscoll basically says, "The reason I'm not going to allow this to happen is because clearly there is - " Do I need to be really careful here, folks? The reason that it needs to be thrown out is because ultimately the decision that was made by the commissioner is in line with the government's wishes.
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): It violated the Municipal Act.
Mr Gravelle: It violated the Municipal Act. It's quite extraordinary. Can you imagine that happening?
Mr Bartolucci: Big Brother.
Mr Gravelle: "Big Brother," I hear over to my left here. It's quite true. You've got a government that continually puts people in that position. There are so many other aspects of the legislation that give you great concern, and again give you a reason why public hearings are simply a good idea.
The government tries to spin the message that this is something that will be decided by the communities themselves. They will get to choose whether or not to have the area services boards. Of course, if they don't, they will have DSSABs, district social services administration boards, foisted upon them. This is an interesting battle, by the way. It's like between Bill 12 and Bill 152, kind of duelling legislation.
Mr Bartolucci: Between ministries.
Mr Gravelle: Between ministries - exactly - as to who is going to have control. For example, if one or two municipalities, or 11 municipalities, decide that they want to form an area services board that includes, say, the city of Thunder Bay, what would that mean? The legislation seems to imply that the majority of the municipalities can make the decision and things will simply happen. There are all kinds of implications.
Who decides local consensus? What is local consensus? I find that an interesting one. Apparently it will at this stage, at least as the act seems to read now, be determined by the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. He will decide whether local consensus is there or not. That is obviously one that we would like to have defined. Mind you, we apparently shouldn't be concerned because they will spell that out in the regulations, after the legislation is put forward.
Mr Conway: - losing it.
Mr Gravelle: Thank you very much, member for Renfrew North, for that helpful comment.
It will be decided in regulations. That's a concern. Why can't we define what local consensus is? Perhaps, with public hearings, we could do that. Well, we could do that with public hearings. Again, the offer is out there to the members of the government, to the minister, to the parliamentary assistants.
Mr Bartolucci: You know the third party will support government hearings.
Mr Gravelle: I'm sure the third party will support government hearings; I've no doubt about that. The fact is that these public hearings can make a huge difference in a bill that is going to have enormous implications on the municipalities in northern Ontario. For the government to not be able to cooperate in this manner is pretty darn strange, if indeed they want to be believed for a second that they are going to listen and that they can be trusted. Bring the hearings forward. Let's listen to them. This can be an improved piece of legislation; there's no question about it.
There are so many other implications in this legislation. They are confusing, but the reality of the area services board will ultimately be the opportunity to include the unorganized territories in northern Ontario and the opportunity to have them as part of the operation. The concerns that are expressed by some of the municipalities that are involved is that when the ASBs are put in place they actually won't have the power of the Municipal Act to make decisions. There is the possibility, obviously, that if certain people were not able or organizations did not want to make the payments that were required, there's nothing there in law to require the payment. So that's a concern to us. These things need to be spelled out. There's no question that there are loopholes and problems with all kinds of parts of this legislation that have everybody concerned.
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Mr Bartolucci: It's poorly drafted.
Mr Gravelle: It's extremely poorly drafted, but maybe it can be fixed. Municipalities are being forced to work with the government as a result of the downloading that has taken place, the fact that they're put in that position. We've got a recommendation essentially of a new upper tier of government. We've got a piece of legislation that has the municipalities truly scratching their heads, saying: "How is this really going to work? Here are some of the problems that we've identified."
What we're asking for in essence is some opportunity to fix it. It can be only fixed I think by allowing public hearings. I don't think that's an exceptional thing to be asking. It only makes sense that the minister should allow that to happen so we can go forward and listen to the concerns and listen to some of the changes.
I've spoken to my municipal leaders on many occasions. You have to be concerned too when you realize that even at a session like NOMA, the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, or FONOM, this legislation is not discussed in almost any way at all. I think there was one -
Mr Bartolucci: Presentation only.
Mr Gravelle: Presentation only. Certainly there was no real opportunity, no real sense of saying: "Listen, this is the legislation. It's not perfect. Let's have a few changes. Can you give us some ideas for some changes?" That opportunity wasn't presented.
We had a couple of ministers up there. We had the Minister of Northern Development and Mines up in Thunder Bay. I don't know if he was at FONOM but he was there in Thunder Bay for NOMA.
Mr Conway: What does Michael Power think of it all?
Mr Gravelle: We have to find out, the member for Renfrew North asks, and I will try and check that out. Michael Power, the mayor of Geraldton, has concerns as well about this, as he well should.
Mr Bartolucci: And FONOM.
Mr Gravelle: Exactly. FONOM's got concerns as well. It's very simple. There are real concerns with this piece of legislation. There is no question about it that it's a very flawed bill.
We are prepared to go forward, to be positive, to try and help you make it better. We are prepared to let things happen tonight. All we're asking is for the government to accept the fact that public hearings are the answer at this stage to improve this piece of legislation. I don't think it's too much to ask. I'm asking on behalf of the Thunder Bay District Municipal League and others.
Interjection.
Mr Gravelle: We want it speeded up; exactly. Let's give us a chance to do it. Let's have public hearings.
The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. Comments and questions?
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): I listened very attentively to the member for Port Arthur on the fact that Bill 12 is an old bill that was carried forward from the last session, Bill 174. Sure, they made a couple of additions to it, but it's a bill that is flawed and it's in line with Bill 26, the bully bill, that was brought in to amalgamate some of the areas of southern Ontario, and Bill 12 is another bill that eventually will amalgamate northern Ontario.
It's going to be devastating for some of the unorganized areas when you look at all of the services that these areas do not necessarily have to provide now that they're going to have to provide in this bill. Look at the property taxes. Where are the property taxes going to go? People who lived in these outlying areas weren't expected to cover the maintenance of airports, their own roads and bridges. In a lot of these areas services were covered by general taxation - OPP protection for these areas. All of these services were covered by general taxation because of such a low population in that area.
Last fall the government didn't think it was important to carry that bill over into this session. They let it drop and now they're saying they want Bill 12 by the end of June. Personally, I don't think it's that critical, because it's going to give extreme powers to the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Municipal Affairs when it comes to amalgamating.
In southern Ontario they say they want to eliminate government, they want to streamline, they want to have one government. In northern Ontario now they're going to go to regional government or county government in addition to the governments that they have. So I -
The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. Comments and questions.
Mr Spina: I'm amazed at the amount of drivel that is coming from these two opposition benches. It's interesting.
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): Poppycock.
Mr Spina: Yes, the member for Algoma did refer to it as that: poppycock.
Mr Wildman: No, I was referring to your comments.
Mr Spina: In any case, the member for Thunder Bay - Port Arthur, sorry.
Yes, we must distinguish between the two amalgamated municipalities. The member for Port Arthur said that maybe it could be fixed. If you look at the way bills are fixed by the Liberals, I can understand that this thing will probably be far worse.
The member for Cochrane North refers to this as a bully bill. Well, hello, folks. Welcome to the planet earth. You see, this bill is enabling legislation. It is not being imposed.
With respect to the issue of consultation, since this bill was originally introduced on December 15, 1997, there was a series of nine meetings to discuss the consolidated service delivery. About 550 northern community leaders attended these sessions. ASBs appeared to be the governance structure of choice at most of these sessions. Furthermore, 24 northern communities have written to the Minister of Northern Development in support of this particular bill.
Ladies and gentlemen, this bill is not something this government is creating because it's something that we wanted to do; it was in response to the request of the districts of northern Ontario. In fact, it is modelled after the models from Kenora, Rainy River and Timiskaming.
The reality is that this is enabling legislation. They can choose to adopt it or not.
Mr Bartolucci: I want to thank the member for Port Arthur for his very good presentation. I think he outlines for the people of Ontario what the biggest concern is for northerners about this legislation, and that is that they haven't been consulted. Regardless of what the member for Brampton North is saying, there hasn't been an opportunity for this bill to go on the road to get input from those people who are going to be directly affected by this legislation. If there's a weakness in this legislation, it's that.
The government will spin that the Liberals are trying to slow down the legislation. Let me tell you, I want the government to go all across northern Ontario and tell everybody in northern Ontario that the Liberals want input from northerners and that's the reason we want this to go to committee. I don't want to slow down the process; we want to make the process go quickly, we want the process to mean something, and finally and ultimately, we want the bill to have meaning to the north. As it's written right now there is not the northern input that's necessary to ensure that all the problems that we have in northern Ontario are being addressed by this bill.
I would say to the government members, and in particular the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, had they done their homework when they first implemented this bill before Christmas under the guise of 174 and not let it die on the order paper, then this bill could have gone to committee, we could have had the input, and then this particular piece of legislation may already have been enacted.
I would suggest to you and to the people of northern Ontario and to the people of Ontario that we northerners will stand up for the north. We northerners will say we want northern input on these types of bills. We're going to say northerners are important and we're tired of being the forgotten people of Ontario.
Mr Wildman: Contrary to the learned comments of the member for Brampton North, I don't consider the comments made by my friend from Port Arthur drivel - slightly better than that at least.
I would say that this is in fact, as the member said, an attempt by this government to present a Hobson's choice to the communities in northern Ontario: You either choose to form area services boards or, under Bill 152, district services boards under the Ministry of Community and Social Services, will be imposed upon the communities. If you don't like district services boards being imposed, then you have the choice of forming area services boards.
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The impression is presented that these area service boards will be designed by the communities themselves, but that ignores the fact that the proposal for the formation of an area services board will go to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. The Minister of Northern Development and Mines determines whether there's a consensus and then determines whether the area service board will be formed. He may decide not to. If he decides to form an area service board, there is no guarantee whatsoever in this legislation that the area service board will be formed in the way proposed by the local community. The discretion is completely in the hands of the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. Frankly, Leo Bernier used to see himself as an emperor of the north; this is an attempt to make Hodgson that.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Port Arthur has two minutes to respond.
Mr Gravelle: I certainly would like to thank the members for Cochrane North, Brampton North and Algoma for their comments, and particularly my colleague from Sudbury also for his strong support during my presentation itself. I thank them all very much.
Mr Wildman: Interjections are always out of order.
Mr Gravelle: Well, he was really helping me out a lot.
We must remember something: Absolutely none of this is necessary, were it not for the downloading, the process that took place a year and a half ago, the decision by this government to download the incredible amount of services on to the municipalities. That's really important to remember. The people of Ontario do remember that and will remember that. This piece of legislation only becomes necessary, if it is so, because of that reality.
It's significant that the member for Brampton North actually didn't respond to my call asking for public hearings. He didn't say no, interestingly enough, and I'll take that as a positive. He may have called it drivel; that's fair game - I appreciate the member for Algoma saying it was something above that. The fact is, he didn't say they won't have public hearings because I think he recognizes that this bill can be improved by public hearings.
It needs to be said too that ultimately all we are attempting to do by making this effort to move into that sphere, into public hearings, is to speed up the process. Unless this does happen, the process won't go forward, perhaps.
We want this bill to go forward, but it's got to go forward appropriately so that there are changes made that make this palatable, that make this something the municipalities can deal with. It isn't a great deal to ask. It's becoming more and more apparent, as again was noted earlier, that it's going to be either "my way or the highway." It's going to be Bill 152, DSSABs, or Bill 12, area service boards. Let's leave the municipalities in a position where they can make decisions that are going to be right. That can only happen if they get an opportunity to make improvements to this bill by going across the north in public hearings, something this government can do, should do and we once again call on them to do, because it will speed up the process enormously.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Len Wood: When I look at Bill 12, it's very similar to a number of other bills. At 7 o'clock at night when I was working in the paper mill, I used to get a call from the foreman or the head tradesman and he'd say: "We've got a crisis. We're going to have to work overtime. We're going to have to work probably into the night."
Here we are in the Legislature, when the Legislature normally, under any previous government, with the exception of just prior to Christmas or in June would work to clean up legislation - this government has decided that they're going to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights until 9:30 -
Mr Wildman: And call it a different day.
Mr Len Wood: - and call it a different day, try to get two days into one. As I said, having spent 20 years working as a millwright in the paper mill in Kapuskasing, when we used work at this time of night it was under a crisis basis, to get the paper machines up and running. That's the way I'm looking at not only Bill 12 but a number of other bills that are being debated.
I can go back to Bill 26, that forced amalgamation and created the megacity and eliminated the two-tier government in southern Ontario. Yet this particular bill, if it's passed the way it is, gives the minister the signing authority to do almost anything he wants with unorganized areas and municipalities in northern Ontario. It eventually could create a two-tier government, a county government or regional government as well as the municipalities. That would be a sad thing, if that does happen.
We look back at - I don't remember exactly what the number of the bill was, but it was a bill to eliminate members of provincial Parliament in northern Ontario. The federal government decided there were too many federal members in northern Ontario. They eliminated one. Then lo and behold, Mike Harris came along and said, "I'm going to eliminate five in northern Ontario." We're going to end up in the next Legislature with five less politicians.
If you look through Bill 12, it says that northern Ontario should be split up into three districts or three regions for all of northern Ontario as far as taxation is concerned and then split up into 10 districts - Algoma, Cochrane, Kenora, Manitoulin, Nipissing, Parry Sound, Rainy River, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Timiskaming - to form area service boards. We wonder if it's really necessary. We know it's being done because they want the area service boards to deliver workfare - some people call it social assistance but now it has turned into workfare - child care, public health, social housing, land ambulance services and homes for the aged. They're also leaving the options open that there can be additional services, and I want the listening public to know some of the services they're talking about.
"If required to do so by an order, a board shall provide or ensure the provision of one or more of the following services to the extent that a service delivery agency is required by law to provide them or ensure their provision:
"1. Services promoting economic development.
"2. Airport service.
"3. Land use planning under the Planning Act.
"4. Administrative functions and prosecutions...
"5. Waste management.
"6. Police services under the Police Services Act."
I want to talk briefly about just this last one alone because it is creating quite a concern. Some people in northeastern and northwestern Ontario have been told: "We're changing the rules. We know that previous governments said that if your municipality was less than 10,000 in population general taxes will pay for the OPP policing." Lo and behold, the Solicitor General decided that everybody should pay for it. People are going to be getting bills anywhere from $300, and it could go as high as $700 when you spread the cost of OPP policing throughout northern Ontario. That's tragic.
If you go one step further, they're saying that one of the other options is roads and bridges. Number 9 is "Any other service designated by the minister." They're leaving the door wide open to download and dump a lot of services that the provincial government was delivering in the past on to these unorganized areas and municipalities throughout northern Ontario.
We know they decided to increase taxes on everybody who owns a vehicle in northern Ontario. It's not written into this particular bill, but there was a tax grab. Anybody who owns a vehicle in northern Ontario is going to have to pay $37 into the treasury. They're taking money out of northern Ontario; that's only one example that I'm giving. At the same time, they wish to download services on to the districts in northern Ontario and drive up property taxes.
We know that some large municipalities in northern Ontario are having public meetings. I believe there's a public meeting taking place at the end of this week where the option will be put out. The mayor and town councillors are saying: "We want the public to make a decision on this. With all the downloading and dumping that has taken place by the Mike Harris government, now you have the choice: We increase taxes by 8% or we eliminate a lot of the services out there and lay off hundreds of people, and the services that you have been getting are not going to be there." It's sad.
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I know, for example, the main highway in Kapuskasing is the only road going through Kapuskasing from east to west - or west to east - to get to Thunder Bay if you're travelling in that area. The cost of 10 kilometres of this has been assigned to Kapuskasing. There's bridges and culverts and snow removal that has to be done on this. The town has appealed that decision but the government is saying: "No. As far as we're concerned, the town is going to have to look after this service." Yet there are probably 10,000 transports a day passing through that area on the way from Thunder Bay to Toronto and vice-versa.
Another example of downloading services: I talked to the reeve of Mattice, Paul Zorzetto, a couple of times. With the rebuilding of the Ontario Northland Railroad, there's a number of railroad crossings, six or eight, in Mattice-Val Côté where you need crossings to get on concession roads. Two of the crossings are paved. Now Ontario Northland wants to put in a new track so they can have the train going faster on a new mine that's opening up in Opasatika. They're going to put in new tracks from Opasatika to Hearst in order to be able to ship the raw product out for refining. It's a phosphate mine.
But lo and behold, after they've torn out these crossings, they're saying, "We're going to bill each municipality up to $6,000 to rebuild these crossings." Some of them are expensive because they're paved crossings. Why should a municipality have to absorb the capital costs of Ontario Northland rebuilding their lines? Talking to the people in Mattice, they're saying they don't expect there will be a single job created in that community as a result of the new mine that's opening up in Opasatika. Unless the government backs off on that decision, they're going to have to raise taxes in order to find the $50,000 they're going to need to maintain these crossings.
We know that Bill 12 is in different stages. They're saying they want to do the actual value assessment throughout northern Ontario but they don't have time and they won't have it completed until the year 2000, so there's going to be different models of taxation until the actual value assessment is completed right throughout northern Ontario.
There is a concern. Right now all municipal leaders are elected. Every three years they're up for election. In this particular legislation, it spells out very clearly that the first term of the area service boards, until the next election, are going to be appointed. Representatives from unorganized areas are to be appointed. The municipalities that have councils right now would appoint their own people to the areas as well.
There's an interesting part there: The names of proposed members from the unorganized areas will be included in the proposal to the minister; however, the minister decides on the appointments. You might appoint two or three or half a dozen people from different areas within Cochrane North - and there are a lot of unorganized areas there right now - and the minister might reject them all because of their political background or whatever and say that no, he's going to appoint his own people. But they want the names submitted.
Is the legislation heading in the right direction? I think this is going to mean extra cost for all of the residents of northern Ontario the minute you bring in legislation of this kind. The government says they need it. They've made a mess of various things over the last three years. They needed Bill 174, but then they didn't carry it over into this year. They dropped it. They brought forward Bill 12. They made a couple of amendments to sections 53 and 54, but not enough that it shouldn't go right across the province to get feedback from the different areas.
As I said during the two-minute comments on the comments from the member for Port Arthur, Bill 12, depending on which minister is in charge and what kind of authority he wants to reign over northern Ontario to be king of the north, could turn into a giant amalgamation bill, the same as Bill 26, with the dumping and downloading and the other megacity legislation they brought in.
They've asked municipalities to merge and amalgamate. I remember I was at one meeting when Minister Leach was in northwestern Ontario saying that the communities should amalgamate, or they could appoint somebody to bring in a recommendation and then he would have the final say on amalgamating. They tried this in the Geraldton-Longlac area and the two groups got together, the aboriginal group and Trans-Canada Pipeline, and challenged that decision in court and it was found to be, I understand, in violation of the Municipal Act. Now they have to hold further elections to undo the amalgamation that was basically forced by this present Conservative government.
There were a lot of meetings that took place in the Hearst, Mattice, Val Coté, Jogues and Coppell region and they were very close to an agreement. They submitted a proposal to the Minister of Municipal Affairs last fall and the minister dragged his feet. Then they started asking more questions and getting more information and finding out, "Whoa, this is going to be a costly affair." They spent close to $50,000 doing their study and they found out that taxes are going to double and sometimes triple. Because of the dumping and downloading, all the services that used to come out of general taxation before were now being downloaded on to them.
The decision was made, "We'll to wait to see what happens with the megacity." As a result of the concerns and all the publicity and media that was coming out of the megacity, the mayor and 57 councillors not being able to make very many decisions because of the large size and other dumping and downloading that had taken place on the Toronto megacity, Hearst, Mattice, Val Coté, Jogues and Coppell, all the unorganized areas, decided: "Whoa, we're going to back off on this. If the minister wants amalgamation he's going to have to appoint somebody and force amalgamation."
But it could have been worked out in a very voluntary, friendly manner had there been cooperation, or if the minister had sent somebody up there and said, "No, your taxes are not going to have to go up as a result of amalgamation." That didn't happen, so we're back to square one.
As the member for Algoma mentioned earlier, there's a catch-22 situation here. You have Bill 152, which sets up delivering welfare, I guess, or workfare and social assistance. If they don't catch you under Bill 152, now they've got Bill 12 which was brought forward - it used to be called Bill 174 - so the people in northern Ontario are going to be wrapped in under one or the other.
Public hearings - whether there can be any amendments that will make this bill make sense for most of the people in northern Ontario, I doubt it. From my experience on committee - I sat on a number of different committees with this government - they have a mindset. They say, "The legislation was written, it was drafted and it's going to be implemented." This is the route they have taken on almost every piece of legislation for which I've sat on committee. They've refused to listen to amendments; they have voted them down.
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There's no problem in having public hearings. If it turns into the Lands for Strife situation the Minister of Natural Resources has created in northern Ontario - we had a Minister of Education who said: "Well, I've got a problem. I've got to take $1 billion out of education. The education system is pretty good, so we've got to create a crisis in education in order to be able to take that money out." That's basically what happened. Now we've got the same minister who was moved over to the Ministry of Natural Resources.
Prior to him getting that appointment, Premier Harris and Chris Hodgson decided: "We have a plan here. We're going to complete Ontario's systems of parks and protected areas and we're going to throw thousands of people in northern Ontario out of work." The commentators and the people who are writing opinions are saying that there's been a crisis created. They don't call it Lands for Life; they call it Lands for Strife. The Minister of Natural Resources is here and he's laughing at that, but it's a situation that could happen with Bill 12.
I was at meetings in Smooth Rock Falls, Hearst, Constance Lake. In Constance Lake you've got a population of about 1,000 people, and they had over 800 people who showed up to get their comments on the record. In Smooth Rock Falls, pretty well everybody in the town showed up. People drove in from Cochrane, Hearst, all over the place. They're saying: "What is going on here? What is happening? Why are we creating a crisis like this within northern Ontario?"
Bumper stickers are coming out now. I was travelling down the 400 the other day and I saw a bumper sticker out there. Some of the people in southern Ontario's big cities are saying, "You're cutting too many trees and you're not doing a proper reforestation." I think a proper reforestation is being done. But they've got bumper stickers out there saying, "If you don't want the trees cut, try wiping yourself with plastic." These bumper stickers are coming up all over the place. I'm sure that somebody's probably going to put one on John Snobelen's bumper one of these days. That'll help to send the message out there.
But I'm pleased that I was able to make some comments on this particular bill because it is of concern to all of the people in northern Ontario. There has to be some change. Northern Ontario has to be recognized, not just taking our wealth out of northern Ontario and giving us nothing in return. This is what the feeling is not only with this bill, but a number of other bills that have been debated in this House over the last while.
Mr Jerry J. Ouellette (Oshawa): I find it a privilege to rise and speak on this bill. Inasmuch as I have an interest in MNR and Lands for Life issues, I will stick with Bill 12, the Northern Services Improvement Act.
I think it's necessary to bring out a couple of key points again. This is enabling legislation. That's what we are dealing with: giving enabling legislation.
One of the other things is that during my time in transportation, we met with a number of northern communities, as well as with the Ontario Good Roads Association. During that time, there was a lot of concern brought forward from communities in the north specifically about unorganized territories using the services of organized territories. It was a huge concern of theirs that these individuals in the unorganized areas were coming in and essentially using all those services without paying anything for them. What this legislation does is give those organized areas the ability to try and deal with that situation.
Mr Wildman: Get money from the unorganized.
Mr Ouellette: As the member for Algoma says, "Get money from the unorganized." The case is that services are being utilized in communities and not being paid for. How do they deal with that? It was a strong issue at that time. We are bringing legislation forward that will address that.
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): I'd like to applaud the speech tonight from the member for Cochrane North. I think he had it right on when he said this is basically just another bully bill. While the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Northern Development will say that this piece of legislation is discretionary in that the municipalities can choose whether they wish to invoke this law or not, the cause of all of this, of course, is the tremendous downloading that the Harris government has brought on to all our municipalities across Ontario.
This has hit our northern municipalities especially hard. Quite frankly, I think we should have, and never had, the opportunity to really debate whether all this amalgamating of municipalities and downloading was necessary. It's certainly necessary for the Harris government agenda, which is basically to eliminate most of the municipalities in this province, to bring them to something like about 50 so that in a potential next term of the Harris government - that's what they are hoping to get - they would be able to continue the downloading exercise to 50 to 60 municipalities in Ontario, thinking that there would be less resistance from the people of Ontario to downloading to a public sector entity such as a municipality rather than the private sector.
Of course, to continue that downloading, you're going to have to have municipalities of the size and with the expertise to have the ability to carry out all the functions that this government wants to download. I think that's what the agenda is, and they're starting here.
Basically what we're talking about here, this forcing of the area service boards, is really the first step in forcing all those area service boards to be regional governments some day across northern Ontario. That's what's coming, and it's against the will of the people of the north.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I just want to thank the member for Cochrane North for his usual very sobering and thoughtful presentation in this place. The member for Cochrane North, being from the small town of Kapuskasing, a very wonderful little community in northern Ontario, is one of the few people in this place - there are a number of us in the New Democratic Party caucus and a number in the Liberal caucus who actually live and work in northern Ontario, who understand the needs and the aspirations of northern Ontario, who live and feel first hand the devastating damage that this government has caused to the lives of almost everybody who calls northern Ontario home: the communities, the people, the families, people in their neighbourhood.
He knows that this piece of legislation, no matter how you package it and no matter how you present it, no matter what names you use, such as "enabling legislation," all boils down to one thing, and that's taking away: taking services away, taking opportunity away, taking money out of the north.
This is an attempt to have more people, more communities, contribute to the cost of services that were traditionally over the years paid for by the provincial, and I dare say federal governments in many instances, and that are now going to be squarely on the shoulders of ratepayers in all of the medium-sized - we don't have any really big communities in northern Ontario. We have some medium-sized and small and then very small communities in northern Ontario. They will all carry now the same cost of social services that a community like Toronto or Ottawa will and that the province previously used to pay for.
The member for Cochrane North knows of what he speaks, as I said before, because of the fact that he has spent so much time in his community listening to the people he serves.
Mr Spina: Having been born and raised in northern Ontario and lived there until I was 24 or 25 and still having my family and relatives up there, I hear the same arguments today that I heard 30 years ago when I was 22 or 23. I'm amazed that no provincial government, no federal government, no municipal government has ever been in a position to try to develop some sense of independence for the north and get it off the constant reliance on the provincial and federal governments for financial support.
This is an opportunity for them to get the self-reliance they've always wanted. Frankly, I take umbrage with the comment by the member for Sault Ste Marie in saying that this is a way of sucking money out of northern Ontario, as if it was coming to Queen's Park. That's not the case at all.
Mr Wildman: What about the downloading?
Mr Spina: They talk about downloading. This is restructuring of government, and this government is not in the game to put municipalities out of business. That's why we created the mitigating funds for particularly northern municipalities.
I'll close with a quote from the Sault Star: "Area service boards are an idea that has existed in some shape or form for a couple of decades. As the cost of doing government business soars and the population of many northern centres remains static or even declines, ASBs have been seen as a way to rationalize services over a larger, more sparsely populated area." End of quote, Sault Star, August -
The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. The member for Cochrane North has two minutes to respond.
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Mr Len Wood: I want to thank the member for Timiskaming and the member for Sault Ste Marie for the comments they made.
The member for Oshawa and the member for Brampton North have both reconfirmed what my suspicion was: that the Conservative government has decided that the people out there in these unorganized areas are living out there and they're not paying enough taxes -
Mr Martin: Freeloaders.
Mr Len Wood: They're freeloaders out there and they are using the services of the municipalities, so we're going to hit them real hard. We're going to drive their taxes right through the roof. This is the conclusion that I've come to in listening to the comments from the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Natural Resources and the comments from the member for Oshawa.
This is the fear that is out there, that the minority group is being dumped and downloaded all the services which usually come out of taxes at the provincial government level. Queen's Park looks after a lot of those services: plowing of some of the roads, the police services and libraries and one thing or another. Now all of this is being dumped on to them. It's a tax grab that Queen's Park is trying to take away from the unorganized areas and drive up their taxes so that they can give a tax break to the wealthiest people in this province at the same time as they're cutting all the operating budgets in the hospitals in northern Ontario. They're closing wings, closing floors. We're going to see schools closed in northern Ontario and southern Ontario.
It's a tax burden that they're putting on to these areas in northern Ontario, the unorganized areas, at the same time as they're giving the wealthy people in this province a break. As far as I'm concerned, it's Robin Hood in reverse. You're stealing from the poor to give to the rich. It's a continuation of what has been happening over the last three years, and I won't allow it to happen any more.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): As has been indicated by my colleagues, we certainly want this bill to go into committee. I wish to put on the record a great number of reasons as to why we want this bill to proceed into committee so that it can go throughout the north and we can listen to some of the concerns those organized municipalities have with this legislation, and concerns from the unorganized areas throughout northern Ontario as well.
I've certainly heard a good number of these concerns and, as has been indicated earlier, a good number of unanswered questions when it comes to Bill 12. We would certainly like to see it do a little travel, not travel here in Toronto but travel throughout northern Ontario. I think that's extremely important.
As we know, the bill was actually first introduced as Bill 174 on December 15, 1997. As the folks in the Legislature here know, it was tabled. We prorogued on December 18 and the bill went nowhere.
We were told that the PA to the Minister of Northern Development was to conduct extensive hearings, consultations, throughout northern Ontario on what at that time would have been Bill 174. In questioning the parliamentary assistant's staff, the member for Sudbury found out the other day that there were no consultations done during that period. There were no consultations done up until the time that we came back here; again something we're really very concerned about and quite a concrete reason why we would like to see this legislation go out to committee, to take the bill on the road.
Whenever I speak to a good number of municipal people in northern Ontario, people who have worked around government, many constituents, they often ask about the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. We very seldom see him up that way. Quite often a number of people see him as the phantom Minister of Northern Development. Even more recently we're getting more and more concerned that he's no longer acting on behalf of the northern residents.
As we know, he's become recently the Chair of Management Board. He's taken on those duties, and with those duties of course came the casinos. We've watched in the Legislature for the past couple of weeks how the minister's time is now taken up with what seems to be a scandal here around Queen's Park. We're again quite concerned about our advocate for the north, our Minister of Northern Development, and what he's doing in terms of representing our views as northerners at the cabinet table. As I indicated, he is now more interested in finding out who has his hand in the cookie jar when it comes to the issues around casinos. We're feeling really quite left out in terms of the north and what he is doing on behalf of us - another reason why I truly believe that we have to get this legislation out into a committee, a committee that will travel and listen to the real concerns of our northern constituents, because there are so many unanswered questions and so many concerns with this particular piece of legislation.
I indicated that we haven't seen the minister around northern Ontario for a good number of months. We haven't seen him, in terms of ministers of northern development from other governments who used to travel the north on a very regular basis. When I think of things that are happening in my riding, when I think of Sioux Lookout, the problem they had there with contaminated drinking water, you'd think the one person who would come to the table, to the forefront and help the citizens of Sioux Lookout and help me out with that problem, would have been the Minister of Northern Development. He was nowhere to be found on that issue.
When I think of the strike in Balmertown right now at Gold Corp, we have a strike that's heading into the second year, the longest strike in northern Ontario. We have people who've been out on that picket line for two years coming up June 15. It'll be the second year. Again I ask, where is the Minister of Northern Development and Mines in helping those folks out? They certainly want to know where this minister is.
When we think of the diabetic education program at Lake of the Woods District Hospital, another issue where it goes on funding on an annual basis, at the end of every year - a couple of months ago - the funding comes to an end and it puts the whole program in chaos - the employees wondering what's going to happen; the people who use the program, the patients, again in total chaos. I wonder where the Minister of Northern Development is on an issue like that, one of health care that I certainly have wrestled with.
I've brought a couple of issues to the floor of the House here, one being the lack of psychiatric services in northern Ontario. These are northern constituents. The Minister of Northern Development represents those people at the cabinet table, and I quite often wonder where he is in terms of those psychiatric patients we are locking up in jails rather than putting in beds in hospitals.
Lands for Life crisis is another very important issue, one that is close to the hearts of many northerners - as was indicated earlier in the House, the Lands for Strife issue. We have a minister now who created a crisis in education and we're really quite concerned about that crisis being created in terms of the Minister of Natural Resources. We're asking again, where is our representation in terms of the Minister of Northern Development?
Some $36.4 million was designated to help underserviced areas throughout the north attract medical professionals into the region. As has been indicated over and over in this House, none of that money has gone anywhere. Money that was announced back in 1996 has not gone into any areas. Again I have to ask, where is our Minister of Northern Development when it comes to that?
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Getting on with Bill 12 and what it's going to do, it's been indicated here that yes, municipalities are being asked to take on a lot more in terms of services to their constituents. We have a great amount of dumping that has gone on on behalf of this government.
The public health care issue is an issue that has just exploded in my riding, where it has pitted the public health services against all the municipalities. We have a public health unit getting into conflict with every single municipality throughout the entire region because the municipalities have now been told they must fund this service and they don't feel that it's their responsibility. As was indicated earlier, diseases don't remain in one area. Public health is certainly a provincial responsibility and has created with that downloading a great amount of strife between municipalities and the officials at the health unit.
We can talk about other downloading: the homes for the aged, again a provincial responsibility that has created a good amount of strife within the communities, dumped on to them; land ambulance, another service that has been dumped on to them. I was asked a number of weeks ago by a member here in the House what happens when that land ambulance has to go out into a provincial park, has to go out into an area outside of the boundary that was created for that particular service.
Police services: another one, where we're hearing up to $700 per household in terms of the dumping of police services. Social services, social housing, welfare administration, just a number of things that have been dumped on to the local government and a reason that we now have Bill 12 to follow up on the dumping of these services into the communities of northern Ontario.
We've often heard that phrase, and I hear it almost on a daily basis when I go back home: "What about revenue-neutral? Where are these funds that are going to leave us as communities in northern Ontario on a revenue-neutral basis?" - again a good number of questions that I'm sure would be brought forth to the committee, allow them to bring these questions forth and possibly make some suggestions as well so that the legislation can come back here to Queen's Park with amendments. I'm sure there would be a great number of amendments suggested and hopefully some of them would be followed up once people in northern Ontario were heard.
The chamber of commerce is an organization that I hear from in northwestern Ontario on a fairly regular basis. I go back to their need to actually sit down with this Premier and this cabinet. They've been doing that for 50 years in Ontario. This is the first government that has refused to sit down to listen to the chamber of commerce, for over 50 years a tradition in this House, for 50 years on an annual basis, and this government just does not want to listen, so again a reason why we have to see this bill go into committee so it can travel up to northern Ontario and listen to the various concerns about it.
I've indicated that we have a minister who seems to be out of touch with the region, but I have to indicate as well that we had both the Minister of Northern Development and Mines and the Minister of Municipal Affairs - even though the Minister of Municipal Affairs thought he was in North Bay, he was actually in Thunder Bay - there for the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association.
It was unbelievable what happened there. The two ministers, plus a number of parliamentary assistants, got up for about an hour and a half in what we in the north call a bearpit session where the ministers come in and listen to municipal representatives - mayors, reeves, councillors - and they have an exchange. Normally the exchange goes on for about two and a half hours and the mayors, reeves and councillors really look forward to these sessions because they're allowed to ask questions of the ministers and parliamentary assistants who are there.
Unfortunately, when they came to Thunder Bay, they took up most of the time. They took up about an hour and a half of the two-and-a-half-hour session telling the mayors and reeves all the great things the government was doing on their behalf - I tell you, not well received at all and a lot of very upset local politicians who had come to the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association to put their concerns forward. At the end of the hour the session was cut off. A good number of people still had a lot of questions and unfortunately it just did not work out - so again, not only this minister not listening but ministers wanting to come in, parliamentary assistants wanting to come in and dictate to the people of northern Ontario.
In terms of the dumping of provincial responsibilities on to the backs of municipalities, I'm still looking for one municipal leader - one reeve, mayor or councillor - in northern Ontario who has actually found out that this whole exercise is going to be revenue-neutral, because that's not what I'm hearing from them. The government likes to think that it's creating great headlines in northern Ontario, but all they have to do is take a look at the headlines created around the budget to find out that their massive dumping techniques and other things they've done to the constituents of northern Ontario are not creating great headlines.
Some municipalities are talking about tax increases of 25%, 50%, even some 100% increases in property taxes because of the massive dumping that I spoke about earlier. The finance critic from our party earlier on talked about the flawed property tax bill and the great concern and the great problems it was creating. I feel that if we get a committee that would look at all these things included in Bill 12 travelling throughout northern Ontario, there's a good possibility that they would hear these concerns and be aware of what is happening.
I've often heard that municipal politicians feel this may be a government that is afraid to come into northern Ontario to listen to concerns because they may get an earful. But I think that the folks throughout northern Ontario deserve the public hearings, deserve a place where they can bring their concerns in terms of Bill 12.
When we talk about area services boards and we take a look at the development of those and take a look at the legislation, we find out that it's an order of northern development and mines that will create these area services boards. There's been a lot of concern expressed about that as well. We have a minister who knows very little about what's happening up there, yet it's going to be an order of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines that will create these. As we've also indicated, they will only be considered for three years after the legislation is brought into effect, so again a good amount of concern that we possibly could have addressed earlier on if we had come back as the Legislature schedule suggests. We normally come back in the middle of March and we didn't get back here until somewhere around the end of April, so a good amount of time went by where I'm sure this legislation, among other bills, could have been taken care of during that time.
Again I go back to the fact of the minister, the cabinet, this government being out of touch, the Premier being out of touch with northerners, with the needs of northerners. That was so evident when the Premier decided to reintroduce the vehicle registration fee of $37 per vehicle in northern Ontario. I can tell you that the number of constituents who have come to me and said that this government, this Premier in particular and the Minister of Northern Development is out of touch is unbelievable. They don't realize the higher gasoline prices that we pay, the roads we put our vehicles over, the distances we travel to go from place to place. I think one of the biggest facts is that we depend on our vehicles in the north and we don't have public transportation.
I was speaking to a grade 10 class in Dryden not too long ago. They were talking about the fear of losing funding for their sports activities. Something this cabinet and this Premier don't seem to realize is that these people, when they're involved in sports activities and competitions, have to travel hundreds of kilometres to compete with other schools. I quite often see teams on the Metro transit here, when I go on the subway, moving from school to school, but for some reason this government has forgotten that. It certainly will be remembered in terms of the reintroduction of that $37 vehicle registration fee. That puts in the minds of many northerners just how out of touch with them this government is.
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Redistribution is another issue that has really hit northern Ontario, where we're going from 130 seats to 103 seats in the Legislature. Personally, that will create a riding, the Kenora-Rainy River riding, which I certainly hope to represent following the next election, that will be one third of the provincial land mass for one member out of 103.
We had a perfect opportunity there. This is where I say that this government is not listening. When the federal government did redistribution, they listened to the east coast, they listened to the eastern provinces, they listened to the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, and they realized there was a difference. Here, when the committee travelled, they didn't understand and they didn't realize that difference; the Premier did not realize that difference.
We had a perfect opportunity to create a riding that would have stretched across a portion of northern Ontario that might have brought a first nations representative to this Legislature. It was a unique situation, something we were in the midst of changing. If the Premier had slowed down just a bit and had thought about it, it would have been a great opportunity, not to give one member one third of the provincial land mass but it may have allowed for a northern representative from our first nations communities up north. This is something that shows that this government is bent on where they're going, without listening to the concerns of anyone. It goes back to Bill 12 and the need for that to be out there.
As I said, people are becoming frustrated. We hear it when we hear some of our constituents speaking of seceding to Manitoba. As I've often indicated, that would make my job a lot easier. Instead of spending six hours getting here by air, I would spend two hours driving to get to the Manitoba Legislature. I know that once they give that thought, even though we're being neglected in the north, even though it seems the government has forgotten about us up there - it's something that still is on the minds of many of my constituents.
In closing, I think it's very important to not only the municipal leaders throughout northern Ontario but the many constituents in northern Ontario who have a real concern about the agenda of this government, about where this government is going and the fact that we don't seem to have the representation we deserve in terms of our Minister of Northern Development. Those concerns can be brought to the table by putting Bill 12 on the road, into committee where it will go out to public hearings. Throughout northern Ontario it will be very important at that time.
The Acting Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr Wildman: I'd like to comment on the comments of my friend from Kenora. At one point he said this government was bent. I certainly agree with that. I think he went on to say something further to that.
He also said the government is out of touch with northern Ontario. There's no question about that. I suppose that's understandable in that most of the members of the assembly from all parties come from southern Ontario, which is only around 20% of the land mass of the province. They aren't familiar with the north. That's quite understandable. It isn't understandable that the Premier, who comes from North Bay, is out of touch with northern Ontario.
This is a government that appears to stand with its feet in North Bay looking towards southern Ontario, with its back to the rest of the north. Certainly there have been efforts on behalf of the government to attract government jobs and private sector development in North Bay. We've seen the announcement about Bombardier, the water bombers going to North Bay. We've seen the transfer of the Ontario Provincial Police's northeastern Ontario headquarters, the communications facility to North Bay. We've seen the transfer of the northeastern Ontario Ministry of Education offices from Sudbury to North Bay. We've seen a lot of things, that while the cuts have been going on in northern Ontario, devastating communities in northern Ontario, many of these jobs have been moved to North Bay. I suppose that's understandable as well.
But it does indicate that this government doesn't give diddly-squat about northern Ontario, and this piece of legislation is an indication both of the lack of understanding of the north and the needs of the north and the fact that this government doesn't give a damn.
Mr Spina: With respect to the member for Kenora, I only have one quote to offer: "Introduction of this legislation means our members can get down to some of the serious work that must be done to finalize their plans to implement local government realignments," said Neil MacOdrum, president of NOMA. "The government has been open to discussion. This legislation reflects various concerns that NOMA has expressed."
Mr Bartolucci: I'd like to thank the member for Kenora for outlining to the House exactly what the government is perceived as being in northern Ontario. You're perceived as being a government that doesn't care about northern Ontario. You're perceived as being a government that has written off the importance of northern Ontario. You're perceived to be a government that really wants to forget about the people of northern Ontario.
The perception in most people's eyes in northern Ontario is the reality, but you have an opportunity to change that. You have an opportunity to not take one quote and quote it in the House, but to go out. Let's take this on the road. Let's talk at the committee stage to the people of northern Ontario and then come back to the House at third reading and list off the quotes from all the people who have presented before you in northern Ontario.
If you really want to be a government open to the views of northerners, then do what you didn't do with this legislation: Take it on the road. It's got to go to committee. It has to be refined. There have to be amendments. You have to have input from the people of northern Ontario. That's not asking too much from a government that has the Premier a northerner and the Deputy Premier a northerner. I suggest to you that if these are the two most powerful people in this government, they would want to make sure this goes on the road, that this is brought to northerners, that this has northern input and that this reflects what northerners want. At this point in time, regardless of the one or two quotes the government can use, the reality is that the people of northern Ontario want this to be debated in committee.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments? The member for Kenora has two minutes to respond.
Interjection.
The Acting Speaker: The Chair reluctantly recognizes the member for Sault Ste Marie.
Mr Martin: I apologize. I didn't realize that my colleague from Algoma had already gone. I was getting my head around being the next speaker on this bill.
I want to commend the speaker who just laid out so well some of the reasons this bill is not at all a high priority for a whole lot of people in northern Ontario. Given the track record of the government so far, there are so many other things that concern us up there, that we have some direct and immediate issue with, that this bill will for all intents and purposes give the government the vehicle it needs to corral more people into the vehicle that they will use to collect more money to pay for the cost of services that will be downloaded on to so many very fragile communities in northern Ontario right now, that I don't think, given an opportunity to have a look at this, that they will at the end of the day be very excited about it.
I suggest that if this government really wanted to help northern Ontario, if it really wanted to help rural Ontario and some of the smaller communities and outlying communities in this province, it would take another look at some of the cuts it has made to programs that are the heart and soul of many of those communities, programs that provide the resources necessary to keep people in employment, keep people in good health, provide them with the kinds of supports they need for their families and themselves. This piece of legislation is just not going to do that. At the end of the day, we're all going to be losers.
2000
The Acting Speaker: The member for Kenora, you have two minutes to respond.
Mr Miclash: Mr Speaker, I'd like to thank you for allowing the member for Sault Ste Marie to wrap up with his two minutes' comment on what I had said earlier. I always look forward to his comments here in the Legislature. He brought forth a very interesting point, that being the cuts in programs that constituents throughout northern Ontario are facing on a regular basis. That is something we hear about on a daily basis. Whether it be at a hospital, at a school or in the community, we often hear about those cuts to the various programs which are hurting northerners.
As well, the member for Sudbury has indicated that we must take this legislation on the road and hear from the people it is going to affect most, those being our northern constituents, and the fact that we truly need northern input.
The member for Brampton North, a typical government member, was very shallow in his comments, what we get from this government all the time, from these government members, from this Premier, from this cabinet: true shallowness when it comes to the concerns of the folks from northern Ontario.
The member for Algoma talked about North Bay. When you think of a four-hour drive to North Bay compared to about a 24-hour drive that I would face to get home, this is certainly not the true north. I hope the committee, which I hope will take Bill 12 on the road, will get into that area because Ontario does not stop at North Bay. It's quite often hard to get that through the minds of the folks in this government, particularly the Premier and those folks in cabinet, another very good reason this legislation must go to committee and travel throughout the true north.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Martin: I appreciate the opportunity this evening to put a few thoughts on the record re this piece of legislation. However, as is often my wont in this place, I won't be speaking for my full 20 minutes directly to the piece of legislation, because I think others have expounded on it in a way that has been helpful re some of the finer points and details. I'm going to want to place it in some context so that people understand how it fits, or if it fits, or why it fits or perhaps even why the government is bringing it forward at this particular point in time.
I also want to speak perhaps even more directly to some of the things that have happened in northern Ontario over the last three years that I think will, if people are thoughtful about this, present a case for this piece of legislation actually at the end of the day really not being necessary.
We've heard over and over again from the government members who have spoken to this bill, and it's actually rather unfortunate that tonight, given the opportunity for three hours of debate in this place, they haven't seen fit to get up and put some further thoughts on the record.
Mr Wildman: That's not surprising. They don't have anybody who knows anything about the north.
Mr Martin: There are a lot of members across the way who, yes, probably don't know a whole lot about the north, but they seem to know a whole lot about everything else that affects us in this province at this point in time and seem so often so willing to get up and give us all a lecture, give us the benefit of their particular ideological bent on things. I'm surprised tonight, given that we have three hours, that they're not taking the opportunity to dialogue with us. The argument that was used when we changed the rules in this place to rush things through more quickly, to give the government more opportunity to get more of their agenda done, was in fact so that the backbenchers all around the House, and particularly on the government side, because that's where most of them are, would have a chance to get up and, in the diminished amount of time that we all have now, the 20 minutes which soon become 10 minutes, to put on the record their thoughts on some of this legislation that affects every one of us, and each one of the communities that we live in, so directly.
Here we are again. I've been here other evenings, as has the member for Algoma and the member from - is it Kenora-Rainy River or just Kenora?
Mr Miclash: Kenora-Rainy River.
Mr Martin: We spend a lot of time in preparation and in thoughtful study about these things to find that the members from the government side are not particularly keen or interested. I suspect that the reason they're not speaking to this bill and to other bills that come before us of an evening like this is that it's all part of their strategy to push this stuff through, get it done before anybody has a chance to really analyse it, see what it means, so that they can get on with this agenda.
This brings me to the point that I really want to make this evening, and that's the context within which this legislation is about to play out. That's a context of some very damaging, negative reduction in resource and service and opportunity to the communities and the people in northern Ontario.
This bill is not going to go any distance at all in resolving some of those very immediate and disturbing realities. It's enabling legislation, they say, but every time you turn around we have another example of where communities in various parts of this province have actually, under the present legislative structure, found it in their interest to sit down and talk about perhaps coming together and amalgamating and sharing services and finding the efficiencies that come with that. Over the years a number of communities have in fact done that for all the right reasons and taken the appropriate amounts of time to analyse the coming together, to put in place those structures and vehicles they will need to make sure that everybody at the end of the day is served well by that.
Why this legislation at this particular point in time is necessary, if it's not enabling, is beyond me. However, I suspect that it is in fact enabling, that it does in fact give the government new powers to attempt to suck out of northern Ontario ever more of the very scarce resources that are there now to try to mitigate in some way the very devastating and major impact on those communities of the decisions that have been made over the last three years.
Every time you take away a service or take a job out of a community in northern Ontario, you put northern Ontario in sort of a double jeopardy. You take that resource away; you take that income that's coming in, that is spent in the corner stores and the grocery stores and the clothing stores of the communities within which these folks work. You take that little bit of economic activity out of that community. But even more damaging is the fact that that person who has lost a job, who often contributes to the community in a way that is above and beyond what he does in his or her job, is then taken out of that community, because there are very few alternatives for people.
When you close down a school in the north, it's not just a matter of moving to a school down the road. Oftentimes it's a question of being bused a very long distance to another school. When somebody loses a job, it's not a question of just looking around and saying, "Okay, where am I going to get a job?" There just aren't that many jobs available for people in northern Ontario, particularly in the smaller communities of northern Ontario.
We're always under the threat of this what I call double jeopardy, and you've done that to us in spades over the last two and a half to three years. You've taken away services and then you've downloaded the cost of the remaining services on to the backs of those of us who are left who have employment, who have a way of paying the cost of living in those communities, in a way that creates tremendous stress, tremendous pressure.
2010
Now I suggest that with this piece of legislation that we have before us here today you're going to give yourselves the power to amalgamate communities in a way that will have more people who you figure have gotten away with not having to pay in any significant way for the services that we all enjoy in that part of northern Ontario, so that you will be able to cover at least some of the cost that you're walking away from. I have to tell you that at the end of the day I don't care how many communities you amalgamate, how many communities you put together or force to come together or force into a marriage, you're not going to find the kind of money to replace the money that you've taken out.
I use my own community as an example all the time because it's the one that I know best. As I've referred to earlier here tonight, it would behoove you on the government side to from time to time listen to those of us who actually work and live in northern Ontario today, who are experiencing first hand the difficulties that are now happening in the lives of individuals and families and communities, communities that we represent, because we have some very compelling stories to tell.
We walk the streets of our community. We go to the grocery stores on the weekends when we're home to do our shopping. We go to church on Sunday morning. We relate with, sit down and talk with, listen to, commiserate with all of those in our communities who have either lost a job, know somebody in their family or in their friendship circle who have lost a job, or who are themselves on the precipice of perhaps losing their job, who perhaps have been given a pink slip and don't know whether if in three or six months from now things don't change they may in fact lose their job as well.
Anybody in today's economy in Ontario and in Canada knows that we are in such a situation that if we lose our job, none of us is ever more than a paycheque or two away from finding ourselves in that very dire circumstance that will call upon us to have to go cap in hand to government for some assistance to carry us through that interim period until we get another job. As I said a few minutes ago, those opportunities are few and far between in northern Ontario, even fewer and farther between now since you've eliminated so many of the very good opportunities that were developed over the years.
We all have the potential at some point down the road to find ourselves in a circumstance where we are dependent on family and friends, dependent on the system. You've done such damage to the system, you've done such damage to even the image of the system by some of the things you've said, by some of the arguments you've made about people who are on assistance of various sorts, that it makes it doubly difficult for those who find themselves in that circumstance.
I have to tell you that it's not one of our finest moments in this province at this particular point in time. We don't live in a society any more in Ontario, primarily driven by the attitude of your government, primarily driven by the example that you set in the way that you treat people who are in difficulty, who are vulnerable, who are marginalized, who are in need of assistance - we find ourselves not being very caring or understanding or compassionate, all of the things that we have prided ourselves on over a long number of years and were evolving into being even more that way over the last 10 or 15 years.
In my own community, if you do the analysis of the impact - and it's interesting. We did have an expert, so to speak, in analysing what would happen to communities if the things that you had proposed to do three years ago were in fact to happen. He did that analysis. A fellow by the name of Atif Kubursi, Econometric Research Ltd, did a study for us in Sault Ste Marie, funded by the Algoma and district labour council and the United Steelworkers of America.
It's interesting. Back then he predicted that "The provincial expenditure cuts are estimated to result in a total income loss of $48.3 million" in 1996 prices in the Sault. "The sales volume that corresponds to this loss can exceed $67 million." That's $67 million out of the economy of a medium-sized community like Sault Ste Marie.
"Over 1,712 person years, full-time job equivalents, will likely be lost in the Sault as a result of these cuts in Ontario. The local tax base will shrink and local tax revenues will sustain a loss of $1.1 million. These are gross impacts as long as the announced tax cuts will have stimulative effects."
That means that as long as the announced tax cuts actually happen, and if some people who get the tax cut actually spend it - he's predicting somewhere between 50% and 75% expenditure, because we know from the analysis we've done that the people who will benefit most from the tax cut are those who make over $80,000 a year. They will probably take a lot of that and pay down debt, take a vacation, buy something big that probably isn't going to be sold to them in the community in which they live.
The impact on the community by a tax saving to that level of income earner is not as directly stimulative to a community like Sault Ste Marie or Kenora or Chapleau as making sure that people who have jobs who are in that middle-income range continue to have their jobs so that they spend that money in the community, or making sure that those who find themselves in a difficult circumstance because they don't have a job any more and who happen to rely on social assistance or unemployment insurance actually continue to get that money, because they spend it almost as soon as they get it. Money into the pockets of people on assistance very seldom stays there any more than, I would say, at most maybe half a day, until they can get to the bank and cash the cheque. That money is spent in the corner stores, in the grocery stores and the clothing stores of the communities in which they live. It becomes part of the economy. It circulates. It goes around.
We heard last night in this place all the things this government is doing to try and help small business. I have to tell you, what you've done in northern Ontario particularly has been really, truly directly damaging to small business. In my community alone, and Mr Kubursi is absolutely right, when you put together the $2 million that we estimate was lost to Sault Ste Marie with the reduction in the levels of income of the poorest among us who were on assistance back in the summer and fall of 1995 - we estimated it at about $2 million a month - that added up to about $24 million a year. The mathematics is easy: $24 million a year.
You add to that then the numbers of people you have knocked off the rolls and who you say are out there in jobs. I'm going to show you in a minute here, by way of the statistics in Sault Ste Marie and the unemployment rate now in our community - I would suggest that probably Thunder Bay is not much different, all of it almost directly related to the downsizing that has happened by way of the cuts by the provincial government. You add to the $2 million that we know came out simply by way of the 21.6% cut that you made to the income of the poorest among us in the community, the number of people you've knocked who don't have an income any more and who now have done a myriad of things - moved in with other people, gone back to abusive relationships, moved out of town and are now living on the streets of Toronto or wherever they found themselves landing once they stopped running from the very terrible effect of your attitude towards those who find themselves, unfortunately, at the mercy of the market and not being able to find a job - and you're talking probably $30 million in my community alone.
So you add that $30 million to the $67 million that is predicted by way of this study that has now come true in our community - I'll show you in a minute why I say that - and you begin to realize how difficult the situation is and what kind of problem is being faced by the municipal leaders, I suggest, in every community across northern Ontario right now. They're pulling their hair out. They don't know what to do.
2020
I'll tell you, with this piece of legislation that you're passing now, this enabling legislation that's going to allow more communities to gather together, in your view, to share the wealth, they will in fact be sharing the misery of the impact of your program. They will find it really, really hard.
The only community in northern Ontario that's not going to find it quite as hard was mentioned by my colleague from Algoma a few minutes ago, and that is North Bay. The Premier knows that his community is getting hit just as hard as any other community. There have been studies done in his community similar to the one that was done in Sault Ste Marie that indicate the very same thing, the very same impact.
Here's the study that was done on the public sector side, and I have another study in my hand here that was done re the private sector job situation in North Bay. They are going to be down 1,672 jobs in North Bay. But Mike, who is not a stupid politician, is doing everything in his power to make sure that his back end is shored up before he goes into the provincial election that we know is coming within the next year or so.
Every regional office in northeastern Ontario left standing after Mike Harris was done with the cuts in northern Ontario has been moved to North Bay, every last one of them: education, policing, natural resources, across the board. Not only that, but he did a deal with Bombardier a few months ago that saw the positioning of some 50 to 60 jobs for the next three years in North Bay that Thunder Bay and Sault Ste Marie bid on. Talk about a wild goose chase, being sent down a garden path, but that's what happened.
We debate a bill here today that really isn't going to go any distance at all to solving some of the very immediate and very difficult challenges that the people of northern Ontario face today. Unless this government is willing to turn around and look seriously at our part of northern Ontario, we're sunk.
The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired.
Questions and comments? The Chair recognizes the member for Kenora.
Mr Miclash: Before I comment on what the member for Sault Ste Marie had to say, I'd just like to comment on the question he asked me at the beginning of his remarks. He was asking whether I was from Kenora-Rainy River or Rainy River-Kenora, and I indicated to him it's actually Kenora-Rainy River but that's going to be after the next election. Right now, your leader is from Rainy River. I'm from Kenora. I just wanted to get that straight.
The member brings up a lot of very interesting comments when it comes to Bill 12 and the reasons we have to get it out to committee. He talks about the sharing of services among communities and amalgamation, which we've all been talking about over the last couple of years because of this government wanting to create fewer municipalities in Ontario. He brings up the question whether this is enabling legislation or not. I have to say that is a worry and a real concern among all of our community leaders as to where this legislation is actually going to take them.
He also touched on the removal of jobs from small-town northern Ontario. I can't agree with him more as to the devastation from the removal of a single job out of a ministry; maybe a senior bureaucrat moving from a place like Kenora down to Thunder Bay when the OPP relocated; many officials from the Ministry of Transportation just going without jobs, and the removal of those jobs in small-town northwestern Ontario. I believe this government has no concept of what that relocation does in terms of these jobs, the dollars that takes out of circulation and the effect that has not only on the family but on the entire community.
Again, there were a good number of points brought forward and some very good reasons why this bill must go to committee.
Mr Wildman: I want to compliment my friend from Sault Ste Marie on his thoughtful remarks. He refers to the context in which we're debating this Bill 12. He talks about all of the small or middle-sized communities in northern Ontario, but he particularly refers to Sault Ste Marie, for obvious reasons.
He talks about the studies that have been done that look at the effect of the removal of a significant amount of income to social assistance recipients. That works out to about $24 million a year out of the economy of Sault Ste Marie. When that is coupled with the cuts to the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Community and Social Services, and all the other provincial ministries, plus the cuts to the broader public sector - the cuts to the hospitals, the cuts to public health, the cuts to education - what that means for all of the jobs that are lost, and when you take the total amount of income lost to the community as a result of that, it's no wonder that Sault Ste Marie now is suffering an unemployment rate of double the provincial average: 20%. This is an unemployment rate in the range of those very serious and difficult unemployment rates that we've come to recognize occur in Atlantic Canada, in Newfoundland.
The fact is that the Ministry of Natural Resources, as one example, in Sault Ste Marie used to occupy one half of the Roberta Bondar building, four floors. Now they're down to two. Those jobs have been lost, the income has been lost, and the retail sector and the business community in Sault Ste Marie are suffering as a result.
Mr Bartolucci: I'd like to thank the member for Sault Ste Marie for informing the House about the dilemma that Sault Ste Marie is in because of this government's direction with regard to northern Ontario and northern Ontario fiscal policies and its direction with regard to employment and our economy. There are serious problems.
If you look at the downloading, which I guess is the reason we're here this evening discussing Bill 12, and you look at the per capita cost of downloading, there are some really surprising statistics. Manitoulin is hardest hit, at an average per capita cost of $869. Kenora is second in all of the province of Ontario, with a per capita cost of $694. Rainy River is third, with a per capita cost of $681. Certainly Timiskaming is number five, with a per capita cost of $671. The regional municipality of Sudbury is hit at a $540 cost per capita.
If you look at the per household cost of downloading, you'll see that Rainy River is first, with a per household cost of $1,502. Kenora is second, $1,486 per household. Timiskaming is third, $1,465 per household. The district of Sudbury is fourth, $1,353. Nipissing is fifth, with a cost of $1,264 per household. The region of Sudbury is $1,242.
Yet you ask, is it important for this legislation to get to committee? Is it important for this legislation to be commented on by the people of northern Ontario? How could anyone in this House, regardless of where you sit, whether you sit on the government side or on the opposition side, say it's not important? It is critical that we bring this to committee.
Mr Martin: I thank the members for Algoma and Kenora and Sudbury for taking the time to respond to my comments.
We heard this government a couple of weeks ago talk about how wonderfully well the economy is doing and predicting how wonderfully well it is going to continue to do. Anything north of Barrie we don't feel that impact. We're into big-time recession, probably in some communities bordering on depression. We've lost, by way of the property tax base, $1.1 million in Sault Ste Marie; in North Bay another $1.7 million. We add on top of that the cost now of the new services that municipalities are expected to deliver that the province has historically, over many years, seen fit in its wisdom to pay for that they will now have to pay for, and we begin to understand what this bill is all about.
2030
The member for Brampton North quoted from an editorial in the Sault Star. I quote from the Sault Star of May 5: "Sault Taxes Could Rise by 11% to 12%." Another edition of the paper says, "Sault Jobless Rate Hovers Near 20%." As a matter of fact, there was a meeting in Sault Ste Marie just last evening. The municipal government came together in an emergency meeting to consider the very devastating impact of all of the effects of what this government is doing and what it's causing to the industrial sector of our community and to try and come up with some answers.
But I have to tell you, we're all gathered around that table in Sault Ste Marie, as we were in the early 1990s when we struggled with Algoma Steel and St Mary's Paper and the ACR, and you know who's missing? You know who's not at the table? You know who's not there participating in the way that they should? The provincial government, sadly.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The Chair recognizes the member for Fort William.
Mrs McLeod: Mr Speaker, I have a confession to make: I can't tell you that I'm really enthusiastic about getting up to participate in the debate on Bill 12.
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): We don't want you to do something you don't like.
Mrs McLeod: No, I'm not going to sit down, I say to the member opposite, because I think that no matter how frustrated we get in debating in an almost futile fashion with a government that seems determined to bring in every conceivable dictatorial, bullying measure that they can possibly devise, a government that's only prepared to back off from its bullying if they get publicly embarrassed into doing so, we're not going to stop debating it. We're not going to lie down and let them roll over us with their bullying and dictatorial style.
Occasionally we're successful in being able to publicly embarrass them into backing off from rolling their steamroller through and ramming their legislation through. I think, if I can make a prediction, that we may see this government back off its intention to bring in significant increases in the spending to win the next election, because we may just have publicly embarrassed the government on that issue this afternoon.
But I'm very much afraid, as I get up to debate Bill 12 tonight, that we don't have a lot of hope that we are going to get enough members over there to care about what this does to northern Ontario to be prepared to even send this bill to committee so that northerners can have an opportunity to voice their concerns on this bill. I'm afraid there just aren't enough people there who care.
In fact, as you will have noticed, the members of the government aren't even continuing to participate in the debate this evening. They have nothing to say about a bill that stands in the name of a northern services improvement bill. Surely if this is about improving services in any part of this province, the government members would want to participate enthusiastically in the debate, much more enthusiastically than I feel about participation in a bill which, as my colleague from Port Arthur has said this evening, does absolutely nothing to improve the services in northern Ontario.
This bill takes us right back to the original bully bill of the Mike Harris government, Bill 26. It is one of many measures that we've had occasion to debate that flowed directly from Bill 26. I'm not going to take time in my brief 20 minutes tonight to go into the history of the hospital restructuring commission and the way in which the commission has imposed its will - not supposedly the will of the government since it's an independent arm's-length commission, but its will - on communities across this province by virtue of Bill 26, the bully bill.
But I do want to remind people that it was Bill 26 that set the stage for the ramming through of municipal restructuring. This was a bill that said, "Municipal restructuring can take place through a local consensus," but it didn't define a local consensus. It certainly made it possible for large municipalities to impose their will on smaller municipalities, and it certainly created the opportunity of the minister, the government to step in and impose their will on communities that could not come up with something that might be considered to be a local consensus on these very, very controversial and divisive issues.
We've got exactly the same thing in Bill 12. We have the power to impose a solution on northern Ontario communities. They have an opportunity. "Enabling legislation," the government says. It reminds me of the Minister of Education talking about the flexibility that he keeps giving to colleges and universities to raise tuition, to make up for the big cuts that they've made to colleges and universities, or the flexibility they've given to local school boards to decide how to make the cuts they've imposed on local school boards. This government is giving municipalities enabling legislation to come up with a local solution to fix the absolute mess that this government has created with its downloading plan.
Once again, Bill 26 revisited. There is conveniently no definition of what a local solution or local consensus on these very difficult issues of restructuring might be. If there can't be an agreement reached, yes indeed, the Minister of Northern Development can determine what the local consensus is and can impose that solution on the municipalities.
I don't consider that particularly enabling. I look at the minister's speech in introducing this bill and he talks about the fact that this is going to make it possible to find savings by reducing waste and duplication at the local level. This is his primary reason for advancing this as a Northern Services Improvement Act. But then he goes on to say: "Think of the possibilities. Instead of individual municipal bureaucracies delivering Ontario Works within an area, only one administrative structure would exist."
Prior to this government's deciding to download social services on to the municipalities, there was one administrative structure. It was called the provincial government. In what way do you make savings as a local northern Ontario municipality by having a new level of government, which will undoubtedly become a regional level of government? We don't have those in the north except for the Sudbury area. We're going to have new regional levels of government that are going to be created in order to deliver services which the provincial government used to deliver itself.
If this government were interested in administrative efficiency - more important, if they were interested even slightly in equity in the delivery of social services - maybe they would have kept the responsibility for delivering those social services themselves.
What this Bill 12 is all about, what the municipal restructuring is all about, is the way to deal with this government's downloading of services. My colleagues have said it, but it needs to be said again. The member for Sudbury again this evening has recognized the fact, with the ministry's own figures, that the downloading of social services on to municipalities has had a particularly devastating effect on northern Ontario municipalities. We are in the top 25% of municipalities that are hardest hit by the municipal downloading.
The government obviously believes that bigger is better, because the only way you can deliver these social services is if you have a large enough area with a large enough tax base that you can afford to pick up the costs that have just been downloaded on to the municipality.
I guess if you're a municipality trying to decide whether bigger is better when it comes to restructuring, you're going to have to try to figure out whether or not the new taxes you might get from your new larger area are actually greater than the new costs of delivering the services in that larger area. That's where the divisiveness, that's where the controversy is going to come in.
I know that larger communities in northern Ontario are not going to like this idea very much at all. They've got quite enough do with delivering these new downloaded services within their own municipality and managing their own tax base. They've not going to welcome the opportunity this government describes for them in having to pick up a significant share of the cost of delivering services in a vast geographic area that would be the amalgamated area.
Unorganized townships: I remember when the Minister of Northern Development was developing his early plans for municipal restructuring and came into my northern Ontario community and was asked about unorganized townships. He simply said, "We'll take care of that." I'm not sure he understood what an unorganized township was.
These are people who live in areas that don't have an organized municipal area. They pay land tax to the Ministry of Natural Resources so that they can have firefighting and they can have a dump maintained. That's basically it. They don't have the services that organized municipalities have and they haven't asked for those services, therefore they don't pay the taxes for them. The reason they don't have the services is because they live in areas too remote and they're too sparsely populated to expect to have the services that we have in more urban communities.
This government in its wisdom has decided that since it's dropping its responsibility for the delivery of services on to the municipalities, it will of course require that the municipalities deliver those services to everybody, no matter where they live, whether they want the services or not. So you've got to have enabling legislation to allow the municipalities that now have to provide the services to unorganized townships to collect some meagre amount of taxes so they can pay for the services. The problem is that there aren't enough people to pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the services to those unorganized townships. Nobody wins in this.
2040
I think of the farm family in Atikokan that lives in an organized area and has a small farm, a small parcel of land. It is subsistence farming; you're not making a lot of money on your farm in this area outside of Atikokan. They will be forced off their farm if they have to pay the taxes that would be seen to be their share of the taxes that will be required so they can have services delivered to them that they never asked to have delivered.
I know that the small municipalities are going to have to look, they're going to be forced into looking at some form of restructuring. The only option that's been given to them is to have the minister impose a district services board on them. That is totally unacceptable to northerners. The one thing northerners are going to tell you very strongly is that they'd rather have some measure of their own solution than some solution that's been dumped on them by Queen's Park. They certainly want to have some solution that allows them to have duly elected members rather than appointees, with government essentially controlling the appointment process. The alternative this government offers to their enabling provisions in the legislation are totally unacceptable to northerners.
Small municipalities are going to know they have no choice but to enter into some form of amalgamation in order to get the tax base they need to deliver the services this government now requires that they deliver. They have no choice. This is not enabling. This is a John Snobelen approach, as one of my colleagues said earlier, not a John Snobelen approach to the Lands for Life; this is a John Snobelen "create a crisis" and then a government solution to the crisis they created is somehow supposed to be welcome. That's what this is all about.
Just take ambulance service that the municipalities now have to provide. If there's no amalgamation, if there's no restructuring, if there's no form of regional government created, who the heck pays for the ambulance service? Do you pay for the ambulance service if it's a resident in your particular township or unorganized territory who's involved in illness or an accident and needs the ambulance service, or does each municipality pay for some portion of the ambulance when it crosses the township boundary line? If that's the plan, what do you do about tourists? Are tourists the responsibility of whatever township they happen to be in when they are ill or in an accident? You can't make it work. The downloading of services couldn't work. That's why it was delivered provincially before. It was appropriately delivered by the province.
The government has created an impossible situation and they enable the municipalities to solve the mess they have created by forming an amalgamated structure so that they have some reasonable hope of trying to deliver a service that the government demands they deliver.
Even though small municipalities may be forced into this and unorganized townships will not like it, because they won't like to pay the taxes they are going to have to pay for the services they didn't ask to have to pay for, and the bigger municipalities won't like it because they can't afford to pay the extra share of the costs, the smaller municipalities aren't going to like it even if they're forced into it. They're not going to like it because ultimately they're going to lose their independence as municipalities because that is where this particular train is going. It is going to a regional level of government where the identity of our small municipalities will inevitably be lost. I suspect that when all is said and done, they're not going to like the tax increases that the downloaded services will still mean even if they're being delivered from a larger jurisdiction.
This is divisive legislation. This is a divisive approach to providing services. It is going to be controversial and it is going to continue to be divisive. In that division, in that controversy, the Conservative government - the Minister of Northern Development will come in, Solomon-like, and impose solutions on communities that are not able to come to something he considers to be a local consensus.
This is not optional. There is no real choice here for northern municipalities. They have no choice about whether to amalgamate. They have no choice about the details. The legislation says that local services boards can continue and they can decide whether or not they want to take over the work that's done by local roads boards, except that the Ministry of Northern Development wants all local roads boards to be dissolved within two years. So if the local services boards don't pick up the routes of the local roads boards and the local roads boards are dissolved in two years, who's doing the roads that have been downloaded on to the municipalities? There are no options in this. This is part of the ministry's hands-on, "We are going to force restructuring" approach.
It is better to have an area services board with some accountability to the local residents than it is to have an appointed district services board imposed by Queen's Park. But it's not better than what we had before. It's not better than having reasonable northern support grants in place so that services can be provided in northern communities.
There have been several comments this evening about this being a consultative process. The member for Brampton North referred to the fact that there have been as many as 24 northern communities that have written in with support for a particular proposal around an area services board. The member from Sudbury indicated that at least three of those would have come from three communities within the same area to be amalgamated. So those are supportive, but they're supportive of quite different directions and different solutions. But even then, that's 24 of 187 northern Ontario communities. That doesn't indicate widespread, sweeping enthusiasm for this legislation.
There was not consultation, at least not by the definition that any one of us would give, consultation that means actually talking to people who are going to be affected by the legislation. I know there was not that kind of consultation on the original proposals that came in last December, because our area reeves and our area clerks were scrambling to understand the legalese that was in those original proposals and figure out exactly what was about to be imposed on them.
I know for a fact that this new legislation, this revised, improved legislation, was introduced the day before the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association was meeting, and nobody at that meeting knew the legislation was being brought in or what that legislation contained. That is hardly a process of consultation with the people who are going to be affected by the legislation. The only thing that can be said about this bill is that it's a better way to deal with a mess the government has created than a way that would be imposed by government.
I have a certain built-in bias in favour of taking the time for real local consensus. Contrary to the remarks from the member for Brampton North, who seemed to imply that no government had ever attempted to deal with these kinds of amalgamation issues in northern Ontario before, I come from a community that was part of a forced marriage imposed by Mr Darcy McKeough of a previous Conservative government. I happen to think that particular marriage was in the best long-term interests of our community. I didn't disagree with the direction at the time. I thought it made, dare I say, common sense and I still think it is the best working arrangement for my community of Thunder Bay.
But I can tell you that 28 years later there are still people who resist the idea of having been forced into a marriage which they did not agree to and give their consent to. I happen to think we would have come to the same conclusion that Mr McKeough came to: that it made sense for our communities to amalgamate. I think it would have been a lot better for us if we'd had a chance to come to that conclusion on our own. But the only way this government knows how to do things is to force them on people, to say, "We know best" - just as Darcy McKeough knew best 28 years ago - "we know best what is right for you."
I have a special word in my last couple of minutes for the member for Brampton North, who suggested earlier this evening not only that they know best what northern Ontario should be doing but that this legislation is the way in which northern Ontario will be freed of its dependency on provincial and federal governments. As a resident of northern Ontario, I am offended by that. I can tell the member for Brampton North that we know what works for northern Ontario. I will tell you too that we pay our way.
My colleagues have spoken about movements to independence in northern Ontario. Those movements are fuelled by the belief that for aeons northern Ontario has poured resource money into southern Ontario without getting back its fair share. I'm not going to make that argument tonight, but I believe absolutely that we pay our way in this province and that we contribute in meaningful ways and are not dependent upon the largess of provincial or federal governments any more than Brampton North is. We take pride as northerners in what we contribute to this province. We know what we can do to have economic growth and economic development in our communities.
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I happen to be proud of the fact that I come from a community a thousand miles away from Toronto that manufactures subway cars. Not only do we have some of the largest industries in this province in our forest industries, not only do we produce the minerals that are a large part of our wealth, but we produce subway cars. We are internationally competitive in the production and manufacture of subway cars, because we know that we can make that work from our northern Ontario community.
One of the best things that was ever done for northern Ontario was to put in place something called the northern heritage fund, because a former Premier who happened to be the Premier of a Liberal government said, "The solutions for northern Ontario challenges must come from northerners." We have taken that incentive and that belief and we in northern Ontario are making that work. The only thing that gets in our way is the pessimism of a government that really doesn't care what happens in northern Ontario.
It was suggested earlier that there is nobody over there who really understands the north, not even the Premier who seems to be silent even on issues like the motor vehicle registration taxes; certainly not the Deputy Premier who, when he was in opposition as the member for Parry Sound, was very keen to have Parry Sound as a northern community, but that was because we got grants. Now he's cancelled the grants and I don't suppose he's quite as enthusiastic about being a northerner.
We need people to listen to the concerns of northerners and that is why this bill must go out for consultation and hear the concerns of northerners themselves.
Mr Wildman: I'd like to congratulate the member for Fort William on her remarks. I was particularly taken by her comments about the role of the north historically and economically in this province. I think it's important for us to recognize that the wealth of southern Ontario, the wealth of this metropolis in which we are right now, is in fact built on the tremendous resource wealth that has been extracted over the years in northern Ontario. The mines of northern Ontario, the forest industries in northern Ontario, all of those resources have produced the wealth that is enjoyed in southern Ontario. In fact, in the forest industry, for every job in northern Ontario there are about four or five jobs in southern Ontario.
We make no apologies in northern Ontario for the fact that, because of our sparse population and the great distances, in terms of government and public services we've needed assistance in the past, because frankly the government that is providing that assistance has gained tremendous revenues directly from the resource industries in northern Ontario and the spinoff manufacturing industries that use those resources that may be located in the north or in southern Ontario.
For someone to stand in this House and say, "It's time for northern Ontario to stand on its own two feet, it's time for northern Ontario to not be dependent on the south any more," is to ignore the fact that the south is dependent on the north and our resources and always has been.
Mr Gilchrist: It's been my pleasure over the last three years to visit the north on many occasions and in fact just last fall, as part of our ministry's outreach to ensure municipalities had all the facts at their disposal for the municipal transfer of services and the so-called Who Does What exercise, I had the opportunity to talk to municipal leaders all throughout the north about what they thought of the importance of having area service boards, of the importance of letting the north find new efficiencies in government, find new ways of delivering services, find new ways of freeing themselves from the yoke at Queen's Park, making sure that the decisions that are made in the north are done by northerners to the extent it's financially possible.
I'm very intrigued here today to hear from the former leader of the Liberal Party, the one who took them through that oh, so successful, 1995 campaign. I've looked with great interest through their campaign document. For someone who stood here today and railed with indignation at how we aren't sensitive to the north and how we don't understand the north and how this bill doesn't give northerners more tools to be the masters of their own destiny, there's precisely one mention of northern Ontario in their entire book. And what does she propose to give them? Phone-in health care.
That's what she thought for her neighbours, that's what she thought for the other members in her caucus who were running in northern Ontario, not to restore the northern heritage fund that had been beggared by the NDP, not to make new investments in roads, not to make new investments in industry and tourism, and outreach; instead, their idea was to do more of the same old thing that had left this province in despair after 10 years of mismanagement. We've acted. We've had the courage to reflect on what the people in the north have asked for for decades. They're going to have area service boards to allow them to put a local face on municipal restructuring.
Mr Gravelle: I want to compliment the member for Fort William for her, as usual, well-crafted speech and passionate defence of the north, an attempt to explain to the government members what are the realities. For the member for Scarborough East, I think we should probably give him more of an opportunity to speak more often because every time he speaks, northerners get more and more upset, but I'll allow the member for Fort William to respond to that.
I want to relate to one point that the member for Fort William talked about, which was that the first reading of this legislation was brought forward the day before the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association met, literally dropped very suddenly on the Thursday, and indeed the members had no opportunity - the member for Kingston and The Islands was there. He knows that the members at NOMA had no opportunity to really look at it. They had no idea. I managed to bring a copy with me and showed it to some of them. The Minister of Northern Development and Mines was at the bearpit session and he made some reference to it.
What's interesting is that I have a letter here from Dr David Williams, the medical officer of health for the Thunder Bay District Health Unit and he responded to some great concerns very specifically related to public health and I'll try and read some of the remarks he had:
"Public health already has area-wide boards of health which were identified as the model for the proposed DSSABs. Most northern sectors are seeking to increase the number of ASBs above the projected DSSAB number for the north. This could have the potential of dissecting up the current boards of health into less efficient sub-units. Input from ALPHA" - the Association of Local Public Health Associations - "the OMA and the Ministry of Health would not endorse such a direction. I have attached an official ALPHA position" - with concerns.
"Further concern would be raised on the matter of funding services to the unorganized territories, including first nation reserves and citizens who move back and forth from their reserves and who are citizens of the province and in need of health protection and preventative services. The current unorganized territory grant, while being inadequate, is in place only until the end of March 1999. Is the area services board concept meant to eliminate this grant, thus placing a greater tax burden on citizens of the north?"
I think that's a concern we should all have and Dr Williams has expressed that concern.
Mr Martin: I also want to commend the member for Fort William for a speech well delivered, in keeping with speeches that have been delivered here tonight by members from both opposition parties from northern Ontario. I think on this piece of legislation we speak with one voice. We're unified in our disturbance at what's happening in northern Ontario and how this will not in any way seriously go any distance to alleviating some of the problems we face.
I even say that the member for Brampton North is probably very sincere and genuine in his attempt to give the north something that it can use to try and mitigate some of the very damaging impact of decisions by this government to download, to take services away and to remove jobs and not participate in any serious and significant way in any economic or industrial stimulus of northern Ontario.
That's why he is so supportive of this piece of legislation. He knows because he has lived in Sault Ste Marie of the damage that has been done to many of the communities, of the very difficult times many of the communities in the north are facing, including the Sault, and that we do need some help. He, I think, genuinely believes this bill will do that. I say to him in all sincerity that it won't. It won't do what he anticipates.
From time to time in this House we hear of this government and all that it's doing. They hold up the northern Ontario heritage board as an example of how they're doing something for the north. In fact the Liberals and ourselves spent on average $30 million a year out of that fund when we were in government to help northern Ontario. I will be surprised if this government in its three years has spent a sum total of $40 million - over three years, $40 million. Either the Liberals or ourselves would have spent at least $90 million trying to help the north. They haven't.
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Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the comments of my colleagues. I would just say to the member for Scarborough East, who suggests that the bill in the context of the government's downloading of services somehow will enable northerners to find new, creative ways of delivering services, that that's not what this does at all. This bill and the government downloading services provide us with the opportunity, in fact the requirement, to provide new services and gives us the privilege of paying for those services. I suggest to the members opposite that this is a government that has a very profound belief that northern Ontario communities are dying anyway and that they might as well help us along by cutting us on the one hand, neglecting us on the other, and dumping the cost of new services on us with a third hand somehow.
This government has done absolutely nothing to ensure that our communities can stay alive by having the services we most need, like access to health care: $36.4 million which was supposed to be directed towards underserviced area medical programs, and we've not seen a single cent of that plan because this government doesn't know how to deal with underserviced area programs in northern Ontario and won't respond to any of the proposals that have come from northerners themselves.
This is a government that won't address the issue of northern health travel grants, and that's why I had a constituent who spent $10,000 of his retirement money to get the health care services he needed.
This is a government that has consistently taken away what other governments put in place: the northern relocation program, which has now been reduced through downsizing to primarily empty buildings in northern Ontario communities. The family support office is closed; the court administration office is closed; the Ministry of the Environment labs closed; the OPP garage in Thunder Bay closed - none of it with any efficiencies. That actually costs money, but the easiest thing to do is to cut northern Ontario services because they're not in sight and that makes them easy to cut.
The New Democratic Party doesn't seem to feel there's much hope to have this bill out to committee so that our concerns can be heard, but we've got to try.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Wildman: I want to intervene in this debate on Bill 12 to try to put the whole issue in some context and to deal specifically with the issue.
The member for Scarborough East seems to be under the impression that northerners, for 20 years, I think he said, have been demanding area service boards. I don't know about my other colleagues from northern Ontario, but I have been living in the north and working in the north and serving the people of the north as a representative for about that same length of time, and until this government decided to deal with their proposal for district service boards, I never heard a great demand for area service boards anywhere in northern Ontario. So how the member for Scarborough East got the impression that this is something northerners have been pressing for for two decades is beyond me. I don't understand it.
Let's understand the history of this. This government decided that it wanted to downsize government, that it wanted to cut costs of government. One of the ways the government decided to do that was to transfer a lot of the costs and the services to the municipal level of government - to download it.
The government brought in Bill 26, which was going to force a restructuring of government services right across the province. It didn't have anything to do with determining what the local governments wanted or what they perceived to be their needs. It was simply a decision by this government at Queen's Park, centrally, by a small cabal of people working in the Premier's office, to say: "One of the ways the provincial government can save money and not have as many costs is to download it to the municipal level, and we're going to force it through. We're going to use" - what many people described as dictatorial legislation - "and we're going to force it through without any real debate or discussion." It led to a tremendous reaction in the public and in this assembly which finally forced the government to at least hold some hearings.
As part of that downloading exercise and the commitment to punitive action against those who receive social assistance in the province, the government came forward, with the Minister of Community and Social Services, with a proposal for district service boards.
Interjection.
Mr Wildman: What they're talking about is deferring the vote.
The district service boards were proposed by the Minister of Community and Social Services. These were not voluntary boards. These were not boards that could be designed by the communities themselves. These were not boards that were there as an option. This was something that was going to be imposed on the municipalities through Bill 152. This would facilitate the workfare program. It would force the workfare program on to communities that had no real interest in getting involved in forced labour.
When there was a reaction against that in northern Ontario and other parts of the province, the Minister of Northern Development and Mines decided that he had to come up with some option that would try to mitigate the angry reaction against the district service boards in northern Ontario. The Minister of Northern Development and Mines said to the municipal leaders in northern Ontario: "Look, whether you like it or not, this government is going to download all sorts of services on your municipalities and the local ratepayers are going to have to foot the bill. The question is, are you going to do that individually and have district service boards imposed on you, or are the municipalities going to try to come up with some efficiencies by amalgamating to provide the services? You can do this voluntarily, and we will bring forward a bill" - that was Bill 174, which would allow for area services board to be formed "voluntarily."
This was really a Hobson's choice for the municipal leaders. Keep in mind that these municipal leaders have no desire to have the downloading. They are opposed to it. They don't see how these services can be provided or how the local ratepayers can pay for them. They've been told: "That's coming anyway. You don't have any choice. We're going to impose district service boards on you unless you voluntarily agree to form area services boards that will provide for these services."
As I said, the minister brought forward Bill 174 during the last session, but it was obvious that Bill 174 was not nearly as high a priority for this government as Bill 152. In other words, area service boards weren't as important as a voluntary option as were the district service boards which were going to be imposed by the government. This is a government that likes to impose. They enjoy that, they understand it. It's a power thing. They don't quite understand the same approach in terms of consultation, discussion and voluntary agreement. It takes too long. We have an impatient government.
They weren't that impatient that they moved forward on this, because for some reason the government didn't call Bill 174 for debate before the Christmas break, despite the fact that the bill said within it the municipalities would have to voluntary join together and discuss and come forward with proposals by March 31, 1998. For some reason, the bill was never passed. It died on the order paper.
Now we have this bill before us. It's all about downloading. One of the other members mentioned earlier - I'll use the Manitoulin figures as an example.
The cost of downloading eight provincial services to Ontario municipalities is higher on Manitoulin Island than anywhere else in the province. Some 64 Ontario municipalities, districts, counties and cities were studied by KPMG to determine the per capita and per household cost of downloading public health, septic inspections, social assistance, social housing, child care, policing, ambulance and property assessment while taking into account the money the municipal governments will derive from their acquisition of provincial offence fines. Those figures showed that it would cost every non-native, year-round Manitoulin resident - man, woman and child - a whopping $869 to pay for those services over and above what they are currently paying in municipal taxes. That's $175 more per person than the next most expensive community, which is Kenora, and $634 more than southern Ontario as a region.
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When you look at the household costs, including cottages, being factored in, Manitoulin Island fares somewhat better. The island resident households are only 12th of the 64 areas studied. However, the per household cost is still a staggering $1,130. The per household costs range in Ontario from $1,502 in Rainy River to a low of $273 in Frontenac. Frontenac also has the lowest per capita cost of $131.
It is true that there will be the community reinvestment fund and the special circumstances grants to assist in the transition, but those are only in place for a short period of time. By the time we're into the new millennium, these grants will be terminated and the municipalities and local ratepayers will be stuck with these costs.
What is this about? The provincial government is forcing amalgamation on the municipalities of northern Ontario, and frankly most of the other parts of rural southern Ontario, through the back door by simply saying: "No, no, you don't have to amalgamate, but we're giving you such onerous costs and responsibilities because of the downloading that the only reasonable thing for you to do is to join together to try and get some efficiency and lower the costs somewhat."
As a northerner, I'm representing a very large area of our province. I'm particularly concerned about this government's attitude towards the residents of unorganized territories, those townships without municipal organization. We talked about the possibility of voluntary forming of ASBs. Well, nobody has yet figured out how the residents of unorganized communities are going to have any say in this process. Arbitrarily, one representative has been appointed in Algoma district to represent the unorganized townships - all the residents of an area which is over 70,000 square kilometres in size. No one individual from one unorganized community will have any possible way of knowing what all the residents of all the unorganized communities across Algoma district really think.
Mr Gilchrist: You're suggesting that you do?
Mr Wildman: Frankly, I travel that area. This individual does not. I happen to know her. She has no money. It's voluntary. She has no way of travelling. There's no cost paid for this. The government hasn't provided any assistance in terms of covering any costs this individual might have in terms of travel, telephone, mail, anything. It's all voluntary.
These unorganized communities, as some members will know, have in the past formed quasi-municipal organizations for specific services. They have local roads boards to provide for roads. They have local service boards to provide for things like garbage collection or dumps, recreation programs - some of them have street lighting; very few - and fire protection. But nowhere in the legislation that covers local services boards are these boards given a mandate to do anything with regard to area service boards. They aren't municipal structures. The individuals who serve on the local service boards are not municipal councillors. They do not have any mandate to speak on behalf of the residents of their communities on any matter related to area service boards, and they know it. Even the individual who has been appointed in Algoma district to represent the unorganized communities in the discussions with the municipalities about forming an area service board does not have any mandate to speak on behalf of the people who live in those areas.
Then, after the proposal was brought forward in Algoma district for three options - one was to have one area service board for all of Algoma district, one was to have one that would include Manitoulin as well as Algoma district, and another was to have a separate one for the city of Sault Ste Marie - all the municipalities in Algoma district were asked to vote on this. So their councillors could indeed discuss it and vote on it, and they did. But the area service board for the unorganized - how are they going to vote on it?
A letter was sent to all the local service boards and local roads boards that said, "Would you please discuss this and have a vote, to determine whether or not you agree with one or the other of the three options for Algoma district?" I had a number of calls from members of local service boards or local road boards that said: "What is this about? We don't know anything about this." Of course they had had one representative on the group that discussed this but, as I said, she had no way of travelling around or finding out what anybody thought in the unorganized communities.
Then I had a number of local service boards say: "We've looked at the act, and according to the act we don't have any right to make comments on this kind of thing. Under our terms of reference, we're allowed to deal with things like fire protection, garbage collection and recreation, not anything with regard to organizing area service boards."
The fact is, we have a provincial government that knows nothing about northern Ontario and knows even less than that about unorganized communities. This legislation does not in any way respond to the needs of people who live in unorganized communities, and all it's designed to do is to impose on them an organization that will give services that most of them will not benefit from.
The only other thing it's designed to do is to make sure these people who live in unorganized communities and have almost no services now are going to have to pay a lot of money in increased taxes. That's what it's about. It's about ensuring the people who live in Poplar Dale or in Dunns Valley or Searchmont or Waboose or Hawk Junction or Missanabie will have to pay a lot of money for services they will not get, because the services they do get and will continue to get they're already paying for through their local service boards and their local roads boards.
They have roads. They maintain them, they plow them, they grade them. They provide recreation programs, they deal with waste management and they deal with fire protection. But they're not going to get anything out of these proposals to download policing. Well, they may see a cop once in a while. They're certainly not going to get social housing. There's not going to be any senior citizens' housing in Missanabie as a result of this. Land ambulance - well, in some cases they might get an ambulance when they need an ambulance. But if you live in Missanabie, 70 miles from Wawa, and you need an ambulance, you'd better have some other access to nursing care in the local community because you won't survive long enough to make it to Wawa's hospital.
What else are they supposedly going to get out of this? Not much, and they don't know much about it because there's been no money provided to assist the representatives of the unorganized to get around and explain what was going on and find out what people thought. There's been no personnel from the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines who knew anything about this, who could answer any questions and educate people. What this is about is dumping services and responsibilities on local communities in the unorganized areas, on volunteers, and about making them pay for services they're not going to get and over which they have no say.
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This is supposedly voluntary. It's supposed to give northerners greater voice. It's forcing municipalities into something they don't want, because they have no choice. It's forcing the residents of unorganized communities under an umbrella that won't in any way protect them and provide them with the kind of security this government would like them to have.
I started out by saying the member for Scarborough North, who is so knowledgeable about all things and particularly all things northern, said that -
Mr Gerretsen: Scarborough East.
Mr Wildman: Scarborough East. He's so knowledgeable. He said that for two decades the people of northern Ontario have been demanding area service boards. He has been saying they've been wanting this. In fact, nobody in northern Ontario asked for area service boards until they found out that this government was going to impose district service boards on them in terms of community and social services and workfare. Certainly nobody in the unorganized communities demanded this.
It was only because of the downloading that is going to add so many costs to the people of Manitoulin and everywhere else in northern Ontario, the downloading of policing, land ambulance, social services, social housing, all of these things, that the municipal leaders said, "Maybe we should get involved; maybe we should look at an area services board to see if we can save some money." It wasn't voluntary, it wasn't something they wanted. It's something that is being forced on them, and it's certainly not going to serve their best interests and the ratepayers in the municipalities and it's not going to do anything for the unorganized communities.
The Acting Speaker: Comments and questions? The Chair recognizes the member for Brampton North.
Mr Spina: There are a number of issues the member for Algoma brought forward, none of which are new to me certainly, who was involved in the bulk of these discussions across the north with, as I said, somewhere in between 500 and 600 people over the period of at least a year and a half. I suppose if the Liberals had their way, they'd want to order a $5-million royal commission on this issue.
Just to address a point the member for Algoma brought forward that I thought was a good and interesting concern, and that's the role of the local services board he spoke of, this bill expands the administrative powers of the LSB to recognize them as the sole authority for the local services under the authorization of the area services board. This could reduce the number of single-purpose bodies, reduce some of the volunteer burnout that's hurting some of these unincorporated areas.
With respect to the comment you made, sir, that people in Missanabie could be paying for services that they will not receive, the board has within its powers the authority to only charge for the services that people will receive. Pure, clean and simple: You get the service; you pay your fair share for it. That's the way the area service board model is structured.
Mr Conway: I want to say how much I've enjoyed the debate tonight. I was interested in the previous speaker's comment about the Liberals wanting a $5-million commission on northern Ontario. He speaks knowledgeably, because it was the old Davis gang that gave us the Fahlgren commission, which I think went on for about seven years and $11 million. So we've been down that path before, I say to Mr Spina. We've had a multimillion-dollar commission, and it certainly wasn't a Liberal commission.
Again, like the member from Sudbury, Mr Wildman has drawn our attention to the KPMG study, and it's very telling. This isn't just a fictional document. Somebody went out and retained this bunch of people and they did an analysis. The analysis is pretty bloody breathtaking. I represent a portion of east Nipissing, and I can tell you that the part of Nipissing district that I represent is going to get hammered in this process. We're going to see tax increases of a truly remarkable kind.
Mrs McLeod's comments a few moments ago about the level of taxation for the kinds of services provided and expected is a very telling one, and certainly Mr Wildman makes the point as well. The notion that, generally speaking, we have a public policy now that attaches the payment of land ambulances and public health to local property taxes is in and of itself, in southern Ontario, madness, but the notion of asking people in the unorganized parts of northern Ontario to pay through their realty taxes for land ambulances is madness on stilts.
The cynic in me says, let it happen because, let me tell you, if you want to see a Common Sense Revolution, you'll see one when this policy lands on the taxpayers of the unorganized part of northern Ontario.
Mr Martin: The member for Algoma put forward the argument that needed to be put forward tonight re the impact of the download on unorganized and smaller communities in northern Ontario that some of us don't often speak to because they're not necessarily within the jurisdiction that we represent.
I just want to speak for a couple of seconds in support of what he said. This government does not seem to understand the unique circumstance that we find ourselves in in the north. Other governments have. The previous Conservative government introduced the northern Ontario heritage board, which was an attempt to have some money available to help communities, because anybody who knows the north knows that the economy of northern Ontario is cyclical, more cyclical than in the south.
When a one-industry town has a downturn, everybody suffers. Governments have tried over the years to try and stabilize those economies and put in place policies that would see the bottoms and the tops even out a bit so that we would have some stability as we went forward. The northern Ontario heritage board, which is often touted by this government as a vehicle to help the economy of the north to work with people in communities around the economy of the north, was a fund that under the Liberals and under the New Democrats spent on average $30 million a year to various and sundry communities to help them out, to work with them, to lever other private sector money, to have new industries set up and to help industries that were struggling.
This government has spent $40 million at most, all told, over a three-year period. That's theft. That's stealing from the people of northern Ontario. It's nothing short of that. That's what it is. Previous governments have sent government services into the north because we know that we can deliver them there in order to stabilize the economy. The lottery corporation is an example. The Liberals sent that to the Sault. It was much appreciated. What did this government do? They took it away.
Mr Gilchrist: I'm always interested in the comments from the member for Algoma. Certainly he brings a history as a member of very long standing in this House, and as such I think should be accorded some considerable recognition and some weight in his comments.
I guess when we talk about people who think they know it all, I would have thought the member would have a subscription to the largest local daily newspaper, the Sault Star. His suggestion that no one else thinks this is an issue that has been simmering for some time - I didn't pick any specific number of years. I said decades. But if you want to say 20 years, let's do that.
"Area service boards are an idea that has existed in some shape or form for a couple of decades. As the cost of doing government business soars and the population of many northern centres remains static or even declines, ASBs have been seen" - past tense; they said, "have been seen" - "as a way to rationalize services over a larger, more sparsely populated area." That is the Sault Star, August 27, 1997.
With the greatest respect to the member, you're the one suggesting as a know-it-all that you speak for everyone in Algoma, that you don't think anyone else has talked about the issue of ASBs, that no else believes there is a way for municipalities to find new efficiencies, to find new ways of being effective, to find better ways of delivering services for lower cost, specifically because of the geography, specifically because of the lack of population density.
It is precisely for that reason, far more than any area in the south, that you need to have that integration in services. You need to take a big-picture approach. Clearly, the Sault Star and others in the north, many municipal leaders, have long held the view that ASBs are important. It's a shame you haven't listened to them all these years.
Mr Wildman: I want to thank my friends from Brampton North, Renfrew North, Sault Ste Marie and Scarborough East for their measured comments.
I understand the member for Brampton North's comments about the local services board under this legislation in that they will be given a mandate according to this bill to be the one service deliverer. I understand that. The point I was raising in my remarks is the difficulty of local services boards, as they are currently constituted, in having any opinion and being able to survey the residents and express any view with regard to proposals for the formation of area services boards and the fact that they don't have the money to do the kind of work that is being expected of them.
The member for Renfrew North hits the nail right on the head. The point is, this is going to mean enormous tax increases for residents of unorganized, as well as organized, municipalities in northern Ontario but, in particular, in the unorganized it's going to mean enormous increases and they're not going to get the services. It's as simple as that, no matter how integrated they might be, to use the term used by the member for Scarborough East.
Just in response to the member for Scarborough East, if he considers it a mark of respect to refer to someone as a know-it-all, I'm not sure what to say. I will just say this: I give as much credence to the Sault Star as I do to most of Conrad Black's periodicals. The fact is that the area services boards are not freely entered into by municipalities or residents of unorganized. They are simply put there as an option to avoid having district services boards imposed on them.
The Acting Speaker: It being past 9:30, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 2133.