L002B - Mon 26 Apr 1999 / Lun 26 Avr 1999
THRONE SPEECH DEBATE / DÉBAT SUR LE DISCOURS DU TRÔNE
The House met at 1830.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
THRONE SPEECH DEBATE / DÉBAT SUR LE DISCOURS DU TRÔNE
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for an address in reply to the speech of Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I'll be sharing my 20-minute time with my colleague the member for Essex South this evening.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is there unanimous consent? Agreed.
Mrs McLeod: This speech from the throne began in a most unusual way. It began not with a government trumpeting its successes but in full retreat from one of its major disasters. The first initiative that was set out by the government in its speech from the throne is a promise not to act. This government will not, it announced, be proceeding with its ill-advised disabilities act.
You remember that the Premier said, before he was the Premier, that he would introduce a disabilities act in his first term in government. Like so many of his promises during the last election campaign, this one is obviously going to be interpreted a little bit differently, now that the Premier has to face an accountability session on what they actually delivered during their first term in government. I suspect we will hear the Premier say: "I did, after all, introduce a disabilities act. I never actually said I would pass it." The fact that the disabilities act that was introduced was such a complete and total sham that none of the advocates for a disabilities act wanted to see it passed will probably be beside the point.
The government said in that opening section of the speech from the throne that they had heard concerns about their pioneering legislation, and because they'd heard the concerns, they would not reintroduce this so-called "pioneering" legislation. The only thing pioneering about the disabilities act was that the government found new ways to betray a promise that was made. They couldn't possibly have avoided hearing the concerns from an outraged community of advocates.
Dalton McGuinty is committed to introducing and passing meaningful legislation, a meaningful, real Ontario disabilities act.
That's the beginning of the throne speech. Then we move to the end of the throne speech, or almost the end of the throne speech, and what do we find? We find the government's position or plan or non-plan for health care. Maybe that's an appropriate place for health care to be in this particular speech from the throne, because the Harris government didn't even attempt to deal with the mess they created in health care until the end of their mandate was in sight.
The strategy of this government from the very beginning was quite clear. They wanted to create the pain of their cost-cutting early and then offer the Band-Aids that would make everybody feel as though the pain was over and all would be well. In fact, it seems to me that was one of the earliest of the now $100 million worth of taxpayer ads that we saw; that was one of the messages of those early ads. The government discovered that the Band-Aids weren't enough to appease people and make them feel the pain was over. Because the harm they had already caused was simply too great, they couldn't staunch the bleeding with a Band-Aid.
This government's record in health care has been absolutely littered with broken promises, like the promise the Premier made that it was not his intention to close hospitals, as he then set out to close one in five hospitals across the province; or his promise that there would be absolutely no new user fees in health care, and then he forced seniors to pay for the costs of prescription drugs.
People of this province know what this government has done to health care. They know about people lying on stretchers in emergency room hallways. They know about the lack of beds and the long waiting lists for surgery. They certainly know that this government that two weeks ago wanted to advertise the fact that it was spending money to hire 10,000 nurses was exactly the same government that spent the same $400 million to fire 10,000 nurses. They know about the fact that this government is shutting down 40% of chronic care beds. They know that there has been absolutely nothing on the critical issues of mental health. This government decided to bury its health care non-agenda almost at the end of its speech from the throne with a sort of apology for the mess they had created, a kind of: "Don't blame us. This really is a problem, you know." It certainly is a problem now because the Mike Harris government has made it so much worse.
The Minister of Education today suggested, in an answer to one of the questions that was raised, that health care and education were his government's priorities. Perhaps the Minister of Education had just finished reading the Liberal platform, The 20/20 Plan: A Clear Vision for Ontario's Future, where health and education are clearly set out as priorities. They're equally clearly not priorities for the Harris government. The Premier made that clear later on in question period today when he said, "No, really taxes are our priority, taxes and the cost-cutting that has gone with them."
This Ontario public really does care about health and about education, so the government decided that if it couldn't get away with selling its health care plan, couldn't get any credit in spite of all the advertising dollars they'd put into it, maybe they could get some points with the public by going back to education bashing once again. So I go back then to the middle of the throne speech where we find yet another attack on education from the Harris government, a renewed attack on teachers and a whole new attack on students.
Mike Harris's so-called charter of rights and responsibilities leaves out something which I think is extremely significant when it comes to the provision of educational opportunity across the province, and that is the responsibilities of government.
I ask this question because I look at what this government has done to education over the course of the past four years. I look at the fact that it deliberately set up public education for failure, that it set out to convince the Ontario public that Ontario students were at the bottom of the pack on international tests, that the system was broken. They used some of their advertising dollars, taxpayer dollars, to send out a brochure that shows that our students were 11th out of 11 on international tests, but they cut the graph off at number 11, when in fact 33 countries participated.
It's like the Minister of Education saying we need a new secondary school curriculum because our students have been cheated of a good education, without noticing that the most recent international tests showed that our students, Ontario students, were second only to France on tests of advanced mathematics.
This is the same government that has deliberately set out to make enemies of teachers. They have demoralized teachers. They have driven them out of the profession by the thousands.
This is the government that has stripped away the kinds of supports that give children a chance to succeed and taken away any chance at all for adults to get a high school diploma.
This is a government that now, with its so-called charter of rights and responsibilities, wants to set students up for failure, taking us back to the 1940s, when in fact about 50% of the people who are now in our secondary schools would never have made it to high school. We've come a long way past that in the province of Ontario. I hope this Mike Harris government never gets the chance to take us as far back as they want to take us.
This is the government that in its charter now pretends, after having driven thousands of teachers out of the profession, to be concerned about quality teaching. This is exactly the same government that in Bill 160 was ready to have unqualified teachers head up classes and retreated from that ill-advised position only because of the outcry, not only of professional teachers, but of parents who believed that having a qualified teacher in front of the classroom was indeed absolutely important.
This government does not have a lot to say about teacher training. They want to say a lot about teacher testing. They don't want to have a lot to say about making sure we have highly qualified professional teachers at the front of the class to begin with. They certainly don't want to have a lot to say about teacher training, certainly not when they offer training programs to teachers that begin by showing a segment of Father of the Bride and suggesting that all the teachers really need to do is be less resistant to change. But I feel that, in any event, you can't test the interaction between a good teacher and a student.
What is not in the throne speech is what really concerns me. That is the ideological direction of this government, which we have seen manifest itself over and over again. Without any question, the ideological direction of this government is to take us increasingly into a privatized system and increasingly into two-tiered health care and two-tiered education.
We've seen it repeatedly in our post-secondary system, with the deregulation of tuition fees, with soaring tuition fees making many programs and many schools inaccessible for all but wealthy students. We've seen the incursions of privatization into our health care system. Of the long-term bed contracts that have been awarded under this government, 70% have gone to for-profit health care companies, often at the expense of non-profit providers.
We've seen the move towards two-tiered education begin to take shape in elementary and secondary education, where this government has removed any legislative barriers to the setting up of charter schools.
We have only a few minutes tonight. I just want to conclude by saying that I think this government very deliberately decided not to set out its direction for the future in its throne speech because the direction that they really want to take Ontario, the direction they intend to take Ontario should they get a second mandate, is not where the Ontario public wants to go. They want to take this government into an increasing Americanization of our health care and education systems. They want to put at risk our greatest values: equal opportunity to health care and education, regardless of how wealthy you are.
Let's hope, for the sake of our future, that we never get to see the full measure of the Harris agenda.
1840
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): Mr Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to the throne speech. Like my colleague, it's not so much what's in the throne speech that I'd like to emphasize this evening, but it's what is not in the throne speech. Last year in the throne speech there were 16 words out of thousands that mentioned agriculture. This year I think it's an absolute shame that there isn't one word that mentions agriculture and farming, no word about the second-greatest industry in the province of Ontario.
Let's just review why perhaps it is that the government was afraid to mention anything about agriculture in the throne speech this year. An election promise in 1995 from the then leader of the third party, and subsequently the Premier, was, "We will not cut one cent from agriculture." I want to tell you what they did.
In 1995 they cut $2.5 million from the Niagara tender fruit lands program by its cancellation. Cuts to Foodland Ontario marketing program: $1 million. Cuts to the cancellation of dairy audit programs: $600,000. Cuts to the agricultural investment strategy program, something that would help agriculture in the future: They cut $1.5 million. In November 1995 this government made cuts to the GRIP and NISA programs of $11.3 million.
In 1996 three of the significant reductions in spending on agriculture were the restructuring of agricultural programs - which included, by the way, further field office closures - further cuts to GRIP and NISA, and cuts to the international marketing program that amounted to $8.3 million. They eliminated ministry services, which include requiring commodity groups to pay for the administration of grading, enforcement and regulation. They made cuts to laboratory services, research programs and education programs that amounted to $31.3 million. In that same year they made cuts to the Foodland program's promotions and cuts to the municipal outlet drainage program that amounted to $6.4 million.
This from a government that said they weren't going to cut one cent from agriculture. Parliamentary procedure prevents me from saying what I really think, but the facts are obvious here. Again, this year they mentioned nothing about agriculture. So one might speculate what might happen to the second-largest industry in Ontario. I think it's a shame.
I point out to you that in The 20/20 Plan: A Clear Vision for Ontario's Future we are committed to $140 million of expenditure on agriculture, and that's in addition to the Ontario whole farm relief program, because we know, we understand and we feel that agriculture needs our support. It's a significant economic driving force in Ontario.
Tomorrow we are going to meet - "we" being Pat Hoy, our agriculture critic, and me and others - with the farmers of Ontario. They have a plan, they have a suggestion for this government, or for any government for that matter, and we want to listen to them, that outlines the opportunities for investment in a healthy future. They're going to cover areas of risk management; this government has almost decimated the funds that were available for that. They're going to cover areas like market development; this government obviously thinks it's not important, by the co-operative funding they've taken out of that.
We're going to talk about the environment. There aren't any greater environmentalists in this province than the farmers of Ontario. They're willing to work with the government to improve the environment of our province - a government, by the way, that has all but gutted the environment in environmental regulation and environmental enforcement in Ontario.
When it comes to the environment, it's almost impossible to get an answer out of this government. I know that over the months we've been off I've attempted on various occasions to communicate with the Ministry of the Environment, and they're so paranoid about it, so absolutely paranoid about it that you can't get the time of day out of environmental offices across the province. They refer you to the minister's office because I think they quietly know what their officers in the field feel when it comes to the environment.
Nothing was mentioned in this speech from the throne that would speak to something else that not only farmers but all Ontarians are interested in, and that's gasoline prices. We have the gasbusters who go out with their Polaroid cameras before weekends and take pictures, but you know, a picture tells a thousand words and the thousand words about those pictures are that you've done absolutely nothing to control gasoline prices to keep the business people, to keep the farmers, to keep the average citizens in this province from being gouged by gasoline prices. Oh, the minister and I think the Premier said, "We're going to bring the gasoline companies to heel." Well, they didn't do a darn thing about it, and you're going to hear a little bit more about that from me later this week because I have been concerned about the gouging of the citizens and the businesses of Ontario through the gasoline prices we've had to suffer, particularly before long weekends.
There's another area that I thought I had some agreement on and that was the area of consumer protection - nothing mentioned about that in the throne speech when it comes to negative option billing. I even thought I had the minister's agreement at one point a year or so back when we reached the end of one of the sessions, but nothing came of it.
They're big on words, "Oh yes, we want to help you, we want to protect you." The only thing is, they don't do anything about it, and that's I think what people want from a government. They listen to a government that says, "We've done wonders in health care." Well, this is the government that's turned emergency rooms into waiting rooms. We have enough waiting rooms in hospitals. What we need are beds in hospitals. We need to be able to admit those who are in emergency rooms to beds so they'll be cared for. We hear of people dying in emergency rooms. That shouldn't happen in the province of Ontario; it shouldn't happen anywhere in the Dominion of Canada. We live in one of the greatest nations in the world and it's a shame we have to put up with those kinds of things.
My colleague mentioned education earlier. They're saying a lot about education on television these days. In fact they're saying so much about it that I'm inclined to think the provincial government is one of the biggest advertisers on TV.
Mr Harry Danford (Hastings-Peterborough): Not as big as you are.
Mr Crozier: He says not as big as I am. I would like to give whoever mentioned that the opportunity to say what he meant. I'm really not very big. In fact there are some people I would compare myself to over there and I think I'd compare quite well. The point is this: As to the money that's been needlessly spent in advertising by a government that says it can manage things, by a government that has increased the overall debt of this province by some $20 billion, by a government that represents a party that has created the greatest portion of the debt of anybody in this province, I don't think I'd be very proud and I don't think I'd be simply making offhanded remarks, because your record quite frankly is absolutely nothing to be proud of.
There's a lot that was said in the throne speech that meant absolutely nothing, and to emphasize what I started off with in the first place, I think it's an absolute shame that you didn't have guts enough to even mention farming, agriculture, anything like that at all. Shame on you for not supporting the farmers of Ontario.
1850
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the members from Fort William and Essex South. I agree with a number of comments they made in critique of the throne speech and some of the elements of the throne speech - both of them took time to talk about the 20/20 Plan which, as you would know, is the Liberal Party's campaign document. I have to tell you, when I heard that title, 20/20, I thought about eyesight. It's like, "I can see clearly now," There's been a seeing of the light, a seeing of the way; there's been a transformation on the road to Damascus.
I remember in 1995, the party that now can see clearly campaigned on tax cuts; campaigned on laying off public service workers; campaigned on "mandatory opportunities" - some fancy words for "workfare"; opposed employment equity; opposed pay equity. They campaigned for the continued and growing use of private sector delivery in health care, right? What are we hearing now? It's the complete opposite. It's because the current government implemented all the things that the Liberals ran on back in 1995, plus more. I disagree with them and I disagree with what they campaigned on.
They can see clearly now. They've made commitments of over $2 billion in this next campaign. Have they told you how they're going to pay for it? Let me tell you, the money is going to come magically from someplace. There's no commitment to paying for those things in a realistic way that won't add to the debt, that is a fiscally responsible approach.
Interjection.
Ms Lankin: It's just a lot of money coming from the air, as my colleague over there says, that they're going to spend willy-nilly.
If you believe that there's a bridge, there's some swampland in Florida, we can talk deal time here. The bottom line is that a commitment that you don't know how it's going to be paid for is an empty commitment, and the 20/20 document is full of empty commitments.
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): I appreciate the opportunity to make some comments specifically about the comments made by the member for Essex South, who bemoaned the fact there was no reference in the throne speech to agriculture and went into a litany of things that he saw as being negatives. It's interesting to me that he did not mention the 8% rebate of the provincial sales tax, which is assisting farmers to build new infrastructure. He didn't mention the fact that the farm tax rebate is now paid directly out of the property tax.
He represents a part of the province that includes Leamington. The farmers in Leamington who are in the agrifood business, specifically the greenhouse growers, are absolutely enjoying the greatest expansion ever in their industry. I would have to think that results are more important than words, and I'm sure the member will make some reference to how proud he is of the wonderful job that's being done by the farmers in the agrifood business in the Leamington area. They are obviously enjoying what this government is doing; they're enjoying the prosperity that comes from reduced taxes and increased business. I'm really surprised that the member for Essex South didn't make reference to that.
The other thing he talked about was what this government has done in the area of health care. He may not have had an opportunity to read the papers today or to hear the radio, but if he did, he will know that just this very day the Minister of Health made an announcement of $7.2 million of reinvestment in the hospital in his community. He talks about the fact that we haven't done good things for health care, when in his own community of Leamington this very day our Minister of Health made an announcement: a reinvestment of $7.2 million in the hospital in Leamington. The member for Essex South should stay up to date with what's happening rather than dwell on the throne speech.
M. Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott et Russell) : Je dois féliciter mon collègue d'Essex-Sud pour les commentaires qu'il vient d'apporter concernant le budget qui a été présenté jeudi dernier.
Je crois que c'est une vraie honte pour un gouvernement qui se dit avoir un respect dans tous les domaines de la province, lorsqu'on prend la peine d'oublier complètement le secteur de l'agriculture lors de la présentation des discours de la sorte. Je crois que le gouvernement conservateur ne devrait pas dire qui est au pouvoir. J'aurais honte. Actuellement, nous savons que l'agriculture en Ontario est le secteur le plus important. On dit que c'est la colonne vertébrale de l'économie en Ontario. Même si on dit que l'industrie de l'automobile l'est, je crois que le secteur de l'agriculture est déjà très important.
Récemment, dans les cinq comtés de l'est, nous avons présenté un rapport qui a été reproduit par une firme de consultants. La firme de consultants a démontré que dans les comtés de Glengarry, Prescott, Russell, Stormont et Dundas, nous avons des retombées économiques d'au-delà de 375 $ millions, et puis ce gouvernement d'aujourd'hui a pris la peine de venir avec un discours du trône jeudi dernier et a complètement oublié de parler à un secteur qui est très important. On entend souvent le gouvernement dire qu'on doit protéger l'agro-alimentaire, mais qu'avons nous fait ? Nous l'avons oublié.
Récemment, il y a plus d'un an, nous avons passé la crise du verglas. La crise du verglas pour le secteur de l'agriculture - oui, on doit mettre notre chapeau sur la tête, de la sorte que mon ami dans le bout de Sarnia met le journal sur la tête. Je pense qu'il a eu honte lui aussi de son gouvernement, de voir qu'ils ne l'ont pas touché, parce que c'est une personne qui a de l'expérience dans le domaine de l'agriculture. Donc, ça démontre encore que même si -
The Acting Speaker: Further questions or comments? If not, the member for Fort William.
Mrs McLeod: I'm a little amused but not surprised that the New Democrats are attempting to run this next election campaign as fiscal conservatives. I guess the reason I'm not surprised is that having had the experience of what happens when you run up a $10-billion deficit, I think I understand why they were being cautious enough to put their entire platform on to a bookmark.
I find it very interesting that both the New Democrats and the Conservatives were so convinced that we were only going to be able to fund our commitment out of a surplus if Mike Harris was successful in balancing the budget that they both tried to say that we are not going to be able to fund our commitments because, after all, Mike isn't going to balance the budget.
We knew that Mike wasn't going to balance the budget. Why would we count on Mike Harris balancing the budget when he said he had no intention of balancing the budget? That's what's incredible about the speech from the throne. He reaffirms the commitment he made, the promise he's going to keep, that he would not balance the Ontario budget with four years in office, with good economic times. He is committed to not balancing the budget after he's run up $22 billion on top of the debt that the NDP had already increased.
We are going to fund our commitments with a $2.5-billion immediate investment fully funded from current dollars in the budget. We will balance the budget even though Mike Harris will not. We will then use 55% of the surplus that comes when we balance the budget to make further investments in health and education and our priorities.
Mr Crozier: Thank you, Speaker. I -
The Acting Speaker: No, you can't do that.
Mr Crozier: Can't I use up the 10 minutes?
The Acting Speaker: No, you can't do that. Sorry about that, but you can't.
Further debate?
Ms Lankin: It's too bad. The member for Essex South wanted to show the members of the Legislature his tomato cufflinks and his Heinz 57 watch. I think he was trying to take that opportunity. We'll just give him that plug, that he's a true Leamington person supporting the local farming community.
I'm pleased to have this opportunity to speak on the speech from the throne. I am truly glad to have sparked that response from the member for Fort William and to hear her once again attempt to rationalize how they're going to pay for over $2-billion-plus in promises that they've made for this campaign, particularly acknowledging that we don't have a balanced budget here in Ontario.
Quite frankly, Mr Harris is out there announcing spending of money like crazy these days, like drunken sailors. If you want to talk about conversion on the road to Damascus, just take a look across the floor. It's quite amazing in and of itself.
It will be interesting to know whether the members of the Liberal Party will cancel those funding announcements. Will they take out the money being earmarked for emergency rooms or will they take out the money being earmarked for cancer care? Who knows? I'm not sure I even believe the commitments that are being made by the government, but where does the money come from that the Liberal Party is talking about?
1900
I think the bottom line is if you want to make commitments, the public of Ontario deserves to know where the cash is going to come from. I hope that in the debates that follow and that come during the period leading up to and during the election that hard question is asked, because I think you'll see a lot of Liberal skates being sharpened in order to try and get around that. It's been my experience, as I've been debating with Liberals over the past couple of months, that it's a very difficult answer for them to come up with.
I wanted to address some of the specifics in the throne speech. In particular, I guess it was the tone, and it's a tone that has been repeated by members opposite this afternoon in their beginning rotational debate on the throne speech. It's one in which they talk about leadership. I find that interesting. This is not a campaign, from their perspective, to be run on their record - I guess we can understand why; not one to be run on assurances about the future - I guess we can understand why. It boils down to their attempting to run on a record of leadership, on having made tough decisions, on having a Premier who is tough. There's a lot of this leather jacket, sports analogy kind of tough stuff that we'll see.
I think it's particularly interesting because, of course, they have determined that is their strongest card to play, in counterpoint to the official opposition. You can see in the government's political party ads that are out there, in which they attack the leader of the official opposition, it is a question of leadership that they seem to be wanting to go to the public on.
I guess I want to question what leadership means. I want to question how it shows leadership in the province of Ontario to have committed in the Common Sense Revolution, and over the years since then, the last four years, to over one and a half million persons with disabilities in this province and to many people who support their legitimate call for an Ontarians with Disabilities Act, to bringing down barriers, whether access to employment, to recreation, to leisure, to living life on a fair and equal basis with access to all that our communities and society have to offer. How is it leadership to have made a very specific commitment to that group of people that a full Ontarians with Disabilities Act would be implemented, one, which is very clear in the debate and the discussion that led up to the Premier of this province making that commitment, that would be based on the principles and experience in the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act? In fact, the Premier has even referred to that in years gone by. However, the story changed.
As you know, last fall the government introduced a bill it chose to call an Ontarians with Disabilities Act, and the response was loud and quick and very much to the point. I remember one of the leading spokespersons from the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee, David Lepofsky, saying very clearly, "We have been kicked in the stomach by this government."
There was nothing of any strength or any effectiveness in that bill. There was no enforcement mechanism. It didn't call on a single party in the private sector to do anything, it didn't call on any other level of government to do anything, and all it said about the Ontario government is that each ministry would have to review the legislation under its purview. They didn't have to do anything about what they found when they reviewed it; they just had to review it.
I want to remind the government that a process of systemic barrier review, ministry by ministry, had already been undertaken in the province of Ontario. Those reports were there and actions were mapped out, so with respect to the Ontario public service, there already was a game plan in place. But I will also remind the government that when they took power in 1995, they cancelled all of the implementation committees, they cancelled the barriers fund that was there to help refit workplaces, to bring barriers down, and they cancelled the positions in the ministries that were dedicated to implementing that. Please, tell us how any of us could even believe that the meagre little bit that was in that bill that you so incorrectly named an Ontarians with Disabilities Act meant anything given your track record at that point in time. But beyond that, it didn't come close to approximating what people in the disability community had been calling for with respect to an act that would force the identification and removal of barriers, one that would even in the first instance say that if a new building was being built it should be built absolutely barrier-free. That hasn't even been done. It wasn't in the legislation, and there was no enforcement mechanism.
People in the disability community rightly felt betrayed. They came back and sought commitments from the government that an appropriate bill would be brought forward. In fact, they had a resolution sponsored through the House by the member from Windsor - help me, someone in the Liberal Party - Dwight Duncan.
Mrs McLeod: Windsor-Walkerville.
Ms Lankin: Windsor-Walkerville. Thank you.
Dwight Duncan and myself worked with the ODA committee in bringing that resolution forward. It followed on the heels of the member for London Centre, my colleague Marion Boyd, who had had a similar resolution earlier in this House, and called on all parties to support the implementation of an Ontarians with Disabilities Act, and in this case based on 11 specific principles, all there, spelled out. Every member who was present in this House stood and voted in favour of that resolution.
The members of the disability community thought that was a victory. They thought maybe it meant the government understood and would bring forward an appropriate bill at that point in time. And what did we hear in the throne speech? A simple sentence saying: "We heard you. We understand you didn't like our bill so we're going to come back and consult with you again."
How cynical, at a time when all the province is in on alert for an election, believing that the Premier will be calling an election within the next few short weeks. How cynical to say we're going to go back and consult again, when this House already passed a resolution outlining the 11 principles that should be contained within the act, when we have the body of experience from the US in terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act. What a betrayal, yet again, of people.
The minister came down to meet with members from the disability communities that were gathered here that day, awaiting the throne speech and hoping they were going to hear that an appropriate act would be reintroduced. You know what was so telling? It was so telling that this was in fact a last-minute, throw in a line just to try and buy them off. She came into that room and said very clearly that she had no information to give them about what form the consultation would take, when it would start or how long it would last.
They hadn't had those discussions. Since December, when this House adjourned, through all the months of the intersession, she didn't contact those people. She didn't talk to them. She didn't say: "OK, we're going to get together and talk about what the consultation is. We're going to talk about how the consultation will take place and in what form it will be and what our goal is for reintroducing a piece of legislation."
What did she do? She stood there and said to those people: "I don't know what form the consultation will take. I don't know when it will begin. I don't know when it will be over."
I actually feel some sympathy for the minister, because I don't think she's in control of that agenda. I think it is the government that is not allowing that to go forward. This is a way of trying to manage people, manage their expectations, but I can tell you, it didn't work.
I can tell you, they're angrier now than they ever have been. To be insulted and told, "Well, I'm sorry, there are other people out there who have opinions, but I'm not going to tell you who they are, I'm not going to tell you who else we're listening to, and I'm not going to tell you who objects to your proposal for legislation. I'm simply going to come out and consult again." No wonder that community is so bitterly disappointed. That's not leadership on the part of the Premier.
Let's talk about what's been happening in the Ministry of Health. Despite all of the numbers the government throws out, they, in their first two years, cut funding to hospitals. They know it's over $800 million they cut from the base funding for hospitals. This was before any restructuring was done, before any realignment of services was done. It has thrown the hospital system into crisis and you're now trying to patch up the crisis. You're throwing Band-Aid after Band-Aid on the system.
They promised money two years ago for emergency services. That never came through until there was a crisis in emergencies, and then the cheques started to flow. Then they didn't all come. Now there are further crises, and now we have the minister today saying, "That's why we're committing more money to emergency services and to rebuilding emergency departments." They cut the money in the first place. How are we supposed to believe that's leadership? They spent $475 million on severance pay for nurses whom they're now scrambling to hire back. How is that leadership?
They came to power and cancelled the proposals and the plans for two regional cancer treatment centres, which they subsequently, two years later, reannounced and still haven't built. How is that leadership? There was a specific course that had been set up to train additional radiation therapists in the province to deliver cancer services. We have a shortage of radiation therapists now. They cancelled those additional resources. They changed the base of the program from a college program to a university program and didn't have any transition in the meantime, so we have a whole year or two without people being graduated. Now they're trying to bring people into the system, scrambling again. How is that leadership?
I ask you, on issue after issue, how is that leadership? How is it leadership to throw the whole education system into turmoil? Remember, the minister promised this. He promised a crisis and we do have a crisis.
1910
I don't disagree with bringing in new curriculum. I disagree with a government that brings in new curriculum without giving the appropriate resources to teachers. Let's look at the situation in secondary schools right now. That new curriculum is supposed to be implemented in September. They don't even have the full course outlines yet. The publishers have not developed the textbooks to go along with that because they don't have the course outlines to do it on. So the teachers haven't been able to review text books, to select them, and there's therefore no provision for teacher training for this summer. How will they be prepared to implement that? Well, they won't. It will be much like what happened last year in elementary schools.
I have been visiting all the schools in my riding over the last two months. In school after school in the elementary schools those teachers are saying very specifically that in some cases they've only just now got their textbooks for the new curriculum. In many cases they don't have sufficient teacher resource manuals for the new textbooks. There are three grade 3 teachers I met who have to share one resource book and they have to negotiate who's going to take it home on any given night to do the class preparation. There's also so little money in the supplies budget for all the new supplies that are required for the new curriculum, for the science tests and all the other things that are laid out in there, teachers are going out and buying them out of their own pockets. There isn't money in the school budgets for that. How is that leadership?
How is it leadership to denigrate a whole profession like the teaching profession in the way in which this government has? It's shameful to have singled out a respected group of people in our community who work hard educating our most valuable resource, our children, and to continually attack and attack until there's such a state of demoralization that it's very difficult for them to continue making the system work, as they are doing every day in our schools right now.
What's the latest? An announcement right out of the blue from the government about teacher testing. Isn't that interesting? Not one word of consultation with the newly established College of Teachers, the self-regulatory body for that profession. Not one word of consultation with them or with any of the professional organizations representing teachers. Why did that announcement come out of the blue? I suspect, if you got a chance to take a look at the polling that had been done for the Progressive Conservative Party, you would find that they found this is a hot-button item. Without any detail, without any explanation, without any probing of the validity of this or the effectiveness of this, they just know if they say, "We're going to recertify teachers, we're going to require them to be recertified," that would hit some note of public response and be popular.
Interjection.
Let me ask the member opposite, who's kind of yipping in the corner there, how are you going to implement this testing? What are you going to test, sir? Are you going to test what the teacher knows? Is that going to tell you how good a teacher they are in the classroom? What method is there for evaluating their effectiveness as a teacher? There is no known process for recertification in that profession.
In terms of all the other self-regulated professions, there isn't a recertification process because there is an ongoing evaluation based on the results that come out of that person's work, whether you are a brain surgeon, whether you are an accountant, whether you are a lawyer or whether you are a teacher. There is no known recertification or evaluation procedure other than what's already in place through the management structures within the board: working with teachers, looking at the results in their classrooms, listening to parent feedback, student feedback, observing. That's not what this government's talking about; they're talking about a recertification.
I ask you: What will you test? You can easily test what a teacher knows. You can't easily test how well they teach. That I would like an answer to from this government. I quite frankly don't believe there is an answer. I believe this is yet again just another election hot button that has no basis in any kind of study. Obviously, they've not talked to anybody. They set up the College of Teachers and they haven't had one word of consultation with them about this. I don't believe they've spoken to the Education Improvement Commission. I don't believe they've spoken to any of the professional associations representing professional educators. So where did the idea come from? What is it based on? What is it modelled on? Perhaps one of the members opposite will be able to answer that question.
In the closing minutes I have, I want to talk about children. Oh, there is so much that I would like to say, but let me begin with one of the most bizarre scenes that took place last week. A very well-respected and noted authority on early childhood development, Dr Fraser Mustard, released a report that he co-authored. The Premier was there beside him, embracing the findings of the report, the centre of which was to reaffirm what we have known for many years, and what many of us have argued in this place for many years, that the earlier you are involved with children in stimulating healthy development the more you can ensure a long, healthy and prosperous life in the sense of being able to live it to its fullest with good health and with a good opportunity for education. The earlier you can identify problems and set in place remedial programming the better off children are.
We've known for a long time that those early years from zero to six, particularly zero to three, are the most formative in terms of how a child's brain develops. The kind of stimulation they get and the kind of exposure to educational opportunities they get in that early period of time, that early stimulation, forms the brain patterns and how they learn for the rest of their life. We've known that for a long time, but the Premier just discovered it last week when he was there with Fraser Mustard.
The body of Fraser Mustard's report says that there should be established in every community an early childhood development centre and parenting resource centre that would fold into it child care arrangements, JK and senior kindergarten. That would all be brought together in an early childhood development centre and parenting resource centre in every community. The Premier said: "We're going to move ahead. We're going to have six pilot projects on this."
The problem is that in 1993 or 1994 when the Royal Commission on Learning came out and recommended that we needed to have an establishment of an early childhood development centre in every community and integrate child care together with that, together with junior kindergarten, that Premier stood on his feet and said it was the stupidest idea he had ever heard. The 13 pilot projects that had been established by the previous New Democratic Party government, that had been put in place to try and work through the process of integrating these new early childhood development centres with child care centres and junior kindergarten, were cancelled by this government because the Premier said it was the stupidest idea he had ever heard.
Yet again - and I guess it's OK to learn along the way - how are we to expect that this Premier will follow through on something that he has clearly been opposed to for all of his political years? He has clearly said, and many members of his caucus in this House have stood and said, that it is not the job of government, it is not the job of the community to play a role in supporting positive parenting and supporting early childhood development. Kids aren't anyone's responsibility until they hit school, until they hit senior kindergarten or grade 1. They cancelled funding for junior kindergarten and yet now they want us to believe that they support the need for and the understanding of the importance of early childhood development.
I have a hard time buying that. I have a hard time buying a lot of the rhetoric that I see on the television ads, that I hear from the ministers or from the Premier and the responses they make in this House, and in particular in the plethora of announcements that have been made across the province, all of which are without much substance, all of which promise a future that is bright and glowing, all of which refuse to acknowledge the pain that has been exacted on this province and the citizens of this province by many of the actions of this very government.
That is not leadership, so when they talk about leadership, when they talk about taking tough decisions and having a tough leader, when they talk about the leadership for the future, that is not my vision of a leadership which brings communities together, a leadership which builds for the future, a leadership which believes all of its citizens are important, a leadership which makes accommodations for persons with disabilities, a leadership which builds for children and their future, a leadership which recognizes the importance and sanctity of a universally accessible health system. That's not leadership, and I sure hope that this province is not subjected to any more of that kind of leadership in the future.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): I would like to respond to the comments made by the member for Beaches-Woodbine. She has addressed the issue of teacher testing, and while this is certainly in the formative stages and while she says there is no test and there can't be a test, I come from a profession where 10 years ago there was no retesting and there now is. There has to be an idea before there can be a test designed.
Certainly the test or the idea isn't designed with the purpose of being antagonistic towards teachers. The indications are that students will benefit from a higher quality of teacher, and while 90% or 95% of the teachers in the province are very good - we know that - there are some who aren't and do require some remedial work. Those who failed the test, of course, would require that remedial work.
1920
In Texas, there was retesting done in the 1980s. While that retesting is no longer done, Dan Goldhaber, a research associate with the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, says that a study found that Texas school districts in which teachers had higher average performance on the test enjoyed higher student performance in math. This was in the Toronto Star on April 21 of this year. So there is evidence to prove that such testing is beneficial to the student. That, of course, is what it's all about: improving the performance of the student. We all know that higher performance by the student in the early stages is going to benefit that student as he or she gets older.
M. Lalonde : Encore une fois, je dois dire que la députée de Beaches-Woodbine a touché beaucoup de points. Le point qui m'a le plus frappé dans son allocution est la santé.
Nous savons tous que ce gouvernement a pris un couteau et a coupé beaucoup d'aide financière à nos hôpitaux. Nos hôpitaux sont pleins et fermés quelquefois, mais on doit aussi réduire le nombre de services. J'ai une lettre ici qui m'a touché lorsque je l'ai reçu vendredi dernier. Je vais en lire seulement un paragraphe. C'est adressé à Mme la ministre :
«Vous réclamez que toutes les coupures que vous effectuez au système de santé ont le but d'améliorer notre système. En même temps, vous dites que la santé des citoyens n'est pas affectée ou menacée. Vous déniez l'existence de longues listes d'attentes, prétendant que ces histoires sont fabriquées pour des jeux politiques.»
J'ai ici une personne qui a attendu un pontage à Ottawa. Il aurait eu sa confirmation le 11 mars dernier. On recule seulement un mois et demi. Puis, à la dernière minute, manque de lits à l'hôpital, on a dû reporter son opération à plus tard. Mais, la méchante nouvelle est que cette personne, M. Desjardins, est décédée neuf jours après qu'il attendait un pontage.
Ensuite, on va dire que le gouvernement n'a procédé à aucune coupure. Nous savons que le gouvernement se chante sur les toits des maisons. Il dit qu'on a rajouté, qu'on a injecté plus de 1 $ milliard. C'est faux.
Quand je dis que c'est faux, c'est parce que nous avons 400 $ millions qui étaient envers le congédiement ou la prime de départ de nos infirmières. Nous avons un autre 375 $ milliards pour les ré-embaucher. Nous avons ici en Ontario le plus bas nombre d'infirmières par mille personnes ontariennes, qui est 6,9 sur mille personnes.
Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): I've worked with the member for Beaches-Woodbine for a number of years now, and I want to say to this House that one of the things I've noticed about her is that she's fair. When she perceives or thinks that the government has done something right, done something good for our community, for our province, she's one of those politicians who will say that loudly and clearly.
When the member for Beaches-Woodbine points out problems with issues, particularly around issues that she's very familiar with - for instance, when she speaks about the problems with the lack of legislation for disabled people - she speaks from a well of knowledge, from dealing with this issue for a number of years. She speaks to it with a great deal of passion, but also a great deal of understanding and a great deal of knowledge from constant consultation and contact with those in our communities who are drastically and negatively affected by this lack of legislation.
I feel offended, when the member for Beaches-Woodbine is talking about these problems, when she in fact reaches out and offers her assistance, which she has done on numerous occasions - I know she has on the new Child and Family Services Act numerous times; she spoke about that today. Over months she had asked the Minister of Community and Social Services to hold hearings. She didn't want to hold up that legislation, but there were a number of issues there that needed to be dealt with. Her offer of support and help to actually improve on the bill was turned down and she was accused publicly of trying to stop this important piece of legislation. I am offended when government members continue to insult that member in that way, when my experience with her, as in her speech today, continually is to try and help and improve legislation.
Hon Isabel Bassett (Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation): I would like to say, as the minister responsible for the Ontarians with Disabilities Act, that I find it absolutely politically outrageous and grandstanding on the part of the member for Beaches-Woodbine to take this approach of flip-flopping here. For five years when you were in government you didn't bring in an Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Then you say that you will settle it in 10 days. You were accusing me of trying to not listen to what the disabled community wanted. I said clearly that we as a government are listening. They asked us to consult more before we moved forward with the bill.
Second, you don't seem to be able to get your act together as a party. Your leader sent a letter to ODAC two weeks saying that if you were elected you would introduce an act in two years, and now you are calling for it to be introduced and completed and passed in 10 days.
We as a government are listening to what the Ontarians with disabilities community has requested and we are moving forward. We did introduce an act that I felt would in time remove the barriers for people with disabilities in every single ministry and all the dealings they have across the province.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Beaches-Woodbine, you have two minutes.
Ms Lankin: I appreciate the responses of all of the members. I want to begin with the minister. Quite frankly, you seem to have forgotten that the NDP government introduced and passed and implemented employment equity legislation in this province, legislation which you tore up and threw out, legislation which helped people have access to jobs. You've not replaced that with anything meaningful.
The next step in this province was to introduce an Ontarians with Disabilities Act. You've had four years in government, four years of having made a commitment in the Common Sense Revolution that you were going to implement this legislation, a commitment you made, Minister, and your Premier made to persons with disabilities in this province, which you have failed to live up to.
Then when you bring a bill in, it is an insult. For you to continue to stand and say you think it would have done the job in the long run when everyone knows all it was was a review within ministries - I will also remind you that those systemic barrier reviews were in place before your government was elected. You cancelled those. You cancelled the fund of money to bring about the change and the removal of barriers.
Hon Ms Bassett: We did not.
Ms Lankin: Don't tell me you didn't; it's a matter of public record. When will you guys at least start admitting and taking responsibility for the actions you have taken to tear down positive steps which have been taken to help persons with disabilities in this province?
You have had how many months since the House adjourned and you're now coming and saying that you're going to consult? They asked you last December to meet with them right away to consult about the bill, to redraft the bill, to work with them to redraft the bill, and months later, on the eve of an election, you say now you're going to go out and consult. Please, don't try to fool people and suggest that that is in any way a response to what that community has asked you for.
You stood in that meeting last week and you said to them, "I'm coming to you today and I can't tell you when we're going to consult, how long we're going to consult for or what shape the consultation is going to take." If you knew that you were responding to their demands you would have had a plan, you would have put it in place before that. Don't think anyone will be fooled by your shallow attempts at this point in time.
1930
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Wettlaufer: When I came into elected politics four years ago we had a provincial debt in this province that was so great that the previous government had actually considered declaring bankruptcy. We also had a health care system that had left my region, the Waterloo region, with health care that was equated by some of the experts as equivalent to that of a Third World country. That in the fifth-fastest-growing region in all of Canada, the third-fastest-growing region in Ontario, a region that is considered one of the most important economically in the country.
But it was a region that had returned Liberals for 30 years, and nobody ever cared. The Liberals were in power from 1985 to 1990 and they did nothing to rectify the health care system in our region. In the past four years we have rectified much of that in my region.
In 1995 we had an education system that was producing university graduates at a greater per capita rate than any other country on earth, but we were not providing those graduates with the learning required to obtain a job in the changing job market of the 1990s let alone the next millennium.
We had a rising crime rate. I'm not talking about the statistics that are commonly quoted in the media. I'm talking about the crime rate which our police forces see regularly and which places their lives at daily risk.
I wanted to be part of a government at that time that I knew would respond to the concerns: health care, education and crime. I wanted the youth of our province to have the qualifications necessary to meet the needs they were going to have in the new millennium.
In addition, I realized at that time, as did many other citizens of this province, that the greatest threat to our social safety net was the accumulated debt in this province, a debt that was going up at the rate of $10 billion a year because that's what the rate of the deficit was, the annual deficit. We have reduced that.
There were studies galore over a 10-year period about the necessity of meeting the changing health needs, about the necessity to meet the needs of the aging population. We knew what the changing demographics were in the province but the two previous governments did absolutely nothing about them. What happened? How come we did not have cancer care in those parts of the province that did not have teaching hospitals? How come we did not have cardiac care in those parts of the province that did not have teaching hospitals? How come we did not have an increasing number of MRIs? How come we did not have these until our government came to power? Well, we do have them now.
There is something else that we have to discuss when we're talking about health care needs in this province because they are the same health care needs elsewhere in the country. We see news media stories, we read them, we see them on TV daily about the problems across the country, about nursing and doctor shortages, hospital cutbacks. When we have a provincial government in this province that increased health care from $17.4 billion in 1995 to $18.9 billion this fiscal year, when we have other provincial governments throughout the country increasing health care spending, why do we have these problems? The reason is because the federal Liberals made such drastic cutbacks. When our Premier asked for the assistance of the Liberal leader, Mr McGuinty, to help him in encouraging the federal government to increase spending, where was Mr McGuinty? He did not respond. He was not there.
Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): Nowhere. Missing in action.
Mr Wettlaufer: He sure was missing in action.
In the region of Waterloo we've got more money flowing into home care, we've got more money flowing into long-term care. In Kitchener, Waterloo and the immediate surrounding area we've got an increase in the number of home care beds of 12,600. There was not a reinvestment by either of the two previous governments in home care beds.
Is there anyone in this House who thinks that the health care system wasn't made worse by the federal Liberal cutbacks? I don't hear a no. Then why didn't the provincial Liberals come on side with our Premier in encouraging the federal Liberals to increase spending in health care? They were nowhere to be seen.
Everyone knows that health care spending can be improved by an improved economy, and that equates with lower taxes. This is not Wayne Wettlaufer, the member for Kitchener, speaking; this is an observance that I have made in much of the media. Many of the experts say that the economy has improved because of the tax cuts that we have made in this province.
Let's just look at this, the Globe and Mail, November 23, 1998: "Ontario's efforts to improve its business climate are paying off in jobs." We have had in four years a 540,000 net increase in the number of jobs in this province.
What is that doing then? We said all along, if you will recall, in the 1995 campaign, we have said it in all of the committees, we have been saying it to the media, we have been saying it to everyone who would listen over the last four years, that people would spend that increase. Have they spent their net increase in income? Yes, they have.
We have numbers on the net increase in income from retail sales tax revenue. It has gone up from $9 billion in 1995-96 to $11.4 billion in 1998-99. How is that possible if we haven't had an increase in retail sales tax? I vaguely recall that there has been no change. It's simply because people are spending more and more of their hard-earned money, money that we have given them back in their tax cuts, and it is reflected in an increase in retail sales tax revenues to the province.
We have had a net increase in revenue to the province, not just in retail sales tax but in other areas, a total revenue increase to Ontario from 1995 to 1998-99 to the tune of $4 billion, a 10% increase, and that's with tax cuts. That improves the economy. A healthy economy means more jobs, it means more investment, it means more revenue to provide to health care, to education, and we have done that. We have provided those increases to health care and education.
We have an economy that is growing faster than any other G7 nation. We have an economy that is growing faster than any other province in Canada in spite of the fact that the other provinces also trade with the United States, our major trading partner. Our critics, the Liberals and the NDP, commonly say, "Of course you're doing well, because the American economy is so strong." We're outstripping the American economy in growth.
As far as education is concerned, why are we focusing so much on improving high-tech education for the students in Ontario? By the year 2020 we will have to have a much greater increase in high-tech education if our students are to stay in Canada. If we don't, they will go to the United States. Right now, in spite of the tax cuts this government has made, our tax rates in Canada are 10 points higher than jurisdictions in the United States, and students will go to the United States after graduation if our taxes aren't brought down. Also, the high-tech industry in the United States is multiplying. It's multiplying at a rate equivalent to ours. They will provide jobs for our students, unless we improve the high-tech education here and unless we continuously cut taxes.
1940
An apprenticeship in a skilled trade is seen as the second most valuable workforce education - 24% of the students surveyed - followed by a university degree in science, and that we know is extremely important. We are constantly focusing as a government on improving education in science. Nevertheless, the students and employers recognize that high-tech education is even more important. In 10 years we will have to be producing more and more graduates with high-tech education. This study was done by Ernst and Young and it was reported in the Globe and Mail on November 23, 1998.
There was an article in Maclean's magazine February 15, 1999, and there was much concern about the middle class eroding. The article was written by Mary Janigan, and it's one of the best articles I have seen on what the future holds for our young people and of course the aging population. It talks about taxes, it talks about research and development, education and training. It talked about taxes taking their toll. Mary Janigan quoted Tim Paquette of Roxboro, Quebec, as saying, "I find that the more I make, the less I make - because the tax rate is so high." Ms Janigan goes on to say:
"Canadians do not just feel poorer; they are poorer. The Royal Bank of Canada calculates that real disposable income per person dropped to $16,332 in 1998 - down from $17,292 in 1990."
That's a $1,000 reduction in only eight years and this is all taxes. As a result, tax loads will encourage Ontarians to move out of the country. We had to reduce taxes and the evidence is there that the reduction did in fact improve the economy in this province.
Interjection.
Mr Wettlaufer: Until 1998. The total tax burden for Canadians remains at a record high, and we are improving their lot. We would like some co-operation from the federal Liberals who still believe in the Liberal philosophy of tax and spend, spend and tax, but of course we don't expect any support from the provincial Liberals in encouraging the federal Liberals to reduce taxes because they themselves don't believe in reducing taxes. In their budget that they're talking about in their new 20/20 Plan, they're talking about an increase in spending of $2.1 billion. It was interesting that Sid Ryan, who is running for the NDP now in one of the ridings in Toronto, even said that what that the Liberal's 20/20 Plan will amount to is an increase of $20 billion in debt by the year 2020.
It's important to point out that between 1988 and 1998 Ontario was the hardest-hit province in terms of loss of jobs. Yes, that was partly the recession, but many financial experts indicate that the recession in Ontario was partly homegrown. In fact, some of them have said that it was significantly homegrown because of the increase in spending that was begun by the Liberals in 1988 and they indicated that the balanced budget that the Liberals in fact introduced in 1989-90 was not a balanced budget, that in fact it was not in balance at all. It was a deficit. And how much was it?
Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): It was $8.5 billion.
Mr Wettlaufer: It was $8.5 billion. How about that?
Of course, the rising tax rate of the NDP contributed greatly to the recession in the early 1990s, simply because businesses were not willing to invest in the province of Ontario because there was nothing in it for them.
There is article after article in the media these days talking about the benefits of the lower taxes, the job surge. They talk about the importance of the federal government's cutting taxes, if they would only do so.
There was one in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. It was an editorial last year, asking Paul Martin to please deliver relief, that while the nation's economy had grown $25 billion since 1993, most Canadians had in fact seen little of that money. Average disposable incomes actually were falling in the past give years, which I indicated from a previous article. Again, this article attributes this loss in disposable income to the government's continually grabbing more taxes, whether it was the federal or provincial government, up until 1995.
Health care has improved in this province. It's going to improve a whole lot more as a result of the actions we have taken. Nobody wants to talk about the increase in funding that our government has made as a result of the increased revenues that we have in this province.
It's interesting. I read this letter to the editor from the Kitchener-Waterloo Record just recently. Dalton McGuinty is blaming us for the mess in Ontario hospitals. "Does Dalton McGuinty blame Harris for the other nine provinces doing exactly the same thing?" That was written by Annie Ross of Kitchener. Of course, we know that everything that's going on in this province is going on in other jurisdictions as well.
The health care in this province is definitely improving. In fact, David MacKinnon, who is the president of the Ontario Hospital Association, recently stated that the just-released federal government statistics showed that Ontario is projected to have the highest rates of health care spending growth in the country. David MacKinnon supported that, of course.
We know that the federal government has recently given us back nearly $900 million of the money they took in the early 1990s. They took $2.8 billion; they've given us $900 million back. Most of the recent announcements on the increased investment in health care have come from that $900-million fund that the federal Liberals have given us.
However, we're still short by nearly $2 billion. When is that going to come? They tell us it's going to come over five years. That's what the provincial Liberals are talking about in the increased money that they are going to give to health care. It's all going to come from the federal government. They're not going to do anything different. In fact, we've got a vision that they don't have.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Crozier: I am going to read my reply. You might say, "How can he do that?"
The Acting Speaker: Will you start the clock again for two minutes, please.
Mr Crozier: I'll start where I started. I'm going to read my reply. You might ask, "Well, how could you do that?" It's very predictable what the member for Kitchener was going to say.
The Toronto Star, Sunday, February 7, 1999, editorial: "Ontario laid off all the $2.8 billion a year it lost in federal cash transfers, Canadian health and social transfers....on students and the poor. And the tax points Ottawa also provided - now pushing an extra $2 million a year into Ontario coffers - were spent on tax cuts rather than invested in cheaper care, the real reform health care needed."
1950
The member for Kitchener asked these questions.
Reductions in social assistance funding: Provincial funding went from $6.3 billion in 1994-95 to $4.15 billion in 1998-99, down $2.25 billion. This funding level takes into account $654 million in increased municipal payments due to downloading. The biggest slice of the cut came from a $938-million reduction in social assistance rates. Education took a $1-billion hit, and seniors took a $200-million hit on the Ontario drug benefit plan. Here's where they come from, member for Kitchener. You asked where the money will come from. You're getting it already.
CHST tax points for Ontario have gone from $4.2 billion in 1995 to $5.5 billion in 1999, an increase of $1.3 billion. But it's interesting to note that of the total provincial debt, the Liberals are responsible for $5 billion, the NDP for $40 billion and the Tories for $75 billion, up 17% since the Taxfighter took office.
Ms Churley: The member for Kitchener talked a lot about taxes towards the end. Mr Speaker, you may remember this. I recall when Mr Harris, the Premier, who was sitting right over here somewhere, talked about user fees, when he would lambaste the then NDP government for raising user fees. He kept saying: "A user fee is a tax. It's the same thing. There is only one taxpayer." Mr Harris, the Premier, seems to have forgotten that now as his government has either created or raised hundreds of user fees across this province, but it's not considered a tax any more.
Right across this province, as a result of the downloading to our municipalities which came about because of those tax cuts, more and more average Canadians and poor Canadians are getting hit with user fees, so with the little bit of tax cut they're getting back, if they are not among that 6% who are really benefiting, they are getting a few dollars in this pocket, and more than they're getting back is coming out of this pocket.
Just today, because of Mel Lastman's promise to not raise taxes after the megacity was created, city council agreed on what seem to be dozens of user fees, from death registration to birth registration, block parties, you name it. People are going to have to pay for that. People are paying more for tuition and all kinds of other services. When you're talking about tax cuts, you can't turn a blind eye to what's going on on the other side. If people are being slapped with user fees, which indeed is what's happening, they are still being taxed. This government, like Mel Lastman, can say, "We haven't raised taxes," but in fact they have.
M. Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa-Est) : Je vais m'adresser dans ma langue maternelle - que je parle la langue de Shakespeare ou maternelle, je sais que le gouvernement n'est pas à l'écoute, mais peut-être qu'on va prendre l'appareil pour écouter mes quelques commentaires.
Le député de Kitchener parle de l'économie reluisante de l'Ontario et des emplois qu'ils ont créés - 540 000 emplois depuis leur arrivée au pouvoir - et de tous leurs bienfaits dans le domaine de la santé, dans le domaine de l'éducation, et puis que les revenus en Ontario ont augmenté de milliards de dollars. Ma question est simple : si l'économie de l'Ontario est si reluisante, comment se fait-il que le gouvernement de l'Ontario a emprunté, ou augmenté la dette provinciale de 22 $ milliards par année ? On parle de tous les bienfaits, mais par contre, on a fallu augmenter la dette provinciale de 25 %.
On peut questionner les chiffres des partis de l'opposition, mais laissez-moi vous dire que le gouvernement actuel n'est pas conscient des dettes qu'ils ont accumulées, et depuis qu'ils sont au pouvoir en Ontario, ils ont augmenté la dette provinciale de 75 %. Pour répondre a mon collègue de Kitchener, il demandait où était Dalton McGuinty lorsqu'il a été invité par M. le premier ministre d'aller visiter le ministre des Finances. M. Harris disait que le fédéral n'avait pas assez coupé.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): The member's time has expired. Further comments and questions?
Mr Bisson: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and welcome back to the chair. I'm glad to see you back in the Legislature again, along with the rest of us, dealing with some of the issues that are important to the people of Ontario generally.
To the member for Kitchener, a very interesting discourse, I must say. I guess it was some time around Christmastime that I had an opportunity to go back and read a book on Joseph Goebbels. I remember reading in that book where he talked about how if you say something often enough and you sound convincing enough, somehow people are going to believe it because you repeat it and you sound convincing.
I just want to clarify the record on a few things. The member talked about how his government, the Mike Harris government, was the first government in Ontario to expand the MRI system. Sorry, member for Kitchener; it wasn't the case. It was the NDP government, and at the time Ruth Grier as Minister of Health, that expanded the MRI system. Why do I know that? Because my community was one of the many communities which benefited from the MRI decision of the former NDP government. Yes, your government continued our program, but it was set up by the NDP.
Cancer care: Sorry again, member for Kitchener. It was very convincing, but again it was a former Minister of Health, Frances Lankin, who set up the cancer care initiative that was put in place by the then NDP government, and followed through by the Conservatives, I must say. So I just want to make sure you get your dates right.
On the question of cardiac care, again, if you say it often enough maybe they'll believe it, but I remember because the cardiac care initiative was something that was started by the NDP.
Then the member went on to talk about long-term care. It was our government that started the whole initiative, redirection of long-term care, both at the institutional level, where there was a restructuring institutionally which put funding into the system, but also in community long-term care, where investments were made and a multi-service agency system was put in place.
So if you say it often enough maybe they'll believe it, but I won't because I was there; I know who started all that.
The Deputy Speaker: The member for Kitchener has two minutes to respond.
Mr Wettlaufer: It's certainly an eye-opener to see how somebody, just because they put into place a program, even though it hasn't done anything, wants to take credit for it. Not one long-term-care bed, in spite of what the member for Cochrane South says, was created as a result of their government being in power. The long-term-care beds were put in place only after our government came to power. It's great to have a program, but if you don't do anything with it, it doesn't mean much.
As far as the Liberals are concerned, they should be fully aware that the interest rate that is being paid by this government is the sole reason why there is an increase in the debt. That interest rate came about because of the two previous governments' spending habits.
It takes a little time to get things straightened around, but I can assure you we've got them straightened around and all of the economic experts, the financial experts worldwide, are looking at us and saying, "Yes, you've done a good job."
The Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for Sudbury.
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Mr Speaker, I believe there's unanimous consent that I split my time with the member for Ottawa East.
The Deputy Speaker: Is there unanimous consent that the member for Sudbury split his time? It is agreed.
Mr Bartolucci: When I was looking over the speech from the throne this weekend, I thought of the wise saying I once heard or read that said, "No one is rich enough to buy back his past." I thought that was so appropriate with the speech from the throne, because the reality is that no matter what the Mike Harris government does, it will definitely not be able to have the people of Ontario forget what he's done over the course of the last four years.
2000
It's interesting, as I read the speech from the throne, that there are 12 pages; there are 4,687 words. He mentioned the United States of America four times. He mentioned the New York Times. He mentioned the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. But do you know what he didn't mention? He didn't mention northern Ontario. He didn't refer to northern Ontario - not once.
I never saw the word "north" on Thursday. I never heard the word "north" mentioned in the speech from the throne. This after the Premier knows that since the last session there has been a growing discontent among northerners. A notable number of northerners feel that they are isolated, they're forgotten and they're disenfranchised by this government. Does that matter to Mike Harris and to the Mike Harris government? Obviously not, because the north was not mentioned once in the speech from the throne.
As we go through my 10 minutes, I'd like to highlight only a few areas of the speech from the throne, the first area being early childhood education. We refer to that on page 8. Obviously, the project done by Dr Fraser Mustard is an important project. The reality is, the findings of Dr Fraser Mustard are not new to this government. Fraser Mustard himself had mentioned them in years past. The opposition party have mentioned them in years past. There had been, in fact, initiatives taken by both the previous Liberal government and the previous New Democratic government to ensure that early childhood education was addressed in a meaningful way.
The response of Mike Harris at that time was: "These ideas are the dumbest ideas I've ever heard of." This is from the Premier, who over the course of the last three years has cut millions of dollars out of junior kindergarten programs, millions of dollars out of senior kindergarten programs. But an election is near and all of a sudden children become the priority of Mike Harris. His actions do not reflect the words he speaks, for in the latest grants to school boards there is a $66-million reduction to the early learning grant. I'd like to spend just a few minutes telling the House what that translates to with regard to full-day senior kindergarten programs.
As many members of the House know, approximately 16,145 students, or 11% of senior kindergarten students, are enrolled in a full-day senior kindergarten program. In the Toronto area, 5% are involved in full-day programs. In southeastern Ontario 20% are involved in full-day programs, in southwestern Ontario 11% are involved in full-day senior kindergarten programs and in northern Ontario 49% of senior kindergarten students are involved in full-day programs. The reality is those 16,145 students are going to have their programs slashed dramatically.
What has happened? The Rainbow District School Board in Sudbury has cut its program in half. The Niagara Catholic District School Board is holding off its decision having to do the same thing because they're hoping the government will reconsider their slash to senior kindergarten programming to the early learning grants, understanding the importance of early learning, early childhood education, on the growth of the individual child and the total development of the child. The reality is I have a sneaking suspicion that the Niagara Catholic District School Board is waiting in vain.
What does this mean, though? If you look at the people who are offering full-day kindergarten programs, you'll see that northern school boards, Catholic school boards, French public and Catholic school boards, and small and isolate boards are the ones that are offering these programs because they understand that because of their geographical location it is extremely important that these children get the opportunities they need in a senior kindergarten program which is full day.
Mike Harris and the Tory government simply don't get the message that in different geographical areas the needs of students are going to be different and, because the needs are different, we have to prioritize them differently. The reality is, the one-size-fits-all solution with the funding formula is absolutely no solution at all.
I'd like to address another area of the speech from the throne that I believe is important: when the Premier in his speech talks about the road to prosperity. Again, I'd like to address the north. I would like the Premier to tell the people in Sudbury that the road to prosperity is being paved for them. I'd like the Premier to tell the people in Sault Ste Marie, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada, that the road to prosperity is being paved for them. I would like the Premier or the Tory government to tell northeastern Ontario, which has the worst unemployment rate of any region in Ontario, that the road to prosperity is being paved for them. The reality is that none of that is true
I have asked the Minister of Finance to verify and prove the 540,000 private sector net new jobs that he says he's created. I asked the ministry and the minister to tell me the number of jobs in northern Ontario. Can't do it. I asked him to tell me the number of jobs in northeastern Ontario that have been created by this government. Can't do it. I asked him to tell me the number of jobs that he created in the city of Sudbury. Can't do it. I asked him to tell me the number of jobs that he created in the city of Sault Ste Marie. Can't do it.
The reality is that this government uses figures very, very creatively. In fact, he cannot justify and tell anyone in this House or the people of Ontario where those 540,000 jobs come from, if in fact 540,000 jobs is an accurate figure, and this comes from the Ministry of Finance, which helped paint the picture in the speech from the throne that there is a road to prosperity in Ontario.
I'd like to inform the House for a few seconds about the layoffs that have occurred in the Human Rights Commission in northern Ontario. At one time there were 15 staff employed in the Human Rights Commission. In 1997, there was a restructuring and the Kenora and the Sault Ste Marie offices were closed, resulting in four staff being let go. In April of 1998, the northern manager was let go in another restructuring. With this latest new announcement that just took place, there are now in essence only two employees in northern Ontario in the Human Rights Commission.
I use that because those are small, simple numbers that everybody in the House can understand. Multiply that when you go to the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, multiply that when you go to the Ministry of Natural Resources, multiply that when you talk about the Ministry of the Environment, multiply that when you talk about the Ministry of Transportation. Those are the numbers of jobs that this government, that Mike Harris has taken out of northern Ontario. We wonder why northerners feel disenfranchised by this government.
The reality is the speech from the throne left little hope for northern Ontario and northern Ontarians. Thank God there is a 20/20 Plan in place to take over after this government is defeated.
Mr Grandmaître: This will be my last response to a throne speech in this House.
Interjection.
Mr Grandmaître: Thank you, Jack.
Mr Crozier: But he's going to be a special guest at ours in the next one.
Mr Grandmaître: I hope so, on the floor.
For the first time in my 15 years at Queen's Park I will have to agree with Christina Blizzard. It was bland, no news. She's absolutely right. Even the horses that were waiting for the Lieutenant Governor were yawning. This was the worst throne speech ever written and she felt very uncomfortable.
Mr Carroll: Be nice.
2010
Mr Grandmaître: I am being nice, because she is a great lady. But the speech was lousy, Jack, and you had to punish this poor lady to deliver this poor throne speech.
I didn't expect the government to have a very upbeat throne speech for the simple reason that they don't want to talk about the last four years in government.
I'm still active in my riding and will be until the day after the election. Strange, but I don't think the government members are hearing the same message or messages that we're hearing at the doors. I was out last weekend knocking on doors in my riding for the next Liberal member representing Ottawa-Vanier. We're changing our name, changing our member, so it's going to be a clean sweep.
Let me tell you that people at the doors were asking us questions about health care, education, seniors, our colleges, universities, and especially downloading. Like downtown Ottawa, I can tell you that Ottawa-Carleton is very, very concerned.
You will recall that when the downloading program was introduced, it was supposed to be cost-neutral, but the government decided to withdraw $1 billion from our local government in Ontario. Oh, they can brag about balancing their budget, but the real problem is that next year - not this year, because most of our municipalities in Ontario have balanced their budgets. And it's a good thing because next year, as you know, they won't be receiving any kind of financial support from the provincial government because municipal grants are gone, and I mean gone for good.
This will mean that municipal governments will have to increase taxes to provide services that this government has downloaded on to their backs, such as health care and housing, especially social housing. We have a good share of social housing located in the city of Ottawa. Let me tell you, they're very, very concerned. The regional government, which is now responsible for social housing or will be responsible for social housing, simply can't afford to spend $10 billion for the upkeep of these units. Most of them were built back in the 1970s and they need repairs, at least $3 billion of repairs. Where will local government find these dollars? On the backs of local taxpayers.
Another big issue is school closings. In the Ottawa-Carleton area, as throughout the province, since the new legislation was introduced school boards have been looking for additional help for the simple reason that the financing formula is not responding to the real needs of our school boards. They are working very hard with parents, students and teachers as well. This government loves to bash teachers, but at least they're part of the decision-making process and they're trying to help the government, but I guess this government has all the answers. No consultation; they have all the answers.
When it comes to education - and I was listening to my friend from Kitchener talking about colleges and universities - I'd like to remind this government that they have increased the tuition fees in our universities by 60% and now they're expecting our young people to run to university and enrol in high-tech and so on and so forth, and they simply can't afford it. This is why Dalton McGuinty and our 20/20 plan vision are trying to help these people. We will reduce the tuition fees by 10%. I know 10% may not sound like much to the members of the government, but I can tell you that it will be well appreciated.
I want to take a minute to talk about health care and what I was hearing at the doors: senior after senior, single mom after single mom, grandparents, complaining about our health care system. I've spoken to people who were put on the waiting list for months and months for major surgery, to cancer patients having to wait 16 and 20 weeks for radiation therapy.
This government can brag about our economy, but at the same time I think they are responsible for what's happening to our education system and to our health care. They want to balance the budget. I'd like to remind my friend from Kitchener that we were the only party, the only government that balanced the budget, back in 1989, and this is not coming from me, this is coming from the Auditor General. All he has to do is look up the figures for 1989 and he will see that our budget was balanced at the time.
What I'm trying to say is that, fine, our economy in Ontario is growing. Our revenues have never been so much better. They are increasing every day. People are spending. I will agree with you that naturally retail sales tax is going up, but at the same time we are leaving maybe 30% of the population in need at the back of the bus. These people simply can't follow the rest of the crowd in Ontario. We should be ashamed. We have more homeless people on our streets today than ever before. We have people waiting for social housing for seven to eight years in the Ottawa-Carleton area and this government is saying, "Look, we're going to download this responsibility on to your regional government and they can find the money." We are short of $30 million at the present time to provide equivalent services that were being offered only last year.
This is only the start, the beginning of more hospital closures because the government is not done yet with hospital closures, and they'll be closing more schools. We're going to have more people waiting for social housing. We're going to have more people waiting in our emergency rooms and they're dying in our emergency rooms at the present time.
Je vais quitter dans 30 secondes. Je voudrais parler de l'hôpital Montfort, le seul et unique hôpital francophone en Ontario. On veut le fermer. Le gouvernement de l'Ontario dit, «Nous sommes généreux envers les francophones. Nous sommes généreux lorsqu'on parle de services de santé.»
Il va falloir que l'hôpital général se présente en cour suprême combattre pour nos droits d'avoir des services de santé en français. Inacceptable. Pas un mot dans le discours du trône.
The Deputy Speaker: Questions or comments?
M. Bisson : J'aimerais avoir l'occasion de dire publiquement à mon collègue d'Ottawa-Est - on sait qu'il ne se présentera pas dans les élections qui viennent - que j'ai eu la chance de travailler avec vous pendant neuf ans, quand on était au gouvernement comme à l'opposition. Je vous ai connu un peu quand vous étiez le ministre.
On n'est pas de la même couleur, monsieur Grandmaître, et des fois on n'a pas les mêmes idées, mais je sais que vous avez été un membre honnête pour les citoyens de votre comté, pour ceux que vous avez servis à travers le bureau du ministre en tant que membre du cabinet de M. Peterson, mais aussi ici à l'Assemblée.
Je veux répéter un peu ce que vous avez dit, avec ce qui est arrivé dans le discours du trône, envers les conservateurs, parce qu'on vous appelle, comme vous le savez, le père de la Loi 8. On sait que peut-être on a dû aller plus loin dans le temps, mais c'était un compromis, puis je pense que vous le reconnaissez.
Mais ce qui est intéressant c'est que, durant le discours du trône, il n'y a pas eu un mot concernant les affaires qui sont importantes pour la communauté francophone dans la province. Je penserais que le gouvernement, après toutes les attaques sur la communauté francophone dans le domaine de la santé, dans les services qu'on utilise dans nos municipalités, aurait donné une petite miette même pour nous, la communauté francophone. Et comme le monde du nord, les francophones n'ont eu rien. Le gouvernement ne s'est pas engagé pour deux secondes, pour deux cents, sur aucune question qu'il aurait pu se présenter dessus.
Je pense qu'ils auraient pu dire au moins, «Le gouvernement conservateur de Mike Harris a fait une erreur avec l'hôpital Montfort», et que le gouvernement conservateur avait finalement reconnu qu'il avait fait une erreur et qu'il aurait pu renverser la décision qu'ils ont pris de réduire l'hôpital Montfort au point qu'il a été réduit. Une affaire que le gouvernement conservateur aurait pu faire pour la communauté francophone aurait été de renverser la décision envers l'hôpital Montfort. C'est quelque chose, je pense, qu'ils vont reconnaître dans les élections.
2020
Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): I am very pleased to stand up in support of the speech by my colleague Mr Grandmaître from Ottawa-East who spoke briefly regarding the throne speech. All of us in the Liberal Party are amazed at what the throne speech did not contain. We had a great deal of difficulty listening to the throne speech and realizing that so much about the four-year track record of Mike Harris simply was not represented in the throne speech, not as it has affected the people in the riding of Windsor-Sandwich, soon to be the riding of Windsor West. As I go about meeting my constituents, when we talk about the effects of the provincial government, none of their comments were reflected in the throne speech given the other day by the Lieutenant Governor.
We heard about workfare, a program that really does not exist in Ontario. We heard today that the Premier was back at the SkyDome. I challenge the Premier of Ontario to go back to the SkyDome and fill it with all of the high-priced consultants who are now being paid by the Ontario government in a variety of forms. Send them into the SkyDome and let's see how many times we can fill it up.
Those were the kinds of issues that people are really concerned about, that kind of cycle of dependency that exists today in Ontario, people like Leslie Noble, Bill Farlinger, Paul Rhodes, and some very interesting pieces of information. For example, Bill Farlinger, who was of course a close friend of the Premier, now is making $291,000 of taxpayers' money. That's just his salary; let's not even discuss his expenses. Leslie Noble: a Hydro contract of $91,000 for strategic advice on how to deal with the provincial government. We have Glen Wright, the tour manager for Mike Harris during his last campaign and now the workers' comp chair pulling in $244,000 a year. That's the kind of information the people of Windsor-Sandwich, soon to be Windsor West, wanted to hear: What would you do about those high-priced consultants? We didn't hear about that in the throne speech.
The Deputy Speaker: The member has two minutes to respond.
Mr Bartolucci: I'd like to thank both members who have responded. The reality is that the Mike Harris government, in the speech from the throne, has certainly defined what some people view a politician as, and that's a problem posing as a solution. The reality is there are no solutions found in the speech from the throne. There are only continuing problems for people who live in isolated areas, people who live in northern Ontario, people who live in situations with high unemployment.
If in fact this government was very serious about addressing the problems of the area I live in, they would have at least mentioned in the speech from the throne that there is indeed recognition that the north is important. That reality does not exist in the vocabulary or the government plan or the Common Sense Revolution of the Mike Harris agenda.
The reality is that the people of Ontario will be wide awake. They will be very focused. They will ensure that they know exactly what the issues are, what the solutions are for the three parties, and they will ensure that the Common Sense Revolution is over, that the rebuilding and restoration of Ontario takes place, that in fact the day after the election their vision will be 20/20, with Dalton McGuinty as the next Premier of Ontario.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Bisson: What a bad sight that would be, I'll tell you. I don't think I can even stand that. Let's not go there. That thought is actually scary. There's nothing worse than the Tories or the Liberals in power.
The throne speech is the one opportunity, other than the budget speech, when we have an opportunity to comment on the government's agenda and the government's policies as a whole. I want to take the opportunity I have, 20 minutes, to speak about a couple of things that I think are very important to the people of the province, the people I represent in the northern part of the province, mainly the people from Cochrane South, and hopefully, if the voters allow, the new riding of Timmins-James Bay.
The government came down with its throne speech last week, and it was mentioned earlier that not one word was mentioned about the government's commitment to northern Ontario. I think that's significant. When you look at that - not a commitment to northern Ontario in the throne speech - and you look at what the government's actions have been in northern Ontario as of late and how it has been since they were elected in 1995, you begin to realize that this is a government that ran as a party and said: "We're going to go out there and do things differently. We're not going to allow those people at Queen's Park in Toronto to make all those decisions on their own in locked rooms." In fact, they've come to power and are basically the government that has the most centralist control of how they develop policy and legislation that I've seen in my time here at Queen's Park.
I want to mention a couple of issues, because I think they're very significant. The government - excuse me; I shouldn't say "the government." Mike Harris in, I believe, February of this year decided on his own, by way of a press scrum one day, to ban the spring bear hunt. When I first heard that Mike Harris had said he had cancelled the spring bear hunt, I thought to myself, "It can't be."
Let me tell you how I found out. I went on holidays out of the country, and when I came back my staff had developed a briefing note for me to read about what had happened during the time I was on holidays. In the briefing note, there was a line in one particular section where they talked about how the Mike Harris government, through an announcement of the Premier, had indicated and announced that the spring bear hunt had been cancelled.
My reaction was that I thought my staff had put that into the briefing note in order to see if I was actually reading the thing, because even I didn't believe the Tories were stupid enough to cancel the spring bear hunt. So I came back to the office and talked to my staff on the Monday morning, and I said, "You guys really tried to get me on this one." They said: "No, Gilles, we're serious. Mike Harris has banned and cancelled the spring bear hunt." I couldn't believe it, for a number of reasons. One reason was - I wish we had cameras that I could point back into the House, because some of it would be hilarious. You looked like a big bear when you did that, Derwyn Shea, member from Toronto.
I remember talking to John Snobelen not longer ago than last summer, as Minister of Natural Resources, when our community of Timmins was basically being taken over by bears. Throughout the city of Timmins through the months of August and September, the bears, because of the lack of berries in the bush, had been coming into the city to eat out of garbage cans. The government, as we know, had decided to download the responsibility for trapping bears from MNR on to the municipality. The municipality of Timmins, like other municipalities, didn't have the money or the expertise to deal with the bear problem, and we were trying to get the provincial government, in this case Mr Snobelen, as Minister of Natural Resources, to do something about it.
I came down here and talked to John and to his parliamentary assistant and others on his staff. At the time, I was told by John, "Listen, we're going to try to do something about this." I said, "By the way, John, I'm hearing a rumour that you're trying to limit" - not cancel, limit - "the spring bear hunt next season in order to reduce the number of bears that can be taken out of each bear management unit in the spring of 1999." He said: "Gilles, we're not that crazy. We're not going to do that. Don't worry about it." I said, "Are you sure?" He said, "You can take that to the bank, Gilles." I said, "Okay, no problem."
2030
I have to take the Minister of Natural Resources at his word when he tells me they are not going to limit the spring bear hunt in the spring. Instead, what do we get? We get the Premier announcing a total cancellation.
I want to put on the record that this has got to be one of the stupidest decisions I've seen this government take. I see a couple of Tory backbenchers saying, "Yes, Gilles, we know what you mean." Being a backbencher in a Tory government must not be easy. I hope I don't ever get an opportunity - well, I know I won't as a Tory, let me tell you. The next time we go to government I'll be in the cabinet, so I won't see what those backbenchers look like any more.
Anyway, I want to tell you something. Some of you Toronto members have to hear this. You're supposedly doing something around the spring bear hunt that's going to protect those little orphan cubs. There is hardly - and I would go as far as saying there hasn't been a lactating sow shot in the spring bear hunt in at least the last 10 years, not one that I know of. I've had an opportunity to talk to outfitter after outfitter, conservation officers across the province, various people who hunt in the spring, and we all know that a lactating sow is out of season in the spring and you don't shoot them. No lactating sows are shot. When the lactating sows are shot is not in the spring; it's during the summer as nuisance bears, which you're going to have a lot more of now because you guys have done what you did, and also in the fall, because in the fall we're basically not allowed to set an appât - in English, it's setting a bait - in order to catch the bear; you can only do it in the spring.
People say, "Well, what does that have to do with anything?" Let me explain to you how you bear hunt. I'm not a bear hunter myself; it's not something that I do, but I like to do other forms of hunting. You set the bait so you can allow the bear to come in on the bait, and then you notice if there are any cubs around. That's how you find out if she's a lactating sow. You watch the bear come in, and basically you look at it for a while. If there are no cubs around, you know it's not a lactating sow, because a mother bear doesn't go too far away from her cubs. That's the reason we allow the baiting in the spring, in order to allow the hunters to identify if it's a lactating sow. In the fall, however, you're not allowed to bait. In fact, people go out and shoot whatever they see. That's the other time you shoot lactating sows.
I say to the government, give your head a shake. If you wanted to protect the cubs, you should have done something about the fall hunt - not that I would favour such a position - not the spring. In the long run, this decision will do more to orphan cubs in Ontario than any other thing you could have done.
Second, you have turned your back on an industry in northern Ontario called the outfitting industry. I know many people in Gogama, Chapleau, Cochrane and up around the Hearst area who are basically losing their businesses because of what this government has done by way of the cancellation of the spring bear hunt.
Then you top it all off after that by trying to negotiate some kind of a deal - you didn't even negotiate; you just basically made an offer - that pays each outfitter X amount of dollars for every bear that was taken in their BMU the year before. It doesn't do anything to talk about compensation in the out years. It doesn't do anything as far as the government trying to find ways of helping those people to regear for a different type of activity within the tourist industry.
The very least you should have done, in my opinion, was to say, "We are going to move to cancel the spring bear hunt, but we're not going to do it for at least another year to allow those people who had a spring bear hunt sold this spring to finish, to do what they had to do," and then work with the outfitters' community and others to look at ways you're able to boost eco-tourism or other types of activities in the tourist industry for those outfitters to adjust and talk about fair compensation. But you didn't do that.
If it had been up to me, I would never have cancelled it in the first place, and I say here and now that I am opposed to what the government did, I don't think it was right and if I ever have the opportunity I will work like heck in order to reverse the decision made by the Tories on that point.
The other thing you did in northern Ontario was this whole thing that was called Lands for Life. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but I just want to say this: I have attended a lot of public meetings in northern Ontario over the last nine years as an elected member of this Legislature, and hardly ever have I seen the number of people who showed up at public meetings for the Lands for Life. They didn't go there to consult with the government, to say, "Let's try to find a way to make this work." People in communities across northeastern and northwestern Ontario went en masse to say: "You're going in the wrong direction. Put the brakes on. Stop. This is a bad idea."
If you want to create parks, let's look at creating parks in certain areas, but don't throw up all this land on the map and say that somehow you're going to develop a park system out of it, because we know what you're all about is changing the land use policies of the Ministry of Natural Resources, let alone what you're trying to do with parks.
The people of northern Ontario - the mining industry, the forest industry, the tourism industry, communities, cottagers, outfitters, anglers, native communities - all told you the same thing: "Get out of this. This is a bad idea. You're going to hurt the northern economy."
I was starting to think at one point that the government was going to put a hold on this whole thing because when the round tables came back with the recommendations, I guess more than 12 months ago, the government sat on the recommendations and did nothing with them. That's normally a sign that the government says: "We bit off more than we can chew and we're not going any further. This was a bad idea."
I talked to John Snobelen at one point and he said, "As Minister of Natural Resources I'm going to rein in this thing and I'm going to get this done before the next election." I thought, "I couldn't believe him around the spring bear hunt, so why should I believe him on this one?"
Instead they came back with this thing called Ontario's Living Legacy. Let me tell you, this is something that is going to be bad for the northern economy for years to come and most of you don't understand it.
Our economy in northern Ontario is based on a few things. One of the things it's based on is our forest industry. What you have done by way of the Living Legacy is to diminish the amount of land that is available to forest companies to harvest timber, but they still need to maintain a certain level of production because they've got mills that have to pay, that are based on a certain capacity. What you have done is limited the amount of forests they're able to cut in.
Your government signed a deal with these companies to say: "We'll fix that. We'll allow you to increase the yield on whatever's left on your FMA or on your forest sustainability licence." You're saying, "What does that mean?" It means they're going to cut it quicker. A forest is cut on a cycle, on a natural regeneration cycle of anywhere from 70 to 90 years, depending on the kind of trees and depending on where you're cutting them.
What you're going to do by way of this policy is say to those forest companies, "You can now cut on more trees on a smaller plot of land more quickly." Do you know what's going to happen? I'm going to predict it here today. Five or six years down the road we're going to have the environmentalists packing up their backpacks, moving back up to northern Ontario and protesting the activities of logging companies because bad logging practices will be allowed to happen to sustain the yield they need to cut on the lesser amount of land they've been given.
The forest companies think they bought themselves a good deal here. I think this is the worst thing they could have done, because we had finally set aside that whole issue by way of the Crown Forest Sustainability Act that Howard Hampton brought in when he was Minister of Natural Resources. The forest companies, the outfitters, the logging operators agreed to it. Everybody was on side and the thing was working. We had gone to best-possible-use practices and we had gone to a sustainable forestry development plan.
Now you guys have thrown that out the window. So I say the environmentalists won this one. It wasn't the government. The environmentalists are happy because they recognize that five or six years down the road they are going to be able to push up the stakes on what's going on in the forest industry in northern Ontario. It's the people in my community who are going to pay for your stupidity. That's the part that bugs me.
It's going to take another government to come behind you to try to fix it. We're going to be into another shlemozzle, because if we're elected as government we're going to have to try to figure out a way to move back to some sort of mechanism that allows best possible use in a sustainable forestry plan when it comes to harvesting. We're going to have to go back through a fight with the environmental community because of what you tried to do to have political gains with the environmental community of southern Ontario.
Let me tell you something: The environmentalists aren't going to vote for you anyway. They're not going to. They hate you. They don't trust you. They don't like your environmental record. What have you gained? Absolutely nothing. You've hurt northern Ontario.
What do you think that's going to do for your candidates in the north? I don't think it's going to do a lot. You guys should have known better. You're supposedly the party of business. If you guys are such bright businessmen, how come you didn't look past the election of 1999? You should have been looking at what this means to the northern economy for years to come.
On the other hand, we've got the other part of our northern economy, which is the mining industry. They say: "We've fixed the problem. We've allowed explorers to go into parks and explore in parks and this is going to fix everything."
2040
I don't know what you guys are drinking, I don't know what you guys are up to, but you haven't figured it out. Two problems with that: One, from the environmentalist perspective it's a problem because any time a potential mine is found in a park you've now newly created, we're going to have environmentalists coming back up north saying, "Don't develop this mine in this park because there's an old tree there that has to be protected. His name is Mike Harris," or something. They're going to be up there protesting the development of the mine.
What do you think that's going to do to the people who want to invest in northern exploration, in the minerals industry? It means they're not going to invest in the north, and we're seeing it. In Timmins alone, which is the mining centre of Ontario, we are seeing the exploration industry moving out in droves. I was talking to a number of geologists the other day. As a matter of fact, Bob Calhoun, who is the president of the PPDA, said to me point-blank: "Gilles, I want to tell you something. When you see geologists walking down Third Avenue in Timmins and they introduce themselves as mining consultants, it means they're unemployed geologists."
There are all kinds of mining consultants in my community now because a lot of them are out of work. The majors have shut down their exploration outfits in Timmins. They have moved out. There's hardly an exploration office left as far as the majors are concerned - a little bit with Falconbridge and that's about it. When it comes to the smaller ones in the exploration industry, there's hardly anything left.
What you have done, the supposedly bright business people of Ontario, the business party of Ontario, is you have gone in and you've created uncertainty in the mining sector and we're going to see yet again a reduction in investment for the exploration community in northern Ontario.
What does that mean? It means that people in my community are going to have a hard time trying to find work because once you start operating a mine, that mine depletes and you have to have another one to replace it.
I propose that what we should be doing and what I will work at doing, if we're elected as a government or even if we come back in opposition or if this thing is a coalition afterwards as far as a minority Parliament is concerned, is to bring back incentive programs for northern Ontario to assist the mining sector to be able to do its job. Take a look at some of the programs that are going on in Manitoba and Quebec where the governments are active participants in the exploration industry.
Quebec, for example, has a program to assist with the cost of drilling more than 400 metres down. It's very expensive to do, so they help the industry to offset some of those costs. They have an addition to the flow-through share. In Quebec you can get a flow-through share by way of a federal tax credit at 100% and then the provincial government tops it up to 166% in total. Here in Ontario you get the 100% and that's it.
Most Tories will say, "That's good, it's 100%." The point is, if I'm a person who is going to invest money in the exploration industry and I can get a 166% write-off in taxes both by way of the province of Quebec and the federal government and I can only get 100% in Ontario, where do you think I'm going to invest?
What you guys have done by way of this Lands for Life is basically turned the industry to a point where I think it's going to be even worse that what we've seen in the 1990s, as well as other actions you have taken.
I'm going to say this. There are a number of people in my community I have a lot of respect for who are in the small business community. A lot of those people traditionally have voted Conservative because they understand the Conservative Party supposedly is the party of business and New Democrats are supposedly the party of the working person. They say, "Gilles, in the past I've never voted NDP because I see the Conservatives as the party of business."
They are starting to figure out you're the worst darn thing for small business that ever came around. You guys have done more to discourage investment in northern Ontario in the last four years you've been here than I think anything that has ever happened in the past in Ontario. Oh yes, we'll hear in about a minute and 51 seconds government members get up with their mantra and talk about the wonderful job they're doing. Let me invite you to northern Ontario. I want you to talk to the unemployed and I want you to talk to the underemployed and I want you to find out just how easy it is to find jobs in northern Ontario, given the policies your government has put in place.
I was at Northern College not more than two weeks ago, where I had a session of three periods with a class that was graduating for that school year in a particular program. It was really interesting. There were 40 people there and I said, "How many of you here are over the age of 30?" All but two people put up their hands. I said, "How many of you here have been to college before and are working on your second college degree?" About half of the class put up their hands. I said, "How many of you have got work for the summer to help you pay your way back here next year?" Hardly anyone put up their hand. I think that's pretty telling
I say to the government members on the opposite side, you have been a great disappointment when it comes to what has happened in the northern part of the province. I also predict that the south will soon start to figure it out, because the southern Ontario economy has benefited by what has been happening in the economy in the United States, south of us. The reality is we trade more with the United States than we do with anybody else, so when they're doing well, we do well. Our GDP was higher in 1993 than the United States and it was higher in 1994.
Interjection.
Mr Bisson: I understand that, but the point I make is that once the economy of the US goes down, southern Ontario will start to figure out just how bad this government has done by way of people and the effect it's going to have on their lives. You better hope that doesn't happen before the next election because you're gone. That's for sure.
The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): It's quite entertaining listening to the member for Cochrane South and his diatribe on some of the problems that he refers to as problems during the last four years. He must be forgetting that during his five-year term when they were in government, they lost a net 10,000 jobs here in Ontario. In the last four years or three and a half years, we've gone ahead 5,400 net new jobs. I think he's forgetting that kind of thing.
He's probably also forgetting that during their five years in government they doubled the debt, a crippling debt. The deficit ran at an unprecedented level, up to $15 billion, $17 billion in a given year. They operated with two sets of books. I don't know whether they were trying to confuse the public, but I'm sure the member for Cochrane South will remember how they ran with two sets of books. Then they took $60 million out of the heritage fund that was really designated for the north.
Maybe, just maybe, in his response in a few minutes he could explain to us why they sat for only I believe it was 25 days in the last 15 months. There was so much to be done in Ontario, and they didn't even bother to call the Legislature back.
I think the member for Cochrane South is forgetting about all the roads, the infrastructure that has been built in the north during our term in office. They are forgetting about the roads and the water and the sewers that have been put in in so many of the communities he has been referring to.
Small business is where it's at. This government has reduced taxes and it has got rid of the red tape so that jobs can be created in small business. I think if he really looked at it, he'd see that in the north as well.
Mr Crozier: Just a quick aside. The member for Northumberland shouldn't talk about not calling the Legislature back, because this government took an extra month to call us back this spring. With the litany of bills that was introduced today and the way the government says it has so much to do, I don't think people in glass houses should throw stones.
I think the member for Cochrane South makes a great deal of sense when he talks about the spring bear hunt. I have certainly said to my constituents that I am not a hunter but that does not mean that those of us in the most southerly ridings in Ontario should not try and understand how important this is to the north.
I spoke with an outfitter, a camp owner, just this week who sent a fax to me and asked me to call so that it could be explained to me what it really means to them. It echoed very much what the member for Cochrane North has said this evening.
Mr Bisson: South.
Mr Crozier: Cochrane South. You noticed I was trying to quickly look down, but from Cochrane South. The fact is you're a lot further north than I am.
Those of us in southern Ontario have to understand this. It's unfortunate that, as the member pointed out, the Premier, literally on the back of a matchbook, would write policy and announce policy that's so important to the north. This government says, "We don't listen to interest groups." They seem to be quite proud of that. It seems to me that you listened to some interest groups that may have given you some bad advice, and I think we should listen carefully to what the member says and the way he explains the problem in the north.
2050
The Deputy Speaker: The member for Cochrane South has two minutes to respond.
Mr Bisson: Thank you very much, both to the member for Essex-Kent and the member for Northumberland.
Mr Crozier: Essex South.
Mr Bisson: Essex South.
Mr Crozier: I deserve that.
Mr Bisson: What goes around comes around. I'm sorry I didn't get your riding right. I want to thank you both for your comments.
The member for Northumberland talks about how he wishes I would remember what our record was in northern Ontario when we were government. I would stack the record of the NDP in government in northern Ontario against yours any day. Come to my riding and we'll have that debate. When Spruce Falls was pulling out of Kapuskasing, we were the government that said, "We're going to save that town," and we moved on worker ownership, when Mike Harris was saying, "Don't do it," when Brian Mulroney in Ottawa said, "Don't do it." We're the government that went in with Algoma Steel, Algoma Central, St Marys Paper, Thunder Bay Abitibi, Sturgeon Falls and others and saved entire communities by working with them in order to find solutions for northern Ontarians. So I will put in place our record any day, any time, at your choosing, when it comes to what happens in northern Ontario. You guys have nothing to talk about when it comes to that.
I want to say again to the members across the way on the Conservative side, you say your mantra so often that you begin to believe it. But let me tell you, you can say it as much as you want, people aren't going to buy it and here's my little proof. You guys went out and spent I don't know how many millions of dollars in the last couple of months to advertise your message on radio and television.
Mr Bob Wood (London South): Less than you did.
Mr Bisson: We can't afford to advertise the way you guys do. But my point is this: You've spent more money on television and radio in the last couple of months, taxpayers' dollars, to advertise the message of how well you've done in education and health care over the last few years and you dropped 12 points in the polls. That's how convincing your message has been. I'm telling you, people aren't going to buy it next election.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Galt: It's certainly a pleasure for me to be able to respond to the throne speech, certainly a speech that was an exceptional one delivered by the Lieutenant Governor. I think the big overriding message of that throne speech was indeed that the government is on track and it's on track with the proper game plan for Ontario.
I'd like to give you a quote from the baseball great Yogi Berra. He said, "If you don't know where you're going, you won't know when you get there." There's an awful lot of truth in that statement. This government put out a plan a good year ahead of the election, and that plan was the result of a lot of consultation, extensive consultation, across this great province. As a result, we came out with a plan and had a vision and that was the link to reality, where we are today, taking the province of Ontario from being really in last place with the economy in this great nation of Canada to being in first place. That wasn't any coincidence; that was from some very, very hard work.
The throne speech has reaffirmed many things that are really happening here in Ontario, first that high taxes kill jobs. I think there's hardly anyone left in the province today who would argue with that. Also, they recognize that as you lower taxes, you create jobs, so one goes one way and the other goes the other. High taxes kill jobs; lower taxes create jobs.
One of the other points that was reaffirmed in the throne speech was the fact that you need a strong economy if you're going to end up having a strong health care program, if you're going to have the quality of education, if you're going to have social programs in general. You must have that strong economy or you just do not have the resources to be able to provide for these kinds of programs.
The throne speech also reaffirmed that like best practices for for-profit companies which revel in the culture of change, it also works in government, particularly with health care, with social assistance and with education.
During my presentation I want to zero in on two areas in particular in that throne speech, one relating to the economy and the other one relating more to the Charter of Education Rights and Responsibilities. There is no question in my mind that Ontario is clearly going ahead. We definitely were going backwards in the early 1990s, no question. In spite of what the member for Cochrane South was saying about the north and how things do or do not evolve there, in the first five years in this province we fell behind some 10,000 jobs; in the last slightly less than four years we have gone ahead 540,000 net new jobs. That is the kind of solid growth in the economy that has been happening in this province.
We've also been seeing a very significant decline in the welfare rate. Probably it's declining at a rate very similar to the opposite, the increase that happened back in the late 1980s and into the early 1990s. There's a similar story in my riding of Northumberland; the boundaries of my riding have been coterminous with the boundaries of the county. Right now, unemployment is down to 4.7%. The welfare is down.
Recently I had the opportunity, on my cable show, to do an interview with the acting director, Wendy Whyte. She was so enthusiastically supporting our program, having over 1,200 people off social assistance in the county of Northumberland. That translates into a saving of over $10 million, $2 million for the county and $8 million for the province.
But those are just the hard, cold facts and dollars. There's also the saving for the people who were caught in this dependency on welfare and now have been able to break free and become a contributing member of society and get paid employment.
The local economy is certainly on the increase. The number on welfare is down and the dependency on food banks also in a similar way has been reduced, many thanks to the local food banks in their efforts to reduce some of the fraudulent withdrawals that had been occurring and also thanks to the increase in the number of jobs out in the marketplace. As a result, the Fair Share Food Bank of Northumberland had 37,000 fewer withdrawals in 1998 than they did in the previous year of 1997.
Certainly there is an increase in employment numbers in our area, and that goes along with the increase of investment. This includes new businesses, retail outlets, housing developments, construction projects. As a matter of fact, I had the good fortune to attend two home shows this past weekend, one in Campbellford and one in the Trenton ward of Quinte West; it used to be the city of Trenton. It didn't matter who I stopped and talked to about the economy, particularly those in the real estate business: They just bubbled with enthusiasm about the sales and where the economy of the province is presently going. They could see nothing but great things for their company into the future.
Talking to some of them, they were saying, "This year is make or break for us," and with what's going on in the province, where it's really booming along and in some cases people are running out of supplies - one individual who, as a matter of fact, used to work in my office is up in Pefferlaw packaging peat products, and he's out of products. There has been that kind of demand in the marketplace and things are really happening.
Government policies are certainly critical to encourage growth in this province. The reduction of taxes has been one leg of the stool, another has been getting rid of the red tape, and the other has been the confidence in government, the confidence in the economy. That's created a new kind of atmosphere for people in business in this province, certainly a very dramatic change from what was going on back in the early 1990s where growth was really at a standstill. You looked around and there were no help wanted ads.
Just recently, chatting with the executive of the school bus operators, they were indicating to me how difficult it is for them to find people now to drive school buses because there are so many other jobs out there for people. Rather than a part-time job driving a school bus, they're now able to get a full-time job. They were enthused about what was happening to the economy but were indicating that it's creating a problem for them to get staff to regularly drive those school buses.
You might say that Northumberland is like a microcosm of the province, and certainly it's good news with the economy that's going on both in Northumberland county as well as across the province.
2100
The other aspect that came out in the throne speech that I would like to address relates to the education charter of rights and responsibilities. It was actually announced a little ahead of the throne speech. To continue with the same baseball analogy, yesterday's home runs won't win tomorrow's ball game, and the education charter in my view is a home run for the future, for the government, for parents, for students and also for the taxpayers. For far too long in our educational system excellence has been going unrewarded and poor performance has been going unchallenged, and that just hasn't been right. It has been a monopoly and you can understand why that kind of thing would occur within a monopoly. We need to bring other aspects into education to ensure that quality will be there.
This charter of education will help to identify schools that need help, to identify students who need help. It's even suggesting in there that we might give bonuses to top teachers. We can work with the College of Teachers, with universities and also with teachers and further develop this particular concept.
With this charter, there is absolutely no question that there will be greater transparency and increased accountability in our educational system. With a charter such as this, parents will have the information to be able to better evaluate their children's progress and to better evaluate the school and compare academic results. In the past it has been extremely difficult to read a report card and really understand what your child has been accomplishing at school. When my children were in elementary school back in the 1970s, it was very difficult to read those report cards and have any idea of whether they were a top student or whether they were down near the bottom, and that just isn't right. Parents should be able to understand that.
A year and a half ago we lobbied very hard with the local board of education to release the school-by-school results. They absolutely refused. My staff did a lot of phoning from school to school to school to get those results so we could put them together. We did that because parents were asking us, "Why can't we see the results of the various schools?" With this charter, that is coming forward. At that time and for some time afterwards, I lobbied the Minister of Education that these kind of school-by-school results be available and that it be a requirement of boards of education to produce those.
Parents will now have a clearer picture of what really is going on. They will be able to compare the school results and identify educational practices that produce results. There will be the opportunity to have that information-sharing within the school board so that they can compare the good schools and what's making them a good school and use that information for the schools that are not coming up to the full standard. Schools that are not meeting those standards will of course be required to develop and implement a turnaround plan and work with the school council. The school council is going to be a tremendous support to the principal and to the teachers in these schools. Certainly the people who are going to benefit from this will be the students.
The student is the centre of the hub in the educational system. For far too long we've thought of the centre of the hub as a teacher or the principal or the school, but in fact the student is the centre of the hub and the teachers and the schools and the taxpayers all are supporting and feeding in.
It was interesting to note in this charter the announcement that down the road we will be doing regular teacher testing. It met with the kind of response I certainly expected. There was opposition from the unions, and because of this opposition and it looks like there's a bit of a struggle, it appears on the front page of the paper.
Well, many occupations go through periodic recertification. Take the nursing profession, for example. With their CPR and with intensive care, they have to be regularly recertified. Real estate people are regularly recertified in law. As a matter of fact, even politicians have to be periodically recertified, and we probably have that certification experience coming up, as the Premier says, within the next 14 months or so. Some of us will get recertified, some will become certified and of course there will be some who will lose the certification of being an MPP. With these occupations like educators it is necessary to update the knowledge and ensure they have the current skills so that our students will be at the top of the class.
Our own local school board, the Kawartha Pine Ridge board of education, indicated in the press that they support this idea, but it's interesting that the director of education, Dick Malowney, claims it does nothing to attract teachers. I find that statement rather confusing. I really don't understand it. Is he saying to us that teachers don't want to be held accountable? I really don't think so. I don't think that's what's being said, but it certainly sounds like it. This concept is unheard of in the private sector because in the private sector performance is absolutely everything.
It's also saying, as a director -
The Deputy Speaker: Order. There's too loud a conversation going on. You'll either have to pipe down or I'll have to move it somewhere else.
Sorry to interrupt the speaker from Northumberland, and I recognize you again.
Mr Galt: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for bringing order in the House.
He's also saying that the teachers are being threatened by summer school and that that's a shot at the profession, and that's certainly wrong. The numbers speak for themselves. Applications to teachers' colleges have gone up over 40%. Good teachers, I believe, will welcome the opportunity to upgrade their skills and be assured they're on the leading edge in a rapidly changing world. I think they will also recognize that this is a good profession, an important profession. Some say it's a real privilege to be a teacher, and they're also well rewarded, with the experienced teachers averaging some $57,000 in the province.
I believe the Charter of Education Rights and Responsibilities will enhance the profession and ensure the same standards of performance are there for all teachers.
Indeed, our plan is working. There's new life in the Ontario economy and it's been brought there by the tax cuts, by sound financial planning and by the reduction in the size and cost of government. Consumer and investor confidence is back in the province. All you have to do is go to one of the shopping malls in any of our cities and you'll find that once again those shopping malls are filled. The parking lots are filled with cars and the mall is filled with people and there are very few, if any, spaces left in those shopping malls.
As a matter of fact, I'm sure many members, if not all the members, here have experienced going out and looking for a campaign office or a committee room and finding that all the stores in their village or in their town are filled with active retail stores and there's just no space left to set up a campaign office. If you look around you see that real estate sales are up and car sales are up, all indicators of an improved quality of life here in the province.
We as a government have taken some risk to do some innovative things in reforming health care and in reforming education, but we're now reaping those rewards and will continue to reap those rewards in the future. A strong economy is the first prerequisite to a strong health care system and to the quality education we need in this country if we're going to continue to lead and stay on top and be the engine that drives Ontario.
2110
No other government has had the courage to make the difficult decisions, the very necessary decisions this government has made here in Ontario. This government has had the intestinal fortitude to say no to those who were prepared to bleed the public purse for their own gain. We have put policies in place to assure that taxes will stay down and that we will get rid of as much of the red tape as possible and that it will stay out of the system here in the province.
Ontario is on the right track. I think and predict that as we move into this next election, the people of Ontario will recognize where we've been. They don't want to go back to 1995. They don't want to go back to 1990 or the 1980s, to 1985-87 when we had an unholy alliance between the NDP and the Liberals. We know where that took us and they certainly don't want to go back there again. They recognize and will reward the Harris government for setting the new standards of accountability in this province. We have indeed been doing what we said we'd do.
I am very much looking forward to going out and campaigning and meeting with the voters. I already have been doing a fair amount of it. I am looking forward to this campaign. I believe the voters will respond and reaffirm what the majority of Ontarians have been telling us all along: that we are on the right track and full steam ahead to keep Ontario going with the economy we've had over the last three and a half to four years.
The Deputy Speaker: Questions and comments? No? Further debate?
Mrs Pupatello: Mr Speaker, permission to split my time, unanimous consent to split my time.
The Deputy Speaker: Unanimous consent for the member for Windsor-Sandwich to split her time with the member for Essex South? It is agreed.
Mrs Pupatello : I am happy to speak briefly on the throne speech and give our response, the Ontario Liberal Party position, on what we heard or rather did not hear in the throne speech last week by the Lieutenant Governor speaking on behalf of the government.
It was of great interest to the people of Windsor-Sandwich, soon to be the riding of Windsor West, that eleven pages into the throne speech suddenly there was the mere mention of health care. While the members opposite have been speaking this evening about what remains the number one priority in the minds of Ontarians, there's no question that issue is the health care issue. What we've seen over the course of the last several months in this $100 million propaganda ad campaign paid for by the taxpayers and brought to you by Premier Mike Harris is that even that has not been able to convince the taxpayers of Ontario that this government has done right by us in the area of health care or in the area of education.
What we heard in the throne speech instead was more chatter about teacher testing and what you're going to do to make the system better. Over the last several months, when all of us have been home in our ridings, we've been talking to people to see what they think about their Ontario government. I've talked to parents who have children in the classroom, young children in the classroom, who are now asking the tough questions. They're saying: "What is going on? I have a grade 1 daughter at home who is bringing home two hours of homework a night." One mother said to me: "If my daughter comes home at four o'clock, we'll take a couple of hours between having dinner and bathing and getting her to bed by eight. The remaining time is spent with this ongoing workbook of work because she has a teacher who is so concerned about not getting through the various new units that have appeared in that grade 1 level in elementary school that this child has no time to just be a child." This mother is very concerned. When she goes to her PTA meeting, her school councils are having those discussions with teachers to say, "What is going on?"
If we go further up in the elementary grades, like grade 9, grade 10, even grade 7 and 8, where are the new textbooks? We are talking about the very basic requirements in an education system that children would have the textbooks they need, that teachers would have appropriate materials to teach the right kind of curriculum.
This government has been on a mission. It hasn't been a mission to improve education but just to allow the movement of the private education system in Ontario to flourish, which it has. One of the fastest growing industries today in Ontario is the whole tutoring industry. Children are not getting everything they need because this government walked in in 1995 and began cutting the public education system, not through any methodical process or with even a process in mind that would leave it accountable for the results that would ensue, but just blaming school boards because school boards now, under this new funding formula, cannot provide the very basic requirements in the classroom. That is what we are now hearing at the door: parents who are very concerned about what they see as deficiencies in the classroom, the same classroom that this Premier promised he would not take one cent from.
That is the same kind of promise that he made on a Robert Fisher broadcast: "It is not my plan to close hospitals." Four years later we are looking at 35 hospitals closing.
In my own community, people are amazed at the lack of health care that we are still suffering from. Now we read all of the major newspapers in Ontario and see that the rest of Ontario is catching up with where Windsor has been for some time. We have longer waits for treatment for very basic cancer care, emergency room waits that are absolutely unacceptable, surgery being delayed, people who cannot access a bed. Today we heard about the individual who had a double mastectomy, and this woman in Thunder Bay did not have a bed to return to in a Thunder Bay hospital. That is becoming a regular occurrence across Ontario.
So while the ads are playing in their living rooms, these individuals are saying what John Wright wrapped up in his analysis that appeared in the Globe and Mail over the weekend. What he said was, "A month after polls showed that 73% of the Ontario electorate was worried about medicare, Mr Harris and his ministers threw close to $1 billion at a succession of health care problems that suddenly loomed as a crisis." "Suddenly loomed as a crisis"? We have been telling you day after day in this House about issues in health care. You could have responded, but you wait until the eve of an election to start making your announcements.
This from the same government that said it wasn't about the money. You said it was about management. Your management style is what has failed Ontarians today in health care. It is this same management style that is going to be put to the test during the next general election, when we will tell the people that if it isn't about the money and if it is about management, then this government has failed miserably.
It doesn't matter what part of Ontario you live in, you have suffered at the hands of cuts to a health care system that means, in my community, Mrs Alice Siddall, who died because home care was not provided adequately and she didn't have the kind of pain relief - at 91 years of age, to have paid into a system all her life and to not have it respond for her when she needed it, that is going to be the legacy of the Mike Harris government. That is what the people in Windsor West are going to remember.
They'll also remember a Dalton McGuinty promise going into this election: the 20/20 Plan, a clear vision for Ontario that will take us, in particular in the areas of health care and education, not just through an election but through the new millennium into the year 2020 with a direct commitment for increased spending in health and education to shore up all of the areas that are so severely lacking today in Ontario. That is the Dalton McGuinty government and that's what we hope to bring to you after the next general election.
M. Lalonde : Il me fait grandement plaisir de soulever un point où on a fait passage très brièvement dans le discours du trône lorsque nous avons référé au problème de la construction Québec-Ontario. Nous savons que c'est un problème qui existe depuis au-delà de 30 ans ici-même en Ontario. Mais la chose qui me surprend beaucoup, c'est que même le premier ministre, dans un discours à la Chambre le 27 septembre 1993, a bel et bien dit qu'il avait été élu en 1981 et que le problème existait depuis 1981. Aussi il faudrait se rappeler que le 20 juin 1996, nous avons passé dans cette Chambre à l'unanimité le projet de loi 60, où tous les trois partis ont accepté avec joie que l'on procède immédiatement avec ce projet de loi pour essayer de modifier le problème qui existe dans la construction depuis au-delà de 30 ans.
2120
Je m'aperçois qu'aujourd'hui-même, on était censé de déposer en première lecture le projet de loi pour essayer de finir une fois pour toutes avec ce problème qui existe dans le domaine de la construction. Nous savons bel et bien qu'en Ontario, le domaine de la construction est une industrie majeure. Lorsque la construction ne fonctionne pas en Ontario, l'économie descend très bas. On dit toujours que les deux domaines qui font fonctionner l'économie en Ontario, ce sont l'industrie de l'auto et l'industrie de la construction. Mais pourquoi notre premier ministre n'a-t-il pas agi le 20 juin 1996, lorsque nous avons passé, en deuxième lecture, encore une fois à l'unanimité, que l'on procède immédiatement pour mettre un arrêt à la discrimination qui existe chez nous en Ontario avec nos travailleurs de la construction ?
Je voyais tout à l'heure que dans une partie du discours on disait que nous avions réduit le nombre de personnes qui bénéficient du bien-être social par 374 000 personnes. Je crois que ce n'est pas exact. Je ne pourrais pas dire qu'on ne raconte pas la vérité, parce que je n'ai pas le droit de le dire, mais ce n'est pas exact. Si nous avions mis en place le projet de loi 60 en 1996, nous aurions réduit le nombre sans emploi en Ontario par au-delà de 13 000. Nous savons que même si le ministre dit toujours que nous avons au-delà de 6 000 travailleurs dans la construction qui traversent les lignes, qu'on pourrait dire, qui longent la rivière plutôt, qui viennent du Québec pour travailler en Ontario, je crois que là aussi on se trompe. Je me rappelle que le 9 octobre 1996, la ministre du temps, Mme Witmer, avait dit qu'il y avait 3 000 travailleurs de la construction du Québec qui venaient travailler en Ontario. Dans une rencontre immédiatement après, je lui ai dit : «Madame la ministre, je crois que vous vous trompez. C'est 3 000 syndiqués qui traversent en Ontario. Nous avons oublié les 13 000 autres travailleurs de la construction qui ne sont pas syndiqués.»
Le problème n'existe pas seulement dans la région d'Ottawa-Nepean-Kanata-Hawkesbury-Rockland ; il existe beaucoup dans les secteurs de Hearst, Kapuskasing et Cornwall. Même à un certain temps, il y avait au-delà de 2 000 travailleurs de la construction qui travaillaient dans la région de Windsor, mais on s'est aperçu que les gens sont prêts à voyager 500 milles pour aller travailler. Ce sont des personnes compétentes, qu'on pourrait dire, mais la majorité d'entre eux ne peuvent pas obtenir leur carte de compétence de la province de Québec, donc ils doivent venir gagner leur vie en Ontario.
Nous savons que tout récemment, on a procédé à bloquer tous les ponts dans la région de Hull-Ottawa, et même de Hawkesbury. Cela a certainement mis une pression sur le gouvernement Bouchard, mais maintenant c'est à nous de prendre en main le domaine où on sait que le problème existe depuis au moins 30 ans. Comme j'ai dit tout à l'heure, le premier ministre savait que le problème existait en 1981. Pourquoi a-t-il attendu si longtemps ? Pourquoi avons-nous perdu trois ans et demi de construction pour nos travailleurs de la construction de l'Ontario ?
Je sais que dans la région d'Ottawa-Carleton, la majorité - on parle de 80 % à 90 % - des travailleurs de la construction dans le domaine résidentiel sont des travailleurs du Québec, mais rien n'a été fait. Tout d'un coup les élections s'en viennent dans quelques jours, dans quelques mois - on ne sait pas ; seulement le premier ministre le sait - mais nous avons pu comprendre que c'était un projet de loi qui était très, très important et qui pourrait peut-être l'aider dans les élections.
Mais laissez-moi vous dire que le premier ministre a peut-être agi un peu trop tard dans ce domaine et que les gens se rappelleront toujours que c'est Jean-Marc Lalonde lui-même qui a déposé en Chambre en 1996 un projet de loi afin d'arrêter la discrimination qui existe dans cette province depuis de nombreuses années, que nous perdons au-delà de 13 000 emplois par année ici en Ontario, que ce sont les travailleurs de la construction du Québec qui viennent travailler en Ontario parce qu'ils ne peuvent pas travailler au Québec et nous, pendant ce temps, ne pouvons pas aller travailler au Québec. Donc, il est grandement temps que le premier ministre et le ministre du Travail, l'honorable M. Flaherty, disent : «C'est assez. Nous voulons maintenant donner une chance à nos travailleurs de la construction de l'Ontario.» Même après l'annonce du 31 mars du premier ministre qui est venu à Navan, il a dit qu'à compter du 1er avril 1999, aucune firme du Québec, aucune compagnie de construction du Québec, sera invitée à soumettre un prix pour la construction en Ontario. Qu'est-ce qui est arrivé le 8 avril passé ? Exactement huit jours après l'annonce qu'il a fait à Navan, nous avons procédé avec la vente de la route 407 à deux firmes de Montréal, deux firmes du Québec qui, eux, disent qu'ils vont créer 6000 emplois. De quel endroit pensez-vous que les emplois vont venir ? Certainement du Québec, c'est des firmes du Québec que nous avons engagées.
Le lendemain matin le Globe and Mail disait que ça va au contraire de ce que le premier ministre a annoncé le 31 mars. Il avait dit : «Fini, c'est fini. Ils ne veulent pas coopérer avec nous autres. On n'invite plus les compagnies du Québec à venir soumettre des prix pour la construction en l'Ontario.» Ça veut dire que ce qu'on a annoncé le 31 mars, ça ne tient pas bien debout. Aujourd'hui, on veut lancer des relations publiques avec ce projet de loi, mais si nous avons l'intention de revenir en Chambre avec ce projet de loi, j'espère que nous allons revenir cette semaine et passer les première, deuxième et troisième lectures la même journée. Nous sommes prêts à supporter le projet de loi afin de donner la chance à nos travailleurs de la construction de l'Ontario qui puissent retourner au travail. Ça fait assez longtemps que ces personnes-là, des personnes compétentes de l'Ontario, ne peuvent pas travailler sur la construction parce ce que les emplois sont tenus par des employeurs et aussi des employés du Québec.
Dans mes recherches en 1996, j'ai trouvé que le bureau des accidents du travail de l'Ontario avait payé à des employés du Québec avec des adresses au Québec au-delà de 50 417 000 $ de prestations, à des résidents du Québec. Pensez-vous que nous, en Ontario, on doit suivre les règles ? Nous, en Ontario, avons la construction numéro un. Nous avons des inspecteurs de la construction. Mais avec le gouvernement Harris, nous avons éliminé un nombre d'emplois d'inspecteurs de santé et de sécurité. Donc, c'est pour ça - on ne gagne pas du tout en ayant coupé ces emplois-là. On doit les payer en retour, à des prestations d'accidents du travail.
Je crois que l'heure est arrivée pour moi de terminer, et je crois que j'aurai la chance de continuer demain, parce que j'ai beaucoup à dire dans le domaine de la construction, puisque je travaille dans le domaine dans ce projet de loi depuis maintenant le mois de juin 1996. Encore une fois, espérons que le gouvernement Harris va mettre ses culottes et qu'il va dire : «Assez, c'est assez, nous allons maintenant passer le projet de loi, et puis nous allons reconnaître aussi l'honnêteté de nos travailleurs de la construction.»
Merci.
The Deputy Speaker: It being 9:30, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 o'clock tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 2130.